Brooklyn Prospect Charter School

Okay 5th graders, check this out. It is another public middle school option for students who live in District 15.
Brooklyn Prospect Charter School will be choosing students from District 15 in a true lottery (no special provisions made for gender balance or diversity, although they are hoping for it-it should happen organically) They will pick students who live in District 15 (it seems that those of you who live outside the district and go to elementary within the district will probably be out of luck because of priorities set by state regulations for Charter schools) They will start with a 6th grade of 88 students (4 classes of 22) and add a grade each year through 12th grade. There will be a waiting list and that list will probably have some movement. The lottery will take place on April 7 and you will hear about placements in mid April. Signing up for the lottery doesn't impact your choice list for the rest of the district middle schools. This is a separate process. You can sign up for the lottery right now online under the student section.

What this means is that there is another option, outside of the regular middle school process. You can essentially get two local placements in the spring and be able to choose between them, as well as any placements outside the district that you are pursuing.

They will follow the International Baccalaureate program and hope to be certified within 5 years. There is a big emphasis placed on a holistic approach to learning and integrating disiplines. A 30 minute a day Advisory with a faculty mentor will be an important component to help students work on their literacy and study skills. They aspire to provide PE daily. Visual Art will be part of the core curriculum with other artistic disiplines introduced through a partnership with BAM. The Board is recruiting experienced teachers with at least three years experience and Masters Degrees. There is an Executive Director (who lives in the neighborhood) who comes to the job with an impressive track record of teaching as well as working in school administration. He will act as a general manager. The Principal of the Middle School has longtime experience teaching and leading programs as well as being trained in the IB program. The Board of the school is made up of educators and business leaders and will have a parent member.

There will be no uniforms. The calendar will follow the regular DOE schedule with additional afterschool tutoring and a Summer Academy. The language taught will be Spanish. The jury is still out on whether they will have captive lunch or not. Because the program will be academically rigorous, homework will be a factor, but because teachers will work closely together, it shouldn' t be overwhelming. The location is not finalized yet. The location will be made public before students chosen in the lottery will have to accept their seats. The Board is hoping for a location close to BAM to make it easy to participate in their arts programs.