BY JACKSON CHEN | As P.S. 191 prepares for its move into a new school building at Riverside Center, the school’s principal, Lauren Keville, offered a sneak preview of what the learning spaces and curriculum would look like during a December 15 meeting of Community Board 7’s Youth, Education, and Libraries Committee.
The relocation of P.S. 191, currently at 210 West 61st Street, was an important piece of the District 3 rezoning that redrew lines for 11 schools in the district’s southern portion. The school is moving a couple of blocks to the west to Riverside Center between 60th and 61st Streets at West End Avenue in time for next September’s opening of the 2017-2018 school year.
The relocation has largely received support from the local community as the school has worked to improve its reputation as one previously — and incorrectly, according to many — labeled “persistently dangerous” by the state. The move into the Riverside Center building provides the school with a concrete physical element to its fresh start.
Under the leadership of Keville, who took over in 2014, the school had its “persistently dangerous” label removed and is likely to have its name changed as well as part of its makeover.
The new school building at Riverside Center will provide a gymnasium, a gymnatorium, performing arts spaces, a fully stocked modern library, a “maker space,” and more, Keville said.
The principal explained that the spaces will be conducive to the school’s mission of promoting education through “project-based learning.” Keville said the school’s focus will be on programs that encourage hands-on experiential learning and not “chalk and talk.”
“It engrosses them in learning in a way that really brings them alive and really sparks their interest,” Keville said of that approach.
To promote engaged learning, the principal said, the school would launch a maker initiative that will allow students to focus on collaboratively inventing things to solve problems.
Andrew Chu, P.S. 191’s School Leadership Team’s co-chair, and Charles Taylor, the school’s Parent Teacher Association’s co-president, visited other schools that had integrated a maker program into their curriculum.
“The reason why I’m so interested in this is it’s really about inspiring a love of learning… seeing an idea you have actualized in the physical world,” Chu said. “I can see a scenario where those types of spaces become almost as indispensable as libraries. It’s basically a resource and place where kids can let their imaginations go wild.”
As for the school’s curriculum, Keville said administrators are looking to be the first in District 3 to offer Mandarin as early as pre-K, depending on the funding the school receives.
The principal has enlisted the help of several specialized programs to boost the learning potential of the students, with Columbia University’s Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, the TERC (Technical Education Research Centers) Math Investigations program out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and partnerships with nearby cultural institutions, including Lincoln Center Education, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
“Basically what we’re doing here is we are cultivating lifelong learners that want to take their education to the next level and want to be active members of society,” Keville said of the curriculum.
The principal said the K-8 school would have two sections per grade, except for its kindergarten and third grade levels that would have three sections. One of the third grade sections will be a new offering of a Gifted and Talented program.
Keville added that the five-story school building would be separated much the way the current P.S. 191 building is, with the top floors occupied by the middle school, elementary grades in the middle, and kindergarten and pre-K in the lower and ground floors. Keville said she hopes to maintain current class sizes of between 23 and 28 students.
“We want more and more people to come see us so you can see the great things happening here,” Keville said. “And with the rezoning, it’s really important to me and to our school community that you feel excited sending your children to school here and we’re excited about welcoming new families in.”
