GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The city’s school year doesn’t officially begin for another two and a half weeks, but some students started classes today at a handful of charter schools with extended school years.

I visited one of those schools today, watching kindergarten and first-graders file into the brand-new Teaching Firms of America Charter School in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

When I arrived at 7:30 a.m., 15 minutes before the school officially opened its doors, already more than a dozen parents, with their children clung closely to their sides, had gathered by the main entrance of PS 308, where Teaching Firms of America is housed.

“I applied, but didn’t think I’d win,” said Damaris Rivera, a parent who won the lottery for admission into TFOA last spring. “I was excited, I was screaming. I couldn’t believe it.”

Rivera’s daughter was one of 100 students who filed through freshly painted halls to arrive at classrooms named after themes in African and African-American history, such as “Freedom” and “Umoja” (Swahili for “unity”). Inside, teachers worked to establish discipline guided by “choice theory.” (more…)