CU Names Head of Secondary School

The public magnet school slated to open next fall in Columbia's proposed Manhattanville expansion zone will be headed by Jose Gabriel Maldonado-Rivera, TC '98, University President Lee Bollinger and New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein announced Thursday.

According to administrators, the Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science, and Engineering will be operated by the city in close collaboration with the University, with Columbia faculty helping in curriculum design and instructional programming.

Maldonado-Rivera is set to lead the planning of the school's curriculum in the coming months and serve as its principal once it opens. In an interview Thursday night, he said that he was drawn to the job by "the opportunity to affect the lives of children in Harlem." Maldonado-Rivera noted that he had attended a similar university high school in his native Puerto Rico, adding that his "own educational experience was incredible."

Maldonado-Rivera most recently served as assistant principal of the TASIS K-12 school in Dorado, Puerto Rico. He has taught at the high school and college levels in New York, California, and Puerto Rico. After graduating from Teachers College in 1998, he spent two years as an associate researcher at Columbia University's Institute of Urban and Minority Education.

Planners said that the school will accept a class of 80 to 120 sixth graders for the coming fall and eventually enroll 650 children in grades six to 12 through a selective admissions process, with preference going to children from northern Manhattan. At least half of the prospective student body will live above 106th Street.

Maldonado-Rivera said he would focus on recruitment in the coming months. "There's certainly an aura about being associated with Columbia that may scare people away, and we have to go out and send the message that this school is for all the kids in the community," he said.

He added that the school's focus on math and science is vital because "there are actually a very limited number of schools in New York City that have a science, math, and engineering focus."

"There's a huge need for a school that provides opportunities to kids that ... early on show a promise and interest in this area," he said. "The comprehensive school model can often not provide the advanced science and math courses that students interested in science and math careers need," he added.

Select students will reportedly have the chance to take undergraduate classes at Columbia. A planning committee including professors and graduate students from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and TC is set to determine the curriculum in the next few months.

Maldonado-Rivera said that while "I respond to both DOE and Columbia hierarchies ... [the city] has essentially given us free range to do what needs to be done to create a world-class curriculum."

Klein said in the press release announcing Maldonado-Rivera's appointment that he was chosen because of his "deep expertise in New York City education issues and significant experience as both a teacher and an administrator."

TC professor Keith Sheppard, one of six professors on the Columbia Secondary School's advisory council, praised Maldonado-Rivera as a "bilingual, bicultural, innovative educator."

The University has identified a likely site for the Columbia Secondary School on the southwest corner of 125th Street and Broadway, where there is currently a McDonald's restaurant. Until facilities can be built there, however, the school will be located at a temporary site yet to be identified.

Though Columbia's expansion plans have generated substantial opposition among Harlem residents, the magnet school is one of several plans the University has introduced to appease community members.

"The Columbia Secondary School is one of the many exciting opportunities for greater engagement between campus and community created by Columbia's proposed development of a largely postindustrial area that for decades has been the focus of revitalization proposals that have never jelled," Bollinger said Thursday. "Now when we imagine W. 125th Street 15 years from now, we can see public high school students from Harlem and other areas of northern Manhattan walking alongside University students."