Submitted by 2004 graduate, Jan 23, 2008 23:43

As a recent graduate, I was at Bronx Science before and after Reidy's entrance, and I have to say that while the school was in bad shape before she came in, it got worse after. The administration especially became more tense and less helpful to the students. We were told about a fabled "Bronx Science " diploma and they hung it over our heads for years, even though we ALL received state diplomas (most of us received Regents Diplomas, though some received Honors Regents Diplomas). They told us that we could not graduate on time if we failed classes such as Physics (a huge lie). Someone mentioned that you were treated like second-class students if you were not concentrating in Math and Science. It doesn't just stop there. If you failed classes, they treated you like you DID NOT EXIST and put you in a Kafka-esque situation, where the administration would not help you, and where the guidance office could not help you either. In 2004 the administration had between half a dozen and a dozen students listed as sophomores when they were really seniors. This meant a host of problems, one of the worst being that they were not eligible to receive guidance on applying to college, and did not receive their CUNY applications. They were shuffled back and forth, and were essentially left to fend for themselves. They were denied one resource after another, being told that they were "just sophomores" and were given the run around from one department to another. One student fought and jumped through hoops for over 2 years to be put into correct standing, and finally, his mother had to threaten legal action against the school. They did nothing to reach out to you, and did everything to push you out of the school. In another instance, a student had completed all of the classes available in the Social Studies department, but was not eligible to take AP classes because of his grades. When he was signing up for classes for the next year, the head of the department told him to put a class he had already passed as an alternate. Of course, the next year, the student was placed in the class he had already passed. When he tried to remedy the situation, he was told that he could not graduate on time because he was lacking credits. The administration then would not transfer him out for weeks because they told him that he was responsible for his predicament because he was the one who had written the class on his bubble sheet as an alternate! The stories are endless, and go beyond administrational editing of student productions, including plays and newspapers. The teachers and guidance counselors are stressed, and they can only do so much. The administration is stretched too thin and is too jaded to really care about the students. The incompetence is staggering, and it is not just Valerie Reidy. I was around when she was still head of the biology department. Even then, she was not popular, but once you got to know her, she became more personable, and was not the fire breathing monster that people now make her out to be. I think she really changed after she got to be principal. The atmosphere of hostility and tension is not doing anything for the students, for the teachers or for the school. If it is true that students are not allowed to join after school clubs if they have 1 cut, it will reflect badly on them when they apply to college, and will in turn reflect badly on the school and on her. Draconian measures really don't work, and people will only become angrier with her. The parents and the students need to step it up and they need to take action. She has to go, and the school needs to be seriously cleaned up.

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