Lehman High School: An Endangered Lion
A once proud school that was set up for failure
By Ubayed Muhith
I am currently an 11th grader at Herbert H. Lehman High School. From the moment I stepped foot into this school, the threat of closure has loomed over this institution, consuming everyone with apprehension as to what will happen to them the year after, and leading many to give up on their work. The school offers plenty in terms of student diversity, a wide array of courses for honors students, a plethora of programs, a strong music department (Lehman Idol, Coffeehouse), and of course and always, a dedicated teaching staff who put up with the DOE’s constant threats and bad media hype on a daily basis so that they can be with the students they love. Obviously Lehman has been faltering in its graduation rates and Regents passing rate in the past few years, but these problems have not been spurred on by Lehman itself but rather by the same city educational department that’s supposed to help out schools rather than bully them and shutter them for good. So to avoid writing long essays such as this and bore everyone, I woke up one Sunday morning and decided to draw out my frustrations.
To start off I drew our mascot, the Lehman Lion, shackled in chains to a wall and on its legs, restraining it from roaming around. In essence the school no longer has the right to freely establish its own identity and standards without