Sustainability, arts, math: ‘Themed’ middle schools are spreading, but do they help students?
On a sunny Friday in early November, four 10- and 11-year-old boys stand on the corner of 26th Street and Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, holding homemade clipboards and signs that read “Take our food equity survey.” A young man rushes past the group, headphones on, eyes on his phone. Susan Tenner, executive director of the […]
NYC schools conduct remote learning practice ahead of winter recess
New York City public school families: Get ready to log into remote classrooms this week as the city prepares for potential weather-related or other school building closures. Families may have already received communications from their schools urging them to sign into online accounts and take other steps to prepare for possible remote learning days. The […]
NYC disbands literacy coaches amid reading curriculum overhaul
Hundreds of literacy coaches hired under a program to help improve literacy instruction need to find new roles, even as many elementary schools are working to adopt new reading programs. The literacy coaches, originally part of the city’s Universal Literacy Program, must apply for other jobs, according to education department officials familiar with the city’s […]
10 ‘Mean Girls’ quotes to celebrate October 3
Happy Mean Girls Day … Just be sure to celebrate without becoming a mean girl today! #WHYCOUNSELING? Because it’s all about showing up for the kids who sat at the “Cool Kids Table” even though they didn’t feel like they belonged there … It’s all about reassuring people and affirming that they’re indeed good enough. […]
NYC special education recovery services program to be scaled back this fall
In response to pandemic disruptions, New York City officials required every school to offer special education services last year outside regular hours to any family who wanted them. But that won’t be the case this coming school year, education officials said. Instead, the education department is vowing to determine what extra instruction or therapies children […]
As fewer kids enroll, big cities face a small schools crisis
On a recent morning inside Chalmers School of Excellence on Chicago’s West Side, five preschool and kindergarten students finished up drawings. Four staffers, including a teacher and a tutor, chatted with them about colors and shapes. The summer program offers the kind of one-on-one support parents love. But behind the scenes, Principal Romian Crockett worries […]
With Banks and Adams, NYC school integration advocates see an uphill fight
At a town hall meeting in southeast Queens this spring, a parent leader asked David Banks, the newly minted schools chancellor: Will you fight to integrate our segregated schools? “I think diversity, when it’s done well, provides a level of enrichment for education that you cannot beat,” Banks responded. “But I also think that it […]
To help my students who struggle with reading, I had to do some serious soul-searching
To help my students who struggle with reading, I had to do some serious soul-searching Growing up, I was an A student. My grandfather skipped a grade; so did my mother. With the baton handed to me, I made the honor roll, joined honor societies, played instruments, sang, and took part in a range of […]
