By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

SUNSET PARK – The excitement is fast growing for the up-and-coming Sunset Park High School with its opening date of September 2009 drawing closer. Graphic evidence of that enthusiasm was the crowd of hundreds of people who packed a town hall educational resource meeting called by Community Board Seven last week at M.S. 136, a few blocks north of Sunset Park’s first public high school under construction.

“Our community education forum was a major success, with over 500 people getting the latest information on the high school and other new resources,� said Board Seven Chair Randy Peers. “Our Sunset Park High School Task Force gave a full progress report. We’ve worked very hard through a lot of difficulties over the many years to get this high school and now, with full community input, it’s moving along fast.�

Task Force Chair Julie Stein-Brockway, co-director of the Center for Family Life and founder of its Life-Lines Community Arts Project, led the information program and the high school’s first principal, Corinne Vinal, was introduced.

“We’re absolutely elated,� said Stein-Brockway. “We overcame a lot of frustration to make this a reality and now we have full community involvement.� Vinal, with an impressive resume that got her the post in June from a large pool of candidates, said, “I’m very excited. I feel very fortunate to have been chosen for this wonderful job.�

The high school with space for 1,500 students has been under construction for a about a year on Fourth Avenue at 35th Street. The all-new five story-tall building for the $80 million project is on the site of an old candy factory, and behind it on Third Avenue is the a city park.

It includes general classroom space, art and music rooms, a two-story-high gym, science labs and demonstration space, and a cafeteria with a kitchen. A 560-seat auditorium will feature state-of-the-art theatrical lighting and equipment. The building will be fully fitted for laptop use and have a 4,000-square-foot library with wireless technology.

“The high school will consist of three small learning communities, each with four ninth grade classes at the start. The programs are being designed by our high school community task force,� said Vinal, currently at the New York Leadership Academy.

The three divisions in the high school, giving students and their families a choice, are Health and Environment, Business and Entrepreneur-ship, and the Performing and Visual Arts. The curriculum will be coordinated with the Institute for Student Achievement. That is being done under requirements of the city Department of Education (DOE) Office of Portfolio Development. It will include ESL courses.

The task force is in the process of giving presentations in Sunset Park and nearby neighborhoods at middle and junior high schools about how their students can enroll at SPHS. An evening presentation is scheduled for McKinley I.S. in Dyker Heights on October 29.

In its first school year of 2009-2010 it will accept three groups of 100 ninth graders in each group – the Class of 2013 - and a group of between 75 and 100 8th graders – the Class of 2014, building up over four years to full student capacity.

“Vinal is ideally suited as Sunset Park H.S.’s first principal,� said Stein-Brockway. Vinal started her career as a pre-school teacher in a private school, taught at Port Richmond H.S., was assistant principal for English at Washington Irving I.S., and a mentor in the DOE’s Aspiring Principals Leadership Program. More recently she was the principal of Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics H.S., and is now in her second year at the NYC Leadership Academy.

Sunset Park lost a large private high school in 2000 when Our Lady of Perpetual Help H.S. was closed down after 40 years at 60th Street and Sixth Avenue.

“The new school facility is intended to provide relief to the severely overcrowding conditions experienced at Fort Hamilton High School, that many Sunset Park residents attend,� said a School Construction Authority report.

The high school in Bay Ridge, opened in 1940, operates at 165 percent over-capacity and has staggered opening and closing hours instituted several years ago to lessen the effects. Sunset Park teen students rely on buses and subways to make the trip to the high school on Shore Road at 83rd and 85th streets. Over 4,700 students use the school that was built for less than 3,000.

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