Harlem Hebrew Language Academy Charter School

My son is in kindergarten at Harlem Hebrew. 4 months into the school year we are having a great experience. I read Mildred C. commentary in this string and had to offer a counter-​viewpoint. I have not witnessed any of the discrimination she has reported, in fact, I found her account silly. Mildred C., if you’re going to talk about discrimination, be sure to generalize about the right populations. Spanish people come from Spain — I’ve not seen any Spaniards around the school.
I have found the class make-​up to be quite diverse and representative of the NYC population, albeit a bit skewed by upper west side Jewish families. On the contrary, our zoned school was not representative of our neighborhood demographic.
So far, we’ve had excellent teacher interaction, great feedback and response to our questions, and most importantly, our son is excited to go to school.

When our son started kindergarten we had a choice to send him to Harlem Hebrew or PS 333. We liked both schools, but selected Harlem Hebrew because of the Hebrew. We also liked the school because it had one of the most diverse student body of any school in the state. When you hear Harlem Hebrew you think all of the kids are jewish, that’s not in case. In fact I think most of the kids aren’t jewish. I would say maybe 40% are Jewish. I was not sure how my son would react to a school that went from 8 – 3:30 because he hadn’t gone to a full dat pre K (because we didn’t get into public pre K. Granted my son has his bad days, two days this week, but we are more than happy with the school, the curriculum and even the uniform that all kids wear. I’m even happy now that he knows what he’s going to wear. There’s never an argument about what to wear. I also love the meals. I have my son signed up for breakfast and lunch. He’s not the best eater and we would always have trouble getting him to eat certain foods, but he’s gotten much better at eating healthy. I really like the gym teacher, the music teacher and his homeroom teacher.

This is our first year at Harlem Hebrew and there’s not enough room to write all our praises. The teachers are fantastic — their dedication to the children is evident each day. Our daughter is learning Hebrew at a rapid pace and enjoying daily gym and music class which, in today’s budget tight public school environment, is amazing. She is growing exponentially each week, building skills, gaining knowledge and deepening her curiosity in the world around her. Beyond all this, she LOVES going to school each morning!!! To me, this is the biggest testament to a school’s ability to engage and inspire its students.
I feel lucky to have been admitted to the school before it is discovered as the true jewel it is (with the associated increase in applications/​competition for spaces this discovery will bring). Our family thanks you, Harlem Hebrew, for offering our daughter such a warm and welcoming introduction to education and I truly believe this early experience will launch her into a life of passionate learning.

I have to add that at least some of the staff have NO understanding of child development. They seem to be trying to impress someone with the level of work, yet my experience has often shown that some kids are totally lost. A few kids «get it» because they’ve obviously had special attention, but for others, some activities are totally inappropriate.