slj newsletter

Current Edition:
The Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice

April 9, 2008

Dear Friends,

The edifice taking shape behind the scaffolding at 283 Adams Street awaits the September arrival of a school traveling light, just four hundred people and the compacts between them. Each factory-fresh desk suffuses with potential as the scene of a Math problem solved, a poem interpreted, a theory debunked, a frog dissected. Lucky though we are to have shared a campus with PS 287 at 50 Navy Street, the physical space has only ever been a near-fit, and our community thrills to imagine the educational amenities, and possibilities, of its permanent home, now so close in sight. What follows are proud reports from a fourth-year school, poised to relocate, bearing the lessons of growth and the hope of continuing progress.

Update From the College Office

The trickle of early admissions we reported in winter has widened to a gush as regular decision letters pour in. Acceptances to college for our founding class exceed expectations -- a trend, we hope, for generations of SLJ graduates to come. The following account of our seniors' successes is the most eloquent possible testimony to the intelligence, talent, and tenacity that came to us in 2004 only a little foal-limbed and in need of some nudging.

• Students were accepted to more than 30 private and out-of-state colleges and honors programs, including Bates College, Skidmore College, Hamilton College, University of Maine, Syracuse University, Trinity College, Adelphi University, Macaulay Honors at Brooklyn College, Union College, and Amherst College, ranked by US News & World Report in 2008 as the #2 liberal arts college in the nation.
• Students were accepted to more than 16 State University of New York (SUNY) schools, including Albany, Buffalo, Geneseo, New Paltz, Old Westbury, Oswego, Plattsburg, Pottsdam, and Stony Brook.
• Students were accepted to all 14 City University of New York (CUNY) schools.
• 100% of students applied to at least one CUNY. 56% of students applied to at least one SUNY. 35% of students applied to at least one private or out-of-state college or honors program.
• The Class of 2008 boasts three Posse scholars (www.possefoundation.org), en route to Colby College, Wheaton College, and DePauw University.
• Every single student applied to college and filed a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). A total of 439 college applications were dispatched by the senior class.
• At least ten students have been awarded full tuition scholarships by highly selective private colleges or honors programs. Depending on family income, most also have room and board covered. None of these students will need to take on excessive loans to complete their Bachelor's degree.

Graduation Reminder

Before the above-named students and their classmates scatter to their future alma maters, you'll have one final opportunity to applaud transcripts steeped in achievement, resumes reflecting great risk and greater reward, outlooks glazed with potential... grown-ups newly launched. Please join us at SLJ's first graduation this spring. Details appear below (note the time change from a prior announcement).

SLJ's First Graduation
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Kings County Supreme Court Building
320 Jay Street, Brooklyn
6:00pm

Summer Program Fever

Last summer, a third of SLJ students were not glued to TV sets, swing sets, or sunsets. They were booking it to class on Ivy League campuses, or powering through another busy day at the office. Middle school was nothing like this; possibility, unlike the ice cream van, doesn't chime with the same recycled notes. SLJ has more internships and pre-college programs to offer students this summer than ever before, and the buzz is already building. As at most schools, what characterizes spring at SLJ is the anticipation of summer, but a summer whose days are anything but lazy.

With help from the Robin Hood Foundation, SLJ integrates a full-scale early college awareness curriculum into daily instruction. Pursuit of field-based summer enrichment opportunities features prominently. But ambition at SLJ is never blind: every moment in the climb toward competitive programs is teachable, and together students polish resumes, rehearse interviews, and discover the habits and practices that will make them ready to succeed. More importantly, they come to their own conclusions about why enrichment matters, and are equipped to make smart decisions untethered to the adage, "Trust us, it's good for you." At this very moment:

• Every 9th, 10th, and 11th grade student is applying to at least one summer program.
• Every 9th, 10th, and 11th grade teacher is presenting a rigorous, comprehensive unit on summer enrichment.
• Every 9th, 10th, and 11th grade student is conferencing regularly with an advisor to discuss summer options and pinpoint programs that fit his or her talents and interests.
• Nicole Simon, Director of Early College Awareness Programs, is teaching an intensive pull-out course for 25 students who are applying to the most challenging programs.
• SLJ's Board of Directors is planning its 2nd Annual Spring Cocktail Benefit featuring special guest Jeffrey Toobin, lawyer, journalist, TV legal analyst, and bestselling author of The Nine. Proceeds will fund summer internship stipends and pre-college program scholarships (email jpinto@sljhs.org to learn more).

Open Positions on Our Peerless Faculty

SLJ seeks passionate career educators to join one of the most dedicated, reflective, and familial faculties in New York City. Positions are available in English, Math, Biology, Social Studies, and Special Education. Teachers are also advisors to eighteen students. "You are amazing and awesome teachers and advisors -- I love you guys," said one student, thanking her grade team after learning of her acceptance to Amherst. This is what our School Quality Review (SQR) evaluator had in mind when he wrote, "Relationships are excellent and contribute to the sense of the school being a genuine learning community." A fine compliment, but one that can only be fully appreciated from the ranks of our staff in the daily mix with young, fertile minds; there's no other feeling in the world quite like it.

Please help spread the word. For more information about available positions, kindly visit:

www.sljhs.org/aboutus/employment.php.

SLJ On WABC-TV

When Eliot Spitzer resigned as New York's governor, a group of SLJ seniors dissected the scandal in their Social Studies class, observed by Art McFarland of Eyewitness News (ABC-7) and his camera crew:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/media?id=6021410

Society is improvisation; life, a breaking story. Here again was evidence that when, as a people, we fumble onto new moral or political turf, our students rush to the scene, not for easy resolution but an appreciation of the stakes, and a serviceable understanding they can carry in their packs to be ready when the decisions are theirs to make.

SLJ'S Website Relaunches

In the years since www.sljhs.org first launched, our work has deepened, our community grown. More stakeholders need better access to a broader range of information. Our goal in the renovation of our site was to provide as comprehensive and interactive an online resource as possible, creating a "web campus" where students, parents, partners, and friends could strengthen and diversify their investment. SLJ thanks web designer Alex Morabito (www.alexmorabito.com) for the new and improved www.sljhs.org, which looks sharp, is extremely navigable, and puts the following and more at your fingertips.

• The latest SLJ news and media mentions
• Employment opportunities
• Information for prospective students, including how to choose SLJ and what to expect once enrolled
• Information for parents, including how to join and participate in the PTA
• Information for partners and friends, including how to become a mentor or guest speaker and how to make an important donation to the school
• SLJ pedagogy at a glance: instructional philosophy, course of study, and (coming soon) curriculum maps
• SLJ programs at a glance: after-school clubs, internships, athletics, student council, and summer enrichment
• School policies and procedures
• A calendar of SLJ events

Spring Break is less than two weeks away. It's possible you will find my colleagues unwinding in the park or at the beach. They will be a shade or two paler than everyone else, deep in some new tome about how public education is not as easy as it looks. And it isn't, as evidenced by the inadvertent working vacation, the educator's specialty. The official counsel of the Partnership Office is to buy them an iced coffee and engage them in pleasant conversation, which we believe will further the cause. And please don't forget to shake their hands; they are fixing the country.

All best,

Joe