By Alex Mikoulianitch

Megan Adams Photo By Bess Adler

Megan Adams’ journey to becoming the award-winning principal of one of the leading middle schools in New York City is a story about pursuing one’s dreams and beliefs.

Born in Wisconsin and raised in Nebraska by parents who were both teachers, Adams had an inside view of the educator’s profession from a young age. She attended the University of Iowa for her undergraduate degree and eventually decided to participate in a program called Teach for America.

The program gave her an opportunity to teach at the elementary school level, and that is when she became certain of the career choice she would pursue.

“I realized what an impact it could have at the level of education, and [I realized] after a few years in a classroom my calling really was to remain in education,” Adams said.

Adams decided to direct this impact toward a specific age group, one she felt was crucial in shaping youth’s view of education.

“It was originally because I was placed in a fifth grade classroom, but I started to realize very quickly the impact of the middle school years and how important that time is in capturing a child and having them believe in themselves and invest in education or losing them,” Adams said.

Adams graduated from Columbia University’s Teaching School’s Educational Leadership program and got a hand from her mentor, who set her up with an interview for a position at the NYC Lab School, which at the time functioned as a grades 6-12 school. There she was able to get a job as an assistant principal, and a year into her tenure, the school split into two: a high school and middle school. A principal position opened up at the middle school, and Adams promptly applied and secured the position.

Now, five years into being principal, Adams has established a routine that helps her lead a high-achieving school even further.

She arrives at the school at around 6:30 a.m., taking care of any emails and similar correspondence. Then she heads outside to the front of the building to greet the students and their parents, answering any questions the parents may have and making sure there are no issues with the kids.

Then come the usual rounds of the building, making sure everything is in place and working properly. Then, in the afternoon, come the meetings with faculty, something she pays very close attention to.

“One of the goals of the school is that all of our teachers are also in leadership positions, so there’s a lot of meetings with faculty members on all the different things that they’ve taken charge of and are working on,” Adams said.

A unique aspect of the NYC Lab Middle School is their freedom from a set city curriculum. The faculty itself is in charge of that.

“One of the main things about our school is that the teachers are very empowered and they all develop their own curriculum, which I am very proud of, and I feel that they are experts in that,” Adams said.

These teacher responsibilities also come with high expectations, which are made known from the very beginning—the hiring process. All applications for a spot at the school are carefully considered, and candidates who stand out are allowed to do a demo-lesson, which is then analyzed along with the applicant, Adams said.

This dedication to bringing the best to the city’s educational system is what helped Adams achieve this year’s Blackboard Award.

“Our goal is that we prepare our kids for the top public high schools in the city,” Adams said. “I feel like one of the things [that helped contribute to receiving the award] is really living up to the mission and the values that we’re striving for in our school. We should never rest on the laurels of our school, but always keep pushing ourselves higher and making sure that we’re serving our population. So a lot of the work last year was bringing innovation into our school that would really serve the children better.”

By Erin Brodwin

Jackie Albers Photo By Dale Eisinger

When a parent arrives in Principal Jackie Albers’ office to ask whether her student should take classes in music or math, her answer is both. Albers, who oversees an elementary charter school in central Harlem, said the most important aspect of her job is making sure students who leave her school are prepared for the real world.

“When we talk about our curriculum, we call it joyful rigor,” Albers said. “It’s challenging, but it’s also engaging and fun.”

After a two-year stint teaching English at a public school in the Bronx with Teach for America, Albers said she was drawn to a career in the charter school system.

“As the leader of a charter school, I’m able to see the needs in the curriculum and make adjustments immediately,” said Albers. “On any given day, I’m able to walk in and watch a teacher give a math lesson, and then talk with him or her afterward about what went well and what we can work on. It’s an atmosphere of open communication,” she said.

Harlem Success Academy 1, with its 60 teachers and 616 students—or scholars, as the school calls them—is a lot to manage. But for Albers, who has adored school since setting foot in her first English class, leading the Harlem elementary is a labor of love. “School opened doors for me,” said Albers. “I want to play a role in making sure other students have those opportunities as well.”

Albers’ school is one of 15 public charter schools managed by Success Academy Inc., a nonprofit that relies on funding from government and private donations. As a public charter school, the campus selects its students at random each year through a lottery.

Students attend classes daily from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., more than two hours longer than students at traditional public schools. In addition, the school allows its students to choose from a diverse range of classes, from music to chess, art, sports and science.

“It’s important to us that school is fun for our students. We want it to be something they look forward to,” said Albers.

Photo By Bess Adler

Manhattan’s Professional Performing Arts School is like “one big family” according to students. Created in 1990 to educate students wanting to earn junior high and high school diplomas as well as train professionally and vocationally in the arts, PPAS provides an environment rich in academic and arts courses.

Each morning, students undertake rigorous academic classes. Those are followed by professional arts instruction in the afternoons. PPAS students major in one of four arts disciplines: musical theater, dance, vocal or drama. A typical school day includes academic instruction from 8:15 to 1:20. After 1:30, students spend time pursuing their chosen major into the late afternoon.

Principal Keith Ryan is in his eighth year as an administrator at the school. Before he became principal, Ryan taught English and history for the Professional Performing Arts School. Ryan believes that PPAS offers New York City students unique opportunities. He loves PPAS’s “partnership structure and being able to work with local arts organizations.” Students in grades six through twelve study with professional artists, which is how the school gets its “professional” name, according to Ryan. PPAS has partnerships with the Alvin Ailey School for dance, Rosie’s Theater Kids for musical theater, the National Chorale for singing and Waterwell Theater Company for drama.

Ryan is especially excited about PPAS’s partnership with Waterwell. He says, “We’re in our third year of doing the New Works Lab with Waterwell Theater. We’ve created a drama performance where we pull in up-and-coming drama directors and playwrights, and they work with our drama students to create a brand-new play.” Ryan jokes that he likes to call the new, never-before-seen original material “worldwide premieres.”

The Professional Performing Arts School, which has a 98 percent graduation rate—the third highest rate in New York City—provides advanced placement classes and college credit opportunities. The school accepts New York City residents from across the five boroughs, but students must audition in order to be accepted. Ryan says that entry into the school is “quite competitive; we accept about one out of every 15 to 20 applicants.” Currently, there are 80 middle school students and 400 high school students enrolled at PPAS.

PPAS also offers a wide range of extracurricular activities. “Most extracurriculars tend to be somehow connected to the arts,” says Ryan. Shows will be put on as fundraisers. Students are currently partaking in Hurricane Sandy relief through their performances. PPAS is also a member of the Public Schools Athletic League. Academically, students are committed to social justice. Seniors participate in an exit project, where they write a 15-page paper on public policy.

Ryan sees his students head off to diverse colleges and universities after graduation. “The majority of students go to four-year colleges or conservatories.” Many students attend Ivy League schools. The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance, which has a notable conservatory program, is also a popular choice for PPAS graduates.

Notable alumni include musician Alicia Keys and actors Lee Thompson Young, Victor Rasuk and Jesse Eisenberg. Though she did not graduate from PPAS, pop singer Britney Spears also spent some time at the Professional Performing Arts School.

Science & Technology

Photo By Aaron Adler

Crystal Bonds, principal of the High School for Math, Science and Engineering at the City College of New York, calls her school “Manhattan’s treasure.”

“We have phenomenal students who have exceeded way beyond our expectations, and their own,” she said.

The High School for Math, Science and Engineering (HSMSE) was established 10 years ago as a joint initiative between the New York City schools’ chancellor and the chancellor of the City University of New York.

The school is one of nine specialized public high schools in the city. Incoming ninth and tenth graders must test to get into the school, which teaches a rigorous curriculum and this year accepted only 440 students. In April of 2012, the school was named the most diverse in New York City by the New York Times, and its students come from all over the five boroughs.

Bonds said that the school’s faculty sets it apart.

“More than half of our teachers have job experience in their industry. They make the learning applicable to life,” she said.

Those teachers impart real-world knowledge to their students, who in their sophomore year choose between three tracks: the Advanced Engineering Program; the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Biomedical Research Program; and the Mathematics Program.

Teachers in the engineering program include five engineers, who focus on “innovation and design” in their courses, according to Bonds.

Students who choose the engineering major benefit from HSMSE’s partnership with the Grove School of Engineering at the City College of New York (CCNY) and are given the opportunity to apply for a paid research internship at CCNY’s Grove School of Engineering.

Medicine majors complete a demanding two-year program at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. In their first year, they complete a research internship in one of the hospital units, such as cardiology, oncology or obstetrics. In their second, they are placed in clinical and laboratory internships that prepare them for college and medical school.

The math concentration at HSMSE was started just two years ago. Students in this major study advanced math and complete two semesters with the Varsity Math Team. Eligible students may also study alongside college students at CCNY, taking courses like pre-calculus and calculus after school and during the summer.

David Scheiman has been a math teacher at HSMSE for six years. He said the students at the school are unique not only in their brightness, but also in their humility.

“Our students are extremely eager to learn, but they’re also very humble and willing to take criticism,” he said. “They want to get better. These are students who come to school early in the morning for extra help.

“There’s no sense of competition between them,” Scheiman said. “They want to help each other. That’s very rare in rigorous programs like this one.”

Bonds said that the school’s administration constantly seeks new ways not only to challenge its students, but also to support them. To that end, she created a new program this year called Freshman Academy. Every day, ninth graders meet for 45 minutes to learn the basics of organization: how to plan their day, how to manage their workload, and how to come up with effective plans for studying at home.

“Our students come from all over, and have had very different experiences when they get here,” Bonds said. “Freshman Academy brings all of them onto the same page.”

Bonds said she looked forward to continuing to introduce students to new modes of learning.

“Some of our students haven’t had much exposure to science or math or engineering before coming here,” she said. “We want to expose the children to these subjects with the hope that they gain a passion for them.”

Photo By Bess Adler

At Winston Prep on West 17th Street in Chelsea, one parent will never forget the look on her daughter’s face as she won a “Coach’s Award” one year and “Most Improved” the next for her school’s track team. Suzanne Engel’s daughter, Shira, was not a very fast or skilled runner, she was determined. And, Engel said, this acknowledgment really stuck with her daughter.

Shira is one of approximately 200 students at Winston Prep, a middle and high school for special-needs students, including dyslexic and non-verbal children. They also admit students who have difficulty with executive function, or day-to-day student skills.

“Parents don’t think they want to send their child to a learning disability school, but this is an awesome community,” said Headmaster Bill DeHaven. “It’s the teachers, it’s the way our kids all struggle together. It’s like ‘hey, you may not be able to socialize as well, and I may not be able to read as well, but we can help each other.’”

During the admissions process, students take an exam and have conversations with administrators to determine their skill level and individual needs, said Kristine Wisemiller, the director of admissions. Then, based on that assessment, the child is grouped with other similar students, based on ability, not grade level. The dyslexic children then can focus on language mechanics, and executive function-struggling students can learn how to be good students. Teachers also meet with students for one-on-one sessions every week.

The school does not use a typical Regents curriculum, instead focusing on reading, writing and studying skills. This is one of the reasons the school is so successful, DeHaven said. The teachers do not even have a set teaching methodology, he said.

“The analogy we use most often is that we try and put as many tools in our teachers’ toolboxes as we can,” DeHaven said. “We want our teachers to be familiar with many methods of teaching.”

The different methods of learning don’t stop at the classroom door, either. Even with only 200 students at the school, students can participate in sports like track, soccer and basketball, or try out for a play in the school’s drama program.

Service is also a large part of education requirements at the school. Within the last few years, student volunteers have been volunteering their time to help victims of Hurricane Sandy.

DeHaven boasts that 90 percent of Winston students go on to two- or four-year college. But even with that impressive rate, he worries about the other 10 percent, so they have implemented a new college transition program. The participants go to school half of the day, and intern at various places like travel agencies and the DJ Academy.

Above all, the best part of Winston Prep is watching students graduate and move on to bigger and better things, DeHaven says. This year a former Winston student came back to replace a teacher on maternity leave.

“The school really works towards complete independence for all kids,” Suzanne Engel says. “They become independent learners and really push the children toward developing a self awareness.”

By Kathleen Culliton

Photo By Dale Eisinger

The fourth graders learn to play trumpets. The kindergarteners grow vegetables in Battery Park. The middle-schoolers play chess at lunch. This is PS/IS 276, Battery Park City School, an elementary school that goes beyond test prep.

Battery Park City School has already earned an excellent academic reputation among New York City parents since opening in 2009. It is one of the few schools to receive a 10 out of 10 rating on GreatSchools.com and has been named this year’s Rising Star in Manhattan Media’s Blackboard Awards.

“The emphasis is on the whole child. So many other schools emphasize math or science. We emphasize the student,” PTA co-president Matt Schneider said.

Schneider credits Principal Terri Ruyter with the school’s success. Ruyter has been a dogged advocate for the school. “She is very well respected and able to attract the best and the brightest teachers. And over time, those teachers have loved being here,” he said.

Ruyter encourages teachers to engage students both mentally and physically. The art classes take field trips to the Guggenheim, the science classes have urban farming projects in Battery Park, and the music department is developing a marching band.

“We try to get the children outside a lot to get their bodies moving, ” parent Michele Zarrario said.

PTA co-president Howard Sadowsky is currently developing a new program he calls Saturdays at 276, which will offer classes and recreational activities in the gym on weekends. PTA members are currently discussing how to include yoga and fencing into the program’s curriculum.

The school’s commitment to its student also extends beyond academia and athletics. Battery Park City School is the first school in New York City to qualify for LEED certification. The school’s many classrooms, art studio, music room, science lab, library and two gymnasiums are powered by solar panels on the roof. Students are encouraged to compost after lunch.

And while parents and faculty are enthusiastic about the school’s progress, it also faces problems. According to Schneider, the main challenge for Battery Park City School is overcrowding. The city has repeatedly increased class sizes, and the school struggles to keep up. “We have a beautiful art room with a kiln. That could become a classroom. The music room? That could become a classroom.”

But Ruytner is working ceaselessly within the community to address the problem. She’s working with city officials and parents to find balance. Schneider believes the answer will come from the teachers.

“Parents automatically say let’s get another teacher in there who will be constructive. We thought it would be better to let the teachers decide. It may be by a multifaceted system. What’s needed in kindergarten may be what’s needed in seventh grade.”

But regardless of how many students attend Battery Park City School next year, those accepted will be welcomed by Ruyter. That’s because she genuinely likes and appreciates her students. Her eyes lit up when she told parents about the new school slogan, “The Chargers—The Spark of Battery Park.” It was coined by the students.

“They’re so sophisticated in their thinking,” she said.

Photo By Dale Eisinger

It’s all a part of the “international mindedness” students are expected to learn at Léman.

“International mindedness means you are aware of the problems and ready to be involved in the solutions,” said Drew Alexander, head of the school. “It means you truly believe in community service as it relates to your own world and other parts of the world.”

Léman, a research-based school, has been a part of the Meritas international family of schools since last year, and the upper campus opened two years ago. This year, Léman has their first senior graduating class, and first exchange student program this year. Students regularly exchange with other Meritas students across the world via Skype in a program called Touchpoint, to discuss global issues, says Alexander.

“We want our students to see themselves as participants in global discourse,” says Emily Khan, the head of the English department at the upper school.

The Léman campus is impressive, with two pools, two gyms and a cafeteria staffed by classically trained chefs. The lobby of the school is a horseshoe-shaped room lined floor to ceiling in glass that overlooks the New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty. The view, Khan says, is meant to inspire the visual arts students.

As part of the Meritas group, Léman high school students can have the opportunity to study philosophy for two weeks abroad in August at Oxford. As a growing school, students have access to an increasing number of clubs on campus including sports, robotics, fencing and music. Each lower-school student is required to take piano.

In the Léman classroom itself, class sizes range from 10-18 students, and teachers do not take on the “typical” teaching methodology, Khan says.

“We are student-centered, so we avoid lecturing in front of the classroom,” Khan says. “The students work together and achieve independence.”

Léman teachers try to take learning outside of the classroom as well. Khan recalls one instance this year when the class was studying gravestone epitaphs, and one of the students suggested visiting Trinity Church to look at the gravestones there, and they did.

Many of the learning experiences at Léman come from mixing cultures, and introducing the international students to the American lifestyle. This year, many of the exchange students celebrated their first Halloween, says Alexander. For the school’s Halloween party, the international students were excited and bought costumes.

“For them to experience that for the first time with students who grew up with Halloween, it is really an interesting moment,” Alexander says. “But at Léman, it happens every day.”

By David Gibbons

Photo By Bess Adler

To say that Avenues is a grand scheme with the potential for revolutionizing education as we know it would be akin to calling the Empire State a tall building.

Students at this brand-new, for-profit private school will experience language immersion in Mandarin and Spanish from age 3. During their 15 years at the school, they’ll study history and culture in a multi-year survey called the World Course; they’ll be required to concentrate in a personal area of interest—academic, artistic or athletic—through a college-major-like program called Avenues Mastery. They’ll take multiple trips abroad and benefit from local institutional partnerships as well as integration of advanced learning technologies.

There’s much more—all of it spelled out on the website, www.avenues.org, which reads like a detailed blueprint for the global school of the future—part practical handbook, part idealistic manifesto.

The brains behind Avenues is Chris Whittle, the bow-tied media mogul famous for reviving a moribund Esquire magazine in the 1980s then founding Channel One News, which offered free TV (with ads) to schools. Whittle reinvented himself as an educational entrepreneur, starting Edison Schools in 1992 along with former Yale president Benno C. Schmidt Jr., who also heads the team at Avenues. Edison may have fallen short of Whittle’s most optimistic projections, but it is acknowledged as the pioneer of the charter school movement.

For his next start-up, Whittle amassed $75 million from private equity and his own pocket, introducing Avenues in 2011 as an “idea whose time had come.” The school’s flagship location, a beautifully renovated former warehouse on 10th Avenue in Chelsea, bordering on the Highline Park, will eventually house 1,600 students, from preschool through 12th grade. A second campus will open in Beijing in 2014, a third in São Paulo in 2015 and so on, with the ultimate goal of 20 campuses worldwide within a decade.

“We are up to speed to the degree we planned it,” says Gardner Dunnan, academic dean and head of the Upper School. Dunnan, a former headmaster of the Dalton School, was instrumental in developing and implementing Whittle’s plan as well as recruiting a best-and-brightest roster that includes Co-Heads of School Ty Tingley and Skip Mattoon, who ran Exeter and Hotchkiss, respectively.

“The leadership team all came here because it’s a new school of thought,” says Dunnan. “It isn’t like going to run another school; we’ve all done that. This is something entirely different.

“We’re looking at current best practices and transferring some of that, but we’re also inventing new methods and approaches on our own. Chris Whittle is a brilliant entrepreneur, and he works harder than anyone I know. But the key is his rare capacity to entertain a really good vision, to pay strict attention to the details and yet not be a micromanager, and to really elicit all of the talents of his team.”

Word got out quickly in the pedagogical world; Avenues received more than 4,500 applications for 125 initial teaching positions. The school will also share its riches through professional development workshops. And, after a one-year test run, the World Course, along with its invaluable database, will be made available to all takers at no cost.

By Susan Armitage

Photo By Emily Johnson

A rigorous, honors-level academic program and opportunities to take college courses at its partner, Baruch College, set this school apart. But Baruch College Campus High School (BCCH), located in Manhattan’s District 2, is about more than just book learning. Through community service and a four-year advisory program, the school strives to foster social responsibility and support its students emotionally as well as intellectually.

“Students feel very connected to the school,” said Principal Alicia Perez-Katz. “It’s a safe place where kids can learn and there’s a depth in discussion.”

“It’s like a hidden jewel,” said PTA President Sybao Cheng-Wilson. But with good word-of-mouth reviews and 100 percent graduation and college enrollment rates, the school hasn’t been able to keep its success a secret. A screened school, BCCHS saw a 63 percent increase in applications between 2010 and 2011. In the 2012 admissions cycle, for the second year in a row it was the city’s most sought-after public high school, with 6,465 students vying for 111 freshman seats. The school’s total enrollment is 441.

Despite the highly competitive admissions process, Perez-Katz said BCCHS takes students with a wide range of abilities, including non-native speakers of English. Approximately 60 percent of currently enrolled students are Asian and 13 percent are Hispanic. Almost 55 percent of students in the 2011-2012 academic year were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Writing and literacy are strong focuses across the curriculum. The school identifies students with potential and elevates their performance to “not just passing, but doing very well at the honors level,” Cheng-Wilson said. The College Board Advocacy and Policy Center included BCCHS in its 2012 catalog of effective practices to expand education options for students from low-income backgrounds.

Freshmen are placed in an advisory class that stays together for all four years of high school and meets four times a week. To foster bonding, freshmen also attend an overnight retreat. The advisory program, which has been studied by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and New Visions for Public Schools, provides a structured environment where students set academic goals, complete service learning activities and hone skills like time management. BCCHS received a 2012 Service in Schools “Excellence in Service” Award for its community service programming.

The school’s math department has also garnered national recognition. BCCHS’s Elisabeth Jaffe was one of two New York state teachers to receive the 2011 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. BCCHS was also named an Intel Schools of Distinction finalist in 2012 for excellence and innovation in math education.

“Teachers have a lot of room for creativity in their planning,” Perez-Katz said.

One example is the math department’s annual student conference, organized by the math teachers and modeled after a professional conference. Students investigate the mathematical aspects of everything from sports to the electronic game Angry Birds and teach their peers what they’ve learned.

Despite its small size and numerous accolades, BCCHS still suffers from a common problem in city schools: crowded classrooms. The average class size at BCCHS in 2011-2012 was 32.3, according to city data. But dedicated, caring faculty who “eat, sleep and breathe teaching” keep students motivated to work hard, Cheng-Wilson said. “They’re available to the kids. You can email them during the evening; they will email you back.”

By David Gibbons

Photo Courtesy of UCHS

Uncommon is one organization that would probably be happy, someday soon, to convert its name to a misnomer.

Uncommon Charter High School, which opened in 2009 and will graduate its first senior class next June, is located in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in a new building where students and staff go about their daily business with an air of discipline and purpose in a distinctly collegiate atmosphere. It is part of the Uncommon charter management organization that runs 32 schools in New York City, Newark, Boston and upstate New York and has the clearly stated mission of preparing low-income students for successful college careers.

Uncommon runs two other secondary schools and plans to open another in Brooklyn within three years. It’s a long road and a slow, steady journey that, at UCHS, has commenced in earnest.

The UCHS student body is about 66 percent black and 34 percent Hispanic; its current enrollment is 246, with a staff of 33 teachers. The school is fed by three middle schools in the Uncommon orb.

Like all charter schools, UCHS must continually justify its existence by maintaining good report cards. Its Class of 2013 tied the white student national average on the SAT critical reading test and beat it by seven and 30 points, respectively, on math and writing. It also well outperformed all city and six of eight state averages on the Regents.

UCHS requires a strong commitment from families and operates under very traditional rules. There are uniforms and a tight dress code; there is an after-school study center and Saturday morning test prep classes. The school day runs from 7:45 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.

“Students know they’re here to learn, that every minute matters,” says UCHS Principal Maya Roth Bisignano. “The structure and the rules are in place so they can do what they need to do and we can all work together toward that goal of academic achievement and success in college.”

For Roth Bisignano, it all starts with a staff of great teachers who are each other’s best coaches: “We have a strong emphasis on the craft of teaching, on observation and feedback. It’s all viewed through the lens of a coaching model, and it’s not just a few times a year but every single week. Our teachers are really excited about it because they can see themselves grow.” Every year before school opens, they gather for three weeks of professional development.

Another key to UCHS’s success is a plethora of college-oriented routines and practices, including two-week internships and group visits to upstate schools for juniors. Teachers offer college-style office hours and implement college-style lesson plans, lecture formats and seminars. “It’s all based on data gleaned from our North Star Academy and feedback from its alumni,” says Roth Bisignano. “We know this is what our students need to be successful in college.”

“We talk about this all the time,” says the principal, “and in fact it’s one of our mottos at Uncommon: Student achievement and transforming lives requires constant attention to hundreds of different elements—not one magical 100 percent solution, but rather one hundred individual 1 percent solutions. This is seen each and every day at UCHS from our incredible staff, our hard-working students and our partnerships with our families.”

Asked what most stands out about UCHS, Marie Jadotte, mother of senior Nicollette and freshman Daniella, says, “It’s how the teachers are there for their students. It really is like family.”