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July 28, 2009
Students to learn inside the Sonia Sotomayor room at Girls Prep
Sonia Sotomayor with students from her high school, Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx. Photo via WhiteHouse.gov
A South Bronx school is racing to be the first to honor Sonia Sotomayor, the federal judge whose Supreme Court appointment is all but assured after being endorsed by the Senate Judiciary Committee today.
At the brand-new Girls Prep Bronx charter school, one of the six classrooms opening this fall will be named after Sotomayor, who attended Catholic school just seven minutes away from Girls Prep’s home inside MS 302. Girls Prep CEO Miriam Raccah told me she made the decision with the school’s principal, Josie Carbone, after discussing Sotomayor’s Bronx roots.
“We mutually decided that we absolutely had to name a classroom after her,” said Miriam Raccah, the CEO of Girls Prep. “It just was a no-brainer.”
The naming is in keeping with a tradition at Girls Prep, a Lower East Side charter school that opened in 2005. At the original school, classrooms are named for Congresswoman Bella Abzug, the architect Zaha Hadid, and Brenda Berkman, who sued the city to open the fire department to women. Teachers often tell their students about their classrooms’ namesakes, Raccah said. She said the teacher who worked in the Bella Abzug room gave her students extra lessons about government.
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July 28th, 2009 6:25 pm
Congratulations to Sonia Sotomayor, a hispanic woman from the Bronx, for making an indelible mark in the annals of history. Here’s a teaching moment for many to have her speak at several public high schools of her trials and tribulations of growing up in the Bronx, and the challenges that did not deter her from reaching her ultimate goal - to bring justice to those who seek the truth. Narrowing her visits to charter schools will only bring more division to what education is truly about - finding your passion, sticking to it and believing in yourself. It’s wonderful to have all those accolades for Judge Sotomayor and to have a charter school to name a classroom in her name. However, I rather that schools that have a large population of hispanics focus on the benefits of hard work, dedication, and education. As I always tell my students, anyone with a goal and perseverance can reach their dreams even if society did not expect you to do so. She’s living proof and she must remind those students, who will come after her, to work her and this can be also be accomplished in public schools.
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July 29th, 2009 8:14 pm
i hope they have a bathroom so they can christen a jeff sessions toiletbowl.
those girls standing with sotomayor seem like supreme court material.
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