Business of Sports School opened its doors in September 2009 to 108 9th grade students with the support of BOSS’s partner organizations, New Visions for Public Schools and F·E·G·S Health and Human Guidance Services System. BOSS is a proud member of the innovative New Visions Partnership Support Organization (PSO) Network and is based on an authentic learning instructional model and highly personalized small school structure.The original concept of BOSS was inspired by the Mayoral Task Force on Career & Technical Education (CTE), which called for new, creative ways to prepare students for the careers of 21st Century. A team of teachers, administrators, sports industry professionals, and representatives from New Visions, ESPN The Magazine, and F·E·G·S designed and proposed the BOSS concept during Fall 2008 and the official announcement by the New York City Department of Education in February 2009 was covered by media and sports blogs around the country.
BOSS is a limited unscreened public high school. Students who attend information sessions receive admissions priority, and students are admitted on lottery basis without regard to background or academic record. BOSS received 350 applications to its initial 9th grade class in 2009 and almost 1,500 applications to its subsquent entering classes of 108 students.
BOSS also received a large number of applications for each faculty position and was able to hire an exceptional team of teachers who value authentic curriculum which reflects the real challenges of industry professionals. BOSS also offers a dedicated, highly-trained college adviser through the CollegeBound Initiative, one of the most successful college access programs in New York.
Students fulfill the Virtual Enterprise (VE) program sequence, which offers students a full CTE Business Entrepreneurship curriculum that includes industry certification in Microsoft applications, national and international expositions, in-depth business simulations and competitions, and college-level business classes, culminating in a New York State endorsement in Business and Marketing, pending application for New York State CTE approval. In 2011, BOSS became a partner school of the National Federation for the Teaching of Entrepreneurship (NFTE).
BOSS is located on the newly renovated fifth floor within the High School of Graphics Communications Arts in midtown Manhattan. In addition to public funding from the Department of Education, BOSS has been awarded grants by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the N.Y.C. Department of Youth & Community Development (DYCD), UJA Sports for Youth , Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, the Office of the Speaker of the New York City Council Christine Quinn, the Ford Foundation Good Neighbor Committee, American Eagle Foundation (college trips), and the Vocational and Technical Education Act (VTEA).
