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 →
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.
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.
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”.
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 →
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 →
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].
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.
The 2007-2008 NYC DOE’s Progress “Report Card” for P.S. 8 can be found here. Notice the chasm of difference between PS 8′s performance relative to City-wide schools and Peer-wide schools, particularly in the School Performance section. Whereas it is an “F” school compared to it’s “peers”, it looks like around a B or a B+ school compared to the city as a whole.
I should also note that the list of schools considered “peers” to PS 8 has changed from last year, with some added and some placed in other “peer” groups. If the peer groups change from year to year, and one doesn’t find out until the report is published, this seems to be like a moving target for a school. What if the next year they consider your “peer” to be the elementary school equivalent of Harvard?
Another difference between the 2008 report and the 2007 report is that in 2007 Student Performance counted for 30% of the grade and Student Progress counted for 55% — in 2008, Student Performance counted for 25% and Student Progress counted for 60%. So, the importance placed on performance from year to year has gained even more undue influence on the grade.
We received from a “Blkn Tipster” what looks like a letter from Saint Ann’s officials sent out to the parents of the school, where it seems they are okay with the Probation Office move: Continue Reading →
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Brooklyn Bugle
214/216 Hicks Street Carves Out Space For Larger Tenant
Morton’s Steakhouse On Adams Street Is Cooked
Montague Street, Meet Your New Starbucks
Downtown BK’s Historic Offerman Building At Last Gets New Life Via TJ Maxx
Le Pain Quotidien Taking Shape
UPDATE: Shiba Inu “Lili” Is Home!
Damascus Bakery getting some competition
Downtown Skyscraper District: He Said/He Said On Landmarks Approval
Get BHB in your inbox everyday. Enter your email below.
Nabe Chatter