J.H.S. 127 The Castle Hill

JHS 127, The Castle Hill School is a neighborhood middle school that draws students from a diverse patch of the Parkchester section of the Bronx. It is home to a district-wide honors program and offers a lot of support for its many English language learners, who mostly are native Spanish or Bengali speakers.

JHS 127 participates in the Middle School Quality Initiative (MSQI), the city’s program designed to boost students’ reading levels with a longer school day and special activities such as debate. Writing is also emphasized across all subjects and students tackle research projects on a range of topics such as impact of culture and society on the experiences of adolescents, community awareness and improvement and applied mathematics, according the school’s annual Comprehensive Educational Plan.

There are honors classes on each grade. By 8th grade, some students take high school Regents courses in algebra and either living environment or Earth science. All 8th-graders complete a social justice project where they tackle a problem faced in their community. In addition to researching the problem, students are expected to devise solutions, which they pitch to local officials.

Students take elective classes that may include business, visual arts, music, theater production, and technology. Popular extra curricular activities also include the Young Ambassadors Program of the United Nations and peer mentoring.

New York Edge, a non-profit organization provides a range of extended day and after-school activities. The school also fields several sports teams.

JHS. 127 shares the building with The Linden Tree Elementary School.

SPECIAL EDUCATION: There are self-contained classes for students with special needs only, integrated co-teaching (ICT) classes and SETSS. The school offers bilingual instruction classes for native Spanish and Bengali speakers. While English language learners test scores run average for the city average, scores for students with special needs are very low.

ADMISSIONS: The school admits students zoned for the building and also admits students district-wide. For District 11 students not zoned for JHS 127, priority goes to those who demonstrate interest by signing in at a school tour, open house, information session or middle school fair. Admission to the Gifted and Talented program is based on students’ grades, test scores in ELA and math as well as record of attendance and behavior. (Laura Zingmond, web reports, March 2019).