Formation | 2002 |
---|---|
Founder | Clara Hemphill |
Headquarters | The New School |
Location |
|
Parent organization | Center for New York City Affairs |
Website | insideschools |
Insideschools was founded in 2002 to provide independent insight into New York City public schools and information about the New York City Department of Education. [1] The site includes reviews of the more than 1,400 public schools in the city, information on how to navigate the NYC Department of Education bureaucracy, advice columns that address readers' questions, forums for parents and students to talk with each other, and a blog that is updated daily with school news and commentary. The school reviews are written by journalists who visit each school to interview educators, students and parents and observe what’s happening in the classrooms, cafeterias, hallways and even the bathrooms. [2]
The idea was originally launched by journalist Clara Hemphill in the fall of 2000 as a project of Advocates for Children of New York. According to a New York Times story, "the guide was designed to make good on the promise of citywide school choice," and it initially featured 50 reviews of schools in Queens. [3] Hemphill, the author of the guide book series, New York City's Best Public Schools, was director, and Jill Chaifetz, then director of Advocates for Children, and Judy Baum, a former director of information services at the Public Education Association, helped create the site, which was originally under the domain name publicschoolreports.org. [4] On Sept. 2, 2002, the website was re-launched as insideschools.org with "descriptive tidbits (as Zagat's restaurant guides do) focusing on a school's emotional and physical aspects," according to the New York Times. [5] At the time of the re-launch, the staff had compiled profiles of one third of the 1,200 public schools then operating in the city. The reporting and writing was funded by an initial 18-month grant of $650,000 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. [6]
In 2004, the New York Times published an article called "Finding a Neighborhood and a School." The reporter asked Clara Hemphill for a list of noteworthy schools from the website profiles, which they printed alongside real estate assessments of the surrounding neighborhood. The newspaper wrote that Insideschools has a "more impressionistic assessment of each school" than the data provided by the Department of Education. [7]
In December, 2006, Pamela Wheaton took over as director of the project. On June 7, 2007, staff writer Philissa Cramer launched the Insideschools blog to "help visitors sort out education news in New York, answer questions from parents, students, and educators, and generally supplement the information found on the rest of our site." In Sept. 2008, the website was redesigned and relaunched, in an effort to make updating the school profiles easier.
In 2010 the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment's Center for New York City Affairs took over InsideSchools.
Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to the north, and includes the subsections of Sea Gate to its west and Brighton Beach to its east. Coney Island was formerly the westernmost of the Outer Barrier islands on the southern shore of Long Island, but in the early 20th century it became a peninsula, connected to the rest of Long Island by land fill.
Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. One of the three neighborhoods comprising West Harlem, Morningside Heights borders Central Harlem and Morningside Park to the east, Manhattanville to the north, the Manhattan Valley section of the Upper West Side to the south, and Riverside Park to the west. The main thoroughfare is Broadway, which runs north–south through the neighborhood.
The East Village is a neighborhood on the East Side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is roughly defined as the area east of the Bowery and Third Avenue, between 14th Street on the north and Houston Street on the south. The East Village contains three subsections: Alphabet City, in reference to the single-letter-named avenues that are located to the east of First Avenue; Little Ukraine, near Second Avenue and 6th and 7th Streets; and the Bowery, located around the street of the same name.
Borough Park is a neighborhood in the southwestern part of the borough of Brooklyn, in New York City. The neighborhood is bordered by Bensonhurst to the south, Bay Ridge to the southwest, Sunset Park to the west, Kensington and Green-Wood Cemetery to the northeast, Flatbush to the east, and Midwood to the southeast.
The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden located at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a 250-acre (100 ha) site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a greenhouse containing several habitats; and the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, which contains one of the world's largest collections of botany-related texts. As of 2016, over a million people visit the New York Botanical Garden annually.
Alvin Ailey, a.k.a. Alvin Ailey Jr., was an African-American dancer, director, choreographer, and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT). He created AAADT and its affiliated Ailey School as havens for nurturing black artists and expressing the universality of the African-American experience through dance. His work fused theatre, modern dance, ballet, and jazz with black vernacular, creating hope-fueled choreography that continues to spread global awareness of black life in America. Ailey's choreographic masterpiece Revelations is recognized as one of the most popular and most performed ballets in the world. In this work he blended primitive, modern and jazz elements of dance with a concern for black rural America. On July 15, 2008, the United States Congress passed a resolution designating AAADT a “vital American cultural ambassador to the World.” That same year, in recognition of AAADT's 50th anniversary, then Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared December 4 "Alvin Ailey Day" in New York City while then Governor David Paterson honoured the organization on behalf of New York State.
Sunset Park is a neighborhood in the southwestern part of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, bounded by Park Slope and Green-Wood Cemetery to the north, Borough Park to the east, Bay Ridge to the south, and Upper New York Bay to the west. The neighborhood is named after a 24.5-acre (9.9 ha) public park of the same name, located between 41st and 44th Streets and Fifth and Seventh Avenues. The region north of 36th Street is also known as Greenwood Heights or South Slope.
Canarsie is a mostly residential neighborhood in the southeastern portion of Brooklyn, New York City. Canarsie is bordered on the east by Fresh Creek Basin and East 108th Street; on the north by Linden Boulevard; on the west by Ralph Avenue; on the southwest by Paerdegat Basin; and on the south by Jamaica Bay. It is adjacent to the neighborhoods of East Flatbush to the west, Flatlands and Bergen Beach to the southwest, Starrett City to the east, East New York to the northeast, and Brownsville to the north.
Fresh Meadows is a neighborhood in the northeastern section of the New York City borough of Queens. Fresh Meadows used to be part of the broader town of Flushing and is bordered to the north by the Horace Harding Expressway; to the west by Pomonok, St. John's University and the sub-neighborhoods of Hillcrest and Utopia; to the east by Cunningham Park and the Clearview Expressway; and to the south by the Grand Central Parkway.
Starrett City is a housing development in the Spring Creek section of East New York, in Brooklyn, New York City. It is located on a peninsula on the north shore of Jamaica Bay, bounded by Fresh Creek to the west and Hendrix Creek to the east. Starrett City contains both residential and commercial buildings. The residential portion of the property contains eight "sections" in a towers in the park layout. The complex also contains a community and recreation center, as well as two schools.
The Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI) is a New York City-based non-profit organization devoted to serving the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) youth between the ages of 13 and 24, and their families.
Great Performances is a television anthology series dedicated to the performing arts; the banner has been used to televise theatrical performances such as plays, musicals, opera, ballet, concerts, as well as occasional documentaries. It is produced by the PBS member station WNET in New York City.
College Point is a working-middle-class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is bounded to the south by Whitestone Expressway and Flushing; to the east by 138th Street and Malba/Whitestone; to the north by the East River; and to the west by Flushing Bay. College Point is a mostly residential ethnically diverse community with some industrial areas. The neighborhood is served by several parks and contains two yacht clubs.
Arverne is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, on the Rockaway Peninsula. It was initially developed by Remington Vernam, whose signature "R. Vernam" inspired the name of the neighborhood. Arverne extends from Beach 56th Street to Beach 79th Street, along its main thoroughfare Beach Channel Drive, alternatively known as Rev. Joseph H. May Drive.
City Lore, New York's center for urban folk culture, founded in 1985, is the first organization in the United States devoted expressly to the "documentation, preservation, and presentation of urban folk culture."
Mapleton is a neighborhood in southern Brooklyn, New York City, bounded by 16th Avenue on the west, Dahill Road on the east, 57th Street on the north, and 65th Street on the south. It borders Bensonhurst and Borough Park to the west, and Midwood to the east.
The Julia Richman Education Complex (JREC) is an educational multiplex located in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Named after the district superintendent of schools, Julia Richman, it houses six autonomous small schools for approximately 1,800 Pre-K through 12th grade students in the former building of Julia Richman High School, a comprehensive high school that operated until 1995. The schools are operated by the New York City Department of Education.
The Queens Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival is the second oldest and second largest pride parade in New York City. It is held annually in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights, located in the New York City borough of Queens. The parade was founded by Daniel Dromm and Maritza Martinez to raise the visibility of the LGBTQ community in Queens and memorialize Jackson Heights resident Julio Rivera. Queens also serves as the largest transgender hub in the Western hemisphere and is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.
Calvert Vaux Park is an 85.53-acre (34.61 ha) public park in Gravesend, Brooklyn, in New York City. Created in 1934, it is composed of several disconnected sections along the Belt Parkway between Bay 44th and Bay 49th Streets. The peninsula upon which the park is located faces southwest into Gravesend Bay, immediately north of the Coney Island Creek. The park was expanded in the 1960s by waste from the construction of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, and was renamed after architect Calvert Vaux in 1998. It is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also known as NYC Parks.
Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children is a New York-based licensed and Hague-accredited non-profit providing adoption services, which includes the continuum of counseling and support services to members of the adoption triad: birth parents, adoptive families, and adoptees. They provide interim care for infants as the biological parents make a plan for the child’s future, and also specialize in the adoption of older children, sibling groups and children with special needs.