New Elementary School To Open in District 17 This Fall

If you've got kids of a certain age, you'd have to be living under a rock not to know about the Lefferts Gardens Charter School by now, but another new elementary school in our District sounds promising as well.

The New American Academy in East Flatbush is a collaboration between the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the NYC Department of Education, and the United Federation of Teachers. Unlike the Lefferts school, New American is a public school, not a charter. But unlike conventional zoned schools, New American has an ambitious, progressive program. I'm not going to bother repeating the brochure bullet points, which you can read yourself; rather, I'll simply point out why I'd seriously consider sending my kid to a school in East Flatbush.

Trilingual Education: English, French, and Spanish. For kids raised in educated, middle-class homes, the primary benefit of elementary school is social. I can teach my son how to read, write, and add; I can't teach him French or Spanish.  If he finished elementary school fluent in three languages, that alone would be more worthwhile than my entire 13 years of public schooling (pre-college, that is).

Unusual classroom structure: 60 students and four teachers in one large room. Classes are heterogeneous, meaning that students all along the bell curve, including special needs kids, will also share the classroom. Teachers stay with the same group of children from Kindergarten through 5th grade, so they can hit the ground running each school year rather than having to create relationships anew every year. This is important considering the school's emphasis on providing differentiated, individualized instruction. My neighbor Alison Wildman, whose son, Jelani, will be attending in the fall, said this was a big plus for her. When she toured the school, she was told that part of the school's mission is to make sure that if, say, a student is ready for algebra in 4th grade, he'll get it. (Jelani tested in the 99 percentile of the gifted and talented test, i.e. high enough to get into the city's most elite schools.) The downside, of course, is what if you get stuck with a crummy teacher? But as Wildman put it, "There's four teachers -- they can't ALL be bad!"  Plus there's good reason to suspect that they won't be...

Focus on quality teachers. One major innovation at New American is that, according to the New York Post, the school will be the first public school in the city to promote teachers based on merit rather than length of service.

Daily exercise and longer than average lunch (recess!) periods.
A major problem in public schools is that the emphasis on standardized testing has meant cutting out "frills" such as physical education and art.

No homework.
It's ridiculous to give elementary school kids homework on a daily basis, yet many schools do, particularly at gifted and talented programs.

Not terribly inconvenient.
Though the school ain't exactly next door — it will be housed in P.S. 398, The Walter Weaver School (gmap) — a free school bus from PLG will take students there. It is also on the B12 route, which proceeds slowly East from Parkside and Flatbush.

On a side note, the school could use some serious help in the design department. The logo makes it look like it is run by some sort of far-right separatist group out of Idaho. Is that an eagle with a school key as prey? Not exactly what you'd expect from a school led by a Spanish-speaking Hasidic Jew.

Comments

[Alison]

Good job, Carrie! One more thing about the 4 teachers per class; if one teacher is out for some period, there will be 3 more left who know your child and are familiar with the work. The teachers have the same access to the same students.Win! win! A little personal story: My son's teacher went on maternity leave earlier this year and his class was chaotic -- the same was true for my friend whose 1st grade daughter goes to a G/T school. Her teacher had jury duty for a couple of weeks and her daughter came home in tears every day. That's the picture, folks!

[hdaisy]

thanks for this interesting and informative post. the 60/4 model is intriguing and something i'd love to learn more about. i'll definitely be following any news on this school to see how things develop.

[Candis]

I have a child that attends New American Academy and it has not been a good experience, especially if your child is a fast learner and is not enetering into school for the first time. They do not separate the children based on their acacdemic abilities which causes children to become bored and uninterested and still they continue to leave them in that same environment which is a diservice to the child and prohibits them from academic advancement. I would not recommend this school. There is also a fast turnover rate with staff.