Type Public secondary School number Q620 Grades 9–12 CEEB Code 332585 Number of students 2,566 | Established 1950 Principal Moses Ojeda Color(s) Blue and Gold Mascot Electric light | |
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District New York City Public Schools Motto "The Thomas Edison community helps its students to grow into better people by providing the building blocks of life." School board New York City Department of Education Headquarters Jamaica, New York City, New York, United States | ||
'Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Education High School (often referred to locally simply as Edison) is a public secondary school in Queens's Jamaica community in New York City. It is one of the few public high schools in New York City to offer vocational training programs as well as traditional college preparatory tracks and well known for its largely male population. The school is operated by the New York City Department of Education.
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Location
The campus is located near the top of a fairly steep hill at the corner of 168th St. and 84th Ave., and sits on the south side the Grand Central Parkway; it is situated diagonally across the parkway, southwest from St. John's University. Hillside Avenue, at the foot of the hill, is several blocks to the south.
Jamaica High School is separated from Edison by 84th Avenue and the Jamaica High School Track and Football Field, these school do not share any affiliation with each other. Hillcrest High School, another nearby high school, is located at Highland Avenue and Parsons Blvd.
Academic programs
Students at Edison generally take required courses in health, music theory, and art appreciation during their freshman year, at the end of which they choose a track to pursue in grades 10-12. Edison offers college-preparatory technological programs such as mechanical, electronic and pre-medical pharmaceutical technologies as well as more trade-oriented programs such as automotive and computer repair (A+ Certification), mechanical engineering / AUTOCAD, C++ programming, computer graphics design, and the Cisco Networking Academy, in which one can earn a CCNA network certification upon completion of the program. In information technology, students take Electronics and Cabling for one term. After they pass both classes, they have a choice of major (i.e. A+ Repair, Cisco, MOS) for junior and senior year.
Career and technical education courses
Demographics
The school has an enrollment of just over 2,800 students of diverse ethnic backgrounds, including African American, Latino, South Asian, East Asian, Guyanese. Edison's gender population is approx 60.0% male and 40.0% female.
In the Fall of 2006, Edison admitted 873 freshmen (9th graders). The total student population is approximately 250 larger than the 2005-2006 school year. The increase in student population has required the hiring of more than 20 new teachers. Crowding is an issue in a building designed for 1,600 Students.
When the it first opened in 1950 as an all-boys school, there were 700 students. Girls were first admitted in the late 1970s.
Student activities
Edison participates in a wide variety of citywide sporting activities in the (PSAL) Public School Athletic League.