Harry S. Truman High School (Bronx)

Harry S. Truman High School
Aerial view of Harry S Truman High School and Co-op City
Address
750 Baychester Avenue Bronx, New York 10475 United States
Information
Type	Public secondary
Opened	September 10, 1973 (1973-09-10)
Principal	Keri Alfano
Grades	9–12
Color(s)	Green/White
Mascot	Mustangs
Website	Truman High School

Harry S. Truman High School is a public high school at 750 Baychester Avenue, in the Co-op City section of the Bronx, New York City, United States. The school is designated as an Empowerment School by the New York City Department of Education, which allows it more autonomy in choosing a curriculum. Truman shares a uniquely designed and interconnected campus with two middle schools, MS 180 and 181, and two elementary schools, PS 178 and 153. The campus was designed to be a one-stop and close-to-home solution for students and families in the Co-op City neighborhood, although many of the students commute to school from other parts of the city. The main Truman building is also home to the Bronx Health Sciences High School, which occupies a portion of the third floor, and PS 176X, a special education school for autistic students, which shares a small portion of the first and second floors.

Truman High School is one of the remaining large high schools in the Bronx that has not been phased out and broken up into a number of small schools. This trend, which has been popular in the city, has seen other high schools in the borough, such as Evander Childs High School and Roosevelt High School closed and split into a number of smaller schools located in the same building. The school does, however, host Bronx Health Sciences High School created as part of the small schools movement, and previously hosted two additional high schools which have since moved to other locations. Truman High School and Bronx Health Sciences compose Harry S. Truman Educational Campus.

The site of Truman High School and the rest of Co-op City was originally home to the Freedomland amusement park. In the mid-1960s, when Co-op City was being constructed, the city proposed to construct a large high school in the development as well as Herbert H. Lehman High School and Adlai E. Stevenson High School in eastern Bronx, John F. Kennedy High School in western Bronx, South Shore High School in Brooklyn, and August Martin High School in Queens. Both Truman and Kennedy High Schools were planned as "educational parks", containing multiple schools in park settings, and integrating students from multiple areas and backgrounds to stave off de facto segregation within the school system. Truman's academic park was also called "Northeast Bronx Educational Park" or "East Bronx Educational Park", with a total of five schools planned in the complex to serve 10,400 students from both Co-op City and surrounding neighborhoods. The Northeast Bronx Park was funded by a grant as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and was to be the prototype for numerous academic parks in other parts of the city. The project was sponsored and developed by the United Housing Foundation and RiverBay Corporation, who also developed Co-op City.