Arts & Letters Expansion Approved for P.S. 20
At last night’s meeting of the Community Education Council, the expansion of the Urban Academy of Arts & Letters, which already serves students in sixth through eighth grades in an existing space within P.S. 20, was approved. Kindergarten and First Grade classes will begin next Fall, with a grade to be added every year after…
At last night’s meeting of the Community Education Council, the expansion of the Urban Academy of Arts & Letters, which already serves students in sixth through eighth grades in an existing space within P.S. 20, was approved. Kindergarten and First Grade classes will begin next Fall, with a grade to be added every year after that; the gifted charter school would serve K through 8 by the 2015-2016 school year. We don’t have a lot details at this point, but we gather there was some drama at the meeting. According to a tipster, in response to all the pushback from P.S. 20 parents, a rep from District 15 showed up to offer space for the new Arts & Letters school in their new building at 4th Avenue and Butler Street. Evidently this helped turn the tide back towards locating the new Arts & Letters elementary school at P.S. 20, and the petition to expand ended up being approved. If anyone has more details, please email or just add them to the comments section and we will update the post.
since 2000:
The school is called Brooklyn School of Inquiry and is located in Bensonhurst. It was formed in addition to the program that would have begun at PS 20 and a program in Queens.
http://www.brooklynschoolofinquiry.org/
Went running: the DOE had thought to locate a citywide G&T inside PS 20, to be administered by the then-principal, Sean Keaton. This would have been along the lines of NEST or Anderson. Unfortunately, not enough parents applied for it, so the DOE pulled it. There is another citywide out in Bay Ridge (can’t remember exactly where) that opened instead. Most Brooklyn parents who go the citywide route seem to choose NEST or BSI, the one in Brooklyn.
1. Press Release: Arts & Letters K-8 Expansion’s Impact, Negative on PS8 Community’s Middle School Options
http://bivforbrooklyn.com/blog/131-press-release-arts-a-letters-k-8-expansions-impact-negative-on-ps8-communitys-middle-school-options
2. Cathie Black’s 1st School Assignment: Fix D13
http://bivforbrooklyn.com/blog/130-cathie-blacks-1st-school-assignment-fix-d13
I remember reading (in 2009 I think) about a G&T program that was supposed to open inside of PS 20. I believe it was called TIER. Did that fall through? If not, has anyone heard anything about it (good, bad, etc)?
I don’t know why you would think that Arts and Letters is “progressive.” I don’t find it to be. My kid gets more homework than my older child who went to MS 51 and they do dole out the discipline.
When my eldest was starting the only games in town were 321 (we aren’t zoned) and testing into 29. PS 261 was three mini schools and from what I understand a lot of infighting for resources. PS 58 was extremely traditional and often referred to as “Our Lady of Smith Street” complete with assembly Fridays when children had to where a uniform. My kid tested into 29 and I opted not to do that because 29 was very traditional at that time. I kept my kid in private school for Kindergarten and in first grade I enrolled my kid in 261 which was progressive and I knew some families there and liked the principal’s approach to education. The three schools were disbanded that year and my oldest had an integrated hands on progressive learning experience. Then Klein came in and PS 261 had to adopt the DOE curriculum and my youngest received a largely Kaplan based education. There was an effort to keep some of the “traditions” such as the bridge and China studies but it was nowhere near as in depth as before.
Anyway, it is committed parents who were able to change things. But you never know how things can change and what latest “reform” will be forced on your child.
It will be interesting to see whether Arts and Letters will continue to adhere to the principles of the Urban Assembly Academy.
heather – i get what you and gowanusdog are saying. but if it doesn’t make sense for those of us with kids who “aren’t even in elementary school yet” to clamor for more choices for elementary school, it would make even less sense for us to be *more* concerned about the middle school situation, which is even more remote. setting that bit aside, though, the problem (and i don’t know whether the fault is the city’s, or politically inherent, or economically pre-ordained, or what) is that these debates always seem to come down to an “either/or” situation that pits parents against each other when those parents’ interests, really, are mostly aligned.
AS a local parent, I am more than enthusiastic about the A&L expansion. I hope my kid makes the cut. It would be incredibly amazing to have a progressive place for him for the next 8-9 years.
“I just find it very sad that a middle school that has excelled at education some of the most struggling and challenging students will cut class seats. A middle school in Prospect Heights is on the closure list and District 13 will be expected those students and two of the middle schools in John Jay will close to make room for Millennium Two.”
This is a very good point, and one that is overlooked by most of the parents clamoring for more choices for their kids who aren’t even in elementary school yet.
wasder
by what measure was this a democratic process?