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Reaching for a High School Diploma

Students juggle babies, jobs, ESL and classes at Night & Day school

By Beth J. Harpaz/AP

There are students who work all day and go to school at night. There are students who work at night and go to school all day. And there are even a few students at Manhattan Comprehensive Night & Day High School, like Marc Arthur Dautruche, who work both day and night, but still make time for class.

From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Marc’s a personal trainer in a gym. From 5 p.m. to 10:45 p.m., he’s in school. And from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m., he’s a security guard.

Students of Asian descent make up at least a third of Manhattan Comprehensive’s student body and are the fastest growing group in the school, according to Greg Cohen, Executive Director of Comprehensive Development, Inc. Radesham Mojumder, Naila Arif and Zaka Fawad (top) are all originally from Bangladesh and are studying hard, along with Manjinder Singh (lower left) from India and Isaias Songcuan (lower right) of the Philippines. Photos by Khan Feroze.

“I might sleep for two hours,” Dautruche, 20, says nonchalantly. “I know what I’m doing. I need to finish school. I want to be a lawyer. And when I get paid, I send money home to my family in Haiti.”

Like most of his classmates at Night & Day, Dautruche’s reality is worlds away from the more carefree life of a typical American high school student. The doors here open at 10 a.m. and close at 11 p.m., and the curriculum is designed for students age 17 to 22 who are juggling school with full-time jobs or child care — often while struggling to find housing or learn English.

“Anyone who comes here isn’t here because life is good to them,” said Howard Friedman, Night & Day’s principal and founder.

Half of the 800 students are immigrants; the other half dropped out of regular high school but still want an academic diploma rather than a less-prestigious GED.

Like many students, Momin Hussain, 20, is on his own. His parents live back in his home country of Bangladesh. Hussain sprints from his last class of the day to a night shift in a Thai restaurant, and speaks wistfully of the teen-agers he sometimes sees hanging out.

“They’re playing in the summertime in the park, but I have to go to work,” said Hussain. “I don’t get angry, but I feel sometimes I wish I could do it. Then I think, no, whatever I do myself, I feel very proud.”

Hussain wolfs down cereal and a muffin in the Night & Day cafeteria at 10:30 a.m., then heads to his first class at 11 a.m. “I went before to a regular high school, but it was hard for me, because it started at eight o’clock in the morning and I finished working at midnight,” he explained.

Night classes begin at 5 p.m., perfect for students like Yajaira Oliver, who works from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. She likes her job as a photo lab supervisor in a drug store, but she sees a diploma as the only way to something better.

“There’s more jobs out there for me,” said Oliver, whose paycheck helps support a sister and nephew. “I’d like to go to college and use my skills to get a more high-paying job, maybe something with computers.”

Over 90 percent of Night & Day’s students get their diplomas; 60 percent go immediately to college. But many aspects of daily living that other young adults might take for granted are considered luxuries by these students — for example, privacy.

“A student will come in and say, ‘I didn’t get my homework done,”’ Friedman said. “Why didn’t you get your homework done? ‘I had to turn off the light. The rest of the family had to go to sleep.’ Then you realize they’re living in a studio with a whole bunch of people.”

Sisters Dikra and Bushra Algutaini live with eight siblings and their parents in a three-room apartment, but they consider themselves lucky. “In my country, Yemen, some families don’t want their daughters to go to school. But my father, he says we have to go to school,” Bushra says proudly.

The New York City Board of Education provides regular funding, which all public high schools are entitled to get. But a non-profit organization, Comprehensive Development Inc., raises money for extras, like restoration of the 100-year-old building in which the school is housed on the Lower East Side, and funding for the social supports many students need.

“There’s housing help, legal help, medical help — everything middle class families do for their kids, we try to do for these kids,” said Greg Cohen, who heads Comprehensive Development.

A medical van comes once a week offering health care. A lawyer drops by to help with immigration problems, landlord-tenant disputes and even the occasional hip-hop record contract. There’s also job training, tutoring, college placement and two counselors who help with housing.

A spotless private bathroom with a shower was installed in the student life center for kids who are sleeping on friends’ sofas but don’t want to push a tenuous living arrangement by tying up the host’s bathroom.

While many students don’t live with their parents, some are parents themselves. Supreme Paey and Charlene McLean, both 19, have a 1-year-old daughter, Inayah. Paey attends school at night and works at Macy’s during the day; McLean attends a different high school during the day and works at Macy’s at night.

Inayah has one baby sitter for days, and another for nights, but on a rare day off with both mom and dad, they sat together, the three of them on a park bench, blowing kisses like they didn’t have a care in the world.

“I don’t worry about anything when I’m with her,” Paey said as his little girl cooed “Da-da, da-da.”

And while regular high school students have time for socializing and sports, Night & Day students make every minute count. On a recent evening, at 6:50 p.m., Christopher Alvarez, 18, who’s from the Dominican Republic and works as a stock clerk in a Polo clothing store, sat in the school cafeteria with a burger in one hand and a vocabulary sheet in the other.

“I want to improve my English,” he said as he perused words like “cordial” and “virtue.” “I’d like to be a senator one day.”

Upstairs from the cafeteria, students playing volleyball in the gym had chosen to skip the period programmed into their schedules for dinner, in order to burn off a little energy. Gym teacher Carl Burnett, who also teaches health education and conflict resolution, says there’s a big difference between Night & Day students and the kids in the high school where he worked previously for 15 years.

“They want to be here, so it’s a pleasure teaching them,” he said. “You don’t find correction going on. You find teaching going on. I find students who want to learn.”

Yinhui He, 19, an ambitious Chinese immigrant, already owns his own restaurant, but he’s got his eye on a diploma from Night & Day anyway.

“Everybody knows only education can improve your life,” he said. “I understand my situation. I need school. I have a dream in my future that I’m going to college. If I finish college, I have the ability to make a contribution to America.”

Then he stifles a yawn. “But I’m tired,” he admits with a smile. “I’m really tired.”