By Julie Shapiro
A parade of photographs at P.S. 89’s anniversary celebration showed just how much can change in 10 years.
First there was a weed-strewn field on Battery Park City’s landfill, then a brand-new but nearly empty building, and now a school overflowing with children that consistently ranks among the city’s best.
“It’s amazing that it’s only been 10 years, and it’s also amazing how much we’ve done in 10 years,” said Ronnie Najjar, the elementary school’s first and only principal.
Hundreds of people turned out on Saturday to celebrate the near-end of P.S. 89’s 10th school year. Graduates wearing braces and flip-flops reunited with former classmates and teachers, young children raced over play equipment in the schoolyard and parents stood in groups talking and taking in the sunshine.
As if to highlight how much growth can happen in 10 years, Najjar invited P.S. 89’s very first student back to the school for the party to cut the ribbon on a new mosaic column dedicated to the anniversary.
Melissa Watt, a 15-year-old freshman at Stuyvesant High School across the street, grinned as she towered above a crowd of young P.S. 89 students on Saturday.
“It feels a lot smaller,” she said, looking around at the school she called home starting in 1998, when she was the first student to sign up for pre-K. “It’s a great place to start. It just really prepares you for everything else.”
Monica Watt, Melissa’s mother, described P.S. 89 as the equivalent of a small-town church: the cornerstone of the community, the place where everyone meets.
“It’s what brings this whole neighborhood together,” Watt said. “It’s a very inclusive school, very caring. People really go out of their way to help each other.”
Watt and other parents described P.S. 89 as a safe, welcoming place where they could count on Najjar to remember every child’s name. Teachers lauded the curriculum’s focus on social studies and the arts, and former students said the emphasis on collaborative learning came in handy when they got to middle school.
“It’s made the neighborhood,” said Anil Dang, whose two sons go to P.S. 89. “The school is the reason the neighborhood is so good.”
Added Greg Zaletofsky, whose daughter is in first grade, “They just treat everybody like family.”
P.S. 89’s family was much smaller 10 years ago. After a parent-led push comprised of petitions and letter-writing campaigns, the school opened in the base of a residential tower on Sept. 10, 1998 with just under 100 students. I.S. 89, the middle school that shares the building, also opened that year, but Saturday’s celebration was organized by P.S. 89 and focused just on the elementary school. I.S. 89 principal Ellen Foote did not return a call for comment.
When P.S. 89 opened, Najjar, a longtime teacher at P.S. 234, moved across West St. to lead the new school. She brought with her a teaching philosophy centered on collaboration — not just among students but also between teachers, administrators and parents.
Carolyn Happy, co-president of the P.T.A., uses the metaphor of a mosaic to describe the school’s progressive model: The children are unique and learn in their own way, but also have to work together to form a miniature society.
Najjar and Happy both described the school as an anchor for the community, particularly after 9/11. On that day, Najjar led the evacuation along the unpaved highway, holding children by the hand and waiting with them into the evening until their parents came. Several children recall looking over their shoulder as they fled and seeing the second tower fall.
In the aftermath, P.S. 89 was as splintered as the neighborhood, with families dislocated to other parts of the city and beyond. P.S. 89 held small classes first at P.S. 3 in the West Village, then on the Lower East Side in the building that now houses NEST.
“There wasn’t any consistency in these children’s lives outside of school,” Najjar said. “Our job was to give them as much of that consistency as possible.”
On March 1, 2002, P.S. 89 reopened in Battery Park City with a celebration including balloons, banners and cheerleaders from Stuyvesant High School.
Najjar’s favorite moments over the past 10 years are not always the biggest ones, but rather they are like a series of snapshots as her students grow. She remembers the pre-K kids who cried when separated from their parents but now strut into their second-grade classrooms with confidence, the fifth-graders who show sudden poise as they master the tango and rumba, and the 15-year-old alumni who come back to visit and volunteer to check coats for school fundraisers.
“There’s a whole host of feelings I get after watching these kids grow up,” Najjar said.
As the children have grown, so, too, has the school. The first staff meeting involved eight people sitting around a table; now, the staff has to squeeze into one of the largest classrooms. The school founded to relieve crowding at P.S. 234 quickly became overcrowded itself, and Najjar had to sacrifice a computer room and a guidance suite to fit in the extra children, a total of 540 this year.
But relief is on the way, in the form of P.S./I.S. 276, opening in southern B.P.C. in 2010 and starting its first kindergarten classes in Tweed Courthouse this fall.
“It’s going to be nice to be a little smaller again,” Najjar said.
On a recent afternoon just before the anniversary celebration, students in Roe Wrubel’s fourth-grade class discussed what makes P.S. 89 special. Top answers were teachers, friends, and, of course, recess.
“I learned to be a really good friend and to not be mean,” said Melina Driscoll, 9, as she colored an anniversary card for the school. “When you disagree, disagree politely. Share with your friends if you have something they might want.”
Samantha Pastoressa, 9, said she loved her teachers at P.S. 89, who taught her how to read and do math.
“I learned a lot,” Samantha said. “I learned everything I know now.”
Many of the students took the stage at Saturday’s anniversary celebration to sing, play instruments and dance. The performances culminated in a 15-minute video documenting P.S. 89’s history that left some parents both smiling and wiping their eyes.
After the video, as the auditorium emptied, Viviane Gondin Decastro, 9, stayed behind to chat with the custodians. The third-grader’s favorite times at P.S. 89 include a visit to the butterfly exhibit at the Museum of Natural History and a trip to a farm in Queens.
Of the 10-year anniversary, Viviane said, “That’s a lot.” Grinning, she added, “I wasn’t even born 10 years ago.”
Julie@DowntownExpress.com
