10th graders Justin Minaya, Britney Soto, Samantha Ramos, Francisco Cornejo, Julyssa Cruz, and Timothy Martinez have been working tirelessly since September to work to integrate people and resources in NYC schools.  Together, with Ms. Camiscoli's guidance, they created a city-wide advocacy organization called IntegrateNYC4me to bring awareness of the issues of segregation and inequality in school communities and create new possibilities. Check out it's highlight at Chalkbeat.org 

 

As many of us know, NYC is one of the most segregated school systems in the country with the least equitable allocation of resources in public schools.  This year, these students have taken on the work of examining the impact of such segregation and creating the possibilities of connection, power, equality and justice for all students.  Their work has consisted of three parts-

 

1. Doing research on who is in schools in NYC and what resources they have 

2. Engaging with local and national campaigns to push segregated cities to integrate students and resources more equitably and 

3. participating in school to school exchanges so students can engage with other schools and examine these issues across communities.  

 

Six students from Eleanor Roosevelt High School on the Upper East Side attended Bronx Letters for a day, paired with the six interns above, in what they call the "6 train exchange" to inquire about what other schools are like on the 6 train line. 

 

The project will be culimanted this May by painting a community mural to share the students' understanding of the state of NYC public schools now and the possibilities available when people and resources are more fairly shared and integrated.