Rosalyn Yalow Charter School

Named for a Bronx native who won a Nobel prize in medicine, the Rosalyn Yalow Charter School in Concourse opened with kindergarten and 1st grade in 2015 and plans to add a grade  every year until it becomes a k-8 school.

Rosalyn Yalow seeks to serve economically disadvantaged children in the Bronx, including students with disabilities, students in temporary housing and English language learners, most of whom speak Spanish or one of several African languages. To meet the needs of its students, the school has a nine-hour day with nap and snack time built in for the youngest children. Classes of 28 to 32 students each have two adults, a teacher and licensed social worker in the early grades and two teachers in grades three and up.

Although test data is limited because of how new the school is, students score about average on the English Language Arts exam but excel in math, with particularly high scores for students with disabilities and English language learners. Rosalyn Yalow uses the Singapore math method, which emphasizes concepts and which, the school says, is particularly suited for children not fluent in English.

Rosalyn Yalow’s partners include the Bronx Arts Ensemble and the Kasparov Chess Foundation. The school’s chess team has won first place for schools of its size in the New York State Scholastic Chess Championships. The school also offers a short  fencing program, and all students make frequent visits to the American Museum of Natural History.

The suspension rate seems high for an elementary school, although it may be declining, and a significant percentage of teachers are fairly inexperienced.

Rosalyn Yalow’s main location is on 169th Street. Kindergarteners and first graders attend school in a second building at Third Avenue, at 168th Street, one mile east of our main campus.

SPECIAL EDUCATION: The school provides speech, counseling and physical therapy services to students who need them.

ADMISSIONS: As a charter school, a publicly funded free school that operates independently of the city Department of Education, Rosalyn Yalow selects its students by lottery. For more information, go to the school website. (Gail Robinson, from school website and on-line reports, June 2020)