At the West Bronx Academy for the Future, kids operate laptops, digital cameras, and video cameras to investigate Egyptian history or the life of mammals. Teachers enhance their lessons with "tablets," mini-computers attached to a large screen. In short, West Bronx Academy, one of five new small schools in the Theodore Roosevelt High School complex, makes imaginative use of technology to engage students in grades 6-12.

With a warm (if shabby) environment and hands-on activities, West Bronx Academy offers a much-needed middle school alternative for children in districts 9 and 10. By starting in 6th grade, the school takes aim at one of the pitfalls of the new small schools: attempting to teach children who normally would end up woefully unprepared for high school. The 6th grade classes we saw did have some children who were reading books typically read by younger students, such as science discovery books with only a few words on each page. But the school seemed to be creating a culture that will help those students catch up, so by the time they reach 9th grade they will be better able than some of their peers at other schools in the building to handle the rigors of high school.

The Theodore Roosevelt High school complex, built in the 1920s, is somewhat gloomy and in need of repair. Students must pass through metal detectors. At West Bronx, as in the rest of the building, there are spots of peeling paint and dirty bathrooms.

But teachers have done their best to make the classrooms cheery. There are classroom libraries for history and science, with biographies, illustrated histories of the ancient world, and attractive books about astronomy or animals. Walls are covered with student projects, such as one in which children studied Cinderella tales from around the world, then wrote their own Cinderella stories set in the Bronx. As part of a U.S. history class, 9th graders read excerpts from Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle, which exposed unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry in the early 1900s. Students wear a uniform of white shirts and black trousers.

Special education: The school offers SETSS (special education teacher support services) and has plans to offer Collaborative Team Teaching (CTT) classes, in which two teachers oversee a class mixing general education students with students with special needs.

After school: The Salvadori Center, a not-for-profit organization that teaches principles of architecture and engineering through "real world" construction projects, offers an after-school program.

Admissions: Half of the incoming 6th grade class comes from elementary schools in District 10 and half comes from District 9. "We interview them," said Principal Wilper Morales, former assistant principal at Jane Addams Vocational High School. "It's not based on grades or attendance. It's based on students' interest." (Clara Hemphill, March 2006)