Students draw pictures of Mary and the baby Jesus in a 6th grade art class at Holy Cross School.

This year may be the last for six Catholic elementary schools in Manhattan. On Nov. 26, the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, which governs groups of Catholic Church parishes under the direction of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, announced the impending closure of 26 of its 159 elementary schools across the state. Six of those, including three on the Upper West Side, two uptown and one downtown, are in New York City.

Catholic schools across the nation have suffered from declining enrollments and tightening budgets for years, so the archdiocese decided to take a proactive approach to curbing losses by putting a condition on its most cash-strapped schools: Come up with a plan to turn things around by Jan. 3, or board up your windows and lock your doors come June.

This is not the archdiocese’s first round of hard cuts. At the end of 2010, the religious institution listed 32 of its elementary and high schools as “at risk” of closure. These schools saw a decline in enrollment of 71 percent over five years, according to the archdiocese’s announcement. When income from tuition drops below the cost of running a school, the archdiocese is forced to use its own resources to cover the deficit. Of the 32 at-risk schools, 28 were shut down the following summer.

“The plan is to create Catholic schools that are stable, viable and provide an excellent education, but that also provide those extras that parents seek for their children—computer labs, etc.,” explained Joseph Zwilling, the archdiocese’s director of communications.

The recent and impending closures are the culmination of the archdiocese’s three-year research and action plan called “Pathways to Excellence,” which aims to recalibrate the educational mission to ensure its longevity. According to the archdiocese’s website, “Today, the schools of the Archdiocese of New York are at a crossroads. … [Pathways to Excellence] is the beginning of a longer-term process for ensuring the future of the archdiocese’s elementary schools.”

While principals and parents of the schools at risk of closure agree with this initiative’s goal, they do not want to see their schools shut down. The schools still have an important place in the archdiocese’s vision, they argue.

“It’s a family here,” said Don Jovan, principal at Holy Name School on West 97th Street, which has been open for over 100 years. “It’s a great little place. We were hoping for a chance to build it up.”
He noted that the school’s academic performance has been excellent over the past four years and cited a wealth of extracurricular activities—including a mandatory theater arts program that prepares students for public speaking and performance—as an example of the school’s unique value to students.

Jovan admitted, however, that he understood the school’s grim financial situation; in his four years at the school, enrollment has dropped from 435 to 230 students.

“People can’t pay tuition in this economy,” he said. Over 90 percent of students in his school come from minority families. Still, he remained positive about the school’s future. “I’m hopeful that we’re going to have another breath of life,” he said.

Venus Trujillo, a mother of two children at Holy Name, helped circulate a petition to keep the school open among families and alumni of school.

“I can tell you as parents we are very disappointed,” she said. “Holy Name School is amazing and has the technology that many other schools in the area do not have for their students. The teachers are wonderful and really care for our children.”

Two principals of at-risk schools in Manhattan contended that in addition to quality programming, their schools’ diversity and history makes them worth preserving.

“Over 30 languages are spoken here,” said Sister Mary Theresa Dixon, principal of Holy Cross School on West 43rd Street. She emphasized that the school has provided a low-cost education to immigrant families since it opened 135 years ago.

“Our focus is to serve this immigrant population, and to provide the children with opportunities they wouldn’t have had before,” she said.

Principal Donna Gabella of St. Gregory the Great on West 90th Street called her school “a family community—a multi-racial, multi-generational community.”

“We serve a wide population across the boroughs,” she said. “We’re not your Wall Street people. We’re your everyday people.”

Catholic schools traditionally have served as a middle ground between public and non-denominational private schools, a low-cost, high-quality alternative to floundering public schools and unaffordable elite private institutions for students sometimes living in the city’s rougher neighborhoods. In hard financial times, however, Catholic schools increasingly have had to weigh the importance of retaining lower-income students against the need to raise tuition or focus funds on programming instead of student assistance to stay afloat.

Some Catholic schools in Manhattan have experimented with adjusting costs and have seen promising results. St. Stephen of Hungary School on East 82nd Street was once designated for closure, but began appealing to higher-income students by adding features like small class sizes and early-age extracurricular programs. Three years ago, the school’s annual fund raised $2,000. This year, it raised $120,000. Enrollment has soared.

Still, while international diversity remains strong, the school’s enrollment of African-American students has dropped, as has the number of students receiving free or reduced lunches. According to St. Stephen’s Head of School Katherine Peck, the school made the choice to reinvent itself based on the needs of the specific local community it serves. “In order for schools not only to survive, but to thrive, it has to be a community-based effort,” she said. “Every community is so different, with different programming needs. We wanted to be sure to provide what our community and neighborhood were in need of most.”

Peck acknowledged the challenge for schools like Holy Name whose needs outweigh their resources, and said that the burden was on those who believe in the value of a Catholic school education to donate to the schools.

“Right now Catholic schools are doing great, and yet we don’t have enough people out there willing to underwrite their costs,” she said. “Catholic schools are beneficial to everyone. If we have a system that is working and has a proven track record of success, there should be more people who are willing to support these schools and families financially.”

Donors are exactly what the at-risk schools were seeking as they scrambled to put together action plans that prove their sustainability over the coming years to the archdiocese. Parents and administrators worked together to host fundraisers, circulate petitions and reach out to alumni and elected officials for support. At Holy Cross School, the administration assembled a volunteer development committee that includes an attorney, a former admissions director at Penn State, a sales and marketing assistant and a grant writer. Downtown, State Sen. Dan Squadron and Assemblyman Sheldon Silver wrote to the archdiocese asking that St. James and St. Joseph School on Monroe Street remain open.

“Before closing this school, we ask that you please explore all possible options to keep it open or at least offer families a comparable choice for their children,” Squadron and Silver wrote. “The process ought to be carried out in consultation with the parents. This school is an important part of our community, and we urge you to pursue every available means to keep it open.”

Zwilling, the archdiocese’s spokesperson, claimed that the Archdiocese of New York does not anticipate another round of school closures after this summer’s.

“We hope this is the end of this

,” he said. Nevertheless, as long as hard financial times persist and free public charter schools, which often attract the same student populations as Catholic school, continue to proliferate, the fate of Catholic schools in Manhattan will remain uncertain.

“I’m fairly pessimistic [about Catholic schools’ future],” said Abraham Lackman, a scholar-in-residence at Albany Law School’s Government Law Center who recently published a paper on the effect of public charter schools on Catholic schools’ enrollments.

“My evidence shows that for every charter school that has opened in the last decade, a Catholic school has closed,” Lackman said. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that if 270 new charter schools are opened in the next decade, particularly in New York, the impact on the Catholic school system will be devastating.”

Lackman and Zwilling agree, however, that the disappearance of Catholic schools in Manhattan would be terrible for the city. “I think it would be a tragedy for education in general, and for poor districts particularly, if Catholic schools keep closing,” said Lackman, who argued that more choices for education is better for all students.

“Our schools are already overcrowded,” said Zwilling. “If we were to add a bunch of students back into the public system, it would be an enormous burden on taxpayers and the city.”

The six at-risk Manhattan schools, which also include Annunciation School on West 131st Street and St. Jude School on West 204th Street, already submitted their plans for survival to the archdiocese. According to Zwilling, the archdiocese will announce the final list of closures in the next two weeks.

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.”

Photo By Bess Adler

For Kelly Shannon, the principal of PS 41’s Greenwich Village School, there was a question early on as to whether she might lead a group of constituents instead of grade school students. “I initially wanted to go into politics,” said Shannon, a Brooklyn native who has been an educator for 18 years and principal at PS 41 for the last eight. Shannon, who has taught both fifth-grade history and math at the school, recalled taking a course in early childhood education and immediately falling in love with the idea of teaching.

“I’ve always felt as if teaching has been a career and not just a job,” said Shannon, who emphasized the importance of liking what you do professionally. “At end of day, you want to enjoy what you’re doing.”

And, Shannon said, teaching is not all that far removed from politics anyway. “There’s already a strong political aspect to being a principal in New York City—dealing with community boards, the Department of Education, the mayor’s office,” she said. “All of it makes me glad I didn’t go into politics. I made a good choice.”

Discussing the recent Hurricane Sandy, which hit Lower Manhattan particularly hard, Shannon said that despite the fact that all public schools were closed afterward due to a variety of issues from flooding to power loss, PS 41’s faculty demonstrated its caring and supportive nature.

“One thing that epitomizes people at PS 41 is how well everyone came together,” she said. “We had multiple relief efforts going on in Rockaway to help many families of faculty and students hard-hit by the storm.” Shannon said the school was sure to reach out to other local PTAs in the area that also needed help.

“We made people feel at ease during the storm.”

She also said that the storm brought back uneasy memories of Sept. 11. The hurricane was a “different type of tough experience,” she said, but “people once again came together to help each other out.”

Shannon noted that good leadership is where everyone takes on a leadership role.

At the heart of PS 41’s success, said Shannon, is being an academically rigorous school that simultaneously manages to support the arts. “Our students get what they need but also get the arts. We never forget how important the arts are.”

Shannon underscored the importance of giving kids a real sense of community as well as a solid education. “We help our students understand how important it is to be a good part of the community.”

In addition to focusing on core subjects such as reading, writing and social studies, Shannon said the school’s GELL program, or Green Roof Environmental Literacy Lab, is a first-of-its-kind project to teach kids about interacting with the outside environment. The GELL program is an outgrowth of the school’s already functioning garden program, which began in 2003.

“The GELL program started as a grassroots effort, and we’ve put a lot of time and energy into the project, which features a full green roof. The whole project has been six years in the making,” she said.

Shannon explained that students grow plants and herbs and learn to work with farmers’ markets, thereby helping teach kids about how foods get to their table, about distribution systems in place and how foods play a large part in society vis-à-vis restaurants and even supermarkets.

“It’s really interesting to watch how the body language of kids changes when they go up on the roof to study and work in the GELL,” Shannon noted. “It shows a different side of kids when they’re up there; it’s like they’re in another world.” She also pointed out the school has received substantial support from city politicians such as Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer as well as organizations including the Whole Foods Market Union Square, Organic Valley Farms and the National Wildlife Federation.

Still, the most important type of support the school continues to get is from the local community. “We have about 803 students in all now, and there’s now a lottery to get into school,” Shannon said. “There are no empty seats. In fact, we’re struggling to take the kids that are local at this point.”

As someone who had the opportunity to work at P.S. 84 for many years, I had ample opportunity to observe Mr. Morison’s less than stellar performance. As an educational leader, his tenure was marked by a period of stagnation, during which standardized reading and math test scores plummeted. This was a far cry from the reputation that the school enjoyed prior to Mr. Morison’s arrival.

To fully understand why such an individual would have been selected [as principal], one must recall that it was at a time when the system was in the midst of the “community control” movement. A small, hard-core group of militant, highly vocal parents asserted themselves, imposing their choice of Mr. Morison as “community principal” of the school. He was in no way qualified for the position, other than that he subscribed to the radicalized agenda being espoused by this group, and he was all too willing to impose their will. In no time, the school’s reputation for academic excellence was a thing of the past, thanks to the “leadership” exercised by Mr. Morison!

There really is no need to name a street after Mr. Morison. His “legacy,” and a sad one it is indeed, is the hundreds of children who passed through P.S. 84’s portals, devoid of the basic elementary education to which they were entitled. Hopefully, Community Board 7 will consider this, rather than the poignant pleas of the “keeper of the flame.” Let us not add insult to the injury that has already been done!

David Shapiro
Former P.S. 84 teacher

Letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.

The pioneering principal led the school for 26 years, from 1969 to 1995. He died Oct. 16 at the age of 77.

His wife, Jacqueline, is planning to request that Community Board 7 honor Morison by renaming West 92nd Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, where P.S. 84 is located. His widow said she wanted to rename something after Morison, who was an education advocate and pioneer of dual-language education.

“What better thing than to rename the street where the school is,” she said. “He had this thing about the community, for the underdog, for social justice.”

Morison, a Bronx native, moved to the Upper West Side to attend Columbia University. He taught math at Joan of Arc High School on West 93rd Street before becoming chair of the mathematics department.

“Sid Morison was a man who believed that all children could learn, and made that belief a reality,” wrote Hannah Hess, an education author, in a letter to Community Board 7. “It would be only fitting to have the street on which the school is located named for Sid Morison.”

Danielle Salzberg has helped start 10 new schools. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

Q: You’ve been working at the education reform group New Visions for Public Schools, helping them launch schools. How many new schools have you overseen?
A: I’ve helped start 10 new schools. I started a new school once as a teacher early in my career and then did the same thing again five years later and then started at New Visions. I’ve learned about the pitfalls and challenges of starting a school. I don’t think that means there won’t be kinks in the early years of Frank McCourt, but I do have access to a lot of resources.

Q: Can you take us through the steps of the school-launch process, which Frank McCourt is going through now?
A: First there’s an application process, which is a proposal that needs to be submitted to the Department of Education. It includes a mission statement and a vision for the school and a series of documents in which you articulate what the school is about. Once the school is approved, there’s a short recruitment phase, usually in February, during which all students get a second opportunity to look at new schools. So if they want to change, they can apply to a new school. After that, it’s like a marathon to hire staff, develop systems, do training and orientation, meet with students and families, solidify partnerships, ready the space and order supplies. Most schools do training for teachers in summer and have a short bridge for students or orientation in summer to get a jumpstart. And then the school opens with 108 freshmen!

Q: What are your thoughts on working on the Upper West Side?
A: I’ve been a 10-year resident of the Upper West Side. It’s a great, diverse neighborhood. And there are so many organizations that are incredible resources for young people and families who live here. The neighborhood is a great attraction, too, for kids in other parts of the city. There are so many reasons to come there: museums, cultural venues, hospitals and the university.

Q: The Frank McCourt School will focus on communications and civic engagement. How will that be reflected in the curriculum, and what will the math and science part look like?
A: There’s going to be a lot of literacy instruction, and also a big commitment to community service. It will appeal to kids who want experience with leadership development and who have an interest in writing or visual art or other kinds of media and communication—and those who are interested in trying a different kind of teaching and assessment. Grades will be done a little differently; we’re going to implement an alternative assessment program that will engage students in measuring their own progress. There will be independent study and an experiential learning requirement before they graduate. They’re going to organize their own project, whether it’s research at science lab or an internship in a newspaper or working with web development. They’ll explore a career path or personal interest in an academic way, which includes reflection and regular meetings with classmates to share what they’re learning. We’re going to have a very strong science and math curriculum. Kids who are most ready for college have experienced a rigorous four years of math and science; we will expect them to take four years of each.

Q: Frank McCourt will be a selective school. How will the admissions process and recruiting work?
A: Admissions will be based on grades, standardized exam scores, attendance and then a group interview to see how students engage with material, which includes an onsite writing sample. The school will accept applicants citywide, and do a lot of recruiting in the neighborhood as well. I’m looking forward to meeting with people at the local middle schools.

Q: How will community involvement continue moving forward?
A: My understanding is there already are committees and groups who have been engaged in this process for a long time. I have been meeting with them individually, and am looking forward to meeting them as groups and sharing ideas. The goal is ultimately to develop an advisory council for this school, a group of community members that meet regularly and work with the school.

Transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Beth Lubeck-Ceffalia grew up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where she had “fabulous teachers” who inspired her to give back to the community through education.
Today, she is not far from her childhood home, serving as principal at P.S. 132, The Conselyea School, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Lubeck-Ceffalia was an assistant principal at the pre-K-through-5th-grade school before being named principal five years ago. Being able to stay at the same school was a nice continuity, she said, although her new post as principal brings “a very different perspective.”
Before Lubeck-Ceffalia arrived, many felt that P.S. 132 was lacking a sense of community and an efficient way to communicate with parents. The surrounding Williamsburg neighborhood had become more family-friendly, but that influx of children wasn’t felt at the school; many parents preferred to send their kids to schools in Manhattan.

The school was also “very traditional,” according to parent Kimberly Wright, and lacked parent involvement and diversity.
“Beth is very young, but she uses that as an asset,” Wright said. “She has an energy and a vibrancy and is extremely responsive to parents.”
In order to improve the school, Lubeck-Ceffalia said she took a “let’s try it” attitude toward parent suggestions. Soon, parents were coming in to help teachers in the classroom. The principal started a blog on the school’s website, and administrators launched a baby play group designed to reach families who weren’t yet school-age.
“We would brainstorm and sit together,” Lubeck-Ceffalia said, adding that the group discussed issues that were important to people as both neighbors and parents.
“Everyone knows about the school now,” she added. “Our school has changed the Williamsburg community.”
In October, the school held its fourth annual harvest festival, which it happily opened to the surrounding community. Families and neighbors picked pumpkins, played games and enjoyed home-cooked foods from different cultures, said Wright, one of the event’s organizers.
In the spring, P.S. 132 holds a kite festival. Students invite parents and relatives to create kites, then the families take their kites and fly them together at nearby McCarren Park.
In keeping with the community theme, P.S. puts a big emphasis on volunteering and student service. Recent projects have included beautification efforts at McCarren Park and the launch of a school recycling program. Individual classes at P.S. 132 currently hold 16 of the top 25 spots in a “Service Counts” ranking kept by The League, a non-profit that encourages school community service. P.S. 132 has raised a total of $27,000 with 5,400 hours of community service, and four students were recently honored by President Bush at the White House for having completed 400-plus hours of community service.
Lubeck-Ceffalia feels like she gets value back from the students, too. The children’s love for the school shows in the way they say “hello” in the morning, the principal said, and in their enthusiasm and energy.
“It’s a really dynamic place,” Lubeck-Ceffalia said. “It’s a great place to be a principal.”
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Principal Beth Lubeck-Ceffalia
P.S. 132, The Conselyea School
320 Manhattan Ave.
Brooklyn, N.Y.11211
718-599-7301, www.ps132andyou.net
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Harvey Katz, principal of P.S. 117 Keld/Briarwood School in Jamaica, Queens, says the key to success is cooperation.
“We are all working together,” he said of the staff and parents at his pre-K-through-6th-grade school. “The idea is communication.”
Katz encourages both students and parents to take an active part in the education process and wants them all to feel as though “they are stakeholders,” he explained.
“This is not a rich neighborhood,” said parent Lixu Chen. “Parents don’t have money for private tutors.”
But Katz makes the school like a second home for many children, she explained.

Principal Harvey Katz meets students and parents outside every day. Photo By: Andrew Schwartz

“He is very compassionate,” Chen said. “I wish every principal would work as hard as him.”
At P.S. 117, 77 percent of students qualified to receive free lunch during the 2006-2007 school year, and the school is eligible for Title 1 federal funding. But Katz insists that “poverty is not a basis for an excuse for not achieving”—and test scores have reflected that belief. Sixty-nine percent of students scored a 3 or a 4 on the 4th grade English Language Arts exam in 2006-2007, and 92 percent of students scored a 3 or a 4 on the 4th grade math exam that year.
Katz says he makes it a priority to help both children who are considered “struggling learners,” as well as those who show extraordinary promise.
“We need to look at children who are talented, and can go even further,” he said.
Katz has 37 years of experience in New York City schools, with a focus on elementary education. He came to P.S. 117 six years ago after serving as the principal of P.S. 174, the William Sidney Mount School in Rego Park, Queens.
“I enjoyed being with children and I wanted to help them grow and succeed,” he said.
Beyond textbook learning, the school has a vibrant arts program that includes major theater productions. Recent musicals have included The King and I, Guys and Dolls, High School Musical and The Wiz.
While P.S. 117 is only required to have a parent association, Katz has worked to build a parent-teacher association.
“Teachers are not included at many schools,” he said, but at P.S. 117, “the teachers have the right to speak and vote.”
Katz also works with parents and students across cultural lines, but he does not see those lines as boundaries.
“Our school reflects the great diversity of New York City,” he said.
The school serves families whose primary languages are Spanish, Russian, Bengali, Urdu and Tagalog.
“We get along very well and we celebrate all of these cultures,” he said.
Part of that is making everyone feel welcome, and Katz sets the tone by going to meet parents and children in front of the school every morning.
“I go out everyday and greet everybody,” he said. “It’s also a good way to talk to parents and share good things [as well as] things they’re concerned about.”
Katz also uses the opportunity to keep an eye on traffic in the neighborhood and other safety issues.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Katz and his colleagues are constantly thinking about how to continue making progress at the school.
“We’re not complacent,” he said. “We’re looking for new ways to build and improve upon our work here.”
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Principal, Harvey Katz
P.S. 117 Keld/Briarwood School
85-15 143rd St.
Queens, N.Y. 11435
718-526-4780
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Few elementary school students read books in both Spanish and English, rehearse with a young people’s chorus and take yoga classes during a school day. But at P.S. 75, all 800 students take advantage of those opportunities daily, thanks to the dedicated leadership of Principal Bob O’Brien.
“He is a great leader,” said Eleanor Krieger, mother of a 1st grader at P.S. 75. “He’s the kind of leader that brings out the best in the people around him. It’s a great community and he’s the person that’s steering the ship.”
For the past 12 years, O’Brien’s leadership has turned P.S. 75 into an unusual community of learners. Expanding the school’s dual language program from five classes to 12, O’Brien has ensured that students in the linguistic minority have the same opportunities as those in the majority.

“Spanish-dominant students who would ordinarily be served in a bilingual program that is just language-minority students are served in a context in which there are English-dominant students who want to learn Spanish,” O’Brien said.
All children leave the program bilingual and bi-literate.
“You can turn what might have been a challenge into a strength for the school and see everyone succeed,” O’Brien said.
To help special needs students, O’Brien has introduced collaborative team teaching into the school. Special needs students are integrated with general education students in 10 different classrooms, which are team-taught by a special education teacher and a general education teacher.
“The amazing thing about it is it’s often difficult for a visitor to pick out which are the students that have special needs, or to pick out which teacher is which,” O’Brien said. “We make sure that kids are reaching their fullest potential without segregating students in special needs classes or sending them to another school. They’re all our kids and they all stay in our school.”
O’Brien is as inclusive of the parents of P.S. 75 as he is of the students. He makes time to speak to parents on a daily basis and organizes informal principal-parent chats once each month.
“His dedication to parents and understanding the parents’ perspective is really unique,” said Jennifer Friedman, mother of a 2nd grader. “He doesn’t come to those meetings with an agenda; he comes and hears what the parents have to say. I’m an administrator of a preschool so I know different ways to respond to parents. He’s not a ‘yes’ man; he’ll explain why things are done the way they’re done. He’s very clear and honest, which gains him respect.”
Parents also respect O’Brien for his dedication to students after school hours; he expanded the after-school program to include music, pottery, theater and cooking classes, at a fraction of the cost of other neighborhood programs. His commitment to the arts ensures that every 5th grade student takes ballroom dance classes and invites students in grades 3, 4 and 5 to participate in a young people’s chorus that has performed at Carnegie Hall. Responding to a concern that students were not getting enough movement during the day, O’Brien moved computers into classrooms, turned the computer lab into a yoga room, and added yoga classes to the curriculum.
“There are lots of opportunities to experience learning outside of reading and math,” O’Brien said. “While those things are important, there are lots of other ways to know the world and experience learning. Those are the things that I am proudest of.”
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Bob O’Brien, Principal
P.S. 75, Emily Dickinson
735 West End Ave.
New York, N.Y. 10025
212-866-5400, www.ps75.org
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