Students from PS 132 in Morrisania posed in front of a mural they made of the neighborhood. The school is one of five in the area that teaches using an acclaimed, arts-based curriculum.

Five Morrisania charter schools are among 15 in the city that have been honored for using a curriculum that improves student performance through hands-on teaching and the arts.

PS 132, also known as the Garrett A. Morgan School, and 14 other city schools were lauded for using a teaching method that focuses heavily on music, theater, visual art, dance, cooking and games to help raise learning levels among students, many of whom have had little prior exposure to the arts. 

The Carl C. Icahn Charter School on Brook Ave., the Carl C. Icahn Charter School #4 on E. 174th St., the School for Inquiry and Social Justice on Morrison Ave. and JHS 22x are the other Morrisania schools that use the arts-intensive method.

A New York University study concluded a specialized curriculum called Active Learning Leads to Literacy helps raise test scores and strengthens students’ literacy and reasoning skills regardless of socio-economic levels. About 35,000 thousand students are enrolled in schools that use the arts-based program nationwide.

The arts-intensive method devised by the non-profit Learning through An Expanded Arts Program (LeAP) is funded with grants from private foundations and the federal government.

Among other findings, NYU researchers found:

• K-2 students in schools that stress the arts curriculum outperformed their peers almost 90 percent of the time in many of the literacy skills tested.

• Although 50 percent of kindergarten students in the selected schools started the year below grade level in 2011, 81 percent ended the year testing above grade level.

• Over 40 percent of the 6th through 8th grade English Language Learners who scored a level 1 on the state’s English language test improved to levels 2 or 3, compared with only 26 percent of students from other schools.

To learn more about LeAP, visit the organization’s website at www.leapnyc.org.

Photo by Claudia Bracholdt Gompers High School in Melrose is on the city's school closure list

The Melrose high school is on the city’s hit list

The Samuel Gompers Career and Technical Education High School could start phasing-out next school year, one of 25 schools the city’s Department of Education is intending to close or shake up due to poor performance.

The school’s administration and the students were notified in early December. If a phase-out is ordered, it would mark a harsh end to a rough period for the school, which received an F on its latest progress report and failed to get a school improvement grant last May. Other less extreme sanctions include a changing of the school’s administration, including removal of the Principal.

The Melrose school has lost 600 students since 2008, as Principal Joyce Mills Kittrell announced at a meeting at the end of September. Only 693 students are enrolled for the 2011-2012 school year, down from 1,302 students in 2008.

On Friday, the Gompers administration assembled all the students in the school’s auditorium and told them the news. Senior student Franklin Obanda, 18, was one of them. Obanda said he and other students are disappointed with the principal. He said in his three years at Gompers he neither saw the principal once, nor did he know what her name was.

“I think she did a horrible job,” he said.

Obanda said students have the feeling that the school faculty doesn’t care about them. Principal Kittrell, like all principals, is facing budget cuts.According to the school’s budget summary, she has a $7,770,000 budget for 2012. In 2011, she had $9,285,000. Gompers also has had to struggle with its reputation as a low-performing school.

The relationship between schools and community is an important element in the Department of Education’s decision process, said spokesman Frank Thomas in an interview in November, before the city announced which schools would be recommended for closure.

“We try to determine if the community is still interested to send the students to a school,” he said. He said a massive decrease in student enrollment could be an alarming sign and that Gompers clearly has been struggling.

The final decision on the school closures is up to the department’s Panel for Educational Policy, which will vote on the city’s recommendations at its February meeting. The influential panel is comprised of eight mayoral appointees and one representative from each of the five boroughs.

“I’m devastated, it’s terrible,” said Mary Conway-Spiegel, founder of Partnership for Student Advocacy. The organization worked together with Gompers as a partner this fall.

Although the school has struggled, Conway-Spiegel said she had hoped the city would only shrink the school’s student body, a less severe option the city considers for some failing schools. “The phase-out was not on my radar,” she said.

Conway-Spiegel said the care student leaders at Gompers showed about their school impressed her. One of the active students is Sony Cubral, 16, a junior at Gompers. He said he started a mentoring program for students who were falling behind. Cubral said the program has been successful, but that there already has been a lot of talk about the school closing down.

“I’ve been organizing to turn the school around but not much change has happened,” he said in an email.

During an Occupy the Bronx protest in November, Cubral questioned the Department of Education’s priorities, saying half of the computers in the Gompers library were gone this year due to budget cuts, whereas the city assigned more safety guards to the school.

Gilberto Rivera

Activist fought to save Hostos and improve housing

Gilberto Rivera, one of the co-founders of the Melrose-based housing organization Nos Quedamos, died on Nov. 25. He was 75.

Rivera, who had been president of Nos Quedamos’ board, suffered a massive stroke shortly after a board meeting at the Nos Quedamos office on Melrose Ave. on Oct. 5. He was rushed to Lincoln Hospital, then later transferred to the Veteran’s Hospital where he died.

Rivera was one of the main grassroots organizers with a group of South Bronx Latinos who helped tenants forgotten by the city’s housing bureaucracies battle for their rights against slumlords and against the city’s own plans to remove the families that remained in Melrose after the fires and abandonment that devastated the area in the 1970s in order to build highrise housing projects.

Rivera was born in 1936 in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. He moved to the South Bronx in the 1960s and began organizing South Bronx residents in a variety of causes soon after his arrival.

Tenant advocate Maximino (Maxi) Rivera of the neighborhood advocacy group Pueblo en Marcha met Gilberto Rivera in 1976 while both men were helping Hostos Community College students and faculty fight the city’s plans to close the institution as part of the city’s belt-tightening during its fiscal crisis.

They organized a takeover of what was then the college’s lone building at East 149th Street and the Grand Concourse, resisting the city’s attempts to get them out and remaining for several months. The school was a crucial resource South Bronx Latinos could not afford to lose, they argued.

Shortly after they succeeded in convincing the city to keep Hostos open, Maxi took a job as a tenant organizer and hired Gilberto as his partner.

“We spent more time together than we spent with our families,” Maxi recalled.

Together, they visited beleaguered tenants in dilapidated buildings, negotiating with landlords and often taking them to court to force improvements.

Gilberto had savvy, not just for skillfully negotiating contracts with greedy landlords, but for understanding the nuts and bolts of how buildings are built: wiring, plumbing, the quality of construction work, Maxi recalled.

“Gilberto knew what he was talking about,” Maxi said, and, as a result, landlords couldn’t fool him.

Over the years, Rivera continued to fight for tenants’ rights on a number of projects. In the early 1990s, Melrose resident and social justice advocate Yolanda Garcia asked her friend to help her form an organization to be christened Nos Quedamos (We Stay), that would help tenants fight against the city’s efforts to displace residents and for the participation of residents in planning the neighborhood’s renewal.

Rivera’s advocacy was not confined to Mott Haven where he lived, or to Melrose where Nos Quedamos has worked for nearly 20 years.

“His door was always open to us,” said Mildred Colon, former president of the Phoenix House Tenants Association on Coster St. in Hunts Point. Colon said Rivera’s dogged advocacy in 2007 and 2008 on behalf of the tenants there helped take the property from the landlord who for years had allowed it to crumble. Under a new owner and management, extensive renovations on the buildings have been underway for two years.

“Gilberto would never say no to anybody,” Colon said.

At the December meeting of the 40th Precinct Community Council, Council President Alex Diaz paid tribute to Rivera and said the council would ask Community Board 1 to support renaming the block of Bergen Avenue where he lived Gilberto Rivera Way.

Rivera is survived by his wife, Raquel, a son in Florida and another who is a detective with NYPD, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Photo by Tim Hetherington/Magnum Photos. This photo is one of a series taken by the late Tim Hetherington as part of an exhibition at the Bronx Documentary Center on Courtlandt Ave.

Gallery shows work of photographer killed in Libya

The inaugural exhibition at the new Bronx Documentary Center on Courtlandt Avenue highlights the final works of a major talent whose life came to a tragic end thousands of miles away – while its founders reflect on the tribute they’ve built for their fallen friend.

Visions: Tim Hetherington is a stirring collection of 16 never-before-seen photographs taken during the conflict in Libya by the late photojournalist who was killed while covering the uprising last spring.

Along with the pictures – including the final image he ever captured – the exhibit includes a multimedia installation with video clips of Hetherington discussing his life’s work.

“People felt excited and we feel we got it right,” said Project Director Danielle Jackson.

“The idea was to have Tim live on,” said Michael Kamber, Heatherington’s close friend, colleague and founder of the new Center.  “To see kids learning and watching videos of Tim, he is.”

The center was initially conceived by award-winning photojournalists Kamber and Hetherington, whose ambition it was to forge a nonprofit educational center and gallery dedicated to the support of documentary projects from around the world.

But their goal went beyond showcasing projects that highlight the intersection of art, ideas and journalism.  Hetherington felt the space was a perfect opportunity to provide the underserved population in the South Bronx with access to documentary projects, along with events and programs for all ages.

“Tim was all about reaching nontraditional audiences,” Kamber explained.

Marty Rogers grew up in the neighborhood and recalled when the site was a candy store in his youth.  He attended the center’s opening and stopped by a few days later to collect promotional flyers to spread the word.

“It’s fabulous and a great resource,” he said.  “They have a message and the skills to help people form ideas about the world.  I’m telling people they have to swing by.  These guys are for real.”

The new venue is a welcome addition that will expose young people from the neighborhood to an art form they have would otherwise have no access to, say the project’s facilitators.

“For many kids, their only exposure to photography is taking pictures for Facebook,” Jackson said.

Hetherington’s final images are being used as a catalyst to educate local youth about basic photography principles and encourage critical thinking, interpretation and discussion about the conflicts he covered around the world.

Kamber first showed Hetherington the ground floor location in January soon after he purchased the recently renovated historical landmark building adorned with ornate white trimmings and a steep mansard roof.  But before Hetherington had a chance to work alongside Kamber on the center, he was killed in Misurata on April 20, 2011.

“When he died we knew we had to do it,” Kamber said. “For a lot of us it was about working out our grief.”

Ideas started to take shape mere weeks after Hetherington’s death.  A dedicated team of volunteers was behind design and construction efforts, supporting their cause primarily “out of our pockets,” Kamber said.

“It was such an amazing effort by so many people,” said Jackson.

Kamber said four soldiers featured in Hetherington’s Academy Award-nominated film “Restrepo” came to New York and helped build the hanging displays for the photographs.  They all shared pizza, beer and stories on the floor of the new venue that evening.

Hetherington’s parents visited the center and helped paint the walls just days before Visions opened.  Kamber said they have also donated Hetherington’s library of books, flap jacket and helmet.

Small donations and fundraising have also helped with the launch, and Jackson said A Kickstarter.com campaign was planned for the coming weeks.  One group that is providing financial assistance for Visions is the Committee to Protect Journalists – one of three organizations designated to receive donations in Hetherington’s honor.

“It’s a strong means to showcase what journalism is about, the risks it entails and the understanding it engenders,” said Gypsy Guillén Kaiser, the director of advocacy and communications for the organization.

Melrose resident Elina Taft said she was moved by Hetherington’s photographs .

“We take life for granted,” she said while looking at an image of two young Libyan boys and an older man holding explosives.  She said she planned to return soon with her 21-year-old son.

“I’m hoping it enlightens and empowers people to learn more about the world, she said. “Not just for the kids, but also adults.”

 Visions: Tim Hetherington is scheduled to run through December 2.

Over 300 Mott Haven area elementary school students rallied to show their support for afterschool programs in October.

Over 300 elementary school students rallied in Mott Haven on Oct. 20 to draw attention to the importance of the East Side House Settlement afterschool programs they participate in.

The local rally was part of “Lights on Afterschool,” a nationwide event at which over a million children and adults marched to display their support for similar programs around the country that serve to supplement students’ education.

Nearly 600 children from Mott Haven and other parts of the South Bronx take part in East Side House’s programs, which run daily between 3 and 6 p.m. The students get help with their homework, as well as tutoring, along with instruction in dance, arts and craft and gardening. They can also participate in team sports.

East Side House, which opened in Mott Haven in 1963, is located at 337 Alexander Ave. between E. 141^st and E. 142^nd St.

For information about programs or enrollment, contact Daniel Diaz at East Side House at 718-665-5250.

Photo by Elizabeth Chen Students at Mott Haven Academy learn about growing nutritious food.

Focus is on food in Haven Academy wellness program

Sayda Arriola was stunned when her son Adam, a Mott Haven 3^rd grader, told her that a visitor named “Chef James” baked rhubarb pie for his class.

“I remembered thinking, ‘Rhubarb pie? What in the name of Jesus is that?’” she said. Arriola wanted to know who “Chef James” was and learned he was a food education instructor who visits the school.

Chef James’ cooking sessions don’t take place at a posh private school—he’s whipping up pies at Mott Haven Academy, the three-year-old charter school near E. 136^th St. and Brook Ave.

In March, a survey conducted by the Food Research and Action Center revealed that one of three residents in the local school district were not able to afford enough food. Two-thirds of Mott Haven Academy’s student body are in foster care or receiving public assistance, according to principal Jessica Nauiokas.

Despite this socioeconomic reality, the school has been running nutrition and fitness education programs for the past year, with help from the Bubble Foundation, a non-profit group that provides free wellness programs to underserved charter schools. Bubble was founded in early 2010 by Jessica Nauiokas’ sister, Amy Nauiokas, and her business partner and ex-husband James Connolly, “Chef James.”

“When our 7-year-old started attending school in the city, James and I were really concerned with the lack of nutrition and fitness education in urban schools,” said Amy Nauiokas.

She thought it made sense to use the school where her sister was principal as Bubble’s pilot school. Amy Nauiokas’ idea is to adopt a school for two years, bring in wellness programs and guide the school toward sustaining the programs independently.

“We value wellness and to be able to achieve that is really hard to do on our budget,” said Jessica Nauiokas.

Bubble is funded by a number of private corporate donations and charity dinners held for Soho and TriBeCa families, Amy Nauiokas said. Upscale Manhattan food suppliers have donated to Bubble’s nutrition program, BubbleEATS—which consists of a weekly class to teach students about food and trips to the community garden next door, the Wanaqua Family Garden. Students and instructors engage in monthly “family-style” meals in which they serve themselves from communal bowls.

“They get so excited to see the vegetables they recognize,” said Bianca Colbath, one of three full-time volunteer instructors at Haven Academy. “Teaching these kids where their food comes from will allow them to demand healthy food as they get older.”

Bubble plans on withdrawing from Haven Academy next year, as they pursue other schools in the city, including the Dream Academy in Harlem. Nevertheless, Jessica Nauiokas is confident that the programs will last after their departure.

Local education activist Ray Figueroa is skeptical. The interactive aspects of Bubble’s program sound promising, he said, but children’s nutritional health depends mainly on the ability of individual families to afford healthy food.

“Wellness programs can fall flat unless they emphasize the structural needs of families,” said Figueroa. “The economics of poverty discourages healthy eating. We have the highest childhood obesity rates in the city. ”

But Arriola couldn’t be happier with Bubble’s involvement with her children, who now ask her to give them Chef James’ recipes.

“As a concerned mother, I feel there should be no shortage of healthy food for my children,” she said.

Photo by Claudia Bracholdt Samuel J. Gompers HS students on the first day of school.

Angela Marrero stood outside the entrance of the Samuel Gompers Career and Technical Education High School on Southern Boulevard, looking at the schoolyard through a high chain-link fence.

It was the first day of school for her son, a freshman, and the other Gompers students. They stood in a queue in front of the school doors on Sept. 8 and waited for the security staff to let them in. Marrero watched, both hands clenched together in front of her. She said she was worried. 

“Some people say it’s a good school, some say it isn’t,” said Marrero, a dark-haired, middle-aged woman who spoke with a Spanish accent.

Last May, the city said it wasn’t. Just 51 percent of the students graduate after four years, compared to a citywide average of 65 percent. The school received a grade of C on its most recent progress report.

Last spring, the Education Department identified Gompers as one of more than two dozen low-performing schools eligible for a special federal improvement grant. The school would have been required to close down and reopen as a charter school or with a partner organization to help it improve.

But the city decided not to include Gompers in its application, prompting a protest by 20 students in May. A DoE spokesman has said schools needed a partner to be included in the program, but the agency did not reply to a request for comment for this article. Of the $59 million in federal aid, none will go to Gompers. Its future is uncertain.

Alice Soler, who teaches global history at the school, said the school’s problems are a result of the neighborhood’s long history of poverty. She said the current recession has made it more difficult for parents to get involved as they struggle with problems such as homelessness and unemployment.

“Students arrive at this school and have a 4^th grade reading level, although they are in 9^th grade,” said Soler, 52. “But the teachers get the blame.”

In a brief telephone conversation on Sept. 12, Gompers Principal Joyce Mills Kittrell said she did not have time to discuss the school’s improvement plans.

Redwin Mendet, 18, is entering his senior year. He said he likes all the programs the school offers in addition to the regular curriculum.

“There are guitar lessons for everybody who wants to learn”, he said. “As far as I know, they are planning to start some college lessons this year.”

Evelyn Rodriguez, president of the Parents Association, said the school needs money for everything from more teachers to lighting improvements.

Her son Fernando, 17, just started his senior year. Her two older children attended school in Manhattan, and Rodriguez said Fernando was a top student in middle school and had his pick of high schools. She said she was surprised her son chose to go to Gompers but said he was attracted by the science and computer oriented programs.

She said she was shocked to see metal detectors when she arrived on the first day four years ago. But today, she said, she sees Gompers differently.

“People at this school work very hard to improve things,” Rodriguez said.

“My son said there are two teachers at this school with whom he found a connection. He never expressed this to us before.”

In fact, 79 percent of the students agreed that the teachers inspire them to learn, and 76 percent said that their teachers give them extra help when they need it, according to the most recent school survey by the Education Department.

“Our teachers care about us,” said 15-year-old Alice, who arrived for the first day of school with her friend Stephanie, 17.

Jose Ayala, who dropped off his son Lucas, 14, for his first day of high school, said his biggest worry was that Lucas would become a victim of bullying. Lucas succeeded in his evaluation test and the school picked him for its engineering program.

“There are these kids that zoom in on the ones that are not like them,” said Ayala, as he paced in front of the school and watched security guards herd the students through the front door.

There was a list of room assignments next to the entrance door. It took more than half an hour for everyone to pass through security. Some students came walking to the schoolyard’s gate, then turned and walked back in the direction they came from.

“Attendance is low,” said Evelyn Rodriguez. “But they try to increase it.”

There were 723 names on the list that eventually fell on the wet ground. Some students laughed. Barely half of the students went to school on opening day, according to the city’s attendance report.

Titus Rich (center) at the Institute for Mediation and Conflict Resolution

Eloisa Perez was so worried about her daughter Elisa Vallejo showing up late to class and getting bad grades that she turned to the city’s Administration for Children’s Services for help.

“She wasn’t listening to me,” said Perez. “Young people don’t understand about needing an education.”

The city agency sent the mother and daughter to the Institute for Mediation and Conflict Resolution, a mediation center near the Hub in Mott Haven.

“We promote peaceful relationships,” said Titus Rich, director of the organization’s mediation services.

Rich has been with the institute for 24 years, helping resolve conflicts between parents and children, among students, neighbors, or coworkers. “We provide an opportunity to listen to and understand each other,” he said.

Trained mediators arbitrate disputes of all kinds at no charge, helping defuse tensions over customer dissatisfaction with cars they’ve bought, child visitation issues stemming from court cases, and disagreements between parents of special ed students and school officials. Participation in the program can prevent complainants from having to got to court over their unhappiness.

The conversations can sometimes become heated, but “Noise never killed anyone,” said Rich.

Funded with money from the city and state, the non-profit organization opened in 1972 with a Ford Foundation grant, hoping to demonstrate how techniques used in labor negotiations could also be effective in disarming legal and personal disputes.

The agency,’s seven staff members serve as counselors, and help run training workshops in peer mediation and conflict resolution, including a 40 hour-course that costs $600 for a certificate. Some companies send their employees to the mediation trainings to help resolve workplace issues.

Some clients come in on their own, but others are mandated to go by Adult and Children Services, courts, police, and schools.

“The school was calling every day,” said Perez. But because she works a full time job and takes English as a second language courses at night, “My daughter wasn’t being disciplined,” she added.

At home, her daughter Elisa felt she couldn’t tell her side of the story. “But, I didn’t take school seriously then,” she said.

“The kid has a right to speak their mind too,” said Rich. “And they always tell us ‘this is the first time I’ve got to say anything.’”

After giving both mother and daughter time to speak, the mediator told Elisa the same things her mother was saying.

“That helped,” said Perez. “Just hearing it from someone else.”

“I take my education more seriously now,” said Elisa. “I fixed it.”

“You have to be heard before you listen,” said Rich. “We have clients that come back and tell us how their lives have been impacted.”

Elisa is doing much better in school now. Her mother no longer gets those daily phone calls from the school.

“It’s not my life, but for parents, if it’s good for your kids, it’s good for you,” she said.

Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr.

“In matters involving intimacy and human sexuality, parents have the right and the responsibility to be the primary educators,” the senator, who is also a Pentecostal minister, said in a statement. “Many parents teach their children that these are private topics not to be discussed casually or in group settings.”

His position puts him at odds with his son Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., who told the staff of The Hunts Point Express that he was a strong supporter of sex education in the schools, said he wished his parents had been more open about sexual issues and said he had made a point of teaching his two sons about safe sex and birth control.

The elder Diaz criticized the Department of Education for reinstating required sex education classes in all middle schools and high schools. “There is no formal arena for formal parental input. There is no opportunity for public hearings. There are no requirements that these regulations be open to public review and comment,” he said. “No accountability to the public, to the parents, and certainly not the children.”

The complex at Concourse Village that houses four schools will be more carefully monitored for contaminants.

Parents and community leaders have won a victory in a long-running debate over environmental hazards in the Mott Haven school campus at Concourse Village near E. 153 Street.

The court ordered the School Construction Authority to conduct a new environmental review of plans to monitor the four new schools in the Mott Haven school campus to insure that toxic chemicals covered up in building the schools and its athletic field will not poison future generations of students. Those plans must be open to public scrutiny.

In the July 7 decision, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court sided unanimously with a lower court’s 2008 decision that found the city had violated state environmental law by building the Mott Haven complex without including the long-term monitoring plan in its environmental impact statement.

The schools were built on a former rail yard, contaminated with mercury, lead, benzene and tetrachloroethylene, a chemical used to clean metal. Former industrial sites are called “brownfields,” and are cleaned up under a state program, so the city contended that it had followed state guidelines.

A group of parents and local residents comprising the Bronx Committee for Toxic Free Schools filed the lawsuit against the city in 2007 to stop construction of the complex. They argued the cleanup should have been more carefully evaluated. Later that year the City Council unanimously approved the plan to build, but on the condition that a more thorough evaluation be conducted.

While they failed to stop the schools from being built, they hailed the court ruling for establishing a precedent that the city will have to follow in the future.

We are thrilled by this decision,” said Jane Maisel, a public school teacher and member of the committee for toxic free schools, in a statement released by New York Lawyers For The Public Interest, which brought the suit along with the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

The Department of Education simply cannot approve a contaminated school site without a comprehensive plan to protect children from the contamination,” Maisel continued.

But although parents may be elated that the courts have ruled in their favor for the second time in three years, the city may still decide to appeal the ruling to the state’s highest court.

In an emailed statement, Carrie Noteboom, senior counsel for the city’s law department, said the city will go ahead with the court’s recommendations.

The School Construction Authority “has already completed a thorough cleanup and implemented a state approved monitoring plan,” Noteboom said. “The Court decided that this plan should undergo additional public review, and SCA is prepared to do that.”