Editor’s note: To read profiles of all 2016-2017 Blackboard Awards honorees, click HERE! Plus: Scroll down for video from the Awards ceremony.
Food and Finance High School
Principal: Roger Turgeon
9-12
525 West 50th Street
Award: Outstanding School
Describe your school’s core educational philosophy.
Food and Finance is a Career Technical Education (CTE) – NYC public High School. Not only do we offer all of the required academic subjects needed to graduate with a Regents diploma, we offer our students the opportunity to stretch their thinking and develop their skills to achieve an industry certification. We believe all students can and should go to college. In their four years of attendance at Food and Finance, we provide them with all the opportunities needed to achieve that goal.
Tell us about a few of the school’s achievements or distinguishing programs.
Our students are our achievements, therefore, their achievements are our achievements. When our students achieve success in getting accepted to college and then graduating from college that is our success. Their failure is our failure. We are a community.
What’s new?
We have had two of our students compete in the Food Network’s Teen “Chopped” Competition this past year alone. Our June graduates have earned the largest amount to date in scholarships totaling $325,000. With the growing increase in senior internships each year, restaurant and bakery owners are asking for more students because of the quality and skills the students bring to them.
What do you love about your school?
What I love about my school is that we bring an outstanding opportunity to the children of New York City. If it were not for the school, the success of hundreds of students who have crossed our doors and achieving their goal would perhaps never have happened. The school and our partners have opened doors that would normally be closed to high school students. I also consider myself to be a particularly fortunate individual to be surrounded by people who are like-minded. Many of these people work in the school and others volunteer from the Food Education Fund. They all see the benefit and the opportunities that this school affords students with the desire and passion to work in the food service industry. It is indeed a joy and pleasure to work with the many different volunteers.
