New Brooklyn Citywide G and T schools

According to insideschools blog the new citywide gifted and talented schools that we have been waiting for since last fall have been announced. Two of them will be located in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn School of Inquiry in Bay Ridge (correction: Bensonhurst) will be able to accommodate two kindergartens and two 1st grades next year. The TIER program at PS 20 will have space for one kindergarten and one 1st grade next year. If the citywide G&T policy remains the same the number of students attending likely depends on the number of children who score at the 97th percentile and above whose parents decide to send them to this program.

The Brooklyn School of Inquiry will be housed in a brand new building at 50 Ave. P in Bay Ridge (correction: Bensonhurst). It will open with kindergarten and 1st grade students in the fall and eventually go through 8th grade. The school will incorporate "looping" where a teacher follows a class for two years. According to Pamela Wheaton from insideschools.org Donna Taylor will be the principal. "She is an experienced teacher of gifted classes (she taught in the G&T class at PS 230 in Brooklyn) and is now doing a residency at the Anderson School." It sounds very promising.

The Technology, Inquiry, Enrichment and Research (TIER) program will be housed in PS 20 in the same building as Arts and Letters Middle School in Ft. Greene. It will also enroll kindergarten and 1st grade next fall and is planned to grow to 5th grade. A site is being sought for eventual middle school expansion (correction: "The Department of Education is working to identify nearby middle schools where students in these programs can continue after fifth grade.") The TIER program will be a part of PS 20 with Mr. Keaton as its Principal.

It looks like there will be another school located in the Ave. P building. Rather than being a G&T program, it is a CTT model school. The Academy of Talented Scholars will accept children into kindergarten and 1st grade next year and grow to 5th grade. They will develop skills through inquiry and project based learning, schoolwide enrichment for all students and differentiated instruction through Technology and Arts. Families interested in applying to the school should contact the Brooklyn Borough Enrollment Office.