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Outstanding Public Elementary School

A Wide Open Classroom
Parents and the city are part of the learning process at P.S.87

“A strong staff, an unbelievable community of families and a great mix of kids. Those are the reasons you would want to send your child to P.S. 87,” said Jacqui Getz, principal of the Upper West Side School.

P.S. 87, William Sherman School is deeply rooted in its Upper West Side neighborhood, which is home to many musicians, artists and writers. “Social studies is a huge strength of the school,” Getz said. “Our parents are determined to bring the world to P.S. 87.”

Richard Kaplan, vice president of the P.S. 87 Parents Association, said teachers always invite parents into the classrooms to participate. His older son, Eli, graduated two years ago and his younger son is a 1st-grader at the school.

“When Eli was studying New York City landmarks,” Kaplan, a filmmaker, said, “I took his class to Grand Central Station and I also showed them a film about it I’d made years earlier. That kind of participation breeds an exciting learning environment because kids learn how important what they’re studying really is.”

The Parents Association publishes a weekly newsletter and also raises about $300,000 a year for the school, which helps support its library, music, art, science and technology programs, and provides assistants for the kindergarten classrooms. All children at P.S. 87 take both art and music classes.

The school has approximately 880 students enrolled in pre-kindergarten through 5th grade, and most live nearby in District 3. The result is a highly integrated school, representative of Manhattan’s West Side, Getz said. (P.S. 87 is about 54 percent black, Hispanic and Asian, and about 46 percent white.)

 

Jacqui Getz, principal. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

 

There are six classes at every grade level, ranging in size from 21 to 28 students. One class at each grade level is a dual immersion classroom, taught half of the day in Spanish and half in English by a bilingual teacher.

P.S. 87 does not offer a gifted and talented program, and children receiving special education services are integrated into the mainstream classrooms. “It’s a democratic way of education,” Getz said.

The approach works. On the 2005–06 4th grade reading and math proficiency tests, P.S. 87 continued to significantly outperform both its district and the state. “We have to watch our performance,” Getz said, “but we want to teach the whole child.”

Kaplan said he considered other schools before he made the decision to enroll his older son at P.S. 87. After researching both gifted and talented programs and private school options, he reached the conclusion that, “P.S. 87 is the only school that really provides a social education that matches it academic excellence.”

Last year, in a 2nd grade classroom, the students worked on a project that showcased the school’s focus on an interdisciplinary curriculum. The children worked on an integrated and in-depth study of Central Park. They built a large model of the park, laid out its roads, paths and reservoir, molded its statues and labeled its features. They graphed how often they rollerbladed, played ball, rode their bikes and picnicked on their visits to the park. They studied the parks’ birds and wrote reports on them.

“If I win the lottery tomorrow, my kids would still go to P.S. 87,” said Jackie Zix. “At P.S. 87, the children love to learn.”

Her son graduated last spring and her daughter is in kindergarten at the school.

“The staff really takes advantage of being a New York City school,” she said, noting field trips to the Tenement Museum and concerts at Lincoln Center.

Zix also described a program for 4th graders called “Days of Taste,” involving city chefs who teach the children about nutrition, how to eat at a fine restaurant and how to plan a meal. At the conclusion, the children ate out at the chefs’ restaurants.

Zix’s son, Sam, wrote in an e-mail that, “The teachers at P.S. 87 would put fun projects in the curriculum for us, like doing a bakery, a zoo, building the Great Wall of China and much more.”

Students take a break outside P.S. 87. Photo by Susan M. Sipprelle

Last spring, the city built a garden for the school next to its playground, thanks to an initiative launched by local Council Member Gale Brewer.

“P.S. 87 is one of our very best Upper West Side Schools, and I particularly commend its new principal, Jacqui Getz, for the excellent job she is doing,” Brewer wrote in an e-mail. “I’m glad to have been able to provide funds for their new and beautifully designed reading garden,” she added. The space was planned to give the children hands-on gardening experience and an outdoor spot in which to hold a poetry reading or a class.

After the garden was built but not yet planted, work on the project slowed. A group of 4th grade girls formed a committee to discuss the matter with their principal and assembled in her office. The girls were dressed as characters from their favorite books, as the meeting happened to be scheduled during the school’s reading week. Getz, who taught at P.S. 87 17 years ago and returned as the school’s principal in July 2006, was clearly delighted by their enthusiasm and activism. She arranged for them to meet with and question city park personnel about the timetable for the stalled garden project.

— Susan M. Sipprelle