School’s kids keep it 100%
Rare triumph as every student graduates
A Queens public school that doesn’t screen its applicants by test scores — and encourages kids to go outside and explore — just graduated its entire senior class, a feat that has only occurred twice in the city in the past decade.
City education bigs are so impressed by the success of the Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School in Forest Hills that they are encouraging staffers from other sites to visit it to learn their methods.
“We’re built on collaboration,’’ explained Pat Finley, who founded the school with fellow veteran teacher Damon McCord in 2010.
Finley and McCord are co-principals, which is uncommon in public schools.
The school, which includes grades six through 12, is part of the New York City Outward Bound network, which stresses experience-based outdoor learning.
Unlike specialized public schools, the campus admits students based on a lottery system and does not have the luxury of selecting promising applicants based on test scores.
That egalitarian model, school officials said, is reflected in their diversity.
Serving 820 kids, MELS is 39 percent Hispanic, 18 percent black, 17 percent Asian and 20 percent white.
A total of 62 percent of the student body qualifies for free lunch, and 23 percent have special needs, MELS staffers said.
The school earned the city’s first perfect graduation for a “limited unscreened” campus since 2006, officials said.
It also boasted a 98 percent college acceptance rate, officials said.
This was its first graduating high-school class, with about 115 graduates.
New alum Eric Rios, who will attend SUNY Purchase this fall, credited “relentless” teachers for the school’s achievements.
Perhaps most importantly, Rios said, MELS rightly focuses on meaningful parent engagement.
“If kids are taught certain values or habits in school, and those same values or habits aren’t enforced at home, it’s a lost cause,” Rios said. “I think that’s a problem with the system that doesn’t get enough attention.”
To combat parent apathy, MELS abandoned traditional parentteacher conferences in favor of having students conduct the sitdowns.
The kids are tasked with presenting a rigorous self-assessment in front of their instructors and immediate family.
Finley said more than 95 percent of MELS parents show up.
“Because it’s your child present- ing, parents tend to go,” said Richard Stopol, president of NYC Outward Bound.
Finley also credited the school’s co-principal model for creating a collaborative environment that looms large at the top of the administrative structure.
He submitted a formal proposal to the DOE to implement the format in other city schools.