Top-Scoring School Thrives On Challenges

As school officials ask failing schools to turn to better performers for help, a Midtown Manhattan high school where more than three-quarters of students are not native English speakers could become a citywide model.

Of more than 1,200 city schools evaluated, the Manhattan Bridges High School on West 50th Street received the highest overall score, 104.4 points on a 100-point scale. Open for just five years, the high school serves recent Latino immigrants, and 76% of its students are classified as English Language Learners.

An assistant principal at the school, Georges Mathieu, said the distinction would not stop his pursuit of strong results.

"That's nice, but we've got to move on. We got to keep on working and refining what we do," Mr. Mathieu said. "All the kids are foreign-born, so it is a challenge, and a lot of them work" at jobs after school and on weekends. "These are not middle-class kids. They are really rolling up their sleeves."

The honor wasn't a surprise to a senior at the Urban Assembly High School, Karen Santos, 18, who said she has been trying to get into Manhattan Bridges for four years. Ms. Santos said her cousin, Fanzone Sanchez, didn't speak a word of English when he arrived from the Dominican Republic four years ago. "By the third year, he spoke better English than anyone," Ms. Santos said.

When her cousin was "lazy," Ms. Santos said, the school hounded him and offered him extra help until he graduated with the school's first class in 2006. "They don't care if they have to stay after school just to help you. They are on top of you, and if you don't come, they will call and call your home until you come back," she said.

A parent whose daughter Heilyn, 15, recently entered the ninth-grade at the school, Rafael Batista, 48, said he was happy about the report: "I'm glad. I like this school because they teach in both languages and because it is safe."

Heilyn Batista, who just arrived from Santo Domingo, said her favorite class is English as a second language. "When you don't know how to say something right in English nobody laughs at you, because everybody is in the same boat," she said.

She said she hopes to contribute to the school's performance scores next year.

"The idea is to get good at it until I speak like everybody else," she said.