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RISING STAR PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL

Teens As Budding Professionals
Millennium’s students take advantage of downtown environs

Students at Millennium High School have an atypical morning commute. They take the subway downtown and walk past several office buildings before entering the former headquarters of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, boarding an elevator, and ascending 13 stories to homeroom.

Millennium High School is nestled on the 11th, 12th and 13th floors of 75 Broad Street, a 34-story high rise built in 1929. The school has its own elevators and a private entrance, but with roughly half of its 500 students in grades 9 to 12 hailing from above 14th Street or outside Manhattan, many commute alongside the office workers with whom they share the building.

“Given the spaces you have downtown, I think people were open for something new and different,” said Rhonda Erb, mother of a graduate of the school’s inaugural class of 2006 and president of the parents’ association for the past four years. “The architects who worked on it really wanted it to be as special as it could be. It’s really quite a beautiful space.”

High ceilings, big windows and a loft-style open layout allow natural light to fill the space, and with classrooms on the outside edges of each floor, there is no need for corridors. The open areas between classrooms are subdivided into study nooks and lounges, and often play host to student performances, group meetings or studio art exhibitions.

“I think the whole location of our school gives the students and the staff a very special sense of purpose,” said Jessica Marchetti, a science teacher who has been at Millennium since its founding. “I think that they see a lot of professional people around, which makes it a more professional atmosphere.” In addition to the office workers inside their own building, the nearby Stock Exchange and government outposts provide students with a wealth of professional role models.

“The school really takes advantage of its location in lower Manhattan, in the financial district,” Erb said. While at Millennium, Erb’s son participated in a student government ethics program with employee mentors from Goldman Sachs, which is just down the block at 85 Broad Street.

Planning for the school began shortly before Sept. 11, 2001, and the mission shifted slightly thereafter, focusing on building a school that could anchor a downtown rejuvenation. In the process, Millennium has created its own community in which students feel comfortable working hard, expressing themselves and finding their voice.

The somewhat non-traditional curriculum is broken into two parts. Ninth and 10th graders follow a basic core curriculum designed to give students a foundation of knowledge across major subjects. Beginning in 11th grade, students are permitted to register for courses of their own choosing. Options include English classes organized by theme and genre, history courses organized by geographic region, science classes ranging from anatomy to earth science, studio art classes, photography, and nearly 40 other options.

That wealth of choices carries over to extra-curricular opportunities, as well. The school collaborates with the YMCA of greater New York to offer an enormous range of activities free of charge, from model United Nations and student government to satire club, poetry study, and handball and fencing teams. Millennium also has an extensive “School of Rock” program, which has produced four rock bands that meet and perform regularly.

“A lot of the activities are student-driven,” said Robert Rhodes, the school’s principal. “If a group of seven to 10 students get together to petition an activity, we’ll hire someone to supervise it.” The most recent fruit of students’ petitions is a wildly popular co-ed belly dancing class.

“There’s something for everyone,” Erb said. “You don’t have to be just one kind of kid.”

-- Carolyn Braff