Murry Bergtraum High School
The Murry Bergtraum High School for Business Careers is a public secondary school in New York City. It is located in Lower Manhattan, adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge and City Hall. Bergtraum offers business-oriented courses to prepare students for careers in marketing, tourism, finance, human resources, information systems, economics, computer science, law, and secretarial fields. The school also combines its business curriculum with an academic program that gears towards preparation for college. In recent years, the school has been integrating more humanities and liberal arts courses to enrich the school's curriculum.[5]
Murry Bergtraum High School was one of the first business-themed high schools in New York City, and inclusively, the United States. It has two sister schools that share its business theme: Norman Thomas High School (previously known as Central Commercial High School) and the High School of Economics and Finance. Out of the three schools, Murry Bergtraum is the largest of all the business high schools in this category and in the city due to its large, diverse business programs and course offerings.
It remains as one of the few large high schools in New York City as a result of Michael Bloomberg's small-school restructuring projects.[6] It was also exempted from chancellor Joel Klein's citywide uniform curriculum initiated in 2003.
The school was established in 1975, in memory of Murry Bergtraum, a former President of the New York City Board of Education who died in 1973. Bergtraum joined the Board of Education on May 20, 1969. He was then elected President of the Board of Education from July 1, 1970 to June 30, 1971. His obituary is online at https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/09/archives/murry-bergtraum-56-president-of-school-board-in-7071-dies-member.html His widow Edith Katz Bergtraum, a public school teacher, was also politically active and a member of her local school board for 19 years. After her death in 1994, an elementary school in Queens (PS 165 in District 25) was renamed in her memory. The name "Bergtraum" originates from the German language. In the English language, it translates to "mountain dream".[7]
Murry Bergtraum High School for Business Careers was still under construction in 1975 while the first class of freshmen were attending classes at Pace University awaiting the completion of the new high school. While at the Pace campus, an art instructor held a school logo contest. Many designs were submitted by the students. Ultimately the winner chosen by the staff was a student named Norberto Feliciano. The winning school emblem is circular in design with a triangle in the center that represents the schools aerial view shape. The name of the school is within double circles, and the school initials placed within the triangle. Olive branches were placed within the logo as a sign of peace as also seen in the flag of the United Nations. The logo is used on letter heads, notebooks, T-shirts, sweatshirts, shorts, team uniforms, and other school-branded items.
Bergtraum was the first academic comprehensive high school with business majors in New York City and one of the first in the United States. It was supported by the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association to prepare young people to enter the world of work and college.[8]
Murry Bergtraum High School, along with other high schools of the Lower Manhattan area were the first schools evacuated during the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. Although Bergtraum is located in the Lower East Side section of Manhattan, the school administration ordered an immediate evacuation of the building. The building was evacuated in three minutes. It was the first high school in New York City that had successful evacuation of students.
The school was labeled as a "Ground Zero" school (by the NYFD)--students were relocated to the High School of Art and Design in Upper Manhattan. The Bergtraum administration were unhappy with the relocation and appealed it, and their building was re-opened and students resumed their studies within a few days.
Bergtraum began to face new ideas of reform during the Spring Term of the 2005–2006 academic school year. Due to certain measures to improve both performance and student morale, new measures and new plans began to be introduced by the Principal and the School Leadership Team. Some of the reforms included:
Bergtraum has had seven principals:
Historically, there has been an average of over 3,000 students at Bergtraum during a given year, and it has been ranked as a "School of Excellence" by U.S. News & World Report since 1999.[9][10] It is well known for its girls' basketball team, having won thirteen consecutive PSAL championships as of 2011.[11] Bergtraum offers majors in business that attracts students from all boroughs; receiving an average of 15,000 to 20,000 applications every year, making it one of the most popular schools in the city of New York. As an educational option school, it takes in students from all academic levels.[12]
The school population is structured as follows:
Bergtraum has also been known for its unusual triangular shape, which leads to only half of the school building having windows. The exterior sides of the building have windows, while the interior portion of the building does not. Despite the design of the building, it stays very warm in the winter and very cool during the summer because of its centralized air-conditioning system.
As of spring 2007, the school would follow a 1-8 schedule, eliminating the 3-10 and leaving very few students with a 2-9 schedule.
As of September 2009, the school began to decrease its enrollment numbers to alleviate the overcrowding rate the school faced. The school's enrollment has dropped significantly from September, 2005 in which it had roughly 3,000 students enrolled. As of July 2009, that number has decreased to 2,589.
Murry Bergtraum's facilities include:
As of the 2014–15 school year, the school had an enrollment of 999 students and 61.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 16.4:1. There were 677 students (67.8% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 42 (4.2% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.[3]
Historically, Bergtraum's programs have catered to minority students, and the trend has not changed much since the school's opening.[14] The ethnic composition is as follows:[15]
Bergtraum has had more females than males in previous years. As of the 2009–2010 school year, 50.83% of Bergtraum students are female and 49.17% of Bergtraum students are male.
The building hosts students with special needs such as mental or physical disabilities, or hearing impairment. Students who use crutches can sometimes be seen throughout the building since the front stairs are not wheelchair accessible.
The school is only one out of two in Lower Manhattan that also gives admittance to English as a Second Language (ESL) students. Out of the 3,000-plus students, 11.97% are ESL students.
Awards and recognition[edit]
The school has been ranked "A School Of Excellence" by U.S. News & World Report. It has also won sports awards, The Kurt Thomas Investment Challenge, the ThinkQuest Awards and the Lincoln–Douglas debates.
