P.S. 9 Ryer Avenue Elementary School

PS 9 Ryer Avenue Elementary school serves pre-kindergarten through 5th grade students, who find common ground in a music program that features jazz, blues, Latin and Afro-Caribbean rhythms, according to the Arts in Schools Report. Although it still has a long way to go, the school has seen improvement on test scores in reading and math in recent years. 

PS 9 students are involved in charitable activities, such as food can drives, visiting the elderly at a nursing home or cleaning a nearby park. The school offers arts, sports, and academic and social support through the Sports and Arts Foundation, and Learning through Expanded Arts. 

Many students face challenges: one-quarter live in temporary housing, which impacts attendance, punctuality and focus, according to the Comprehensive Educational Plan (CEP). And close to one-third are learning to speak English, and these students in particular need help to improve their writing, the CEP shows. 

To help them improve, PS 9 looked to Concourse Village, a high-performing school that has a similar student make-up, including many new English speakers, and decided to adopt the use of “Thinking maps” in all subjects, just as Concourse Village does.  

Thinking maps combine pictures, writing and charts to help children express their ideas in reading, writing, math and other subjects. They may be effective because of their use of design and drawing, along with writing.

While students often want to solve math problems in their heads, teachers encourage them to jot things down and show their steps, in effect, “making thinking visible.” This gives kids a way to speak more easily about their work, a teacher says in a short film about thinking maps. At PS 9, teachers and even parents have been trained in the use of thinking maps, according to the CEP. 

Attendance is low. Many children miss at least a month of school. 

ADMISSIONS: Zoned neighborhood school. (Lydie Raschka, web reports, April 2020)