The Summit School is a state approved, private special education day school in Queens, New York, United States. Established in 1968, it operates two sites near the St. John's University campus; the Lower School, which educates elementary and middle school students, utilizes space in the Hillcrest Jewish Center, and the Upper School serves high school students in Jamaica Estates. In contrast to most private schools, which are independently operated, Summit is tuition-free and accepts students from all five boroughs of New York City, as well as from Westchester, Nassau, and Suffolk counties. Summit is also considered to be a well-regarded school for students with learning disabilities, and it has a highly competitive student and faculty enrollment process. History The Summit School of Queens, New York was founded by Hershel Stiskin in 1968 as a charter school for children and adolescents with a wide array of special needs. When Stiskin moved to Israel in 1972, his brother, Mayer and sister-in-law Ninette—founders of Summit's residential center in Nyack, which is also affiliated with the school, as well as Summit Camp & Travel—oversaw the management before Howard Adams and then-Lower School principal Judith Gordon, Ph.D. proceeded as directors, respectively. Over the course of two decades, Gordon revised the school into a state approved, tuition-free private school for bright students with mild learning disabilities, and the school further maintained its status as one of the most prestigious special education institutions in the United States. Under Gordon's leadership, she enforced a more vigorous curriculum, expanded its clinical counseling services, as well as the assistant teacher ratio, decided to have "students in each class [be compatible with] each other", and appointed Emily Seltzer to develop the school's top pre-vocational, job training program in the country, which Seltzer ran for many years until her death in 2010. Gordon retired in 2008, but earned the honorary title of director emeritus. Former associate director John Renner became the director and Upper School principal, with Richard Sitman as executive director, in association with the residential school in Nyack, prior to their retirements in 2017 and 2021, respectively. Enrollment history According to a section of New York Magazine in late 2003, the school had the highest amount of student admission forms received—more than 1,000—in the city among the leading "special schools for special kids", with only 35 spaces available. School structure Program Students attending the school are in grades 3-12, who