2016-2017 Blackboard Award Honoree: Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science, and Engineering

Editor’s note: To read profiles of all 2016-2017 Blackboard Awards honorees, click HERE! Plus: Scroll down to see video from the Awards ceremony!

Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science, and Engineering
Principal: Miriam Nightengale
6-12
425 West 123rd Street
Award: Outstanding School, Special Citation for STEM Education

Describe your school’s core educational philosophy.

What sets us apart is that we try to find a balance between “left-brain” and “right-brain” in our curriculum, ensuring that students take courses in the humanities and in the STEM field with equal focus, rigor and engagement. Common in our school are pedagogical practices that deliberately move between more teacher-directed lessons that are prevalent in the freshman-level university courses and more student-led exploration, to build independence, engagement and persistence.

Tell us about a few of the school’s achievements or distinguishing programs.

CSS is the only public school in New York City to require seven years of both engineering and philosophy. The engineering curriculum teaches teamwork, conceptual development, and problem solving. The philosophy program helps develop critical thinking, argument, moral reasoning, and decision-making skills. In 2016 our students published their third annual philosophy journal, “CONTRARIWISE,” featuring students’ original work. The publisher was so taken by it that he requested permission to display it at a book fair in Seattle, WA, and the journal is now available for purchase on Amazon.

What’s new?

This year, we maintained our standing on the Top 50 high school list, staying among the top 15 schools. Our science teacher, Diana Lennon, was received a Sloan Award for Excellence in Teaching Science and Mathematics. Our physical education teacher, Camie Kornely, represented the USA in the 2016 Masters Track World Cycling Competition and won a bronze medal. During the summer, a team of students developed a prototype for a device that nurses can use to determine whether or not they have correctly inserted a needle into a vein. Their prototype was selected by a team of scientists for further development and, perhaps, production for use in the field.

What do you love about your school?

I love coming to work every day. I think that the diversity of our community, the creativity and talent of our staff, the support our parents and our partnership with Columbia University, are unique ingredients that give our school a special quality, mixing a family feeling and strong emotional ties with a commitment to each other and to the success of the students that involves every member of the community in being a part of our success.

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BASIS Independent Brooklyn

<p>BASIS Independent Brooklyn is a PreK&ndash;12 private school that fuels creativity, ingenuity, and independence in every child! The nationally recognized BASIS Curriculum is built from the best education systems worldwide and designed to inspire students to learn at the highest international levels. From their very first day, students engage in a spiraling liberal arts program with advanced STEM offerings&mdash;including Mandarin, engineering, humanities, logic, the sciences, and more. Led by Subject Expert Teachers who empower their full potential, our students gain the critical inquiry and problem-solving skills needed to be successful in their education and beyond.</p>

The Language Workshop For Children

<p dir="ltr">After offering both group and private lessons for many years and analyzing the results over&nbsp;time, The&nbsp;Language Workshop for&nbsp;Children, founded&nbsp;in1973, has decided&nbsp;to emphasize private remote lessons at shorter intervals.&nbsp;Our skilled educators&nbsp;will&nbsp;focus their attention exclusively on the&nbsp;unique needs, learning style, and interests of your child.&nbsp;This allows a&nbsp;bond&nbsp;to develop&nbsp;between teacher and student, which&nbsp;has been&nbsp;shown to&nbsp;drastically improve retention.&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>OUR METHOD&nbsp;</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Developed by the pioneers of language education for children, our programs bring decades of&nbsp;experience to your living room with individualized, active language classes. Each lesson is based on proven methods and materials perfected to capture your&nbsp;child&rsquo;s attention during the ages when he/she absorbs information the fastest. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">While other online language classes rely on videos for passive learning, we deliver interactive, and engaging lessons with native-fluent teachers. In addition, all our teachers are certified in the Thibaut&nbsp;Technique which has been featured&nbsp;in the New York&nbsp;Times, the&nbsp;Wall Street Journal, and many other well-respected&nbsp;publications.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">Our short one-on-one lessons give kids the chance to focus, hear pronunciation clearly, and practice speaking in their target language. </p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>THE PROCESS</strong>&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">First, students have a short meeting with our Director&nbsp;Francois&nbsp;Thibaut, in&nbsp;English, with&nbsp;their parent(s)&nbsp;present.&nbsp;Mr. Thibaut&nbsp;will determine&nbsp;the best course of study, including&nbsp;class length and&nbsp;frequency, the&nbsp;right&nbsp;teacher, lesson&nbsp;format and materials (or action games for younger students.) Then the learning&nbsp;begins!&nbsp;Mr. Thibaut will continually check in on your child&rsquo;s learning to assure they are getting the most&nbsp;of&nbsp;their&nbsp;classes.&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>OTHER OFFERINGS&nbsp;</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">We can also help your child prepare for: the French subject tests for SAT, AP &amp; CLEP, the European DELF/DALF, the Canadian TEF and other standardized testing, college entry exams, studying or traveling abroad,&nbsp;cultural changes when moving abroad,&nbsp;and much more!&nbsp;</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-a97d759c-7fff-6e4d-8e93-70e093aa10f1">&nbsp;</span></p>

EBL Coaching

<div> <p>One-on-one HOME, CENTER, and ONLINE tutoring for grades preK-12 in reading, writing, math, study skills, executive functioning skills, and homework help. EBL offers specialized instruction for students with dyslexia, learning disabilities, and ADHD, including tutoring using the Orton Gillingham method and other research-based, multi-sensory techniques. Under the direction of their director, Dr. Emily Levy, each student is evaluated to determine his or her specific needs and is then matched with one of EBL's highly trained learning specialists.</p> <p><strong>Individualized Learning Plan</strong></p> <div> <div> <p>An individualized learning plan using research-based, multi-sensory techniques is created for each student. Sessions can be held either at EBL's learning center or at the child's home, or online.</p> </div> <p><strong>Students build skills in:</strong></p> </div> <div> <div> <p style="padding-left: 40px;">-Decoding &amp; Spelling<br /><br />-Sentence, Paragraph, &amp; Essay Writing<br /><br />-Multi-sensory Math<br /><br />-Reading Comprehension<br /><br />-Study &amp; Executive Functioning Skills<br /><br />-Test preparation<br /><br />-Time Management &amp; Organizational Skills<br /><br />-Early Childhood Learning Skills</p> </div> <p><strong>One-on-one instructional sessions</strong></p> </div> <div> <div> <p>Students receive one-on-one instructional sessions to teach them the fundamental skills that are essential for academic success. They are initially assessed to determine their strengths and weaknesses and academic levels, and are matched with one of EBL's highly trained learning specialists. Students develop core skills in reading, writing, reading comprehension, math, study skills, organization, test taking, note taking, and other executive functioning skills. As the academic demands of school rise, these skills become increasingly essential for academic success.</p> </div> </div> <div> <div> <h3>Dr. Emily Levy</h3> </div> </div> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div>