MAY 2007 UPDATE: In the fall of 2007, the school will share its building with the Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science, and Engineering, which will have a 6th grade. PS 125 will also add two dual-language French and English kindergarten classes. Additionally, as of September 2006, Lauvia Sherman is no longer the school's principal. The principal is now Claudette Lustin.

MARCH 2004 REVIEW: Principal Lauvia Sherman tries to build a strong school culture to make sure PS 125 is a big part of its students' lives, not just the place they spend their days. Almost every student wears the school uniform, and one of the few we saw who didn't caught a reprimand from the principal. Sherman knew the girl's name because she knows the name of almost every student in the school. The force of her personality plays a role in unifying PS 125, where students recite the "scholars' pledge" she wrote every day. One piece of evidence that Sherman's efforts at culture-building are successful is that the school's attendance rates are on the high side at 92 percent.

PS 125 serves grades 3 - 6. (An early childhood school, PS 36, serving kids in PK-2, feeds into it.) The school, built in the 1920s, is pleasant, boasting rare luxuries for elementary schools, from an Olympic-size swimming pool to a violin program to ample office space for coaches and other staffers.

PS 125 also offers special academic features, namely Sherman's "LIP" or "Learning Intervention Program" for those students who could easily fall through the cracks because they don't get special education services but also aren't meeting standards. These classes -- one on each grade -- have a teacher and an aide for 20 students maximum. A LIP class that we saw -- taught by teacher Philene Rivera and paraprofessional William Walsh -- was a model of focus and quiet, yet parent coordinator Valerie James-Smaltz said the students had been a difficult group.

Sherman said she assigned her top teachers to the LIP classes, but we also saw lots of good teaching outside the program, too. There's "Mr. G.," also known as William Gioia, who manages to get his students excited about the distinction between proper and improper fractions. And veteran teacher Sharonda Williams has a knack for folding multiple concepts into a single question, simultaneously asking her students to reflect on what "predict" means, to recall details from a text and to build on previous comments rather than repeat them.

We also saw some teachers who weren't as strong, however, including a number who didn't have a lot of time for instruction because they had to interrupt themselves to discipline their students. The school's test scores, while improving, still have a way to go. There's been some real progress over the past few years. In 2000, only 27 percent of fourth graders met or exceeded standards in math; last year it was 50 percent. But the combined city and state test scores for 3rd through 6th grades haven't demonstrated comparable gains.

Special education: One reason the school might be struggling with test scores is that has the highest percentage of students with special needs -- 20 percent of its total enrollment -- of any school in District 5. In fall, 2004, far fewer special needs children are scheduled to enter the 4th grade at PS 125, however, as the school system introduces a more equitable distribution of these children among area schools, according to Sherman. (Helen Chernikoff, March 2004)