Promise Academy Charter School is a K-12 school that is part of an ambitious plan to revitalize Central Harlem and rescue children in a community that has long been gripped by poverty, poor health, and failing schools. The vision and proposal for the school was put forth by The Harlem Children's Zone, a community based organization that provides preventive, educational and recreational services for Harlem families.

"We have a whole community of kids shackled by a history of failure who have sort of given up and thrown in the towel and we expect those kids to compete with other people's kids," Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO of Harlem's Children's Zone said on a news program before the school opened in September 2004. "We make a promise to our parents: if you give us your kids, we're going to guarantee that those kids are going to be successful."

The idea driving the school is that kids who come from educationally deprived backgrounds are best served by long hours that allow them to catch up with kids from more advantaged homes. The school day goes from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the school year runs through August. The after-school program for the elementary grades operates from 4 to 6 p.m., while middle and high school after-school activities run until 7:30 p.m. Both programs provide breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner for the students that are all natural, containing no preservatives or processed foods. As for the dress code: most charter schools require students to wear uniforms, but Promise Academy requires that staffers adhere to a strict dress code, too.

The school has three different principals for the elementary, middle, and high school grades and is housed in two buildings in Harlem.

On our latest visit, in February 2009, we were only able to see the middle school in action. The middle and high school grades are located in the Harlem Children's Zone flagship building on 125th Street. It was the first day back to school after a week-long vacation, and the mood in the building was generally subdued, although the architecture's acoustics magnified even the smallest sounds.

Since the curriculums for English and math are scheduled around the state test calendars, students had just begun a new year of English work after the January test and were finishing their year of math work before the March exam.

We saw some promising scenes: A Teacher's College trainer worked on multiplication tables with a happy group of students who had brought their lunch upstairs. Classrooms had no more than 14 students and sometimes as many as five adults. The literacy coach who said that working at Promise Academy was "challenging and exciting." She says that teachers help students be effective communicators by writing, talking and reading critically, and that the longer day and rigorous curriculum were critical.

We also saw some messy classrooms, with old student work hanging on the walls and desks arraigned somewhat haphazardly. In science class, students read from text books, stumbling over some of the words, and the teacher didn't seem to know the proper pronunciation of all of the students' names. In another classroom, the students were quiet and paying attention but they looked bored, and only one student was answering the questions.

After school activities are varied from chess and puppet making to violin and Japanese. Homework is given in every subject every night.

Admissions: Parents support is seen in the registration numbers; most of the students come from the surrounding neighborhood and there is always a waiting list. Kindergarten Admission by lottery held in April. Priority is given to residents of District 5. Students are only admitted in kindergarten.(For a more detailed profile, see New York City's Best Public Elementary Schools. (Jacqueline Wayans, Lindsey Whitton Christ, February 2009)

2005 REVIEW OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: The elementary school will permanently share space in the P.S 175 building on 134th Street. Promise Charter is located on a floor with a few P.S 175 classes, but otherwise it tries to attain a separate stance. Some of the teachers of 175 expressed annoyance over minor issues such as not being able to walk through certain corridors or class disruption when late parents knock on the entrance door after it has been locked. However, on the day of our visit we saw a school working hard to establish a structure and tone for the students. In the main office, workers spoke with tenderness and respect to little tykes who had misbehaved in class. The legally blind art teacher who teaches students how to use pastels like Van Gogh and work collages like Monet also impressed us. (Jacqueline Wayans, February 2005)