brooklyn arbor, ps 414 in Williamsburg

By Joyce Szuflita
I had a great interview yesterday with Eva Irizarry, the new Principal of Brooklyn Arbor, a public school program. The school, which will be also be known as PS 414, will be opening a kindergarten, first and second grade in the PS 19 building in the fall of 2012. PS 19's upper grades will be phasing out in the next couple years and new children entering the building will be attending Brooklyn Arbor. Zoned families can all be served at the school, but the zone also contains PS 319 and some zoned families choose to begin there at K. PS 19 was in its first year of a Magnet Grant. It looks as though the Grant, whose theme is "Global and Ethical Studies" may be split between PS 19 and Brooklyn Arbor. That is being confirmed shortly. The application period for in zone families will be extended to 3/16 for kindergarten, but there are many, many seats available for families from outside of zone and when approved shortly, magnet applications will be available for those families. Those applications can be made throughout the spring.

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when your beloved principal leaves

By Joyce Szuflita
This happens from time to time. You are impressed by a principal or kindergarten teacher or PTA and are thrilled to get a seat in the school and then you find out that that person is retiring or moving on. What does that mean for the program? You should never pick a school because of any one person, or just by the test scores, or because of a program or grant. There are many factors that should go into your determination of a good school for your child. Stats famously fluctuating, budgets are cut, grants run out and staff (no matter how much you feel that you depend on them) have their own lives.

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renzulli and school wide enrichment

By Joyce Szuflita
Okay, a lot of schools are using Renzulli techniques and resources to help with their progressive approach to the classroom. Schools talk about "school wide enrichment" but it just sounds like a bunch of fun electives. What does it mean?

Here is a very clear and short (and funny) video to explain what a teacher is trying to do in a progressive classroom to serve the needs of different learners and get them engaged.

So what is "school wide enrichment" doing?

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beautiful school libraries from colleges and robin hood

By Joyce Szuflita
I can't stop thinking about the photos of libraries that I saw on Flavorwires Most Beautiful College Libraries in the World.  I want the slideshow on my desktop. I want to send them to all 9th graders to encourage them to aspire to the life of the mind. I want to send them to all first year architecture students. I sent them to my librarian dad.

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PS 110 in Greenpoint

By Joyce Szuflita
PS 110 in Greenpoint is a wonderful school
.

Why?

  • an experienced and gifted principal who has been a teacher in the school for decades. She fosters collaboration with her talented staff and is very receptive to parents.

  • a beautiful new yard and computer lab

  • an energetic and creative science teacher who loves her subject and translates it to the kids. The first day they play with the materials to get familiar with them and guess what they may be about. The next day they start to work with the FOSS curriculum.

  • a long standing partnership with Mcgolrick Park where the students do planting and supplement their science curriculum.

  • music teacher who starts teaching with recorders, then the kids move to Music and the Brain on keyboards and then guitars

  • great dance program that includes ballroom dance, African dancing and drumming, Mark Morris and square dance

  • integrated art in the classrooms and a partnership with VTS (Visual Thinking Strategies) which used fine art to teach critical thinking skills

  • a new dual language French program starting in 2011 (4/29/11 - PS 110 has found a French teacher but there were not enough fluent French speakers to create a dual language classroom. They are currently working on making it a French enrichment)

ps 9 fights city hall and wins

By Joyce Szuflita
PS 9, located at 80 Underhill Ave. has spent the past several years rallying the community and becoming the "go to" program in Prospect Heights for new families. All of this momentum seemed to be doomed when the city announced that they were phasing out MS 571, colocated in the building (not bringing in a new 6th grade in 2011), and adding Brooklyn East Collegiate Charter School from outside of the district to the building. Since schools need to share facilities but don't use them at the same time, it would mean that strained facilities would now need to be shared between 3 programs, instead of 2. The DOE's plan was a very strangely inequitable allocation of space. From what I saw, the time allocated to the common spaces didn't correspond in any way to the numbers being served. What followed was months of contentious meetings.

A few days ago a group of parent advocates from PS 9 won an appeal to the New York State Commissioner of Education, David M. Steiner, requesting an annulment of the vote by the Panel on Education Policy (PEP). "The Commissioner found that the DOE did not comply with NY Education Law, and ordered that 'the resolution of the PEP approving the co-location of the Brooklyn East Collegiate Charter School in the K009 building is annulled.' The Commissioner further ordered the 'DOE to be prohibited from moving forward with any aspect of the proposal regarding the co-location until the DOE complies with the requirements of the NY Education Law. Specifically, the Commissioner found that the DOE's Building Utilization Plan for the co-location failed to address 'how the proposed allocation of shared spaces ensures equitable and comparable use of impacted students.'"

Essentially, the DOE is back to square one. It would have to substantially revise its Building Utilization Plan and hold a new vote for proposal, which could still happen. What PS 9 now needs to do is to complete their plan for a k-8 expansion.

107 wait-list

By Joyce Szuflita
Parents of prospective PS 107 kindergarteners in the south slope have been waiting on pins and needles to find out if their children will have a seat in the school in fall of 2011. There has been a wait-list of over 40 families who have actively been lobbying for relief and assistance in finding appropriate seats for their kindergarteners. Parents feel that they were blindsided and weren't able to prepare for this last minute wait-listing. If they had some warning, they could have gotten on the wait-lists at nearby programs (which are currently closed), applied for lottery or independent programs and lobbied for changes that could helped the population at the school. They are not the only ones, according to different reports, PS 39 and 196 among others are over capacity with in-zone families. In the past the children from PS 196 have been the only District 15 population that the DOE has had to place in other schools. Last year they were sent to PS 172, PS 124, PS 32 and PS 94.

One of the points that the community has been making is that the school had petitioned to remove the one prek class in the building to accommodate the k overflow with a new kindergarten classroom. The request was denied, but it appears now that it may be moved to a separate location. There was movement a couple days ago when 25 children came off the list. Reports are unclear about whether the school consolidated an upper grade class to open up a new classroom or whether the prek will be moved. So far there has not been much movement from parents enrolling their children in private school. There may be some relief when the gifted and talented placements as well as lottery schools (BNS, the Children's School and the Charter schools) are made.

Because of capacity laws (only 110 children can occupy the cafeteria at a time) the kindergarten classes will eat lunch in their classrooms. Lunch shifts run from 10:30 to 1:10. Unfortunately, this is not unusual.

what if there is no buzz?

By Joyce Szuflita
If you are looking for a school outside of your zone or you want to move to a neighborhood and don't want to pay top dollar to move to a highly sought after zone, what options do you have? Public schools don't have the time or money to do pr or branding. Sometimes they are lucky and a savvy parent or teacher will put together a snappy website, but if they don't have an enterprising individual to step up, the school may labor in obsurity. Parents might logically think that if the school is good they would have heard about it, but I am here to tell you that it doesn't have to be the case at all. If there is no buzz, it could still be a honey of a school.

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PS 133 gets a French dual language program

By Joyce Szuflita
I just got word through a parent that PS 133 (which is getting a new school building in 2012 on 4th Ave. and Butler) is getting a dual langage French/English program in one kindergarten class starting in 2011. There is going to be an open house at the school on Nov. 19 at 9am at their 211 8th St. (at 4th Ave.) location.

They will very likely have a language assessment, similar to the one at PS 58, to determine if a child can be considered a native speaker.

They are looking for a certified bilingual teacher - if you know of one, contact the Principal, Heather Foster-Mann 718-857-4810.