Mission

The East Harlem School educates middle school students (grades 5-8) from East Harlem who wish to rise to their academic potential. The East Harlem School values teaching children who exhibit a desire to learn, and an eagerness to embrace new challenges. The East Harlem School recruits children from families with low income and helps these students develop academic excellence, moral integrity, courtesy, and an unshakeable commitment to their future and the fate of their community.

Need

East Harlem is a community beset by poverty and its attendant ills of early high school withdrawal, violent crime, teen pregnancy, and drug abuse. The middle school-aged children of East Harlem (District 4), who are largely of Black and Latino descent, consistently score in the lowest percentile on state math and reading tests. Additionally, an ineffective and under funded special education program in the public school system fails to meet the needs of many of the community’s middle-achieving students. These factors create a concentration of risks that threaten the survival, let alone the opportunity to succeed, of the children in this community.

Solution

The School serves students in grades 5–8 by addressing the needs of the whole child by promoting intellectual, moral, aesthetic, and kinesthetic development. Through a rigorous curriculum that stresses interdisciplinary learning, skill acquisition, focused exploration, and cooperative learning, The East Harlem School instills confidence, skill, discipline, and moral accountability in its students. With the completion of an East Harlem School education, students will be able to succeed in a variety of settings, while retaining the traditions and strengths of their own community.

Meet our faculty and staff...