The Matilda Avenue School

The Matilda Avenue School (PS 483) is a tiny new elementary school that welcomes parents and offers students opportunities to swim, dance and study music. The school website depicts family activities, such as a winter concert, publishing parties of student’s written work, a multicultural fair, and a movie night under the stars with popcorn and cotton candy. Even kindergartners participate in the school science fair; on the school's social media, kids show off projects about rainbows, volcanoes and how plants grow. 

Since it opened in September 2015 in the Wakefield section of the Bronx, Matilda Avenue has set a positive tone and forged strong community partnerships. Two police officers have adopted classrooms and come in once a month to participate in student and family events. The law firm of Sayfarth & Shaw provides books and supplies and hosts holiday celebrations. The Foodbank of New York runs cooking lessons for kids and parents. The School Mental Health Consultant Program connects students and families to therapy and other supports. 

As the school has grown (it will be a full K-5 school in 2020), so has its arts and physical education offerings. Alvin Ailey provides family workshops and does a 10-week dance residency with 1st graders. Second graders get free swimming lessons through Swim for Life. Education Through Music provides music for all students, and every child receives visual arts instruction weekly, according to the Arts in Schools Report.

The school gets high marks from the city on its Quality Review in the areas of setting clear goals, and establishing high expectations. The school is well managed, safe and orderly, the report shows. One goal going forward is to get kids talking and debating, and doing more projects in class. The Quality Review shows that while some teachers are beginning to get kids involved in lessons—for example, in one classroom, children used graham crackers and frosting to demonstrate tectonic plates in the formation of mountains and volcanoes—this was not evident in the vast majority of classrooms.

Students lead their own parent-teacher conferences, and parents receive three progress reports a year. Parents may also log on to programs to check their child’s progress, behavior and the themes they are studying.

ADMISSIONS: Neighborhood school. (Lydie Raschka, web reports, October 2019)