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Hempstead High: A source of hope for district

BY JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER | jennifer.kelleher@newsday.com

May 16, 2008

The governor stood at a podium before hundreds of high school students and declared, "I am from Hempstead, New York."

Each time Gov. David A. Paterson uttered "Hempstead," the students who filled the auditorium whooped and applauded.

Senior Joshelle Wright sat in the fourth row, wearing a prim pink-and-cream jacket and skirt suit that belied the street-wise edge to her voice.

Like the rest of the auditorium, Wright, 18, chimed in to finish the mantra the governor repeated four times during his speech at Hempstead High School last week: "Just this side of Rockville Centre and 12 miles from the city line."

The words helped tell the story of how Paterson's family moved from Brooklyn to Hempstead when he was 4 so he could attend school as a blind child who wouldn't be segregated in special education classes.

His words reverberated in another way for Wright and her classmates, who have newfound reasons to be proud of their school.

Hempstead High has become a source of hope in a district struggling with corruption, dilapidated facilities and academic under.performance.

From 1997 to 2003, the high school had 11 different principals, until Reginald Stroughn took the helm after being assistant principal at the middle school for six years.

In 2003, the graduation rate was 40 percent. Last year it was 64 percent. Sixty-six percent of the current seniors are on track to graduate June 28.

Last year, Hempstead High was removed from the state's list of low-achieving schools.

At a ceremony in Saratoga Springs on May 9, Stroughn was honored as "High School Principal of the Year," by the state School Administrators Association. He is the first from Hempstead to win the award.

Yet the rest of the district faces challenges. State officials continue to monitor Hempstead for financial mismanagement. Children learn in portable classrooms after two deteriorated elementary schools were closed. The middle school and an elementary linger on the state's failing list.

Superintendent Nathaniel Clay -- who in recent years has been fired and rehired, suspended and restored -- will retire in July. Joseph Laria, who has led several Suffolk districts, will be the interim superintendent.

"Hempstead still has big mountains to climb," said Roger Tilles, the Long Island representative on the state Board of Regents. "They have made significant progress in their graduation rates."

Haunting the high school's strides are two deadly student stabbings bookending Wright's high school career. Freshman year was when Olman Herrera, 17, was stabbed to death a block from the school at noon on a Tuesday, leading Stroughn to ban students from leaving campus during lunch. On a Friday in January, Michael Alguera, 15, was stabbed to death on a campus handball court at about 3:30 p.m.

As a freshman, Wright resented Stroughn for closing the campus. As she got older, she saw how students no longer found it worthwhile to cut class if they couldn't leave. And she realized that Stroughn was one of the few consistent forces in an often unstable district.

"If we had a different principal each year, we'd test the waters," Wright said. "I respect Mr. Stroughn even more for being able to take it."

During Stroughn's first year, students slashed all the tires on his car, parked in the principal's spot. "That's how bold they were," he said. "Five years ago there would be kids who would try to fight me in a minute."

These days, students are less violent, he said. "Knock on wood," he added, rapping his knuckles on a table in his office.

To deter violence, Stroughn instituted a practice he said some parents viewed as perpetuating a stereotype about young minorities in a district that's mostly black and Hispanic. When a student is arrested, instead of being escorted out a side door, the student is walked in handcuffs through the building's central courtyard and into a police car waiting at the front entrance.