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Brooklyn High School Drops Physics

Students at troubled Lafayette High School know enough about the physics of violence - but that wasn't enough to save the school's physics program.

When students returned to class Monday, they were shocked to find that the Brooklyn school had dropped physics from the curriculum.

"I'm really upset," said an 18-year-old junior, who requested anonymity. The student, who plans to study science in college, discovered she had been switched from physics to environmental science when she got her schedule.

"I'm not interested in that subject," she said. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

A petition to bring physics back was signed by nearly 50 students, many of them recent immigrants who noted that a good grade in physics would help when applying to engineering, architecture and computer schools.

Principal Alan Siegel said there was little interest in physics last semester, so he decided to ax the class.

"We did not have this level of interest shown back in the spring, but we'll plan ahead, and if we can do something to support the needs of the kids, we certainly will," Siegel said.

He said students should have gotten advance notice that the course wouldn't be offered, but they said they got no warning.

"Many people signed up for the physics class around June," said junior Yan Jiang, 17. "A teacher called me to reconfirm I had signed up ... so I don't understand why they canceled it."

Lafayette's alumni include Larry King, Sandy Koufax and John Franco, but it also has been the scene of scores of bloody assaults that have garnered the school the dubious title Horror High.



— Celeste Katz
Matter for dispute: B'klyn HS axes physics
New York Daily News
2003-09-10
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/116395p-104985c.html

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