A Brooklyn high school named after a 9/11 hero has expanded for the new school year, more than two decades after the terrorist attacks.
Last week, Capt. Vernon A. Richard High School for Fire and Life Safety officially absorbed the High School for Civil Rights, an existing program on the East New York campus — preparing about 200 more students for careers with the New York City Fire Department and other fields.
The merger will nearly double the student body. Last year, the FDNY-themed high school enrolled 231 students, mostly boys of color from working-class families, according to local Education Department data. Three-quarters of the teens were male.
“The high school has been a vital pipeline to increasing diversity among the ranks of New York’s Bravest,” said Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker. “Expanding its campus to allow for more students will expose even more youth to the greatness of the FDNY.”
Alongside a focus on fire and life safety, the school will add two more career pathways in cybersecurity and law, its principal said. Students pursuing cybersecurity will work with the tech company Cisco; the district is seeking a partner for its law programs.
“We’re going to go from a one-track, one-dimensional school to a three-track program,” said Principal James Anderson.
“When we talk to the students, we tell them that the FDNY, whether EMT or firefighter, it could be a Plan A or a Plan B career for your life. Plan A, you know this is what you want to be when you grow up … we’ll get you squared up and lined up and right into your job. If it’s a Plan B, you want to try business or something first, we completely understand — but this would be a great certification under your belt.”
Capt. Vernon A. Richard was a firefighter killed on 9/11. The school, now in its 20th year, was renamed in his honor less than a decade ago.
Known as the “gentle giant,” Richard spent 16 years at the FDNY in the Bronx, until he was promoted in 1994 to lieutenant — the first Black firefighter appointed from that list, according to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. He died at age 53 and was posthumously promoted to captain.
“Captain Vernon A. Richard, he made the ultimate sacrifice,” Anderson said. “A lot of these students weren’t even born when 9/11 happened. So it’s really a big piece of American history that we can’t forget.”
As of June, 101 graduates had been hired by the FDNY as EMTs, paramedics and firefighters.
One of them is Kristal Payne, Class of 2013, the first female firefighter to graduate from the FDNY high school.
“I always wanted to be a firefighter. My dad was a firefighter in Barbados; all my brothers pretty much are firefighters also,” said Payne, 28.
She remembered being at a high school fair when she first learned of the program. “My mom was telling me it was going to be a long commute, but I thought this was the best option. I didn’t see any other schools after that. I was like, this is the school that I want to go to.”
©2024 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
