Dropouts Take Advantage of a Second Chance
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Jennifer Perez was in her senior year at Roosevelt High School when her brother left home to join the Marines last year.
Ms. Perez, 18, was stuck caring for her 10-year-old sister while her mother was at work. That meant she couldn’t attend her first or second period classes and she had to cut out before ninth and 10th periods.
Her grades dropped, and she soon stopped going to school altogether.
“I just couldn’t take it at Roosevelt,” she said.
Last October, Ms. Perez entered the first class of CUNY Prep, a new transitional program that prepares high school dropouts to take their GEDs and apply to college. Yesterday, wearing a blue cap and gown and a yellow sash that marked her as an honors student, she marched across the stage of the main auditorium at Hostos Community College as one of CUNY Prep’s first graduates.
Of the 160 students who entered the school its first year, 60 were eligible to take the GED and 40 passed, the school’s principal, Derrick Griffith, said. Of those, six scored above the 3,000-point mark, which means they’re eligible to attend four-year colleges in New York. Students aged 16 to 18 who had dropped out recently are eligible to enroll.
Many of the graduates said they thought they were done with school for good only a year before, but yesterday many said they were proud they changed their minds.
“It was the best school I ever went to. They make sure that you do good, that you go to school,” said Fayza Habib, 19. Ms. Habib dropped out of Lehman High School in the Bronx when she was 17. A little more than a year ago, when she was working in a Bronx pastry shop, she realized she didn’t want to operate a cash register for the rest of her life.
She’s trying to convince her friends who dropped out and are now unemployed to make the same choice she made.
“They need to go to college and make money for themselves,” she said. “They don’t want to be home, living with their parents when they’re 40.”
Mr. Griffith said CUNY Prep, where students take a full course load of classes – not just test prep – is one of a kind. He said CUNY Prep is also different because of its “no excuses” attitude.
“We don’t care if you have a child, if you live in impoverished neighborhoods: There are no excuses for failure,” he said. That means teachers call students when they miss classes, and the school accommodates students who can’t find babysitters by letting them bring their children to class.
One student, Gabriella Brown, said she sometimes brought along her daughter, Nashawna.
“They were flexible,” she said. Yesterday, as her 4-year-old scrambled around her, Ms. Brown told The New York Sun she’s planning to attend Chubb Institute, the trade school, but Mr. Griffith told her to call him so he could help her instead register at a college.
CUNY Prep is funded with an annual $2.4 million federal grant administered by the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development.