Elite Stuyvesant HS qualifies for fed poverty aid

By YOAV GONEN

Last Updated: 11:56 AM, September 20, 2010

Posted: 5:11 AM, September 20, 2010

It’s still the city’s crown jewel – but now it’s also on the federal dole.

Stuyvesant HS, the city’s perennially most successful and renown public high school, has for the first time been designated as a high-poverty school under federal guidelines.

The stunning designation, which came after the Manhattan school’s population topped the 40 percent eligibility line for free and reduced-price lunch last year, has raised eyebrows at some high-poverty schools across the city.

The status change is expected to bring the school a hefty $1.6 million in federal poverty aid known as Title I, an amount equal to roughly 10 percent of the school's 2009 budget.

Parents say a number of factors have pushed the school’s poverty makeup from 17 percent in 2006 to 41 percent last year – including the sour economy and an influx of recently-arrived immigrants.

But they also said the numbers are simply a more accurate assessment of the school’s population that stemmed from a campaign to make sure all the high-poverty kids were properly identified.

(note:What you read above this line is not exactly what appeared in the print edition today but it's close. Now everything you read from here on wasn't in the paper version AT ALL.)

“Usually the underlying assumption is that somehow these are better-off kids,â€