“Alexander, who is an instructional team leader and peer collaborative coach at Urban Assembly School for Applied Math & Science (AMS), located at 1595 Bathgate Ave., was tabbed in December as one of just five recipients of the inaugural Cognizant Innovation in Computer Science Education Award and given a $10,000 cash prize.”

AMS is featured prominently in the NYCMenTeach & the Young Men's Initiative promo. Shouts out to Mr. Alexander, Mr. Curry, Mr. Melo, Mr. Oppong, and Ms. Chung.

How Paul Simon is Helping NYC Students on Their Musical Journey

“Noah Teachey is a third-year music teacher at the Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science. He's found a mentor in David West, the veteran orchestra director at Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music.

And it's all thanks to Paul Simon. Yes, that Paul Simon.”

Umoja: A Brotherhood to Empower Young Men of Color

“A dissertation submitted to The Graduate School of Education Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Education by Kimberly Y. Melgar”

“When David Krulwich decided to make a mid-career switch from attorney to math teacher in 2001, he was delighted to find that teaching was a profession he found rewarding and fun. But he was also troubled. Every day he’d teach in a classroom, alone, and at night he’d go home and plan the next day’s lessons, alone. It was his first year, yet his duties were the same as a someone with 10 years on the job.”

A program centered around the concept of Umoja (“unity”) highlights the importance of positive in-school relationships for young men of color and describes how those relationships help them to succeed in school and deal with trauma in their lives. Positive in-school relationships, including those between students and staff and between students and their peers, contribute to overall success in school.

During the ESI Conference, Ingrid Chung gave an Ed Talk that moved the audience. Ingrid Chung is a high school English teacher at Urban Assembly for Applied Math and Science. Here is what she said:

As a young teacher, Ingrid Chung could relate to her seventh-grade student Kayshaun Brown. If it weren’t for their connection, the bright but troubled student may have dropped out of school.

In many classrooms across NYC, subjects like race & gender are considered taboo or are only brought up when tragedy strikes. How do we create safe classrooms that ensure that students are able to discuss difficult issues like race, gender, & equity?

The brotherhood Chung was referring to was Umoja, meaning brotherhood in Swahili, a school-sponsored program created in the summer of 2014 specifically for male students who were at urgent risk of dropping out. Now 21 members strong, the group is united by location — each grew up in the South Bronx, one of the most violent and poor neighborhoods in the nation. Each was chosen for the group because they showed strong leadership potential. Jay Jay had been part of Umoja.

New York City students head back to school tomorrow a little more refreshed, a little more mature and ready to learn. At least, that’s what educators are hoping for, and the Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science used some of the summer break to try to achieve that.

The Artisan Teaching Model merges the idea of teamwork with the concept of an artisan-apprentice relationship. As in any apprenticeship, newer members of the profession work alongside experts ("artisans"). As apprentices become more skilled, they take on larger and more substantial roles and continue to work alongside, and together with, artisans. Over time, the apprentices become artisans themselves and in turn share the art and craft of teaching with newer teachers.

In music, a variation is a way of organizing a piece of music by taking a theme and repeating it in several different ways. As individuals who have experienced race and racism in a variety of different ways, we have created a project that we are calling Variations on a Life in Bars because we all live in prisons we can’t see.

One New York City teacher wanted to give her 80 incredibly hardworking seniors from the Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science the surprise of a lifetime: gifting them the most memorable prom of their dreams. "It was really important to me to make sure my kids that have worked so hard got everything that they wanted," Ingrid Chung, English teacher and senior class adviser, explained today on "Good Morning America" of her surprise efforts. See the video here.

“Sometimes, as a first year teacher, we just need someone to listen. I may not want advice, I may not want you to tell me what I could’ve done. I just want to vent and want you to listen.” AMS’s Ms. Franks is featured in a video on the Teaching Channel.

“In July 2012, New York City launched NYC Summer Quest, a three-year pilot initiative aimed at making summer learning a scalable and sustainable educational reform strategy in New York City.”

“It's known as the ‘summer slide,’ and all students experience it. Forgetting certain academic skills and information is part of summer and usually is overcome quickly in the fall. But research has shown that for more vulnerable students, summer learning loss plays a significant role in falling behind, permanently, and has prompted the city to try to stem the slide.”

“The Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science, an unscreened public middle school-high school with nearly 600 sixth through 12th graders in the South Bronx, has been taking some creative steps to bridge the achievement gap, including home visits by a team of staff members for all incoming sixth graders. This year, 16 students (out of 80 seniors) took the A.P. Calculus exam in May, and 8 received a 4 or a 5 -- the highest scores -- on the exam.”