Outstanding School
Yorkville Community School – PS 151
Principal: Samantha Kaplan
Grades Pre-K-5
421 East 88th Street
yorkvillecommunityschool.org
Describe your school’s core educational philosophy.
Our commitment to a child-centered, engaging education ensures that every student is encouraged to achieve high academic standards, meet and exceed their own personal goals and realize social success. We achieve this goal by providing our diverse student body with the strategies to take responsibility for their learning by continuously engaging them in rigorous and creative learning experiences. Our students sustain a sense of curiosity that is met by incorporating the community into our school to provide authentic learning experiences. We share a belief that each member of the community brings a unique set of talents and skills and this belief is celebrated by providing all children the opportunity to excel by applying best practices in teaching, skillful planning, and providing a supportive and challenging inquiry based curriculum.
Tell us about a few of the school’s achievements or distinguishing programs.
We have been chosen by the DOE to be a SHOWCASE SCHOOL for the third year in a row, selected to showcase and share with other educators across the city how we design cross-curricular thematic units of study!
Our thematic units of study encourage both academic and emotional intelligence. They provide our students with continuous opportunities to participate in whole class discussions and investigations that encourage verbal and written communication. A thematic unit of study is the organization of curriculum around “themes.” Thematic instruction integrates basic disciplines like reading, math, and writing with the exploration of a comprehensive subject, such pets, restaurants, sea creatures, government, etc.
What do you love about your school?
Yorkville Community School is a neighborhood elementary school that opened on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in September 2009. Our school is located in a neighborhood that is rich with cultural institutions, parks, historic landmarks, family run businesses and community based organizations. We pride ourselves in the relationships that we have been developed with these organizations and community businesses in order to meet the needs of our students.
We are able to provide these amazing enrichment opportunities thanks to the support of our PTA, which funds 100 percent of these programs. Each thematic unit of study is enhanced by the meaningful connections that these neighborhood sites and enrichment programs provide our students, within and outside the classroom.
