On our first day in New York City, we visit another school in the South Bronx. Academy Charter School is a middle school for students in grades 5 through 8. Four other schools share the building that houses KIPP at I.S. 151. There is no teacher's lounge with the obligatory coffeepot, just a water cooler sharing space in one room that also serves as a storage room, copy room, and mailroom. The computer lab and a class also crowd into one room.
Students sit on adult-sized folding chairs behind traditional school desks or tables.
On the following day, we visit Crossroads School, located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, near Harlem. An elementary school uses one of the lower floors, and another middle school is slated to move downstairs this fall. The H-shaped school has narrow hallways and tiny, hidden offices. Ann Wiener, the principal at Crossroads, and a group of New York City public school teachers founded the school in 1990. The philosophy at Crossroads is that children learn best in small settings with people who know them.