P.S./I.S. 104 The Fort Hamilton School

PS/IS 104 The Fort Hamilton School is a large school in Bay Ridge a short walk from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Right on Fifth Avenue, a commercial street running through the neighborhood, the school is housed in a large, stately building. Inside are stained glass windows, Tiffany lamps, and photographs of over a century of students going back to a humble schoolhouse. 

Marie DiBella, principal since 1996, has fostered a welcoming environment for students from the neighborhood, including military families from nearby Fort Hamilton. DiBella’s team of assistant principals make a point to “know their kids” well and help to ensure that students from all grades are part of the school community.  

Students are encouraged to do community service, including school-wide drives for organizations such as St. Jude’s and making Thanksgiving holiday baskets for families in need. The sense of school community is strengthened by the Book of the Month, where students at all grade levels read the same book and create projects around it. Students in the upper grades learn to take ownership of their school by working “jobs” like tutoring younger students, clean-up crews and safety patrol.

There is a “gifted and talented” class in each grade, but on our visit, we could see little difference between the work children were doing in general education classes and gifted classes. Kids are happily engaged and seem to be working at a high level in all classes. 

Students are grouped by their ability and interests within their classes, and teachers readjust the groups as students become stronger in certain areas, or need further support in others. In a Kindergarten class, some children were “collecting” words around the classroom on clipboards, while some worked on computers with headphones to learn new words, and others were practicing their vocabulary together with worksheets. 

The school is overcrowded, and many classrooms are cramped with 32 students. The school is housed in two separate buildings several blocks apart. The main building contains grades 2 through 8 and has a large auditorium, gymnasium, cafeteria, and schoolyard. The school's annex, the Fort Hamilton Early Childhood Center, houses Kindergarten and 1st grade. The annex is in an office building, but the inside is a cheerful and bright space for young children and includes its own cafeteria/gym and library. 

Special Education: The school offers self-contained and team-teaching classes. 

Admissions: Neighborhood school. The gifted and talented program admits students based on their scores on the G&T admissions test, administered by the Department of Education. The school does not have room for children outside the zone. (Melanie Quiroz, November 2018)