August Martin High School

"Woodrow Wilson Vocational High School" redirects here. For other uses, see Woodrow Wilson High School.

August Martin High School
Building completed in 1942
Address
156-10 Baisley Boulevard South Jamaica, Queens, New York City , New York USA
Coordinates	40°40′29″N73°47′00″W / 40.6747641°N 73.7832325°W / 40.6747641; -73.7832325
Information
Type	Public high school
Established	1971
Faculty	41.61 FTEs [1]
Grades	9–12
Enrollment	504 (as of 2022-23) [1]
Student to teacher ratio	12.11 [1]
Website	www.augustmartin.org

August Martin High School is a New York City public high school located in South Jamaica, Queens, at 156-10 Baisley Boulevard. The school focuses on aviation (students can obtain their pilot's certification while studying there) and other vocational areas. Presently, the school comprises the following four academies, which as of 2014 had a combined enrollment of 853 students: ^[2]

• Aerospace and Technology Academy
• Communication Arts Academy
• Law Scholars Academy
• Culinary Arts Academy

In addition, two separate alternative high schools share the same building:

• Foundry High School, enrollment 108 ^[3]
• Voyages Preparatory High School South Queens, enrollment 150 ^[4]

As of the 2014-15 school year, the school had an enrollment of 678 students and 42.6 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 15.9:1. There were 468 students (69.0% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 42 (6.2% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch. ^[1]

History

Plans for the school, originally the Woodrow Wilson High School, existed as early as 1930, to relieve crowding in Jamaica High School. ^[5] The school's building opened in 1942 as Woodrow Wilson Vocational High School. Quotes from former President Woodrow Wilson still adorn the school building's facade. Initially it trained thousands of people to join defense-related industries during World War II, ^{[6] [7]} although it was planned in 1940, prior to the nation's entry into the war. ^[8]

Woodrow Wilson closed in 1971 when August Martin High School opened in the same building. The primary goal of the new school was to train African Americans to enter the aviation industry. The school's namesake, August Martin (1919-1968), was trained as a military pilot during World War II as one of the Tuskegee Airmen, and after the war became the first African American commercial airline pilot. Martin graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx in 1938 and lived in New York City for much of his life. He died in 1968 when the plane he was piloting crashed during a humanitarian relief mission to the Biafra region of Nigeria. ^{[6] [9]}

In 2012, neighborhood residents, elected officials, and students protested a plan to close August Martin High School, considered to be under-performing by the New York City Department of Education's leadership, and open new schools in the same building under different names. This practice had been followed previously at other schools around the city. The protesters stressed the importance of the name to the community. ^[10] As of 2015, the school continues to operate as August Martin High School, and this name is still prominently engraved over the door, although the building also hosts two smaller high schools that use different names. ^[2]

Notable alumni

• Lloyd Banks, (born 1982), rapper in the group G-Unit; dropped out in 1998
• Byron Brown, (born 1958), mayor of Buffalo, New York ^[11]
• Ed Lover (born 1963), African-American radio personality, and former MTV VJ. ^[12]
• Najee, (born 1957), jazz and smooth jazz saxophonist and flautist ^[13]
• Kelly Price (born 1973), R&B and soul singer, formerly on the Def Soul label.
• Freedom Williams (born 1966). African American entertainer and rapper and co-founder of the seminal dance hip-hop group C+C Music Factory.
• Russell Simmons, (born 1957), African American entrepreneur, the co-founder, with Rick Rubin, of the pioneering hip-hop label Def Jam, and creator of the clothing fashion line Phat Farm. Graduated in 1975. ^[14]
• Stephen K. Benjamin, (born 1969), served as Mayor of Columbia, South Carolina from 2010 to 2021. He served as the 76th President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors from 2018 to 2019 and as President of the African American Mayors Association from 2015 to 2016. On February 27, 2023, President Joseph Biden announced that Stephen Benjamin would serve as Senior Advisor and Director of the Office of Public Engagement.

References

1. School data for August Martin High School, National Center for Education Statistics. Accessed June 2, 2024.
2. "August Martin High School". InsideSchools.org. InsideSchools.org. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
3. "Directory of New Schools, Sept. 2014" (PDF). schools.nyc.gov. New York City Department of Education. p. 14. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
4. "Voyages Preparatory High School South Queens". InsideSchools.org. InsideSchools.org.
5. "2 Queens Schools To Cost $5,000,000" (PDF). The New York Times . May 29, 1930. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
6. Malcolm, Andrew H. (February 14, 1971). "New City School to Stress Flying". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
7. Shannon, Jan (December 12, 1971). "Queens High School Aims at Training Blacks for the Aviation Industry". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
8. "New High School Planned for Queens". The New York Times. May 2, 1940. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
9. "Trail Blazers: August Harvey Martin". Black-n-Flight.com. Black-n-Flight.com. Archived from the original on 20 November 2014. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
10. Rennison, Billy (18 April 2012). "Community says changing the name of August Martin HS destroys legacy". Queens Courier. Archived from the original on 19 January 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
11. August Martin HS webpage Archived August 2, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
12. "NCUA Announces Two New Senior Leaders" (PDF). NCUA.gov. National Credit Union Administration. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-07. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
13. "Najee's Got Chops to Spare". Daily News (New York, New York). November 6, 2009.
14. Shin, Paul H.B. (April 6, 2001). "Class Act for Celebs". Daily News. New York, New York. p. 31 – via Newspapers.com.

External links

• Official August Martin HS homepage
• Review of August Martin HS at insideschools.org
• Biography of August Martin at black-n-flight.com