all right, good evening families and students,
we are so excited to welcome you to our,
our 21 22 virtual open house.
We are excited to be welcoming a brand new set of ninth grade
student founders to our community um and so we're excited to
share information about W B H S um also the fact that we are
being renamed and rebranded for the new school year and so um
this is an excited,
exciting time in our school community um as some of you may know,
we are a new school that opens uh in the district in 2020 we are
in District seven and we are the first new high school to open
in the Bronx in the last eight years and so before we get
started,
I just want to make sure to recognize the fact that we know that
this is a difficult time of the night,
um we know that families are preparing dinner,
we know that we are putting little ones to bed and we want to
acknowledge that and know that you can participate in whatever
way feels comfortable for you this evening um and so know that
all of what's happening behind the scenes at your home is
happening behind the scenes at our home um and as we always say,
it is all one big family here at our school community,
this is the X,
um and we are representative of the Bronx community and just
want to be inclusive and welcoming to all um so with that said
no that you can participate in the chat,
if you have any questions,
feel free to drop them in the chat um and I want to just kick it
to Miss paez who um is gonna just share a little bit about those
who may need spanish translation.
All right, um so if you do need any translation,
feel free to put it in the chat,
um we will have our presentation in both english and spanish um
so that we can share it with the broader Bronx community um and
both languages,
uh we also just want to acknowledge the fact that our school is
currently listed as walkabout Bronx high school,
but we are in the process of being renamed,
in fact we've just gotten approval on our,
our new name which is actually Bronx Legacy High School um which
is b excel, so we're excited to have that new name,
we will be re introducing a new logo um and new branding as it
relates to that,
so um previously walkabout Bronx high school and now,
especially for the 2022 23 school year will be referred referred
to as Bronx Legacy High. Um So without further ado,
I'm gonna jump right into the presentation,
so um my name is cam Gordon?
I am the founding principle of walkabout Bronx.
Formerly walkabout Bronx now Bronx Legacy High um and so I have
been an educator in the Bronx for 13 years um I have served as a
teacher,
as an assistant principal and now as a founding principle.
Um, and I think it's really,
really important to acknowledge for all of our students and also
for all of our staff members at our school that we are not a
monolith, um,
that we are a collection of various parts of our identity and we
want to lift them up um as many parts as possible um,
and share them out with a broader school community.
So I share a little bit about myself,
I'm proud to say that I am born and bred from the Bronx.
Um, and I am a daughter of immigrants from the West Indies.
I am the mother of Christiana.
Um, and I'm also really really proud of the fact that our house,
our high school, which was founded Um,
two years ago was founded in a double pandemic of COVID-19 and
systemic racism and we have powered through that.
Um, and are now still standing tall throughout that entire
experience. Um, so I'm honored to be with everyone tonight.
I'm excited to get to know each and every one of you.
Um, and I want to kick it now to our, this is the X family.
And so I want to take a moment to kick it to our staff members
that are here with us tonight and acknowledge um,
your commitment to our community.
And so I'm gonna go ahead and kick it to miss em first to sort
of introduce herself um, and her role at our school.
Hey, thank you. Hi everyone.
I'm miss m also known as Miss Mojica. I am the SEP seven.
I'm sorry, I am the 9th and 7th grade science teacher.
I teach living environment and earth science and I am looking
forward to meeting new faces next year.
I'm going to kick it to Miss Levy.
Hello. All right,
so my name is Miss Levy um like MS M I am 1/9 and 10th grade
teacher right now as we only have the two grades,
I'm super excited to meet all you guys.
Um, and I'm just really excited to be here.
I'm gonna kick it over to if it hasn't been done already.
Um, MS medina.
Hi, good evening everyone. I'm MS medina.
I'm one of the guidance counselors at Bronx legacy.
I am also though, well,
sort of the work based learning coordinator,
but the class is renamed as a Ceo class,
which stands for career exploration opportunities and I'm
excited to meet you all.
I'm gonna kick it to MS baez.
Good evening.
I am as Pyatt and I am the retired guidance counselor for the
school and I do all the students programming and I make sure
that they have their credits that they have the right courses so
that they can graduate on time. Um, taking it right back to MS.
Gordon.
All right, well,
thank you so much for the staff members that are here with us
tonight.
Thank you so much uh, for for being a part of our community.
I want to just go back to the other slide for just a second
because I do want to acknowledge our student founders that are
also here with us this evening, um,
and have committed to sharing a little bit about our school
community and the culture. And um,
I also want to acknowledge the pattern that is behind the images
on the slide. So those are some images from our campus. Um,
but also the triangles that you see noted on our slide is really
indicative of the, and,
and is a symbol of the uniqueness that every single student
founder brings to our school community.
And so, um, I want to just make sure that we are aware of that.
Um, and that, you know,
I'm hoping by the end of our presentation that we have more and
more students that are representative of more and more triangles
and we continue to paint that canvas and paint that map um,
to showcase the uniqueness of the Bronx.
So what I'm going to do is I'm gonna go ahead and kick it to one
of our student founders and I'm gonna ask each of you to sort of
introduce yourself and share one thing that you think is special
about our school community. Um, I am going to start with alarm.
So I'm gonna kick it to alarm alarm.
Go ahead and share uh, your name,
your grade and also something really special about our school
community.
Okay,
hi my name is Al um and I'm 1/9 grader I guess Bronx legacy High
School and something I find really special and I really like
about this school.
It's basically about the school project because the school is
really strong about like anti racism and like basically just
bringing the whole community together and I feel like every
project we do, like just explains this to that.
Like we talked about like like racism,
slavery and just basically like how society is today and not
just about racism.
We also talked about like just basically how everything works in
our society and like how we can fix things,
how we can like you know for example like you they can recommend
donations and stuff like that.
So I really value that in the school.
Thank you all. Um Can you kick it to another student founder?
Um I would kick it to Nisha.
Hi, my name is not Nisha and sorry, okay, I'm sorry,
my name is not Nisha.
And something that I would like to acknowledge um about this
school that I find really special is the teachers.
I feel like the teachers are very like interactive with the
students and I feel like they mhm.
They're like know how to um teach every student in a different
way that that like they would need it.
And also I feel like they're very free with the way that they
teach it to the students.
Mhm And yeah, I appreciate them.
Thank you. Nisha, will you kick it to another student founder?
Um I would like to kick it to leah Hi,
um my name is leah and I'm 1/9 grade student at Bronx Legacy
High School and something I would like to acknowledge about the
school would be,
I guess the sports um what I mean is like one thing also about
like, this particular school is like people,
while the students are very like,
they take volleyball very seriously and as a person who like who
plays volleyball since like elementary and stuff, that's,
that's something that like, I admire because like, it's like,
it's almost as if like I'm finding people like me in a way,
but besides, like this volume of,
I would say like there's also like a variety of sports to get in,
which is something I find quite interesting like to participate
in on like your free time.
And yeah, I would like to kick it to Catherine.
Did she say my name?
I'm sorry, I cannot, I'm sorry, my name is Captain Hendricks,
I'm in ninth grade and something special about the school that I
would say is the class break based learning one of my personal
favorite classes because not only does the class help you have
all the criteria, you need to become an entrepreneur,
but it also helps you like get right to apply for HPC using
colleges of your choice that you wanted to go to?
Um, yeah, I'm gonna process to charlie.
Hi, I'm charlie.
I'm a nice gator and something I really enjoy about the school
is that it's super student that it's not so command that we have
to follow orders.
We have a saying things that go on around us and we're also very
motivated and encouraged to use our voices to have it like to
have a say and make it impactful.
Um, we also get to bond with the teachers a lot.
Like personally I know me and we bond over food and there's like
a reward system for students aren't just doing it for a long
term benefit. They also get to see like then in their results.
Oh and um, I'll kick it to data.
Hi, my name is Jaden and I'm 1/10 grade student at w um mm hmm,
Bronx legacy.
And one thing about the school that I like is the clubs,
personally,
I'm in the dance club and we really get to express ourselves
through dance. We're having a performance coming up soon.
So, and there's other clubs, like the gaming club,
the art club and the students really enjoy having the clubs like
it's the time to bond with each other,
bond with their teachers and um, not more work wise,
but like hustling and I'd like to pass it to Iceland.
Um um, Good evening, My name is Isaac on my 9th grader.
Um, what I like about this school,
I'm sorry what I like about the schools,
the factors like the teachers are really cool. You feel me?
So it's like you get to bond with them and it's like sometimes
they feel like students themselves were able to like tell them
certain things, you wouldn't be able to tell anybody else.
And the other thing that I like is the sports because like I'm
not gonna allow to really like coming to school.
But you know the way people play,
like the way they play sports and I can tell like they really
liked the sport.
It just makes me want to play more and get better at it for me
like volleyball because it's just a w sports and the way I see
how people try to get better at it.
You know,
it kind of inspires me and helps me want to get better at it.
So I really like, like the way the student body is.
Um mhm, mm hmm.
I passed it on to Leslie.
Hi, my name is Leslie and I'm currently a 10th grader at Bronx
Legacy High School and something I like about this school is how
MS medina Ceo class gives opportunities and how the school's
student led and our voices are heard and I'll pass it on to hey
ross.
Hi, my name is Sarah and I'm currently a student from B XL Bronx
Legacy High School and um something I like a cool is that it's
student led and like we have a say on what we learn and,
and also I'm, I really like, we get, we, we have opportunities,
they're gonna spend so long.
Um, I also want to add on to what I was saying on how um,
that it's a comfortable space.
We get to like everybody's nice to each other and yeah,
and it's a small school so everybody gets, everybody gets old.
Yeah. And I would like to pass it on to who hasn't won yet.
I don't know joe lena Selena. Yeah.
Hello, my name is Juliana and I am a 10th grader.
I would like to talk about how our family is about giving each
other opportunities and always having a feeling like that we
could express our feelings and we are always heard by our staff
and our peers.
Um, josiah, you hear me?
Hey, good evening everyone. Um my name's asteroids.
I'm sophomore bronze. Like the high school.
And I think one of my one thing that I really like like about
the school would be everyone else kind of said it like
opportunities. I feel like in school,
I guess overall that's always kind of like,
like things that are tangible things I can see and like see that
are directly applied to my future and I'd say yeah opportunities.
Being able to have access to like internships jobs,
um college information, college awareness.
I think that's one thing I really,
really enjoyed about school also the sense of community,
but definitely those internships and those opportunities,
those really Oh great.
I actually got one recently in the school and it's been great so
far, so good.
So I'm good for that and yeah, I will pass it on to Tomoya.
Hi, I'm a student at, well my name is Cameron,
I'm a student at Bronx legacy. I'm 1/10 grader.
And what's something special that I like about Bronx legacy is
that it's very inclusive no matter like what are you or like
your status is like very inclusive and everything.
They like the opportunity, I don't know who has,
you can pass it to Elena hello, my name is Lay low, right?
I'm 1/10 grader Bronx legacy right?
Um I want to talk about the of course the opportunities and how
we are treated as a family and were never like,
we're always here together and as for the events we do,
like we learn about how are school goals and we follow like are
same and a, I don't know how to pronounce it, but to,
I don't know what to say. Boom, boom too. Yeah,
so we do events so we can have so we can all go together right
to show like what you need means as a whole, right?
And we also right,
we have days to like talk about everyone's cultures and how
their lives,
especially people who don't know their culture background to
learn and make people like woke in some sense and that's all the
next one is leah, I think leah went already.
You can um send it to Ash Mia so we can kick it to a cashmere,
you could share your connection to the school.
I think cashmere got logged off, I think that's it.
Alright,
well I have to just give a huge shout out to all our student
founders for sharing such amazing pieces of our school community
tonight. I am um I I feel like dream realized, right?
Um so everything that you're sharing is all of the things that
we hope for when we were starting this school and so to know
that that's what you're really feeling as you go through our
school community.
Um It's just a reminder of how special um this place is and that
we're all sort of joined together for um an important reason um
and some that we might not ever know,
but it's just it's it's just a testament to the dedication and
the people that show up every single day to to make our
community special, so I thank you for that.
Um Oh, Ash Mia, you're here. We wanted you to share.
Um Do you are you ready? Yeah.
Hi, I'm sorry, it keeps kicking me, I don't know why,
but I just want to say this really quick before it kicks me
again.
Um I just wanted to say because I know a lot of students really
worry about like what you know they feel very self conscious on
what to wear and stuff like that as I just wanted to say that
this isn't a uniform mandatory school.
We do have like merch and stuff like that,
it's optional for you to wear it. Which I think is really cool.
And I just want to say at this time like everybody's like
everybody has their own aesthetic and everybody's outfits are
really really pretty and um yeah and I just I felt like that's a
big one of the major parts of the school because I really like
how comfortable everybody is with everybody and everybody's very
interactive and like it's just like a fashion school.
Like I really like it.
Everybody's just so nice with their outfits and very well
coordinated with them too. I like how um comfortable they are.
Yeah thank you for sharing that Kashmir.
Yes this is definitely the place where you're allowed to be who
you are.
Um And we want to ensure that we embrace everyone for their
authenticity.
Um And that regardless of of how they show up to the space.
Um And so yes. New conscious collection coming soon.
Um shout out to um charlie for saying that she's still gonna be
wrapping this is the Exxon unconscious collection.
So I appreciate you charlie.
Alright so without further ado we'll get into today's agenda.
Um So our next slide will just kind of show an overview of what
we'll be discussing.
We already sort of talked about some of this.
So we talked a little bit about R. W. B. H. S.
Uh name change and rebranding.
And so we are formally known as walkabout Bronx high School,
but our new name is Bronx Legacy High um B. X. L. For short.
We've gone through our uh introductions um and now we'll briefly
talk a little bit about our location,
will share a bit about our website,
our partners a little bit about our school culture.
Um And then we'll jump into some specifics about our career
exploration class and curriculum.
Um And then we'll close out with some Q. And A.
Um And so we're going to hopefully make this painless and
effortless tonight and we'll share a little bit um and answer
some questions that you might have. All right,
so we are located on the Mont Haven campus um Really excited to
share that.
The Mont Haven campus is uh one of the newer campuses that were
built that was built.
Um It is also the most expensive campus that was ever built by
the school construction authority was actually intended to be a
college.
And so what is unique about our school campuses that while it is
a co located school campus,
each and every single school has its own unique tower um and
separate towers were able to function kind of independently,
although we are all together um at different levels of our
campus. Um, and so all right, certainly you can share,
you can see more of our campus on our website.
Um, and so I'm gonna hop to the next slide, um,
and just share our website that was recently updated.
So our website is, this is the X dot com. Um,
and so I do want to note that one of the really special things
about our new website is the fact that you can change and adjust
the website for whatever language you need.
And so one of the things that um,
we've been able to do is make sure that our website is
accessible to everyone in the community by adjusting the
language so you can see that you can adjust it to be able to
showcase it in different languages. Um,
you see there it's being showcased in spanish and so usually if
we have any alerts, we will post it on our website.
We also communicate utilizing remind, um, school messenger.
And so that's also a space where we're able to get out any
important messages in addition to our website.
Um, I will share a little bit about our school partners.
We take partnership very, very, very seriously, um,
at our school,
we really really want to find ways to collaborate with local
organizations in order to ensure that our student founders have
a well rounded experience and have as much access to the real
world as possible.
And so you see here some of our partners um some partners that I
do want to lift up is our Montefiore partner,
we have a full clinic on campus and so students that are signed
up for the the clinic are able to get physicals are able to get
mental health support.
And so there's a variety of different opportunities that are
available on campus through the Monte clinic.
And so I just want to note that because it is a state of the art
clinic that all students have access to,
but those that have um are signed up with the clinic actually
have access to a lot more.
And so we encourage every single student when they enroll at our
school to actually sign up for the Monte clinic.
Um I will say that the new york Urban League is another partner
that I would love to lift up.
They have supported us with our experiential learning
experiences and internships this year this year.
And so I do want to acknowledge them for all of the support that
they have provided and continue to provide throughout the school
year. And so um lots and lots of partnerships are still growing.
Um and we're still adding partners to the list. Uh P. S. A. L.
Another huge partner for us on campus,
We have all of our sports teams through P. S. A. L.
And so we have,
I think every sport that you could imagine from baseball,
basketball, football, soccer, tennis, to golf.
Um, and so really exciting opportunity here on our campus to be
involved in multiple sports,
whether it be directly on our campus or at a neighboring high
school.
All right. And so we'll jump into a bit about R. W. B. H. S.
Culture. Um, I just want to share, uh, you know,
I like to say that this school um,
is my love letter to the Bronx, um,
being born and bred in the Bronx.
And so the links here are from a interview,
one of the first interviews that I did when we started the
school. And so I encourage everyone to kind of look it up.
You can find the interview on Youtube,
but it shares a little bit more about our intentionality around
focusing in on the Bronx.
Um, it also speaks to our commitment to anti racism and so our
mission uh, is um, you know, W.
B. H. S. Or Bronx legacy high is a anti racist,
anti bullying community that honors individual cultural identity
with a foundation rooted in problem solving community learning
and action.
And so I do want to say that our mission and vision is one that
is often changing and we are um,
iterating on it from year to year.
This mission has changed since last year and I just want to
shout out josiah who over the summer edited our mission um,
to include anti bullying because we felt that it was needed and
important. And so I,
I want to acknowledge that we really do lift up the ideas of our
student founders and we want to make sure that they,
the ideas that they share are actually seeing and transparent in
our community. Um,
also I want to add that we are a new school that was intentional
about uh, being a small school,
we are a school that has a maximum capacity of no more than 360
students at full enrollment,
which means we take in a lot less students from year to year
than a typical um, new york city deal.
We high school and so given that we really asked if you have a
strong interest in coming to our school and joining our
community that you put walkabout Bronx slash Bronx legacy high
as number one on your application because we really want to
ensure that you have the best opportunity to join our community.
Um, and we know that you know what happens from here to there.
Um, and when you receive your, your,
the final decisions regarding what schools you have been
accepted to a lot happens.
And so we encourage you to add our school DBN is 076 to five.
And so, um, you can definitely look us up that way,
but we really really want to encourage you to put us down as
number one.
We have less than 90 spots for our ninth grade for next year.
And so we, with that being said,
we really want to encourage everyone um to put us down as number
one to ensure that there is a spot for you.
One thing I also want to know is that with respect to the
application, we have one criteria that we utilize,
we're not a screening school um except for one priority,
and that is, we prioritize our Bronx students,
so any students living in the Bronx community will be
prioritized over students in other boroughs, and so we want to,
you sort of lift that up and make that clear um and you know,
that's really just connected to our mission and vision as a as a
school.
Um I'm going to skip over the mission slide and jump into the
slide on belonging because I think this is a really,
really important part of our community. Uh Mhm.
I think one of the important things about our school community
is I think there's a little bit of a secret and antidotes of
what makes us special,
um and that looks like belonging identity, opportunity.
We truly believe that these three things go a really,
really long way and cultivating a strong sense of community and
as you can see here these three, I'm sorry,
these four anchors are really the Foundation,
the platform for our mission and vision and what happens
throughout our classrooms and also what happens in our community,
the idea of um really uplifting equity and inclusion and
belonging and diversity is really,
really important to us and we want to make sure that every
student is able to,
at the end of their time in our community to really speak for
and advocate to these different attributes.
Um, and not only our community but any other community that they
decided to join in the future.
So I like to say that this is our secret sauce belonging
identity and opportunity.
Uh,
so some other foundations about our our school community are key
assumptions. Uh,
so the first key assumption is your voice is your most powerful
instrument. We know that um, traditionally people of color,
people of the global majority,
that in many ways are traditions have been passed down orally
and not necessarily in a written word because those are things
that um, were taken from our community due to oppression.
And so we want to acknowledge that um,
oral traditions are really important and powerful and that we
can utilize those traditions and our voices to change the world
and that it is an instrument for changing the world.
And so, you know, as some of our students founders said before,
we really want um,
there to be a chance for our community to stand for something
and to step up um,
and showcase their knowledge around inclusivity and bringing
people together and cultivating a sense of belonging and with
that being said,
our second key assumption is the time is always now to speak out
against injustice.
And so there is no right time is what we believe, we believe,
that the time is always now to speak up and out against anything
that is oppressive or goes against our school communities
mission and vision.
And so I say that because I think it's particularly as a school
that was born in a double pandemic, um one of you know,
civil unrest and uprising,
we want to make sure that that shows through in our community
and whatever situation is going on,
um and that we make it clear to our student founders that that
that their voices are super powerful and speaking out against
injustice.
And so the collective impact in our community,
we really see our school community as being a hub for change as
we mentioned before, and it takes all of the people,
particularly the people on our call today,
but also the people that are supporting our community um
collectively, so whether that be families and caregivers,
instructional experts,
that we extend ourselves beyond the campus,
and we also bring people in from outside of the campus to both
educate and support our initiatives.
And so I think you can see that in our partner work and you can
certainly see that um even in our p a um we have experts coming
in to talk about resume building,
to talk about uh workshops on interviews and really we want to
see this as a space not just for student founders before their
extended families as well.
And so uh the importance of all stakeholders really
participating um in supporting our students in achieving not
only uh their individual goals but our goals as a community.
And so the video that we're about to see is really along the
lines of what one student mentioned earlier around our school
model of.
Um and so this school was founded under the premise of nelson
Mandela.
And so the fact that nelson Mandela was so selfless in his work
around um you know,
bringing democracy to South Africa when apartheid was raging
through that community,
um we we really want to acknowledge his sacrifice and also
acknowledge the fact that um many would say that nelson Mandela
really lived and breathed and embodied, Boom,
boom to um so I'm gonna just pause for a second,
so we can take a look at this quick video on Mun two.
and then we'll take it from there,
I'm not sure if other folks can hear,
but I can't hear the video.
So if we could just pause and then re lines and on mute.
Yes.
And finally,
Mandel understood the ties that bind the human spirit.
There's a word in South africa,
a bientot a word that captures Mandela's greatest gift,
this recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are
invisible to the eye,
that there's a oneness to humanity that we achieve ourselves by
sharing ourselves with others and caring for those around us.
We can never know how much of this sense was innate in him or
how much was shaped in a dark and solitary cell,
but we remember the gestures large and small.
And so our school model is moving to.
I am because we are and this is the notion that, you know,
we cannot achieve without one another,
that we have to lift one another up in order to achieve because
we are all interconnected and we are all responsible for each of
each of our success.
Um and so I really want to empower our student founders to look
beyond themselves,
but to look to the broader community um in ways that they can
showcase their talents also that they acknowledge and lift up
the talents of others. Um All right.
Almost there.
Um and so Um with that being said,
knowing more than ever over the course of the last two years
that with the COVID-19 pandemic,
we have had to really take care of each other.
We have had to be uh each other's business um wearing a mask.
You know,
when the mask mandate was in place was not simply about us
protecting ourselves, but really about us protecting others.
Um and those that may have been at home.
And so I want to also acknowledge that goes beyond um just the
idea of collective happiness and being tied together and
supporting one another,
but in our case as a school that was born in the pandemic really
spoke about us keeping each other safe.
Alright,
so I think we can jump into curriculum and instruction and the
next slide.
Perfect.
Alright, so um a little bit about our curriculum instruction,
um one of the things that is unique about our school is that we
started uh this year uh a new advisory structure called crew.
And so um while this doesn't happen every day,
it happens twice a week.
Now we do have students that are engaging in different social
emotional activities throughout the week.
And so that happens through uh sessions with teachers that
support. Um and some of those activities include circles,
uh restorative justice,
uh key components um and just really creating a space and
cultivating a space of belonging for student founders um In
addition to that,
they also participate in various clubs that they selected
themselves.
Um And so the idea here is that crew teachers really act as a
link between a student's home and their school life and are able
to support whenever they are in need or whenever they need
additional support. And so we think of our crews as our family.
Um and so anything that's happening and crew,
whether it is that a student needs support or that a student uh
needs a place to just vent or share a problem.
Um We hope that crew is a place where they feel safe enough to
do so um all right,
as we get in a little bit more technical about our curriculum,
I will just say that the curriculum at our school was informed
by two major experts and so that's Palo fierro and dr Goldie
Mohammed.
Um and so the idea here are that there are some tenants around
our curriculum that are showcased in various classes and so that
is one our our curriculum is inquiry based to that.
It is problem posing pedagogy,
the idea that we are looking at a specific issue or problem,
we see those tenants particularly as it relates to both math and
science.
Um and so I would say uh inquiry based and problem posing
pedagogy is a place that we,
we would see a lot more visible in math and science and so
intellectualism with criticality and cultivating activism is
something that you see a little bit more in the humanities.
Um so we talked about our approach right to learning and I'd
like to say that we take an anti european stance and we really
try our best to connect to our students cultures,
their identity and and really take opportunities to speak truth
to power around how history um has been changed and how one's
perspective can be very,
very skewed depending on the recollection of history.
Um so I am going to take a moment now to kind of kick it to miss
em who is with us to talk a little bit about science and then I
will kick it to MS levy to share a little bit about global
studies.
Hey, so in science this year,
what we're doing is we're building upon on in credit based
learning,
where we are using content from the environment and earth
science,
but at the same time we're still mixing and adding things that
are outside of our scope, just outside of the content based.
So for example,
we focus all our projects on things on how they relate to your,
how they relate to the outside world and why would it matter to
you?
We tend to not do traditional projects where you just write a
paper or you would say this is what I learned.
Instead, we put projects like make a Tiktok um,
and act like a meteorologist or make a website where you get to
inform your community why these health diseases are bad and why
they actually, why do we see disparity within our community?
So it just gets students more motivated to do the work because
they get to relate more to it and they get to actually probably
show their friends or show their peers outside of school.
This is what I'm doing in my school.
Um, so it's pretty exciting to do and see and always working
together. Um, we love to come together as a community.
And so that's what science is really all about.
Collaborating and working together all the time.
All right, thank you so much for sharing it.
Miss Em and shout out to the focus on here that made amazing
Tiktok videos. Um really, really innovative.
I have been dying to put them up in our main office on our
television screen,
but I have gotten a lot of requests that we don't want to do
that, we don't want to showcase it. So,
I've been holding off but at some point I'm gonna have to do it
because I just think it's really,
really amazing work and we want to be able to showcase that work.
Um Alright,
so I'm gonna ask Miss Pies if you wouldn't mind stop sharing
your screen so that we can kick it to MS levy to be able to
share hers. Here we are ready to go.
All right guys, can you see my screen?
We can we just needed to be in a presenter mode.
All right, so guys, hello.
Alright, so if you didn't hear before, I am Miss levy,
I am the Global History one and two teacher.
Um and more importantly,
I think that when done wrong history can be like the most boring
class. Humanly possible, but when done correctly,
it can be the most entertaining thing Humanly possible.
So I just want to say that in our history class we are extremely
political and we are extremely activist based.
Um think about recently,
like what Principal Gordon said about being very critical about
how we view europe.
Um this is very important in our class because since this is a
global history class,
we're trying to take the focus out of very Eurocentric and a
very even american centric model of how we look at the world
around us.
So just a quick overview of what our classroom looks like or at
least what my classroom looks like.
So it's very colorful, it's very calming.
Our theme is you know, urban jungle,
so it's very green but also very modern.
Um I love to have the kids work up there.
I love when the kids write on the board and have an aesthetic
added to this.
I want to thank the kids for all the work that they've done here
so far.
But what I really like about global history for us and for what
we've been doing as a class is it's very project based.
So for example, our first unit was first civilizations.
A very stereotypical could be done really boring.
A lot of essays, a lot of just reading instead.
We've kind of done a lot of station activities.
A lot of gallery walks,
a lot of using the room and what I thought was really great is
that instead of like a huge essay at the end,
students were able to kind of make a social media post here are
some of these um as examples of early civilizations and an
invention that comes from them.
And specifically this was also a critical project as well
because a lot of these inventions were claimed to be invented by
white or european inventors, which was inaccurate,
so here's one of them.
Here is the 2nd 1.
So we have Egypt with clocks with makeup and the Indus Valley
which is in India,
which is drainage systems and I'm super proud of the students
and how passionate they are. I love seeing the debates.
I love seeing that students are able to share a bit of their
identity. And I definitely feel like next year when we have U.
S.
History it is going to be so interesting to watch students have
their own viewpoint of not only what's happening in the past,
but also what's happening in current events.
We had a great discussion about the recent Ukraine and Russia
conflict,
but less about the conflict between you two european countries,
but more importantly about how imperialism hurts people of color.
Most of all specifically black Ukrainians who are not being
allowed into the central european countries as they flee from
the Imperialists danger.
So that's a little bit about what global history looks like.
I hope you like the aesthetic that we have going on here as well.
And I look forward to being your teacher.
So yeah, thank you MS levy.
Thank you,
miss and we appreciate you and thank you for being here to share.
Um and also shout out to urban jungle.
I did not know that was the theme of your classroom,
but I love it and I see it now.
Um All right,
so I think what we'll do is we'll quickly just share a little
bit about how we adapted when we were in a remote space.
Um and that is still kind of a living breathing,
I should say resource for our student founders.
Um and so that is our walkabout at home website.
So I just want to go to walk about at home because I think it's
an important resource that we have in our community and it's a
way that we had to really take what was learning in the
classroom to a virtual space. And so luckily we have not needed,
not needed to enact it this year, however,
know that it is still around,
should we ever need to activate it?
Um but essentially it's our virtual learning space.
And so it is a website that was built um specifically for every
single class. And so on.
Each class website has the student's schedule for the day and it
allows them to engage in all of their classes by simply just
clicking on the individual class in each of their schedules.
So with the click of a button,
they're able to jump right in to whatever zoom class um shows up
on their schedule and students are in a space collaboratively
and their, their teachers are ready to receive them.
And so um we really uh in 2000 and 20 had to adapt uh and adjust
for what was the shutdown of new york city schools in november
2020.
However, for us, what could have taken a lot of time to address.
We were able to do this in less than 24 hours.
And so I'm really proud of the fact that we were able to shift
our instruction in less than 2024 hours,
shout out to all our 10th grade student founders who remembers
that um that's going down in the history books.
So just write that down journal about that,
write that down somewhere because that's a that's a real thing
Um that we're going to talk about 20 years from now and you'll
be able to say I lived through that.
I was there um for the for the new york city school shutdown of
2020. Um and so this is how we adapted,
so we just want to showcase that and still let everyone know
that it is out there.
It is a resource that we have and we continue to keep in our
toolbox and in our toolkit for whenever we may need to enact it.
Um Alright, I am going to kick it to MS medina,
who is our career explorations and opportunities extraordinaire.
You heard our student founders talk so much about that earlier
on and so I want to make sure that we give her space to really
talk about how she envisioned.
Um this opportunity for our student founders and how they
experience it and what the goals are of of the initiative.
I was on mute. Hello everyone,
I'm MS medina and um I just wanted to say I was just so I was
just so amazed and so excited to hear all of the comments that
the students made about the class.
Um we are exploring so many things um originally the class,
we're thinking of work based learning,
but we renamed it because it's more of an exploration um class.
So career exploration opportunities,
which is um the acronym for that class is CEO,
which then kind of symbolize the whole entrepreneurship and
owning and you know,
just having the students feel empowered um to resurrect the
leader within them.
So here you see a collage of pictures of some of the activities
and the opportunities that we, we were engaged in this year,
but I just wanted to just give a rundown of like,
what are some of the goals of the class.
So the career exploration opportunities of the class where
students explore the interest in order to have an insight on
different posts,
secondary pathways that they would like to explore while in high
school and ultimately beyond.
So we don't want students to wait till they graduate from high
school to then start their career. They mean, which they will,
um but they can start to um dive into that through internship
opportunities and speaker series,
which we've been doing all throughout.
Um it's basically an experiential experiential learning
opportunity that the students will have direct experience
through which they can then use the ideas and the skills that
they've gained to be able to then apply them within their
classroom learning.
Um So like I said, it's um including internship,
job shattering public speaking skills, speaker series,
college access entrepreneurship as one of our student founders
mentioned and just other opportunities.
So if you see in the, in the picture,
if you can go back to the last slide,
students kind of started off with vision,
like a vision board presentation and within one of the pictures
show there where students are presenting their visions for the
future and some of their interest,
their career interests and just interests, their hobbies,
things that they like to do.
Um We've had speakers through the new york urban League who have
come in and talk about their careers and their journeys um where
they were able to get to that point of success.
Um One of my favorite favorite activities is the students were
able to research hbCU um colleges and the ninth grade,
it was a student led,
which I believe many of the students mentioned that um a lot of
their classes are student led,
which is very important so that we can then um have our students
be the leaders that they they they they are.
Um so you would see pictures where the students are basically
acting as admissions advisors for these universities after
extensively, um, research in these colleges.
I mean, they, they had brochures, they had um, um,
they had brochures, they had um, videos of the college or um,
I believe one of the colleges on fam you um had virtual tours
where they were able to show uh,
staff members and other students.
So basically the ninth graders were pitching to the 10th graders
and then the 10th graders were then pitching to the ninth
graders and to the staff, um, shout out to uh,
the students who um, were pitching Howard University.
They did such an amazing job.
They were then invited to the next showcase.
And so I thought, um, I thought that was really awesome.
Uh, students, we were able to take, go to the Met,
the Mets Stadium in New Jersey.
So there's so many opportunities students to engage in um,
internship with some of our students founders were able to
acquire internships recently and um prep for interviews where
they were able to land the job.
Our students did such an exceptional job during the interview
process that the organization originally had two positions
available and they were able to open it up,
Open up another position for our students because they were so
amazing and I was very proud of that. So,
shout out to ride window josiah and Ronald who's not here at the
moment. Um, so basically,
all aspects of our courses are designed to encourage and empower
our students to create goals,
develop career skills and to resurrect their leadership
abilities.
Um If you notice in the next slide you can go to the next slide.
Thank you.
I just wanted to highlight a few um a few quotes from the
students here,
you'll get to read up on how um the Ceo class has impacted them
recently, impacted them this year.
I mean this is our first year during the Ceo class and I just
thought it was just so amazing.
One of the ones I wanted to read um specifically was about um
the hbCU one of the students found this Matthew just wanted to
say that,
he said each presentation showed out how great teamwork between
projects can be and I was impressed with the outcome of both
information and intellect behind the presentations that shows
how much our students um work together and they are just um when
they put their minds to a task,
they do it to the best of their abilities and I'm so excited to
be able to see what else we have in store.
One of our big goals is by the end of the semester to have all
of our 10th grade students engage in some sort of internship
acquisition or or job shadowing and then of course the ninth
graders um as well. However,
we're all encouraging all students to apply to summer youth and
get their working papers so that ultimately they're not getting
ready when opportunity's arrived, that they already,
and that's all I have to say,
so so much more from the ceo class and thank you to all the
students, we'll make it amazing Yes,
A round of applause for all our amazing student founders that um
are participating right now in internships and really super
super engage in getting that experiential opportunity.
Um I do want to say that one of the really important things
around building the ceo class was this idea that we know that
students in our community often go off to college and have to
participate in what is considered remedial courses for zero
credit and so in in thinking about this course,
one of the main reasons why we wanted to start to engage
students in thinking through what it is that they want to do
post secondary was we wanted to give them a chance to really
explore different careers and decide what it was that they want
to engage in as they start to explore colleges as they start to
explore universities to ensure that they are in alignment with
the major that they select,
we know that changing majors can be extremely expensive,
depending on the institution that you go to.
And so high school is an opportunity to try those things out,
we know um that we can do so without there being a significant
cost and so why not create sort of a playground for students to
try out different careers?
And also acknowledge the fact that sometimes our idea about a
career isn't quite what it is in reality.
Um, so really creating the space for that was important.
And so we have just a little bit more and then we are going to
close out with some Q. And A. So I just wanna say stay with us.
We know that you could,
you could have been anywhere else tonight,
but you decided to be with us. And so we are grateful for that.
Um, so I wanted to just jump into some quick school logistics.
One of the unique things about our school community is that we
have classes that go by names and not numbers.
Um this is really important to me is that our classes are named
after activists.
And so our very first class, the baldwin class shop.
You know what I'm gonna, I'm gonna just do this.
It's probably a bad idea, but I'm gonna do it anyway.
Um those of you that are from baldwin just go ahead and come off
mute and give us a shout out if you are from the baldwin class,
don't be shy baldwin because I know you're not, whoa!
Yo yo yo yo yo yo yo yeah, baldwin.
Um so very, very first founding class at our school.
And so it is the bald in class uh,
fondly named after James baldwin.
Um and also very first quote on our conscious collection.
Um and so looking forward to adding more of those quotes as we
go forward.
Um, I'm gonna go ahead and head to the next class because I know
that if I asked Fox from baldwin to shout out,
then I know certainly if there's anyone here from Lord,
they're gonna wanna shout themselves out.
So if you are from Lord and you are with us,
give us a quick shout out um named finally after Audrey Lorde.
Hi hey, hey, hey, leslie anyone else from Lord up in here?
Hi you, Alina, Alina, thank you for shouting out.
Um, Lord very um,
very commonly known as our quietest class so far.
Um I want to also acknowledge that our classes um and I'm not
going to put them on blast here,
but our next two classes were actually,
the names were founded by student founders and so they selected
the two people that are ninth grade classes are named after,
which is cesar Chavez.
So shout out to Chavez any Chavez folks up in here.
Um so Chavez is up in here and then also our final ah,
louis or louis class named fondly after john Lewis.
Um so shout out to Lewis, any louis folks here with us tonight.
Yo Lewis on top, what's on top.
So I feel like Lewis and baldwin for sure.
Um there's gonna be, there's gonna be some rivalry there.
I feel like it's coming, it's is a challenge.
Um, definitely um are most spirited classes.
Um and so excited,
excited to see what our new upcoming names will be for our
incoming ninth grade classes. Um,
I have heard through the grapevine folks are looking for us to
have more females representative represented.
So we're gonna try to identify some females that have been
activists that we can go ahead and name our new ninth grade
classes. Um, and so I wish I could see the chat.
The chat is lightened up right now with who's the best class and
who's on top.
Um, y'all can't see that, but just know what's happening. Um,
and I think that this is just gonna stay with us for our entire
duration of the existence of this school is,
we're gonna just have all this rivalry going on, um,
which I love.
So, uh, new names to come for our new ninth grade classes.
Um, we will get there shortly.
Um, as we think about the new classes coming in,
the new students coming in and what, you know, this,
this new year has for us,
I'm gonna jump into quickly some of the logistics around what
our day looks like. Um,
and so right now we try to have a very balanced student schedule
and so we have focused a lot of our time on trying to create or
build our schedule around classes,
having what we call block time.
So that means 90 minutes of instruction, um, uninterrupted.
And so we try to do that in every single class where possible.
Um And so students have that a couple of times per week in
various classes.
And so in science for example that 90 minutes is utilized for
labs um and math that may be utilized for an investigation.
Um In L. A. It may be utilized for writing or Socratic seminar.
And so we really want to try to make use of that 90 minute time
as much as possible um for intensity and also ensuring that we
can go a little deeper in instruction because I know from my
experience as a teacher for 45 minutes,
which really is 35 minutes by the time everybody gets settled is
really no time at all.
Um And so really trying to ensure that we have that space um is
important. And then in addition to that,
we also have crew every single day, as we mentioned before,
Cruz slash club. Um that happens throughout the week.
Um and we have lunch around 12 o'clock because lucky for us,
one thing I did not mention is that because our campus was
created really around being a college campus,
every single school has its own cafeteria,
which is really exciting because I'm pretty sure as the new
school on campus,
if we were in a collated co located campus that was traditional,
we'd be having lunch at 10 o'clock,
we'll be brunching because we've been sharing that cafeteria
with lots of other schools.
So that's one of the really unique things and special things
about our campus and our school. Um I think that's it.
I think we have finally made it to the end.
I'm gonna go ahead and just move on to our next slide,
which is simply remember to check us out at this is the X dot
com. Feel free to email us at Bronx Legacy High School at Gmail.
Um Check that new email um that we've just put up with our new
school name. Um Also this is the X dot com.
We'll get a bit of a renovation as it will be changed with a new
school logo very soon.
Remember that you can find us by looking up on my school,
07 X 6 to 5.
Put us down as your number one choice um As we have very limited
thoughts for the ninth grade.
Um and so I thank you all for being with us tonight.
I want to take a pause um to acknowledge any questions that may
be coming up um and create space for our student founders and
our staff to answer any of those questions now.
Alright.
Um do we have any specific questions that we want to share out
or do we want to go to our student founders closing us out there?
There is a question that was in the channel.
Um So what ap classes classes,
advanced placement classes do you have currently.
So that's a really good question.
We don't currently have advanced placement classes.
One of the things that we are committed to is ensuring that our
students meet the minimum amount of credits in order to get them
through high school, um, and to having their diploma.
Um, our real focus is around experiential learning internships,
etcetera.
One of the things that we have been thinking about, um,
and we would implement in the 11th grade,
we haven't yet had 11th graders yet, but we will.
Next year is the ap capstone initiative,
which is an initiative that basically allows student founders to
engaged also in project based learning, real world learning,
but allows them to do investigative work around the topic of
their choice. And so of the ap um, listings or criteria,
that's one of the things that we thought aligned best with our
school community and one that we're investigating right now.
Any other questions out there, yep.
What kind of emphasis does the school place on college
preparation?
So, I would say one of the things, um,
and I think MS medina alluded to this,
and I think some of our student founders alluded to this in the
very beginning is we really are starting the exposure to uh,
post secondary opportunities and college and career readiness
opportunities in the ninth grade. Um,
and we are intentional about that because we recognize that by
the time students get on, um, and are in the 11th grade,
they're really making decisions around the colleges.
Um And it's not about necessarily um selecting the best choice,
it's really around just what opportunities or what schools
they've gotten into.
And so we really want to reverse that trend and focus in on
exposing students to what opportunities and what schools and
colleges are available to them now so that they can do the work
necessary to actually be eligible for those institutions.
Should they decide to go the route of college um at the end of
high school.
We also recognize that college is not for everyone and so we
want to expose our students to whatever opportunities and
whatever criteria they have for success um in their own families,
in their own communities and what they are exposed to through
the various opportunities that we have throughout the school
community.
So I just want to acknowledge that because I do I want to say
that um we know that college and career readiness is something
that we want to prepare our students for but we also want to
acknowledge that there are post secondary opportunities beyond
college principal. Gordon? Can I add on something?
Yes, feel free. Um Something about college readiness as well.
Sorry, I'm dying. Alright.
Um Is the students who are here probably know this is the best
is I think that if you choose to go to college,
I want you to be prepared to do college level of activities and
writing um and the students here know that me and Mr Jonathan,
my wonderful co teacher are really hammering the ability to
write academically to be able to sight like a college student.
Um I know as a public school born and bred from pre-k through
college who went to coney um you were gonna be expected if you
do choose to go to college to write a 25 page paper with formal
Chicago style notations.
Um and therefore my intention is that every person that has my
class will be able to do a full formal historical essay,
especially by the time that you leave high school with us.
And so I expected of you and no remedial classes in history
because I hold you to the highest expectation in that way,
thank you so much for sharing that MS livy and I think that's
really important because regardless of whether or not you make
the choice to go forward with that that route of college,
we also want to recognize that we want you to be prepared and
reading and writing Regardless of what you do is critical.
Um I would also add that um the reason why we are starting to
talk about financial literacy in the 9th grade is because we
also recognize that there is a huge investment that you commit
to when you are engaging in higher education and that investment
goes beyond you yourselves, it goes to your families,
it goes to your community.
Um I know that as a first generation college student, um,
we had a lot of people paying for a lot of things.
We had anti paying for books,
we had other people paying for tuition over here and we all were
in it together.
And so that's what it looks like a lot of times in our
communities. And it's very different than, um, you know,
what others experience outside of our community.
And so that is a real thing that we want to put forth.
And we also want to think about,
what are some of the ways that when you do get your internship
and you start making a few pennies right,
what do you do with that money? Right.
How can we teach you how to invest that money?
So that when you do get to college, you're not worried about,
oh my gosh, the expensive books or oh my gosh,
the expensive tuition or etcetera because what we know, um,
and I think a temporary student founders can speak to this is
that you can make money in your sleep if you've got the right
investments. Right?
Um, we have another question,
what is the student to teacher ratio at Bronx legacy?
Oh, that's a good question.
So I would say on average, we probably have, um, 28 students to,
um, Two teachers, I'd say probably 85% of the time.
Um, we're a really small school community.
We do have a few classes that have just one teacher or the class
has been broken up, but where possible.
I try my very best to team teach to create team teaching
situations where there's more than one adult attached to a class.
Um and we try to be really intentional about that because we
recognize that there are uh variety of needs that our students
are coming to the space with,
and we want to be able to meet those needs and also um create
really great small group experiences for students,
our counselors available to help students um make important
decisions or help them through social emotionally.
Yes,
I would say that we have a really amazing social emotional staff.
Um you've met two out of the three of them here,
so we have MS medina who's with us,
we also have minutes paez who is with us.
Um and I would say also Mr G who is our school social worker,
who helps many of our students with traditional counseling,
but also just everyday challenges that happened throughout the
day. Um So I know many, many, many, many, many,
many folks on this call right now,
in terms of our student founders um seek out Mr G for support.
Um I see people in the chat dropping that in.
Um and so I'm grateful to our SCL team for all of the work that
they do um and for being extensions of me where I cannot always
be that person,
but they extend out to be able to create the environment that we
really want to cultivate here and to be able to create that
individual support for our student founders and teachers because
I know that you guys all do that informally as well.
Um whenever there are problems that are,
are in need of addressing.
Yeah.
All right.
So any more questions for us, there should be,
there is one more question.
Okay, one more question and then we kick it to Raymundo.
And um, I think just the question is um very, very briefly,
how can you,
how can you explain that Bronx legacy is set apart from other
high schools?
How are they better?
What a place to be, wow, That's a good question.
I would say that um,
one of the unique things about our school community that I'm
really, really proud of um is the inclusivity, the anti racism,
the lifting up of our ones of one's identity.
Um, and really the cultural,
the focus on the cultural capital that our student founders
bring to our community. Um,
I think that one of the things that we don't always get to see
in more traditional schools is how and how we came to be and
where we come from, um,
and what our legacy is and what our ancestral knowledge is that
we bring to the table.
And I think that in many ways education has become a bit about
what it is we have to give rather than what it is that we can
learn from our students and also what we can learn about our
community and so I will say that what I feel really,
really good about in terms of Bronx legacy is that I know that
every single person on our staff really comes to our community
as a learner um and so not only looking to learn about our
school community, learn about our student founders,
but also that they come to the space as learners,
looking for more information,
looking for information that they want to learn about themselves
and trying to find ways for us to uplift our student founders
and really connect to their identity and their cultural capital.
Um and really cultivated space of joy as dr Goldin Mohammed
would say.
Um and so I think that's the unique and really special thing
about us, I think that's it.
Alrighty. So we are going to close out with Gigi and Raymundo.
Yes, who wanted to share Gigi Amaya and Raymundo.
Well I don't really have any questions but like I have a lot of
like I have an example about the studio class and um it's really
like helpful and you can really use that class which a lot of
kids don't really pay attention to know subs but yeah,
like it helped me get a job internship actually and I feel like
thank you too MS medina but I feel like I don't even know what
to say, but I mean, I just feel like it really,
it really helped me and that really motivated me to actually
think about going to college, stuff like that.
But yeah, that's it, thank you for that gem Raymundo right?
That one experience has really changed your outlook on what is
possible um and that's what Bronx legacy is all about,
I think gigi did you hear?
Oh I don't see her. Should we kick it to Amaya?
Yes, Amaya, everybody went to sleep.
I don't know what's happening.
Okay, I didn't see her response so Oh yes, go ahead.
You only know what you want to pop in.
Um I just want to say thank you to all the teachers from the
bottom of my heart.
I know sometimes we are hard headed and we do bad things but
deep down we appreciate all the things you do for us.
Okay. My heart just made it like literally just,
I was just about to say I this might turn into a tear fest real
quick. Um so I just want to shout out your nina for that comment
because now I can actually close out the evening um with that
because I think that just speaks so much to your maturity as our
our founding class and just recognizing that everyone puts in
such a level of effort in thinking about what it is that we want
to bring to all of you.
Um and really just acknowledge that this is a different place,
right?
This is intended to be a different kind of school um That lifts
up all of who you are,
as individuals as is noted in um those little tiny individual
triangles that each and every single one of them is unique and
special and different and that you bring something special and
different to our community um every single day.
So I thank you all for being here.
I thank you for participating.
Um Please do know if we can go back to the other slide with our
logo um and our website.
Take this moment if you can to take a picture of our website um
If we go back and also our email address,
feel free to reach out to us. We want to connect with you,
we want to be in community with you and we look forward to
seeing you Next year in the 2022, school year.
Thank you everyone have a good night.