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Summit School (Queens)

The Summit School is a state funding approved private, special education day school in Queens, New York, United States. Established in 1968, it operates two sites near the St. John's University campus; the Lower School, which educates elementary and middle school students, utilizes space in the Hillcrest Jewish Center in Utopia, and the Upper School serves high school students in Jamaica Estates.

History
The Summit School of Queens, New York was founded by Hershel Stiskin in 1968 as a charter school for children and adolescents with a wide array of special needs. When Stiskin moved to Israel in 1972, which is also affiliated with the school, as well as Summit Camp & Travel—oversaw the management before Howard Adams and then-Lower School principal Judith Gordon, Ph.D. to develop the school's nationally recognized pre-vocational, job training program, which Seltzer ran for many years until her death in 2010. Gordon retired in 2008, but earned the honorary title of director emeritus. Former associate director John Renner became the director and Upper School principal, with Richard Sitman as executive director, in association with the residential school in Nyack, prior to their retirements in 2017 and 2021, respectively. Enrollment history According to a section of New York Family in late 2003, the school had the highest amount of student admission forms received—more than 1,000—in the city among the leading "special schools for special kids", with only 35 spaces available. ==School structure==
School structure
Program Students attending the school are in grades 3-12, who have average to above average IQs, but mild learning disabilities, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, high functioning autism, dyslexia, Tourette syndrome, or other specific learning challenges. The school employs a faculty of 150 professionals, including a student to teacher-assistant to special education (or related content area) teacher ratio of 12 to 1.5 to 1, and a staff of social workers, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, reading specialists, and 1 to 1 aides as needed. They "focus on the academic, social, emotional, and prevocational development of each child" by providing support in the classroom, as well as in individual and small group settings. While every homeroom class consists of 12 students, Summit administers a schoolwide positive behavior support (PBS) they work as interns at businesses involved in the program. Freshmen, sophomores, and juniors are assigned to work in the morning once per week where they are given ongoing support from their job coaches, while seniors choose their placement sites, travel independently, and work the entire school day on Fridays. Current administration and supervising faculty Allison Edwards and Karen Frigenti are the directors; they also serve as principals of the Upper and Lower Schools, respectively. Nancy Morgenroth is the director of admissions and speech and language services. The assistant principals of the Upper School are Tara Pino—also the director of the work-based learning program—and Elizabeth Breland, with Dennis Moeller having the same position in the Lower School. Long-served Lower School clinical director Sherri Bordoff moved to the Upper School and currently oversees their clinical faculty, with Lacy Ostrander, who has been a social worker in the Lower School for a number of years, taking over her prior role as clinical director. Jessica Rosenberg has been the Upper School's guidance counselor since 2023. ==Enrollment==
Enrollment
The Summit School has approximately 300 students enrolled annually. ==Extra-curricular activities==
Extra-curricular activities
The school features a student government and offers a host of extra-curricular activities, including after school enrichment programs, band, fine art, and a basketball team. Summit also sponsors annual career assemblies, and evening workshops for parents that are conducted by guest lecturers. School newspaper The Summit Sun, currently published every other Friday, is the school's official newspaper. The paper was founded in January 2010, and is primarily student organized, which discusses school activities, sports, current events, and opinion pieces. == References ==
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