At Brooklyn Prospect, we believe families shouldn’t have to choose between strong academics and a diverse community. Read on to learn more about our philosophy and the approach we’ve taken to creating schools that are inclusive, rigorous and led by excellent educators.
Building a truly diverse and inclusive community is our most important goal, our hardest challenge, and the driving force behind everything we do. By thoughtfully serving students and families from all backgrounds — racial, cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic — we create learning environments where students can gain a deep understanding of the ways in which alternative perspectives drive innovation and creativity. We are a proud founding member of the Diverse Charter Schools Coalition.
An IB world school, Brooklyn Prospect models its curriculum on the renowned International Baccalaureate Program. This rigorous program raises the level of academic responsibility for our students and serves as an important indicator of their capacity for success in college and beyond. Our liberal arts-focused curriculum inspires creative inquiry, problem-solving, critical thinking, personal reflection and collaborative learning, going far beyond the basic standards required by the state.
The bedrock of any successful school is strong, professional teachers. Our teachers are highly skilled in their content areas and are constantly improving their craft. They are committed to the Brooklyn Prospect mission and excel as enthusiastic collaborators and engaged community members. We conduct regular class observations, one-to-one meetings and professional reviews, as well as routinely send out surveys to ensure the needs of every student are being met.
At Brooklyn Prospect, we believe in strong student culture. Creating an environment that is warm, orderly and joyful helps our students get in the right frame of mind for learning and builds a sense of community and belonging amongst students, teachers and faculty. We know our students don’t just learn from their teachers — they learn from each other, too. For that reason we put a lot of emphasis on maintaining respectful and positive relationships, working hard to ensure our teachers and faculty have the tools they need to build those kind of relationships with students and their families, and with each other. We communicate often and early. We partner with parents to ensure students learn and develop both academically and emotionally. Every point of contact is an opportunity to help students build the skills they need to be successful academically and personally, so we devote ample time to their social and emotional learning. And when it comes to resolving disciplinary issues, we focus on restorative learning practices instead of overly punitive measures, holding all students accountable to the same standards of behavior and pre-established norms on a consistent basis.
When it comes to education, we take the long view. We know that developing a deep appreciation for learning doesn’t happen in a day, a month, or even a year. It takes a group of educators and administrators working together and planning carefully to create an intentional, collaborative learning environment built around continuity of education.
Brooklyn Prospect’s K-12 aligned, liberal arts curriculum is modeled after the renowned International Baccalaureate Program and helps our students become well-rounded learners who tackle problems with a collaborative mindset. We don’t ask our students to regurgitate facts or memorize pages and pages of material; instead, we use the tenets of the IB Program to teach them how to think in a way that relies on a variety of perspectives and a deep sense of curiosity. Our favorite kinds of projects are the ones that ask our students to draw on diverse disciplines, skill areas, languages and cultures to reach a solution, demonstrating that their approach to learning is dynamic, never static.
Our curriculum is largely shaped by two mindsets:
As an organization, we’re committed to giving our students a rich array of academic offerings and opportunities that make their education a truly diverse experience. As such, we embrace the use of a variety of performance measures to evaluate learning and quality of instruction.
We view the required state tests as just one small piece of how we measure student learning and our effectiveness. We don’t shape our curriculum to fit the test and we never view scores as a barometer of a student’s academic potential or trajectory. Instead, we view those tests as opportunities for us to ensure our methods of teaching are on track and to help identify any students who might be struggling. To us, assessments are most helpful when they can be used to determine the skills and content knowledge a student has mastered, allowing us to tailor our teaching strategy to meet our students where they are in their educational journey and set them up for success down the road.
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