The Magnet School of Global Studies & Leadership (P.S./M.S. 200)

The vibe throughout PS/MS 200, a diverse school with room for children from outside the zone, is friendly and calm. Walk into any classroom, and theres a good chance you will see children huddled in groups to complete a task, talking to one another about their readings or offering feedback to their peers.

The school received a three-year magnet grant in 2016 designed to boost enrollment in the elementary school grades. It adopted the name The Magnet School of Global Studies and Leadership and, as part of the theme of global studies, everyone in the school reads The Librarian of Basra, based on the true story of an Iraqi librarian who protected her books during wartime.

Principal Kevin McAuliffe is well-regarded by teachers, based on their responses to schools surveys, and the school earned high marks on the Department of Educations Quality Review. State test scores hover around the citywide average.

Teachers pay a lot of attention to foundation and study skills. For instance in a kindergarten class we visited the teacher created work sheets with simple sentenceseach one with an intentional error that students were asked to find and circle. By 5th grade, children learn to annotate as they read, such as highlighting text and jotting notes in the margins; in middle school students jot copious notes and write both lengthy essays and short pieces, such 8th-graders reflecting on the personality of the main character in Inside Out and Back Again

In math, we saw students solving problems using multiple approaches, recording their steps and sharing their strategies during small group and class-wide discussions.

In 5th grade, students have one teacher for English and social studies and another for math and science. In 6th grade, they change classes for every subject.

Elementary school students take art and STEM (Science, Technology Engineering and Math). Middle schools students enjoy a weekly enrichment class, choosing from options such as yoga, chess, American Sign Language and movement.

A popular activity is the annual visit from the John Lennon Bus, a mobile recording studio where PS 200 students write a song and produce a music video in one day.

Many students come from families where parents, some with limited English, work long hours. The school provides online access to math instruction so parents who cannot visit the school regularly can follow their childrens lessons. The parent coordinator runs a health and nutrition workshop in Spanish.

Spanish instruction begins in the first grade with a weekly class and is taught more frequently in middle school.

In addition to after-school sports, the Central Queens Y runs a free after-school program onsite for grades K to 8.

SPECIAL EDUCATION: In elementary school there are ICT and self-contained classes for special needs students only. In middle school there are self-contained classes for ELA and math and ICT classes for other subjects. The school has two, full-time English as a New Language teachers.

ADMISSIONS: Elementary school: Zoned, neighborhood school with spaced for students outside the zone. Middle school: Open to District 25 students with top admissions priority to continuing 5th-graders and then to students zoned for IS 250. The middle school typically has space for District 25 students not in the two priority groups. (Laura Zingmond, November 2016)