The hallways at the High School of Computers and Technology are so quiet at 3 p.m. on weekdays, you could hear a pin drop. Straight after 8th period, students go home.

“I don’t attend any after school program from school, because there aren’t any,” said Luis Kelly, a junior.

All of the after school programs were cut last year due to budget restraints, said Principal Bruce Abramowitz.

“Due to excess budget cuts over the last three years, our after school programs are the first to be sacrificed, “ said Abramowitz. “I have to make choices between mandated instructional programs and…after school activities, and instructional programs have to come first.”

This was not a popular decision with HSCT students.

“I want HSCT to offer a stable music program after school, so students can learn the basics of instruments and how to play them,” said Marino Villar, a junior.
“I am a very artistic guy. It would be nice if the school offered after school programs for art,” said honor roll junior Jimmy Xique, “just drawing or learning to draw and paint professionally.”

Some students, like Nichelle Cross, thinks after school programs would help the culture of the school as well. “It would be beneficial if the school offered a Gay/Straight Alliance, considering how disapproving people are about homosexuality,” she said.

“After school programs teach skills such as critical thinking, technology, literacy, ability to collaborate and work in teams,” said Chris Seamens, a program coordinator at the Partnership for After School Education. “Talk to your principal. Talk to an organization. Try to get them to organize an after school program in your school.”

Last year, said Abramowitz, SOBRO, a non-profit organization, provided the school with after school programs such as music production, graphic design, dance, film production and photography. But when he needed to use funds to help struggling students, he created a summer school and cut afternoon programming. “The economy is tough,” he said.

“I usually go to work after school, and after work I do my homework,” said Brian Eylinkrig, a junior. He is involved with the school’s robotics program, but that only runs for six weeks in the fall.

“After school I just go home,” said Darnell Crawford, a senior, who with his peers heads for the bus stop after 8th period.

“Just because your school does not have after school programs does not mean you cannot get involved with other after school programs outside of your school,” said Seamens.

He’s only 16 months old now, but when little Willie gets older, he’s attending the new Kips Bay Boys and Girls Clubhouse on University Avenue, according to his older cousin, Raven Cornish. That way he won’t be one of those kids who “has to wander the streets,” says Cornish.
The clubhouse, which opened this spring, offers SAT preparatory courses, leadership programs, work programs to prepare children for the future, and college preparatory classes, according to Executive Director Daniel Quintero. Kids can also enjoy playing basketball or a game of pool.
“That’s the first place I’ll send my [10-year-old] son,” says Florence Evans, a resident of the River Park Towers, a housing complex near the clubhouse. Otherwise, “he’d just be aimlessly playing around not learning anything.”
Pastor William Barbor of Christ’s Life Evangelism Inc., which is across the street from the clubhouse, loves the addition to the neighborhood. “It would develop leaders for tomorrow,” he said.
“This is a 20-year project,” says Kathryn Speller, a Community Board 5 board member and longtime resident of Morris Heights. “Some of the people who started the foundation of this clubhouse are dead. There are no types of after school programs within the district where kids can go to learn about art, music, etc. In order to keep them out of gangs, we need more youth programs.”
Residents and community leaders alike recognize the need for a youth development program in the area. “We have a huge youth population in Community Board 5,” said Xavier Rodriguez, the board’s district manager. “For youths ages 9 to 21, there are not many indoor facilities. You gotta give young people an alternative to video games.”
Community Board 5, which comprises the neighborhoods of Mount Hope, Morris Heights, University Heights and South Fordham, has a larger percentage of its population under the age of 18. Borough-wide, 28 percent of the population is under 18, but in CB5, this figure reaches 36 percent.
Adrina Figueroa, a local resident and former Kips Bay employee, says that the new clubhouse will “keep the youth off the streets and prevent them from becoming criminals, like the ones that robbed my brother.” Figueroa’s younger brother was recently robbed of his iPod at gunpoint around his apartment building on University Avenue.
Quintero has faith that his new center will keep crime down in the neighborhood. “Surveys tell us when new clubhouses open up, crime rates go down, graffiti decreases, and the grades of the students in the clubhouse go up,” he said.
In order to ensure the safety of the children, the clubhouse will have staff present at all times, a desk security guard monitoring the front door, and security cameras in every hallway and stairwell.
“If the clubhouse gives children a place to go after school, it’s a good thing,” said Morris Heights resident Tyjuana Julien.
Editor’s Note: The clubhouse is located at 1835 University Ave. For information, call Renard Cardona, the unit director, at (718) 975-0788, ext. 407.

Students at University Heights Secondary School are upset that their school is moving from its current location on the Bronx Community College campus to the South Bronx High School campus in Morrisania.
UHSS has been housed in a BCC building for more than 22 years, and for three straights years it’s been rated ‘A’ in its DOE progress report. Many students feel that their grades will drop when the move happens. “We are going to be rated an ‘F’,” said Kevin Abreu, a University Heights student. “I would rather stay here. I don’t want to move to the south Bronx.”

Most of the school’s students live in the neighborhood, and are able to walk to school, which is in University Heights. Moving to the south Bronx is going to change that. “We want to walk to school, not take the train,” said student Kelvin Fernandez.

Armani Kaba, another student at the school, says his mother did not want him to go to school in the south Bronx because she thinks it’s a bad neighborhood.
The school is moving because BCC says it needs the extra classroom space. But many students and parents believe the college and the DOE should have done more to keep what is a successful school together.
Senior Peter Bravato says BCC is looking out for its finances. “They see that this building has potential,” he said. “They realized that since we [the school] don’t have to pay, we should be kicked out so they can make more money.”
These past months, students have held multiple rallies to show that they are not going to give up that easily. After the decision was finalized on March 23, several students, along with a teacher and a social worker, decided to make their voices heard by creating a video called “University Heights is Calling Obama,” and posted it on YouTube.

Maria Ruiz, a senior who directed the video, said in an email interview that University Heights opened doors for her as a teenager mother. “They gave me a second chance that not many teen mothers get,” she said. University Heights offers programs such as the Living for the Young Family Through Education (LYFE) program, which helps teen mothers stay in school by taking care of their kids during the daytime. “They love and care for children as their own,” said Ruiz. “They welcomed me and my daughter with open arms.”

According to the video, the LYFE center does not only cater to students in University Heights, but to other teen mothers in several other schools in the Bronx.
Parents are also against the move. “A high school being on a college campus motivates them to finish school,” a parent of a senior said. “I feel bad for these kids; they might drop out of school now.”
Bryant Mason, a spokesman for BCC, said in an email that it is with deep regret that they are asking University Heights to move. “We intend to keep and nurture the partnerships that we have enjoyed with the University Heights High School over the years, no matter where they are located,” he said.

On River Avenue at 157th Street, a new skate park opened this spring, on what was formerly a parking lot. It features bowls, benches, grind rails, quarter pipes, ledges, and outdoor fitness equipment, and is already popular with local children and teenagers.

Across the street, a new playground – River Avenue Playground – is being built on another parking lot, next to an old mural of famous Yankee players. When finished, the playground will sport monkey bars, swings, and also some green features, including lights, spray showers, green space, and benches. The lights and spray showers will be activated by the noise and vibrations of the 4-train, which passes overhead, according to a billboard attached to the playground’s fence.

But while local residents are excited about the skate park and new playground, they have been critical of the choice of location. Being so close to the train, noise pollution may repel rather than attract children and teens.

“These parks should be built where trains and traffic won’t pass by,” said Grand Concourse resident Luz Minier.

“It’ll make a lot of noise when the trains pass by,” said potential playground goer Dewin Done, 8.

The roar of the train could have lasting implications. A 2009 study in American Journal of Public Health shows that exposure to New York City trains can cause prolonged hearing loss.

But Parks Department spokesperson Vickie Karp said that New York City is loud and it is inevitable that some parks will be located near a subway. “This is not a Parks issue. It is a New York City issue,” she said.

Construction began in 2008, and was supposed to wrap up last year. But that hasn’t happened. The discovery of contamination, including high levels of lead, has derailed the project. With an original budget of $5.9 million, the discovery of lead more than doubled the price tag to $13 million and delayed the opening of the park indefinitely.

Local baseball players have been hit especially hard. With only two completed fields and piles of contaminated dirt, the field is unusable. But that hasn’t stopped some eager sportsmen, who sneak in to play.

The field is already starting to look forlorn. Empty soda bottles and crumpled chip wrappers line its edge. The fence that gates the contaminated dirt has been torn down. A mangled, graffitied “Danger” sign now hangs from that torn fence.

Sandy Rivera, a resident of Bedford Park since the ‘80s, doesn’t understand why the construction of the park has taken so long. Like many other residents interviewed, Rivera feels that the city isn’t making their park a priority. To them, Yankee Stadium, only a few miles away, seemed to have been built in a day compared to Harris Field.

The tradeoff between her and her teacher isn’t something that would put them in jail, but before Candace goes through scanning, the teacher puts her cell phone in her purse and keeps it until the end of the day.

Students in the Bronx are turning to extreme measures to have their phones close at hand. Some bury them, leave it at a bodega or deli for a dollar a day, or even try to sneak in through the side doors of a school building to avoid the metal detectors.

“I leave my phone at the store every day,” said Kingsbridge resident Rahwa Hussein, 17. For $1, a day, the owner and others like him look after the phones of hundreds of students who, like Candace, attend school on the Evander Childs campus. In return, they get a ticket to pick it up at the end of the day. Rahwa’s satisfied with the transaction but “with that dollar, I could be eating,” she said.

This policy isn’t endorsed by the city, but the Department of Education “cannot set policy regarding retailers who do not operate on DOE property,” a DOE spokesperson said in an email.

At a store near the Evander Childs campus, the cell phone storage system has gone through a number of variations. One store used to give out a piece of cardboard with a number on it, but when students started making duplicates of the cards and stealing phones, the store had to come up with the clever system that they have now: laminated cards with the store’s information on one side and the ticket number on the other. One store went as far as building little cubbies behind the counter and numbering them so the workers could find the phones faster.

At the Evander Childs campus, which is home to several small high schools, students caught with cell phones receive either a warning or the phones are confiscated.  Parents are often required to come to the school and get the phone themselves.

“I tried to sneak my phone in, and it resulted in confiscation,” said Unique Scott, 17. Thinking it wasn’t going to ring, he put the whole phone in his pocket, then walked through scanning. That’s when he was asked to empty his pockets by the security guard and it was taken away.

Some students were even desperate enough to put their cell phones in a plastic bag, and bury it on school grounds. A few went missing and this method didn’t last very long because there was too much risk of it being stolen.

According to the DOE spokesperson, the reason cell phones are banned in school is that they “inevitably disrupt learning and security in and around classrooms.”

But several Bronx students interviewed feel like Unique, who said, “We should be able to bring our phones in. It’s a necessity and it completes me!”

This fight caused the students and teachers to reflect on the role of the agents within the school, which is located on East Gun Hill Road on the Evander Childs campus.
“The agents forgot we’re just teenagers,” says Hope Mayes, a senior.

“That situation was blown out of proportion on both sides,” says school aide Joslie Rodriguez.

But students feel there is little they can do to prevent this from re-occurring.

“We’re taught we’re supposed to accept the system as if there is nothing we can do about it,” says Mayes. The fight was “totally uncalled for. That’s not what’s supposed to happen, especially between adults and students.” Students are reminded of it all the time because they see the agents involved in fights on a daily basis, working their regular shifts.

Other school aides, including Lashawn Jackson, hope for the relationship between students and school safety to change. The agents “need sensitivity training and a better system of communication,” Jackson said.

“There is no relationship” between school safety and other members of the staff, said an agent who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We come to do a job. For kids to respect you, you have to show it as well, but you have those who are rude.”

School safety agents are employed by the NYPD and are trained to use force when a child is considered a threat and to issue a summons, if necessary. Because of this, students tend to view agents the same way they view police officers. When questioned or asked for IDs, students interviewed said they feel harassed. Negative interactions simmer and have the potential to boil over when tempers are high.

“We’re people just like you students are,” said another agent who didn’t want her name used. “We have family and have bad days just like you do that we may bring to work with us just like you bring to school.”

But Assistant Principal Theresa Wyre-Jackson says some agents “tend to treat students like this is a prison system. Students become resentful.”

Bag searches at subway stations have left some teenagers feeling singled out.
The searches were introduced in the summer of 2005 following terrorist attacks on the transit system in London, England, which killed more than 50 people, and a failed attack weeks later in the same city. The NYPD said the searches were necessary, and could stop future attacks here in New York. After all, the men who detonated the bombs in London carried the explosives in backpacks.
But some local teens feel the searches, which continue to this day, are unfair. “I feel like they are coming at the wrong people,” said Adisa Cassell, a 17-year-old senior at Rice High School in Harlem. “If they are going to check anyone’s book bag, check everybody’s book bag,”
Adisa says he and his friends feel the police deliberately target minorities, and that the searches are anything but random. They believe that white people are less likely to get their bags searched, or stopped and frisked. “I grew up in New York and I’ve never in my 17 years seen a cop stop a white boy,” said Misaell Cabrall, who attends All Hallows High School on East 164th Street.
During his sophomore year in high school, Misaell was stopped by the police. “I was just going to pick up my girlfriend from school,” he said. “Being that it was a half day, the police officer thought I was cutting school, but I wasn’t.”
Teens often feel they have to curb the way they dress or express themselves, to protect against any preconceived notions police officers may have about young people. “Some teens feel nervous when they write on their [book] bag because they know that police officers would suspect them of being an uncivilized teenager,” said Ryan Fuentes, 17. “They check you if you fit those descriptions.”
Robert Gomez, a former FBI agent who is now a teacher at All Hallows, believes random bag searches in subway stations are a necessary evil. However, judging people on their appearance is wrong, he said.
Soon after the searches began, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the NYPD, charging that the searches were unconstitutional, as well as ineffective in stopping terrorism. But the NYCLU lost the court battle, and the searches continued.
The police did not return emails seeking comment on how the searches are conducted.