Julia Richman Education Complex

The Julia Richman Education Complex (JREC) is an educational multiplex located in the Upper East Side neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. Names after the district superintendent of schools, Julia Richman, it houses six autonomous small schools for approximately 1,800 Pre-K through 12th grade students in the former Julia Richman High School building. The schools are operated by the New York City Department of Education.

The facility was built in 1923 as an all-girls commercial high school, Julia Richman High School (JRHS). By 1990 the NYC Board of Education identified JRHS as having the worst statistics of student achievement in Manhattan. The local police precinct referred to the crime-infested school as “Julia Rikers,” known for its violence and vandalism. Metal detectors were installed and metal cages were used to isolate students with disciplinary problems. Only thirty-seven percent of its enrollees graduated.

The school closed to entering freshmen in 1993 who were given the opportunity to attend one of six new small schools located outside the school building. With money provided in part by the entities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the building was redesigned from a single school into a multi-age, multi-service learning community with six autonomous, public, Small Schools. The new schools that formed the new Julia Richman Education Complex were "hothoused" in temporary buildings elsewhere. The $30 million renovation in 1993–95 restored the exterior of the building, provided separate spaces for each of the small schools, yet maintained many of the traditional features of the building. It opened its doors to four new schools in 1995. In 1996 the last class of the former JRHS, which had stayed in the building throughout the restructuring, graduated.

Prior to its closing, Julia Richman High School had developed a reputation for academic failure with a graduation rate of 35%. Within a decade the new smaller schools claimed a low staff turnover and an average high school graduation rate in excess of 85%, more than 5% greater than the city-wide graduation rate. The school has been visited by educators and school designers from around the world to see what the then education director of the Gates Foundation has called the JREC "the best example in the United States of a multiplex of a group of very effective schools that share a common facility. And it’s a group of schools that are showing really outstanding results.”

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