Brooklyn Frontiers High School
Grades: 9-12Our Insights
What’s Special
Individual support and opportunity for paid internships
The Downside
High suspension rate
Brooklyn Frontiers High School is designed to help students who have been held back at least twice in elementary or middle school, as well as current high schoolers with a minimum of one year at another school who want to transfer. This school gives students a second chance by offering them lots of individualized support, small classes and the opportunity for paid internships.
The school has made a speciality of helping students with significant reading problems. While most instruction in reading is geared toward elementary school children, Brooklyn Frontiers has developed approaches designed to engage and interest older students while helping them learn high school level material, according to a report by Advocates for Children.
Opened in 2010, Brooklyn Frontiers is patterned after the High School of Excellence and Innovation in Manhattan. Its model is expensive: According to Chalkbeat, Brooklyn Frontiers “spends about $34,000 per student, compared with an average of nearly $21,000 citywide.”
In reflecting on their time at Brooklyn Frontiers, students remarked that it “changed my whole perspective on school” and I learned that “I can be myself and learn at the same time.”
Good Shepherd Services, a social services organization, provides students with coaches who meet with them individually to talk about academics, as well as what else is going on in their lives and their plans and aspirations for the future. Students also participate in paid Learning to Work internships to help them explore their interests and prepare for careers after high school.
Small class sizes, ranging from 10 to 20 students, ensure lots of individual attention. Founding principal Alona Cohen, PhD, was formerly a science teacher at South Brooklyn Community High School, a transfer school. She gets high marks from teachers on the NYC School Survey, and told Chalkbeat that “her discipline strategy is usually discussion-based,” though “she’s also not afraid to suspend students.” Indeed, the school’s suspension rate is far higher than the citywide average.
The school is located in downtown Brooklyn. Students can participate in extracurriculars such as musical instrument instruction, Regents prep, gardening and PSAL basketball.
SPECIAL EDUCATION: Roughly half the students enrolled receive special education services. The school has SETSS (special education teacher support services) and ICT (integrated co-teaching) classes. In a report called A Is for All, the legal advocacy group Advocates for Children said Brooklyn Frontiers has a particular focus on helping adolscents who have significant reading problems. (Katharine Safter, web reports, July 2018)
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School Stats
Academics
Students
Race/Ethnicity
Safety & Vibe
Faculty & Staff
Teachers’ Race/Ethnicity
Advanced Courses
Calculus
Not offered in 2019-20Computer Science
Not offered in 2019-20Physics
Not offered in 2019-20Advanced Foreign Language
Not offered in 2019-20AP/IB Arts, English, History or Social Science
Not offered in 2019-20AP/IB Math or Science
Music
College Readiness
Programs & Admissions
From the 2024 High School DirectoryBrooklyn Frontiers High School (L69A)
Offerings
From the 2024 High School DirectoryContact & Location
Location
112 Schermerhorn Street
Brooklyn
NY
11201
Trains: , , , , to Borough Hall; , , to Jay St - Borough Hall; , to DeKalb Av; to Hoyt & Schermerhorn
Buses: B103, B25, B26, B38, B41, B45, B52, B54, B57, B61, B62, B63, B65, B67
Contact
Other Details
This school is in its own building.
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