Brooklyn East Collegiate Uncommon Charter School

Brooklyn East Collegiate Charter School, which serves grades 5 to 8, is part of Uncommon Schools, a large charter network that aims to get its largely low-income black and Latino students into college and give them the skills to succeed there.

To accomplish this, Brooklyn East, like other middle schools in the network, provides students with two periods of math and two of English—one focused on reading and one on writing—every day. Classes start in late August and students attend school from 7:40 a.m. to 4 p.m. Struggling students are encouraged to attend classes on Saturday.

While students score well above the citywide average on the state standardized math test, they are at the citywide average in English language arts and do not do as well as students at many other Uncommon Schools.

Although Uncommon stresses an orderly environment, only 36 percent of teachers say order and discipline are maintained at Brooklyn East. On the 2016-17 school quality survey, teachers gave the school low marks in many areas and expressed dissatisfaction with principal Rodolpho Loureiro, who became principal in summer 2016.

Uncommon started with middle schools and has expanded to include elementary and high schools. It envisions all of its students staying in the network for kindergarten through 12th grade. Students at Brooklyn East can go on to Uncommon Collegiate Charter High School, a safe school that enjoys strong leadership and does a good job preparing teens for college. In 2017, 100 percent of the high school’s graduates were accepted into four-year colleges, the Amsterdam News reported.

Brooklyn East shares its Prospect Heights building with PS 9.

ADMISSIONS: Lottery for 5th grade. The school fills any vacancies in grades 6 through 8 from its waitlist. Applications are available from the Uncommon website. (Gail Robinson, web reports and DOE statistics, April 2018)