Explore Excel Charter School opened in 2011 in Canarsie as part of the Explore Schools network, which operates several other schools in Brooklyn including Explore Charter School.  Excel opened with kindergarten through 3^rd grade students and will grow a grade per year through 8^th grade.

Explore schools offer personalized attention, small group instruction, and feature two-teachers in each elementary classroom, a model which Morty Ballen, the network’s CEO, says he adopted when he realized it was used by many high-performing schools.

Excel Principal Ethan Mitnick, a former bilingual special education teacher in the Bronx, was “principal in residence” at Explore Schools in 2010-2011, and was previously superintendent of the Believe High Schools Network. Mitnick was also principal of Believe’s Williamsburg Charter High School in 2009, at a time when that school had three principals in two years. Mitnick has an Ed.D. in administration from Teachers College and earned an M.A. from Mercy College while working with NYC Teaching Fellows.

Explore Excel shares space with PS 114, a troubled school that had been slated for closure in 2011 before winning a partial reprieve; the school will remain open, but its enrollment was cut to make room for Excel.  PS 114 parents and teachers expressed concern about how the two schools will share space and resources in the century-old building, located in a neighborhood that was once largely Italian and Jewish but is now home to families of mostly Caribbean and African American backgrounds.

Admissions: According to Explore Schools’ Director of Strategy Lizz Pawlson, Explore gives priority in admissions to District 18 students who are at risk of academic failure, particularly those who are zoned for PS 114. For its first year, 2011-2012, Excel received more than 750 applications for 240 spots in kindergarten through 3rd grade. About 60% of the applicants attended or are zoned to attend PS 114. These students receive first preference in the lottery. (Amanda Hass, April 2011; posted September 2011)