I spent Friday at the Bronx Lab School. Bronx Lab is one of the new small schools that the NYC Department of Education has opened up on the site of an existing school. Bronx Lab is housed on the fourth floor of the old Evander Childs complex, and before getting into all the amazing things they do there, I will say that the prospect of having to deal with the logistics of running a school at a site with five other schools in the building is something I would not want to have to deal with. My hat is off to all the principals in urban districts who are making this work.

Bronx Lab is in its second year — it’s co-founder, Marc Sternberg, is a former Teach For America fellow who stayed in education policy after his stint in TFA, and now he’s back in the classroom (or at least in the principal’s office.) Marc is also a good friend who I met at Teachers College where we were taking Ed Admin classes together. Marc is one of the people who just gets it. He’s very smart, quick-witted and committed to education reform.

The first thing I noticed once I found the school was how the staff room and the administrative offices were all together, separated by a door and a glass wall, and it was clear after about a minute that this school was a collaborative effort. Marc and his co-director Michelle work with the teachers toward a common goal, and that was evident as I watched five minutes of conversations between teachers and administrators. One teacher told me that she thought Marc and Michelle were "Educational Superheroes" because of their dedication to Bronx Lab and because they had created an environment where teachers could teach and students could focus on learning.

One thing that I know I’m going to steal from Marc is the notion of building a shared language — and shared culture / value system, perhaps — with which to talk about education by doing common readings as a faculty. The classic Understanding by Design forms the backbone of how Bronx Lab thinks about what they want to do how how they want to do it. What is the goal and how do we get there? As Michelle said to me, "We don’t go to the grocery store without first thinking about what we want to cook at the end, why should schools be different?" (Sadly, I confess that I occasionally decide what I want to cook when I’m in the aisle, but that might say more about my teaching — and my cooking — than I care to admit.) I’ve already starting going through my education bookshelves, looking for the seminal texts that I’d want to read with a group of teachers. (Education by Design, Moral Leadership, Teaching to Transgress all spring to mind…)

Another thing that struck me — and gave me hope — was that the teachers seemed to give space for the school to make mistakes and learn from then. One teacher told me about how they spent several faculty meetings talking about discipline and how they were going to use a system of "dings and props" to get kids to talk about — and own — their behavior, but that they soon realized there were problems with the implementation of it. I think this could have been a divisive moment for the school, but from what several people said, it was handled through some hard conversations and reflection on what the goals were and in talking to both faculty and students, everyone felt that the school community treated each other with respect.

And that feeling really was palpable in the air. Kids wanted to be there — that was obvious. And they felt cared about by their teachers. I spoke to Natalie, a 10th grader, and she told me what made Bronx Lab different was that the teachers knew the kids and knew what was going on in their lives. She said, "I didn’t want all the attention at first, but then I realized they were doing it to help me…. and it’s good, because you always know who can come to with a problem." Everyone is on a first name basis there — which was something that would be hard for me. As much as the kids have my cell phone number, etc… I’ve never wanted to go by "Chris" in the classroom. For most kids, the "Mr." is silent when they call me, but somehow, even "Hey Lehmann!" seems just a little more right for me than, "Hey Chris!" I don’t know… but hey, it works for them.

Other things that Bronx Lab does right… I love their Explore Week concept. Three times a year, they do "Explore Week" where they take a significant portion of the school out for four days on some sort of project. First one is a camping trip for their ninth grade. Second one is some sort of academic project, and the third one, at the end of the year after Regents, is a college visit. Right now, we’re hoping to figure out how to make next year’s visit a trip to the Science Leadership Academy (and Penn and Drexel and Temple and such…) They do four days away and the fifth day is reflection, exhibition, celebration of what they did. It’s a fantastic thing, and it really seems to bring the students together and get them thinking about their lives as more than just the narrow world that is high school.

Perhaps their most ambitious program is their internship program, and I was able to visit them right as it is getting off the ground. This semester’s pilot program will take thirteen kids as a cohort — they spent the first month of school in intensive classes together, both doing the academics and the "real world" prep — writing resumes, setting up interviews, learning interview skills, etc… Then, once they set up their internships, they do two days a week there and three days a week back in class with their cohort doing high-intensity coursework. The goal is to make it a high-rigor program that combines the chance for real world experience with the same high standards of academic work. This is not a school-to-work program in that Bronx Lab wants all these kids to go to college, but it does give them something to look forward to beyond their lives in the day to day. I spoke to students who were interviewing to be a surgical intern and to work at WFUV in their sports program, and the kids each had a path from high school to college (and med school) and into a career they wanted to pursue. And Marc and Michelle are committed to making this intership program work and have dedicated a great deal of staff resources, including making one teacher a full-time intership coordinator. It’s that kind of resource management (and juggling of finances, I’m sure) that will make the program a success. It’s clear from the administration that this program is a priority, and the teachers feel supported by that.

Overall, I had an amazing time at Bronx Lab — and I’d love to get the chance to spend more than a day there next time. I think that they are doing some wonderful things there, and they take the notion of reflective practice seriously which makes me believe that they are only going to keep getting better. We talked about the idea of having their first class meet our first class next year… I hope we’re able to pull it off.