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Photo courtesy of Stephanie Gaweda

“I ended up doing literally nothing all day but playing guitar in the hallway and cutting class... and just, like, being a truant dropout.”

— Stephanie Gaweda

By Zoe Markman

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Zoe reported this story as a high school senior. She is from Manhattan.

After getting expelled from two middle schools and "doing literally nothing all day" at a Brooklyn high school for aspiring artists, Stephanie Gaweda decided she wanted to turn her life around. But her guidance counselor told her that there was no way she would be able to graduate by age 21. Gaweda’s math teacher had another idea: he suggested she go to a school specifically designed for students not on track for graduation. These schools, which serve 13,000 students across New York City, are known as transfer high schools.

To find out how transfer schools came about — and their impact on students — I sat down with Paulette LoManaco and Rachel Forsyth of Good Shepherd Services, a citywide nonprofit that supports marginalized youth. Good Shepherd was working in Red Hook in the 1990s, during a time when Life Magazine called it the “crack capital of America.” In an effort to reengage recent dropouts, Good Shepherd founded South Brooklyn Community High School. South Brooklyn emphasized social-emotional learning, a high counselor-to-student ratio, and paid internships. “The early days were tough,” said LoManaco. “We would be broken into. Computers would disappear over a long weekend.” 

By the time Michael Bloomberg became mayor in 2002, though, South Brooklyn was showing signs of promise. In an attempt to raise New York City’s dismal graduation rate, which hovered around 50 percent, Bloomberg teamed up with Good Shepherd and the Gates Foundation to spread the model around New York City.

Today, there are more than 50 transfer schools across the five boroughs. Every year, they give students who otherwise wouldn’t graduate — students like Gaweda — a second chance.

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This podcast season about transfer high schools is produced in partnership with The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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The music for this season includes original tracks from Elijah Goodman, a.k.a. Ejcali, born in Santa Clarita, California, and now living in Brooklyn. He is an upcoming music producer self-taught in piano, inspired by creating various genres of music. In addition to working with Building Beats, Elijah is a member of S.I.M.B.A., a youth empowerment program in Brooklyn.