Curtis School

Why Curtis School was nominated

PS 19’s mission is to provide all students with meaningful learning experiences that enable them to think critically and take ownership of their own learning. The focus on computational thinking as an essential problem-solving strategy for all learners started in the 2019-20 school year with professional learning provided by Project Tomorrow for the PS 19 4th grade teaching team. Since then, the school has adopted computational thinking as a key strategy to empower students to strengthen their problem-solving capacities so that they are well-prepared for more rigorous academic disciplines and life beyond school. For the past two years, the school leadership has tasked a schoolwide “computational thinking integrationist team” to support all teachers as they embed computational thinking across their curriculum. This year, the team completed work aligning traditional mathematics problem-solving techniques with computational thinking strategies to create greater cohesion and ease of adoption for teachers. Additionally, the integrationist team has focused on a buddy system that partners early elementary teachers with upper elementary teachers to support the adoption and adaptation of computational thinking across all classrooms, thus enabling greater articulation of school goals from Kindergarten to Grade 5. We think that this leveraging of peers and colleagues to support teachers’ professional growth in computational thinking strategies and the commitment to schoolwide cohesion around math instruction is particularly innovative in an urban elementary school.