Cyberarts Studio Academy

The Secondary School for Journalism, housed in the John Jay Educational Campus in Park Slope, has long struggled with poor attendance, low levels of student achievement and an ever-changing curriculum. It now has reinvented itself once again, shifting its focus to technology.

The school says it currently focuses on the intersection between science and technology, arts and the humanities and is preparing students to be “innovators, scientists, graphic designers and computer engineers.” It offers various computer labs and digital media, as well as a Great Books program.

Journalism has seen more than its share of turmoil. It originally was a 6-to-12 school but the Department of Education phased out the lower grades because of low enrollment. In 2017, the then principal was removed in the wake of charges he had changed student grades and let some take easy on-line courses to graduate. Journalism has clashed with another school in the building, Millennium Brooklyn, over space, and in fall 2018 students walked out of class to protest Journalism’s use of Summit Learning, an online system backed by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg

Meanwhile, attendance, graduation and college readiness rates lag not only behind the citywide average but also for those of schools with similar student bodies. Teachers generally give their colleague low marks; in a DOE survey a staggering percentage said that that teachers at the school do not trust one another. 

On the positive side, almost all students now say they feel safe in and around the school. Teachers believe order and discipline is maintained at the school. According to school surveys, teachers express support for Livingston Hilaire who, in 2017, became the school’s third principal in four years.

Journalism shares the John Jay campus with Millennium Brooklyn, John Jay School for Law and Park Slope Collegiate. The inter-scholastic athletic teams include students from all the school except Millennium. The campus offers a particularly extensive array of sports for girls.

Special education: The school offers ICT (integrated co-teaching) classes that mix special needs and general education students and has a small number of special education students in self-contained classes.

Admissions: The school has not filled its seats in recent years, and has a significant number of openings for incoming 10th graders. (Gail Robinson, DOE materials and press reports, November 2018)