Archive | schools RSS feed for this section
Annual St. Ann’s Puppet Parade Gambols Down Montague Street

Annual St. Ann’s Puppet Parade Gambols Down Montague Street

By on April 30, 2012 7:57 pm in Brooklyn Heights, Education, Events, Fun, schools

The annual St. Ann’s Puppet Parade—Brooklyn Heights’ own version of a kiddie Mardis Gras—made its way down Montague Street to the Promenade at 1 p.m. Monday, filling the streets with clowns, jugglers, 10-foot-tall marionette puppets and the rat-a-tat of percussion, accompanied by hundreds of pre-school, primary, middle and high school students.

Puppets were created in classes led by St. Ann’s teacher Ronnie Asbell at the private school located at 129 Pierrepont Street. (See a cavalcade of photos below.) Continue Reading →

Read full story · Comments { 0 }
Sifton Reminisces About Pizzas Past, Looks to Future at BHA Meeting

Sifton Reminisces About Pizzas Past, Looks to Future at BHA Meeting

By on February 23, 2012 1:15 am in brooklyn bridge park, Brooklyn Heights, Education, Food, Landmark Preservation, News, Parking, schools, Streets, Traffic

New York Times National Editor Sam Sifton recalled a rough-and-tumble childhood growing up on Willow Street, learning tricks like heading down Grace Court, which would trick pursuers seeking to “yoke” him into thinking he would be trapped on a dead-end street, then going over the fence and walking above the BQE to safety on Remsen Street. As the Times’ former restaurant critic, he also had memories of Heights food establishments, especially the old Queen Pizzaria on Court Street and Fascati’s, which he said was for him the defining slice. Other places he remembered fondly were China Chili (a favorite of your correspondent when he first moved to the Heights in the mid 1980s), the Promenade Restaurant, Mr. Souvlaki (“no place like it in the world” Sifton thought at age ten) and Capulets, where he said most of his St. Ann’s teachers could be found from about three in the afternoon until midnight. Continue Reading →

Read full story · Comments { 14 }

DOE Proposes P.S. 8 Middle School Expansion

By on December 23, 2011 11:29 am in Downtown Brooklyn, Education, News, schools

We previously reported that the City’s Department of Education was seriously considering expanding P.S. 8 to include a middle school that would be sited at Tillary Street and Tech Place in downtown Brooklyn. This morning, State Senator Daniel Squadron announced that the DOE has decided to go ahead with this plan:

Last night, DOE answered the calls of the community and formally proposed the expansion of P.S. 8 to include a middle school. Continue Reading →

Read full story · Comments { 8 }

Squadron Releases Parent Resource Guide

By on September 8, 2011 3:16 pm in Government, Parents, schools

This in from the office of Senator Squadron:

Today, State Senator Daniel Squadron released his third annual Parent Resource Guide, a comprehensive listing of educational and government resources, civic and community services, health care resources, cultural and recreational programs, and preschool, day care, and summer camp programs.

You can download the Guide here, or get a hard copy mailed to you by calling the Senator’s office at 212-298-5565.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Brooklyn Ink on P.S. 8′s Progress

By on October 11, 2010 4:04 pm in schools

The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism’s Brooklyn Ink takes at look at P.S. 8 today:

Brooklyn Ink: The staff has nearly doubled in size to match demand, growing from 24 to 40 full time teachers. Due to the lack of space, teachers work without a lounge. They’ve taken to eating lunch in the library. Teachers have developed several methods for coping with the squeeze. A tight schedule is in place to shuttle students to different classes, to lunch, and to recess.

Some fixes, however, are not perfect. The art teacher pushes a cart of supplies from room to room. The dance teacher moves the desks against a wall to turn a classroom into a dance floor. The drama teacher teaches class in the auditorium. None of them have ever had rooms of their own. Everyone on the faculty is affected. For the past year, the principal shared his office with his assistant principal. He also held every staff meeting there, in a room that looks like it could hold ten people at most.

“It’s a scheduling nightmare,” says the school’s librarian, Amanda Green. Teachers are unhappy having to jump over so many hurdles she says, but can see the finish line up ahead. Green looks forward to moving into a brand new library once the annex is finished.

Read full story · Comments { 17 }

P.S. 8′s Ratings Roller Coaster Continues: From “F” to “A” to “C”

By on October 1, 2010 2:24 pm in schools

The Progress Reports issued by the City Department of Education for the past three years have given P.S. 8 very different ratings over that period. For the 2007-08 year, the school received an “F”, to the consternation of many local parents. However, the report for the 2008-09 year, released a year ago, gave it an “A”. This year’s report splits the difference, with a grade of “C”. As this Brooklyn Daily Eagle article points out, the DOE changed its grading system this year, and there was a higher cutoff on student tests the results of which weigh heavily on schools’ ratings, as a result of which most schools’ grades went down. According to the Eagle:

P.S. 8 students showed little or no improvement in the “student progress” category compared with a “peer group” of roughly 40 schools. (Compared to the average city school as opposed to the peer group, P.S. 8 showed more progress in math but less in English.) Student progress counts for 60 percent of the grade.

Among other local schools, P.S. 29 received an “A” while P.S. 261 received a “B”.

Read full story · Comments { 13 }

Junk Science Does Hip-Hop Tribute to Late Packer English Teacher Linda Gold

By on September 22, 2010 3:35 pm in Arts and Entertainment, schools, Video

Junk Science “Miraculous Machines (Linda Gold) (feat. Gene Stovall)” from MODERN SHARK! on Vimeo.

Last May we posted about hip-hop duo Junk Science, consisting of Packer grads Baje1 (Michael Tumbarello) and DJ Snafu (James Christensen), noting that their third album, A Miraculous Kind of Machine, was to be released later that month. The clip above is of a track from that album that is dedicated to the memory of Packer teacher Linda Gold, who taught English to Baje and Snafu, as well as to Lizzy Sullivan, who produced the video. Baje said of Ms. Gold: “She was one of those rare people… one of the last true magicians. She pushed me to write, to take it seriously, but never too seriously. If I ever write anything good, she should get the credit.”

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Donate School Supplies to Benefit Homeless Children

By on August 24, 2010 4:42 pm in Brooklyn Heights, charity, Events, Kids, schools

It’s that time of year again– New York children everywhere will soon be back to school. But did you know that there are 15,000 homeless boys and girls in New York who don’t have the school supplies they need to succeed? The Coalition for the Homeless started a project three years ago to help those kids in need– “Project: Back to School.” Continue Reading →

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

NY Times Covers Yin and Yang of St. Ann’s Leadership

By on July 21, 2010 11:33 am in News, schools

Today’s New York Times features the story of vastly different leaders of St. Ann’s School—outspoken founder Stanley Bosworth, and the reliable yet low-key Larry Weiss. Bosworth is lauded for his vision; Weiss for his stability. Now with Weiss moving on, there’s a new leader in town.

The school ended up choosing Vincent Tompkins, a deputy provost at Brown. His mission is to steer St. Ann’s somewhere between the seat-of-the-pants style of its founder and the more measured tack of his successor.
“This is a place that is very deeply understood by all the members of its community,” Mr. Tompkins, 48, said. “The challenge is, when a school is built around a powerful set of ideals, how do you sustain the ideals and not lose sight of innovation?”
Dr. Weiss has been appointed head of the Brooklyn Friends School. It will be a bit of a homecoming for him: he worked as a teacher there in the 1970s, when Mr. Bosworth was creating St. Ann’s.
Mr. Tompkins knows he has an easier job than his predecessor. When being vetted by the board, he met with students and told them, “It’s easier to be Thomas Jefferson than John Adams.”

What do you think the future holds for St. Ann’s with the new headmaster?

Read full story · Comments { 18 }

Tompkins Named New St. Ann’s Head

By on May 20, 2010 12:07 am in News, schools

The search for the third person to be head of St. Ann’s School is over.

New York Times: Saint Ann’s School, the prestigious and progressive Brooklyn Heights school, has selected Vincent Tompkins, the deputy provost of Brown University, to be its new headmaster.

Mr. Tompkins, 48, who takes over on July 1, said he was drawn to the school by the students’ “remarkable sense of confidence and joy about learning.”

The founder of St. Ann’s, Stanley Bosworth, served as headmaster from the School’s opening in 1965 until 2004. He was succeeded by Lawrence Weiss, previously head of the Horace Mann Upper School in the Bronx, who, according to the Times article, “signed on for five years but stayed an extra year at the board’s request.” Tompkins holds a PhD. in history from Harvard, and taught history there before becoming an administrator. He later was made Deputy Provost at his undergraduate alma mater, Brown.

Read full story · Comments { 12 }

PS8 Red-Faced After Two Students Go Missing

By on May 19, 2010 11:37 pm in News, schools

There’s a happy ending, as the two six-year-olds were found after school personnel noticed their absence Tuesday afternoon. According to this NBC New York article, the boy and girl were found “about a block and a half away from the school…standing in the pouring rain…some 25 minutes later.” However, the article quotes a school spokesperson as saying “the students were not even a block away from the campus when they were located.”

Today, according to the article, Principal Seth Phillips “met with the [students'] parents, offering an apology and promising to investigate.” He also promised this sort of thing wouldn’t happen again.

Read full story · Comments { 16 }

PS8 Auction Tomorrow Night

By on April 28, 2010 1:30 pm in Events, Food, Fun, schools

This in from the PS8 PTA:

Eat, Drink, Bid! PS8 will host its annual action, sponsored this year by the Brooklyn Heights Association, tomorrow night starting at 6 pm at Plymouth Church. Buy a weekend in Montauk, a week’s retreat at a Vermont Country house, or even dinner created by none other than Principal Seth Philips! Read all about it at www.ps8pta.org.

Plymouth Church is on Orange Street, between Henry and Hicks.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Yassky Urges Officials to Consider Middle School Sites Other than Dock Street

By on April 15, 2009 11:12 am in Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Election09, Government, News, schools

City Council Member and City Comptroller candidate David Yassky has sent a letter to Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein urging them to become involved in the site selection process for a new middle school in this area. Based on his review of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request, Yassky charges that the School Construction Authority, which has recommended placing the school in the controversial proposed Dock Street high rise in DUMBO, has failed to exercise due diligence in examining possible alternative sites. The full text of Yassky’s press release follows the break. Continue Reading →

Read full story · Comments { 8 }

New Heights preschool and Kindergarten

By on March 31, 2009 9:49 am in Brooklyn Heights, Kids, schools

kiddiekorner

This fall, there will be a new preschool and Kindergarten in Brooklyn Heights — Congregation B’nai Avraham is expanding its popular Kiddie Korner program with new space at the corner of Montague and Clinton streets for infant and toddler daycare, and a Kindergarten class in the Remsen Street synagogue.

The 3,500-square foot space is in the former City Market Café and is the ground floor of the new condo building at 166 Montague St., and is scheduled to finish construction by August and open on Sept. 1. For PDF renderings, click here [pdf], and a flyer is here [pdf].

Continue Reading →

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

PS8 Auction on Thursday night

By on March 30, 2009 12:51 pm in Brooklyn Heights, Events, Fun, Kids, schools

On Thursday, April 2, the PS 8 PTA will host its third annual auction to raise money for the school’s enrichment programs.

Parents and the public are invited to the event, which is at Hillis Hall at Plymouth Church (75 Hicks St., at Orange Street) and starts at 6:30 pm. Tickets are $50 in advance and $75 at the door, and are available through the PTA’s website.

Continue Reading →

Read full story · Comments { 16 }
← Older posts