N.Y. Harbor School Seeks Sea Change In Education

JACKI LYDEN, host:

Murray Fisher had a dream: take the 600 miles of New York City's coastlines, all that water surrounding it, four of the five boroughs are actually built on islands. Then, start a maritime high school that would teach inner-city kids about their watery world � everything from boat building and ocean ecology to oyster growing.

Mr. MURRAY FISHER (Urban Assembly New York Harbor School): On the waterfront, in a - one of most protected and accessible coves in all of New York City.

LYDEN: Next year, the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School will open its doors on Governors Island, a tree-covered 170 acres sold to the Dutch for two axes and a necklace, yards off the coast of southern Manhattan. But before we can get there, let's visit the Harbor School's current location, Bushwick, in the heart of Brooklyn.

Unidentified Woman: Donovan Perez(ph), please come to school at the present time.

(Soundbite of crowd)

Unidentified Woman: My guys are late. Everyone's late now, let's go.

LYDEN: Inside the Bushwick High building is where the Department of Education put the Harbor School in 2003. Four hundred mostly black and Latino kids, who used to know nothing about maritime New York, now ride the subways for hours to get to waterways only a couple miles distant. Today they're off to the Hudson River.

Unidentified Woman: Okay, guys, it is time to get going. Follow me down to the first floor. Push in your chairs, please.

LYDEN: At the Harbor School, every kid wears a school T-shirt and learns about fish, tides, oystering, water quality. It's urban environment meets natural world. Tanks burble with classroom-grown Tilapia. Brendan Malone's room is big enough to build wooden boats called prams. He's the marine technology teacher.

Mr. BRENDAN MALONE (Marine Technology Teacher, New York Harbor School): I was born in New York City, but I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. And I attended the Sound School in New Haven when it was just opening, which was a maritime based high school. Basically, what we're giving them is a introduction to the knowledge and the skills that they would need to enter a maritime career.

LYDEN: So, in many ways, you're teaching them the - what you were taught yourself.

Mr. MALONE: A lot of similarities. The reason - basically, a reason I became a teacher was because in high school I got the skills that I needed to support my family, pay my way through college and so just trying to pass on that knowledge to the next generation.

LYDEN: Well, in Bushwick, how far away is the river? It's�

Mr. MALONE: Well, we're about 1.5 miles from the end of English Kill, which is a little offshoot from Newtown Creek, which is about the closest that we are to water. But if you could find a place further from any major New York City water body, this is it.

LYDEN: Before the Harbor School, the dropout rate in Bushwick was dismal. The Harbor School has improved that, graduating seniors in '07 and '08 and sending a handful on to marine specialties in college. That's the path that inspires 14-year-old freshman Daniel Bowen(ph).

Mr. DANIEL BOWEN: I want to get all types of degrees in marine biology, technology, anything marine. I love it. I try to do as many things as I can do, like scuba diving and rowing. I mostly like being in the water. That's my favorite place. I feel more at home there.

(Soundbite of whistle)

Unidentified Woman: Like I said, wait to hear your name.

LYDEN: And, of course, to be on the water, you sometimes have to get in it. And fewer than 1 in 5 of these kids could swim before coming here.

Ms. JENNIFER OSTROW (Assistant Principal, New York Harbor School): We had our advanced scuba diving class. It was going scuba diving in Jamaica Bay a few weeks ago and they sent me a picture of seahorses that they had taken underwater in Jamaica Bay to my phone, which was pretty amazing, you know. It turns out (unintelligible) is full of seahorses.

LYDEN: Assistant principal Jennifer Ostrow remembers taking the kids to Governors Island and how they fell in love with the proximity to the water.

Ms. OSTROW: They spontaneously started talking about how great it would be if they could go to school out here because they wouldn't have to worry about the colors that they're wearing or flagging because in Bushwick, if you wear the wrong colors and - of the gang that you're not member of, you will become a victim of violence. And so, it made me realize that students will be able to let down their armor in a way out in Governors Island that they couldn't do here. And being able to let down you armor really opens you up for learning.

LYDEN: In 2003, the federal government, which had used the island for everything, from a Civil War fort to a longtime Coast Guard base, sold the island back to New York state and the city for a token dollar. The island's current regeneration began and blossoms in summer. Every developer in New York wanted in on the 19th century buildings, but Murray Fisher wanted space for a school. Fisher, 33, had worked for the conservation groups, The Hudson Riverkeepers and the Waterkeeper Alliance, exploring estuaries around the world.

Mr. FISHER: I was from Virginia, had nothing to do with the Hudson River, didn't know the Hudson River and I fell in love with the Hudson River. And every day I would be out working with scientists on the water working with fish, and every night I would pour over books about the Hudson River and read everything, every article I could about it. I became obsessed with the Hudson River.

LYDEN: You think?

Mr. FISHER: In my high school I was always having to separate the things I was interested in doing outside with my studies, you know, skip school to go fishing. Why shouldn't fishing be part of school? And so, I remember thinking, this should be a school.

(Soundbite of ferry horn)

LYDEN: We leave the Battery Maritime Building for the seven minutes ferry ride to the island. New York became New York because of its harbors. Once these coasts were blanketed with hundreds of miles of natural oyster reef. Now, they've been hardened with concrete.

Mr. FISHER: And yet, this is still a rich estuary. There are still 206 species of fish and so that's one of the amazing feats of the harbors, to have such a built environment with such a heavy human presence, such historical pollution problems, but yet the harbor has survived, the estuary has survived. And when we go look at these oysters that were growing in a floating upwelling system under that dock, you'll see that the oysters are growing faster and with lower mortality than they do at some commercial farms nearby. So the harbor is amazing in conditions for trying to restore the oyster back in to the harbor.

LYDEN: Murray Fisher leads us to a little manmade cove on Buttermilk Channel, between Brooklyn and Governors Island. Floating in the water is a wooden oyster tank called a Flupsy, which stands for a floating upwelling system that mimics a reef.

Mr. FISHER: I'm going to hop down and show you that. Most adult oysters that you would see in a restaurant are one to two years old, about, you know, four or five inches wide. These oysters can be eaten and probably for the next 50 years won't be eaten.

LYDEN: So, we're right down here at the very southern tip of Governors Island on this gorgeous fall day looking out at the New York harbor, all the way from Buttermilk Channel, which separates Governors Island from Brooklyn. And then rotating west, the Verrazano Bridge over the Narrows that out to the Atlantic Ocean. And now I can see Staten Island and the Goethals Bridge connecting Staten Island to New Jersey. And then, of course, at the end of this panoramic view, Statue of Liberty.

Now, after a $34 million renovation, the Harbor School will be in historic Liggett Hall at the island center.

Mr. FISHER: We are thrilled to have our kids here at the school. And they come out and they are so excited and we brought the parents to see it. It is going to be a gorgeous spot.

LYDEN: Well, we're right here under this little lane-way of trees and, really, this is an absolutely pastoral setting and we are just across the water from New York city. Ah, I hear a boat (unintelligible).

Mr. FISHER: Exactly. That reminds you that we are on an island, always on a boat schedule. Though, what we're looking at now is the front of the building. This, over to the right, is going to be a basketball court and over to the left, it's going to be a garden. On the far left on the bottom is a whole marine science lab, what will be for introductory Marine science courses for ninth and tenth graders. And then on the right, there will be marine technology labs. And then just south of us is going to be the park. So that'll be a 40-acre park. So the park will be the backyard. You saw that the harbor is the front yard. It really couldn't be a better educational spot.

LYDEN: So, how does it feel? This was your vision and your dream to use this place. How does it feel to see this actually coming together?

Mr. FISHER: It's a bit terrifying because there are a lot of people, from taxpayers all the way up to politicians and donors who've put a lot of time and energy into this. And frankly, the - as much as the Harbor School has gotten press because of the unique and unusual things we're doing in Bushwick, there's going to be a lot more of an eye on what we're doing here. And so, we're going to need to be better than ever.

LYDEN: And it all began in one of the densest, grittiest parts in Brooklyn at Bushwick High.

Mr. FISHER: I remember showing up all fresh faced and excited walking into the Bushwick front door. And I told a security guard who looked like she'd been around for a while. I said, hey, we're the Harbor School, we're coming down here next year. And she looked me up and down and said, there ain't no Harbor in Bushwick, sweetie.

LYDEN: Now the hope is that students from all five boroughs will be going to school on Governors Island, walking under the canopies of London plane trees, gazing back at magnificent views of New York. And instead of city streets, all around them will be the vast wilderness of water. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.