The Frank McCourt High School of Writing Journalism and Literature will open next fall on Columbus Avenue and 83rd Street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. It is one of four small schools that will take the place of the former Louis D. Brandeis High School, now the Brandeis High School Complex.

Three of these schools already opened in September of this year. They are Global Learning Collaborative, the Urban Assembly School for Green Careers and Innovation Diploma Plus.

Frank McCourt High School, the last of these schools, will recruit students this spring based on their middle school GPA, seventh grade ELA and math test scores, attendance history and performance during a group interview. It will emphasize communications and civic engagement. “[This is] inspired by Frank McCourt’s passion for journalism, literature and great writing,” Tom Allon (’80) said in an e-mail interview.

It was Allon’s idea to name the high school after Frank McCourt. ”I worked closely with a number of West Side elected leaders[…]as well as parents and community members from the upper West Side and Harlem,” he said.

“Many people felt it appropriate to name a new school after Frank McCourt—teacher, author, mentor and West Side community member,” Project Director and future principal Danielle Salzberg said in an e-mail interview.

Schools are usually named after the deceased “so that we don’t have schools named after people who are found later in life to be unworthy of this recognition,” Allon said.

The school will have “an entering class of approximately 108 freshman in 2010 and then each year an additional grade of that size will be added, so eventually the school should have approximately 432 students,” Allon said.

Salzberg said that McCourt’s work will be incorporated into the curriculum. “The Frank McCourt High School program is designed to train students for 21st century literacy expectations, leadership and life-long learning. Frank McCourt’s legacy in each of these areas will be explored at different points in the curriculum and will depend on future collaboration with school staff as they join the team developing the school,” she said.

Chancellor Joel Klein announced the naming at a memorial for McCourt on Tuesday, October 6, at Symphony Space on 95th Street and Broadway. The memorial lasted for over three hours and included speeches by McCourt’s three brothers, daughter and granddaughter. This was a ticketed event and the only Stuyvesant faculty members who attended were Principal Stanley Teitel, math teacher Joy Schimmel and English teacher Walter Gern.

“The memorial was very moving,” Teitel said.

“Mr. McCourt was delightful and his laugh was infectious. He made the students really think. A lot of his students became professional writers,” Schimmel said. “Mr. McCourt would be proud and surprised [to have a school named after him].”

Teitel agreed. “I know that the family feels honored and I’m sure Frank would feel the same way,” he said. “I knew Frank. I liked his books, like Teacher Man. What’s important about Frank is that he tried his best once he became famous to make people understand how difficult, but how rewarding, teaching can be.”

Students are generally supportive of the decision. “Frank McCourt was really inspiring, and having him as a role model for a school of creative writing is a good idea,” senior Ayala Mansky said. “He was obviously an intellectual, educational figure.”

Freshman Yixia She is currently reading Angela’s Ashes, McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize winning autobiography, in her English class. “He was a good writer, so a school for creative writing is a good memorial for him,” she said.

Sophomore Sophy Wu agreed. “Frank McCourt came to many high schools to educate students on how to become better writers. He should be recognized for this,” she said.