AUGUST 2011 UPDATE: PS 51 will move to 695 East 182nd Street due to high levels of trichloroethylene (TCE), a hazardous chemical, found in the air of the school's former building. The NYC Department of Education has closed the building at 3200 Jerome Avenue. For more information, the DOE has established a web site related to environmental testing, health questions and the new school location.

JANUARY 2007 REVIEW: Despite its location next to auto body shops and an elevated subway, Bronx New School offers students a cozy, welcoming environment where kids call their teachers by their first names and many classrooms have pet hamsters, snakes, and fish. Each room is accented by a lavender-painted wall, and students have the choice to lie on a colorful carpet, sit at round tables, or gather in a little nook behind a rocking chair to do their work. Students may use the bathroom whenever they want, and when they stop at the fish tank on their way back to class, teachers view the lingering as a moment to learn. "The kids looking at the trout tank say, 'Oh look, there's fingerlings.' It improves their vocabulary and observation skills," said John Kruger, a teacher.

Each year, the school ventures on about 30 field trips, during which the children do everything from ice skating to observing seasonal changes in local parks. Fourth and 5th graders visit the Catskills to release trout they raise in the school aquarium. The students also raise and release hundreds of butterflies. After an apple-picking trip, kindergartners discussed their five senses, and older students did a statistical analysis on the fruit they had brought back. Afterwards, parents taught students how to cook different apple dishes in a school kitchen equipped with a stove purchased by a parent.

Parents are an integral part of Bronx New School. One parent, an architect, helped transform the building originally a factory into a spacious and welcoming structure. Parents also run clubs on subjects including sewing and needlepoint, and they raise enough funds to provide juice and pretzels for snack time, pay the bus fare for field trips, and donate $200 annually to every teacher for classroom supplies and $1,000 to the principal to improve the school.

Students whose parents could afford to send them to private school and students who live in foster care learn side-by-side. The result is a supportive, sympathetic environment. In a 1st grade class we visited, one boy asked his two classmates how to spell the word "body." They began with "b" and "o"but the boy was able to finish the word with the "d" and "y." When a few 2nd graders had difficulty understanding how lines in a rectangle intersect, a classmate explained it to them. Additionally, 1st graders who are struggling with reading and writing meet with a literacy specialist for one-on-one instruction, 50 minutes each day.

In past years, the school mixed two grades into one class. However, with the city and state's increased emphasis on standardized test scores that assess a child's grade-level performance, the school has moved to single-grade classes. "It was how your school was rated. We had to look at it if you wanted to say afloat," said Principal Paul Smith, who has two master degrees from Bank Street College of Education and grew up in the Bronx. Students do, however, stay with the same teacher for two years, which requires teachers to master curriculums for two grades.

The school has no auditorium or gym, and for a playground, administrators cordon off the street in front of the school and close it to traffic.

Special education: Twenty-two students receive support either in a "self-contained" classroom (only students with special needs) or a "collaborative team teaching" (CTT) class, which mixes special needs and general education students and is overseen by two teachers, one of whom is certified in special education.

After school: There is no after-school program at the school, however many children attend a program at a nearby Montefiore community center, which has a strong collaboration with the school.

Admission: By application and lottery. Open to District 10.

This school is included in New York City's Best Public Elementary Schools.(Vanessa Witenko, January 2007)