Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg is bankrolling a new high school where students graduate with the credentials and network to go right into jobs at the city’s largest health care provider.
The Northwell School of Health Sciences will open in Woodside, Queens, for the 2025-26 school year. It’s expected to serve up to 900 students and offer unique learning tools — from life-like interactive mannequins to simulation technology that capture the “sights, sounds and smells” of working in health care, education officials said.
Schools Chancellor David Banks has often described career education as one of his two main priorities, alongside literacy programs. Two years into his tenure, those plans are coming into focus with the forthcoming school, as well as new career programming at existing schools and the city’s signature summer youth employment program.
“I want every child who graduates,” Banks said last fall of his vision for the public schools, “[to] have the skills that they need to be successful, so that they can go on and have a wonderful career for themselves and get off of mommy and daddy’s payroll. I think that would be a wonderful thing, if we can make that happen.”
“I raised four children, and they’re all grown now and every one of them has a college degree. Every one of them is gainfully employed. They don’t ask to even borrow any money from me — hallelujah!”
The Northwell School is receiving $24.9 million over five years from a national Bloomberg Philanthropies initiative to open 10 health care-focused high schools, including eight in cities and two in rural areas. The investment is earmarked for major start-up costs, such as teacher recruitment, curriculum development, internship stipends and classroom and lab materials and renovations.
Bloomberg Philanthropies will track graduation rates and success landing a job after graduation.
“Just graduating kids who are not college-bound with no skills is doing them a tremendous disservice,” said Howard Wolfson, the education program lead of Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Northwell’s programming, credentials and certifications will focus on four health care fields: diagnostic medicine, physical therapy, mental health and nursing. Students can use those skills to enter the workforce or earn at least seven college credits before graduation.
“If I do this right, I’m creating a future workforce,” said Michael Dowling, CEO of Northwell Health.
In the early grades, students will learn about different health care careers and shadow professionals, until choosing one of the four career paths in the 10th grade. As they get older, those opportunities will grow into health care internships that pay minimum wage and offer mentorship.
“They’re going to get to be engaged in work-based learning experiences, some of those which are paid, so putting money in their pockets before they’ve left school,” said Jade Grieve, chief of student pathways at the city school system.
About 100 to 200 students can enroll in the school’s inaugural year; education officials declined to explain the admissions process.
Banks first teased the new school at a state hearing on the education budget, where he also promoted a new location of Bard High School Early College in Brooklyn and Motion Picture Technical High School in Queens.
“We don’t want them to just graduate with a diploma, and we say congratulations,” Banks said at the hearing. “But they’re actually on a track and a path to a real rewarding career and a real job.”
The focus on career and technical education follows a national trend. Over the past decade, dozens of states have increased funding for such programs by an average of $182 million, according to a recent analysis by the group Advance CTE.
Wolfson, of Bloomberg Philanthropies, said there used to be many career and technical programs across the country. But systems moved away from vocational schools when they did not prepare students for high-paying careers and “tracked” children, often in deeply problematic ways based on class and race.
“Now, there’s a growing recognition that we need to do this better,” Wolfson said, “but that it is essential to be doing.”
