The New York State Department of Education had given Priority School status to Van Buren High School because of low graduation rates and low scores on state testing.[5] On December 1, 2017, Van Buren High School was removed from Priority School status because its four-year graduation rates had increased.[5]
Demographics
There are 1,157 students enrolled at Martin Van Buren High School.[6] Of the students, 49% are black, 27% are Asian, 18% are Latino, 9% are white, 9% are American Indian, and 2% are Pacific Islander.[7] Students come from more than twenty countries.
History
In 1952, the New York City Board of Education approved the construction of a new high school at 229th Street and Hillside Avenue.[8] Queens Village's population had greatly increased, and the school was needed to reduce overcrowding at Jamaica High School, Bayside High School, and Andrew Jackson High School.[8][9] The Board of Education originally approved a budget of $3,000,000 for construction,[8] but a few months later it increased the budget to $5,500,000.[10] The budget was increased again to $6,000,000 (equivalent to $68,800,000 in 2023),[11] making it the costliest school in New York City at the time.[12]
The school was designed by Eliot B. Willauer of the notable architectural firm Eggers & Higgins, architects on the Jefferson Memorial, as part of the Board of Education's half-billion dollar post-World War II expansion program.[11][13][14] The school was designed as a three-story building with 40 classrooms and a 1,120-seat auditorium, with a total school capacity of 3,000 students.[11][15] The school would sit on 12 acres of land, 5.5 acres of which were for outdoor athletics.[11][16] The official groundbreaking ceremony was held on January 6, 1954.[9] Caristo Construction Corporation built the building.[12]
The working name for the school had been East Queens High School, but before it opened the school was officially named Martin Van Buren High School, after the Martin Van Buren, the eighthpresident of the United States and the first U.S. president born in New York state.[1][17] It opened to students on September 12, 1955.[1] The school sports teams are called the "Vee Bees" (or the fighting Vee Bees), a reference to the initials VB, and have a bee as their logo.[18]
Notable alumni
This article's list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations.(October 2019)
This is a partial list of notable alumni of Martin Van Buren High School.
^"Lang, Tishman Head N.Y.U. Fencing Team." The New York Times, July 4, 1971. Accessed February 10, 2018. "Marty Lang of Glen Oaks, Queens, and Jeff Tishman of Glen Rock, N. J., have been named co‐captains of the 1971– 72 New York University fencing team, which shared the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship with Columbia last season.... Lang, a graduate of Martin Van Buren High School in Queens, was a member of the 1969 and 1970 United States senior world championship fencing team."