Elias Lieberman (1883-1969), American poet, writer and educator, known for the 1916 poem "I Am an American,” served as principal from 1924 to 1940.[3] Alumni of his time include movie star and comedian Danny Kaye (who did not graduate) and songwriter Jack Lawrence. Additionally, Thomas Jefferson was one of seven public high schools in New York to receive a M. P. Mollerpipe organ in 1926. The instrument was removed and discarded in the 1990s.[4]
A relatively prosperous lower middle class community throughout the interwar epoch, the surrounding neighborhood of East New York faced a host of socioeconomic problems in the mid-to-late 20th century, including widespread unemployment and crime stemming from a lack of private investment (exemplified by redlining, mortgage discrimination and the gradual diminution of remunerative manufacturing jobs) amid the segregated wave of postwar suburbanization. On November 26, 1991, Darryl Sharpe, a ninth-grade student who was an innocent bystander, was shot to death in the school. Another youth was trying to help his brother in a fistfight, drew a gun, and opened fire in the crowded hallway. The three shots killed the 16-year-old student and critically wounded a teacher, Robert Anderson, who was approaching to intervene. At the time, education officials in New York called it "one of the school system's worst crimes" and noted that besides an accidental shooting in 1989, it was the first killing of a student in a school in more than a decade.[1][5][6] The 14-year old shooter, Jason Bentley, was sentenced to three to nine years in prison for second degree manslaughter. Bentley was on parole for this homicide on June 22, 1997, when Luis Cabral Corcino was murdered in a robbery. Bentley was convicted of murder and was sentenced to 35 years to life.[7]
On February 26, 1992, a 15-year-old student at the school shot two other students, who died thereafter, in the hallway an hour before then-mayorDavid Dinkins was supposed to tour the school.[8] The victims were 17-year-old Ian Moore and 16-year-old Tyrone Sinkler.[9] In 1993, the shooter, Kahlil Sumpter, was sentenced to between 62⁄3 and twenty years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter.[10] He was released on parole in 1998.
In the photograph above, the main entrance of TJHS is clearly engraved with a quote from Abraham Lincoln, "May reverence for the laws become the political religion of the nation." For 90 years students, and perhaps faculty, have wondered why the authorities were unable to find an appropriate quotation from Thomas Jefferson himself to grace the entrance to his namesake school.
The World Academy for Total Community Health High School
In 2015, two of the new schools were graduating about 70 percent of their students and the other two have graduation rates in the 50s.[8] In New York City overall in 2015, just over 78 percent of New York State students who entered high school in 2011 graduated on time according to state officials. However, the percentage is 88 percent for white students and only 65 percent for black and Hispanic students during the same time period.[11]
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.(April 2019)
