Cypress Hills

My internship for my first year as an MSW student is with the Mayor's Taskforce on Chronic Absenteeism and Truancy. Sounds powerful, doesn't it? It's actually a HUGE job. The goal is to put Success Mentors (that's me!) in the schools to mentor truant students, hopefully to raise their attendance and help them graduate on time. I'll be working with 15 students, running groups, having individual counseling sessions, and trying to motivate them to come to school EVERY DAY, as well as involve the parents however possible.


This is the school I'm at. It's huge. There are 5 high schools in this one building. Crazy, huh?! Every floor of the school is a different high school. Separate administration, separate mascot, separate teachers, etc. High school in NYC is so weird.

At Cypress Hills Collegiate Prep high school (floor 4), there are 433 students in grades 9-12 and the majority of the population is hispanic. It's way out in Queens, a very low social economic, Latino neighborhood. Their graduation rate is in the bottom 8% of all NYC schools. Last year, Cypress Hills got an F in their progress report overview. This year, they have moved their grade up to a D. Meaning, this is a terrible school. I have my work cut out for me.

But, as a social worker you learn that there is always something going on to motivate the behavior. For truant kids, this is definitely the case, I just have to find out what that something is. For Viviana, she had a baby last year. For Aaron, his commute on the train takes him an hour (school buses in NYC don't exist, it's public transportation for everyone). For Arlene, she works full time after school and is exhausted in the morning. These aren't bad kids. They are kids living with the stress and responsibility of adults. They need someone to care less about their truant behavior and more about them. So, I care. We'll see if it makes a difference, I'm hoping it will.