GREENWICH VILLAGE — A group of high school seniors who chose to brave the heat on a college campus rather than in the city's parks and beaches celebrated the fruits of their labor Thursday at their summer program graduation at the New School.
Hazel Bonilla, 16, a rising senior at Chelsea High School, said she was happy to spend her summer in the New School for Social Research's EnGAGE college prep and personal development program through the university's Institute for Urban Education.
"If I hadn't done this program I probably would have sat around or tried to get a job somewhere. I like being productive," she said at the graduation ceremony at the New School's 6 E. 16th St. building.
But the 34 students from 26 schools around the city could be the last to participate in the federally-funded program, after legislators defunded all earmarks in the fiscal year 2011 federal budget. The program had been supported by New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, said Karen DeMoss, director of the Institute for Urban Education.
Now organizers are seeking alternate funding from grant-giving organizations and private donors in hopes of keeping the program alive, at a cost of $1,500 per student per year.
"We would be very open to explaining why this program is worth it," DeMoss said.
The program, which serves students from schools with a high percentage of students from low-income families, asks students to "envision a new future, grow a sense of self-awareness and voice, acquire an academic voice and skills, give back to communities, and educate one another." Students complete the two-year program with credit for six high school classes and 12 college credits.
Participants in New School programs for high school students are about 34 percent more likely to enroll in four-year colleges than non-participants from similar backgrounds, with similar 8th grade achievement scores, according to the New School.
DeMoss said EnGAGE works with students who are "in the vast middle of the system," who find themselves neither at the top nor the bottom of the achievement heap.
"We don't think the city needs another talent search. We work with students who otherwise wouldn't have access to opportunities like this," DeMoss said.
Students also said they learned critical thinking skills.
"We basically learn things that will actually be useful and will help us out when we get older, like about society and how we see things like behavior," said 16-year-old EnGAGE graduate Derrick Swabe, who plans to study photography at The New School.
"If you read a book and see not enough people who look like you, write your own book," one student at the graduation ceremony said when asked what she learned from the program.
Bonilla, who wants to be an actor, said the program was a good addition to her high school education.
"This really helps bring up your reading and writing," Bonilla said. "We would've never got this chance."
