GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

A group of students from Isaac Newton Middle School screened their spots last night at the Midtown headquarters of advertising giant McCann Erickson (the same company that bought Sterling Cooper two seasons ago on the TV show “Mad Men”).

“Bullying is a topic that is all around the world, so we’re trying to send a message about it,” said Brandon Simmons, a seventh grader. Then he switched to pitch mode: “Our intended audience is students.”

Simmons and his classmates, sixth-graders Genessy Vasquez and Karina Pena, made the commercial in an after-school program, called “Ad Lab,” created by the nonprofit Citizen Schools. (more…)

Hail a cab this weekend, and your in-ride entertainment may come courtesy of New York City public school students.

Starting today, 12,000 taxis will be featuring this video of students at Fort Greene’s Urban Assembly Academy of Arts and Letters interviewing musician Wyclef Jean. The interview was set up by AOL Music, which is helping run a 12-week journalism apprenticeship program at the school in partnership with the non-profit Citizen Schools.

The full text of the students’ interview is here. Jean told the students about his childhood at P.S. 191 after moving to Brooklyn from Haiti with his family:

Bryonna: Do you remember what you were doing when you were 11 and 12?

Wyclef Jean: Yeah, I was getting a whooping by my moms! Eleven and 12 years old in Brooklyn, I was in [Public School] 191, and I was just trying to figure out how to speak English, ’cause I couldn’t even speak English yet. So I was talking with the accent, very slow, trying to figure it out. I wasn’t bilingual at the time, and there was a class that would teach you English. So, that’s what I was doing at 11 and 12. (more…)

Students from East Harlem’s Isaac Newton Middle School for Math and Science were briefly famous yesterday after a video about them landed on YouTube’s home page and was watched nearly 150,000 times.

The video touted a project the students did as part of the extended-day program run by the nonprofit Citizen Schools. The project had them film, produce, and star in their own public service announcements. Watch the winning video, which promotes the program, here.

And here’s one of the videos the students made to fight obesity:

A Boston-based program that pairs adult mentors with middle school students who want to learn how to design video games or launch a business is now bringing its brand of mentoring to New York City kids.

Citizen Schools, a decade-old organization that facilitates apprenticeships for students in almost 20 cities nationwide, set up shop at four middle schools this year, two each in Brooklyn and East Harlem. At each school, the organization is offering professional instruction, an after-school program, and classroom support, according to Nitzan Pelman, Citizen Schools’ New York City executive director.

The centerpiece of Citizen Schools’ programming is the apprenticeship, in which adult volunteers spend 12 weeks teaching students about a particular subject before the students present their work to a panel of experts on that subject. (more…)