Miss Kelly, the friendly and enthusiastic parent coordinator at Williamsburg Preparatory High School, agreed to give us a personal tour of the school because there are no more open houses or tours scheduled.
We met up with her in the office she shares with the Parent Coordinators of Brooklyn Preparatory High School and Williamsburg High School for Architecture and Design, the other schools that share the old Harry Van Arsdale High School Complex on North 6th Street and Driggs, a large building with an elevator that at one time was a very tough school.
That’s one of the reasons why there are still metal detectors in the lobby. Everyone is required to go through the metal detectors when they enter the school. It’s a noisy and jangling process but one that the students seem to take in stride. We watched as one student was asked to remove her boots and was told by a policewoman that some kids try to sneak in their cell phones that way.
Once beyond the metal detectors, the school feels very safe. We took the elevator to the 4th floor and stepped out into the spacious, sunny and well-decorated corridors of Williamsburg Prep, a school of approximately 500 students, which takes up one entire floor and uses another floor that is dedicated to science laboratories and classrooms.
About the decorations in the hallway: there are a multitude of photographs of the students in classroom, labs, on class trips, and at school events. One wall featured photos, biographical and educational details about the teachers, as well as their favorite books. I found this very interesting and the teacher looked young, smart and enthusiastic.
There are also college banners everywhere. “We want to encourage the kids to think about college when they’re here,” Miss Kelly told me. In another area there were pictures of last year’s seniors and the schools they got into, including Gettyburg College and various CUNY and SUNY schools. Miss Kelly told us that every student has one advisor for the full four years they’re in high school.
WP is a rigorous and serious school with an inclusionary policy of accepting kids who get 2-4s on their middle school report cards. “We believe if you have small classrooms and great teachers all students can do very well,” Miss Kelly told us. We peeked into various classrooms and generally there were 10-15 kids in a lass with one teacher, an intimate setting for learning.
Clearly they are having great success over there. The school received and A and is the #3 school on the Department of Education’s list of all NYC schools. That doesn’t mean its the best school in the city. But it does mean that their students are improving rapidly year to year and that’s what wins you points with the DOE.
One of the science teachers, a friendly, young woman with a doctorate, spoke to us in the hallway and emphasized that the school now has Advanced Placement science classes. Students can also take college classes for free because of a partnership with the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University.
Here are the links to the complete High School Tour Confidential Series:
Frank Sinatra School of the Arts
Illustration by Kevin Kocses: www.kevinkocses.carbonmade.com