arena and our teacher renee mills and the mission of the school is to provide an educational environment that insists children who have been a mix successfully in traditional high school settings that it provides opportunities for them that they don't wouldn't otherwise have we first work with renee in twenty sixteen when she brought a group of students to community board seven they had been working with norman rockwell foundation they were studying norman rockwell and they came to us to request a street secondary street naming of norman rockwell way which existed one hundred third and broadway and were always proud to see it each student came there were about fifteen students i believe and they tell the one of the norman rockwell pictures and explained about the illustrations norman rockwell with an illustrator for the saturday evening post and i think you know i remember norman rockwell from his illustrations on it was the triple self portrait and then there was a nation of a little african american girl her name was ruby bridges and you know i didn't know also norman rockwell anniversary of d day and the battle of normandy the caine k in world war two memorial is celebrating with an exhibit of norman rockwell's work rockwell roosevelt in the four freedoms in one thousand forty one president roosevelt an impassioned speech about the four freedoms and in one nine hundred forty three norman rockwell spent seven months painting pictures for the four freedoms the four freedoms where freedom of speech freedom of worship freedom from want and freedom from fear renee's students have been working with the rockwell museum and the cane war memorial on their visions of the four freedoms which will be part of the exhibit that the museum is going to have starting at the seventy fifth and so what's different about this school from your former school for me personally i mean i love the fact that you can take as many classes as you want and still be able to graduate unlike other schools they give you a certain amount of classes so you can take and that's why it's signed you were able to take as many classes as you want we have am classes and pm classes  us a chance to graduate faster rate than your average ok and anthony the differences between the high school that came from which was business was school was in business was school was more of a not about that everything is acted as about the academic and about who you are as a student and i like that because it was it a lot of people is always easier for me to learn you know and i didn't have to and my thought was i have like a structure of how do you want the school you know i well because it gives us the right to say whatever refill should be said you know and i really live by that because i feel like everybody is entitled to their own opinion absolutely and so while you were a student at westside  what was your favorite subject english definitely i love reading i love writing a love poetry so definitely english anthony my favorite subject has been definitely sign science a skill such as computer programming for technology because i feel like technology is the future and i was going to enroll in a two year college from associate an entomologist yeah i was going to ask you are you going to incorporate the computer science with the i was in a science science i was going to as they say kill two birds with one stone because by me in eighty eight thirty when i'm a little bit older i have my own laboratory and with that i could do my job i could still be around like i'm my own hero ok but someone that i in my or i would definitely probably say michael jackson for me just because i think he's just so strong minded and he's it people that i am i or all of the older women in my family and i might have them because of the cycle phrases that they took you know growing up for the kids especially because my family was born right in the south so everybody was mostly like immigrant and they came up  a young age and you know i was i really hard for them so i'd find jobs and stuff at that time so i'm kind of happy though because everybody now everybody's attire but retired from my good things like my own cool he was working for  transit my aunt was a teacher you know my mom was she was an accountant at a bank so you know everybody became really successful now and i want to be like that because they don't have to work now i don't have to worry about anything all of you message because i feel like you know he created four different ways for everybody to express their so you know freedom of speech freedom of wisdom freedom of fear i feel like freedom from france because often i'd nobody should be nobody should be scared to be who they are stereotypes of any or anything you should not be scared to be who you are everybody should be equal everybody should be treated equal nobody should be treated different so i'm very like his message and i felt like he would he got his message of course especially long journey with norman rockwell several different classes where you write i teach a pm class we have three cycles i've been doing this since twenty four team really it started thirteen in the classroom became a p class we meet after school three fifteen to five thirty and we have the civic engagement thing going on where we came back from the norman rockwell museum and our first time in student said hey this is there's nothing about norman rockwell we've checked it we've walked around going to see anything about norman rockwell the experience of going to the norman rockwell museum is that you're seeing it up front and close you can you can you're moved by by these pictures by these these paintings norman rockwell is known for being a director everything every picture he has has a story there is there is an action going on there and action of human life of in universal even though a lot of his works people might say oh i can't really relate to that it's still human nature what he shows the caring of the parent a little girl looking at herself and the images of a female showing rosie the riveter of the do unto others as you would have them do unto you which is in the u n as a mosaic which a lot of people do not realize that it is norman rockwell's work in his it's a mosaic there so we ventured with that what could we do a street sign there's on line we looked up at a street sign we have to do a petition we see you guys here you are our champions community board seven our champions the people who believed in us and with our presentation we were able to move on and next thing we know it goes to city councilman from city council we're there with the mayor having our picture taken signing it is a  renaming we thought were finish obviously we weren't we had the plaque so we've got the street norman rockwell place one hundred third us abroad right on the corner there you can see the sign and but what about the the site that he was born to ten west one hundred third is the present building that's there that house the two zero zero six a lot of norman rockwell who was born eight hundred ninety four february three i think february third amazing right across the as most of you know is bogart way because humphrey bogart they were children babies at the same time you know rockwell said well you know we'd like to have a group of students who maybe you could do something with with the four freedoms that we're having the seventy fifth you know norman rockwell's iconic pictures of the four freedoms in f hundred forty one speech so it was like oh oh well so we had a gym break so in june we had the four freedoms tambourine which was a school wide to actually we invited the whole city and other schools was had to figure in that that she set up workshops with students challenging them with different innovations in it was a great day we brought  back our senior our retired members our teachers that day and it was a wonderful community event to create an awareness about our four freedoms and where we are today with how many of you participated i think you know and i you know i had planned on going to france with ok i will do a project this year will get proclamations proclamations now why would we need proclamations that comes from going to the opening a press conference for the four freedoms that was it the new york historical society and we took students the mayor of new york was not there but the mayor of  normandie was there to tell us that they will be receiving the four freedoms in june twenty nineteen students wondered you know our mayor isn't here can can we do world war two but it also has exhibited about nine eleven about what was the sandy sandy hook about the disasters that happen all over the world so your plate paying great tribute to this whole idea about peace and awareness about how precious freedom is and the students have some work for that that's going to be presented there yes we have a project we've been filming the pictures from from the show will be entered in our documentary that that we're putting together we take the time when it was anybody else was in the floor in our first video we sent our first video to come to the students of lisa to go all and for their they have a special class called four freedoms that they're working with and we sent a video sometimes we might consider those problems inhumane because we're talking about freedom from want freedom from fear we you know kids talk about water are we getting clean water will we have why is there lead in our water we look at our environment you know black lives matter we have children that have been through the you know system justice system here been there for anything we've had but the fact that there are certain fears that young people have to live with that i never imagine i never imagine and you guys came to our full board meeting a few weeks wonderful to have the opportunity and as i said community board seven is always always you've been our great supporter believing in what we do we're we're a school that no one really knew who we was you know who we weren't  till we did the petitions for the norman rockwell place people thought it was a middle school and now we have that recognition the more we interact with our neighbors and we're seen at you know community board seven meetings for things we need or assistance and when you go to so you can ok you can but that's what education is about education is supposed to be hands on and i have students and you want to give kids a different experience you know just sitting here today in taking the risk of being on camera and people are going to see that that's getting yourself out of your cocoon you know how do you know and that's also to freedom of you help each other to i would i would say that running definitely helped me personally where speaking my mind and definitely coming out of my comfort zone a year ago today i this trip for the four freedoms for d day june six normandy and you know it's funny with our last the last of the trilogy of doing things we are in the process we have a go fund me to raise money to take our kids and brianna and i are are going course because you know board of ed there are certain rules but we are all they will be doing reimaging of the four freedoms as we will be doing reimaging of the four freedoms in our class and extending it to our school to actually have a four freedoms door competition very exciting too for the kids to have that exchange and finally meet each other after having these videos back and forth and we will we grimaldi mr grimaldi who's the head of the war memorials actually giving us a space in the war memorial to present our documentary and the artifacts that the students have created this is a very i mean we tell you how we are to have all of you here with us we're sorry we couldn't hear from all of the experience was also what you know what what's next with norman rockwell yes you know he was one of my heroes in a lot of people spielberg lucas but to have this this opportunity to have an international civic engagement project i don't know if we've had anything like that in the city it's incredible this is a first really well you know it was so impressive and i'm so impressed with all of you and i want to wish you luck on this journey in particular and thank