COVID forced students apart. This Queens high school is using art to bring them back together.

By Christina Veiga
10/27/21
When Ryan Horodecki walks into Voyages Preparatory, a transfer high school for students who have fallen behind and are at risk of dropping out, one of the first things he sees is his self portrait.

The lobby of the Elmhurst, Queens, building, a former factory with floor-to-ceiling windows, is lined with portraits students made in the first weeks of school. Horodecki’s hangs within eyeshot of the entrance...
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Hometown Heroes: Bronx school administrator Nick Marinacci opened education centers during pandemic so students could attend in-person classes

By Leonard Greene

12/27/21

They didn’t get the pandemic love that doctors and nurses received, the accolades of a grateful city, the serenades at 7 p.m. every night.

But ask Nick Marinacci, and he’ll tell you that teachers were every bit as essential to New York as the health care workers who suited up in their scrubs every day and cared for coronavirus patients around the clock.
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This urban farming teacher is helping Bronx students connect to the earth and each other

By Amy Zimmer
01/22/21
A new horticulture program is blooming at a Bronx high school, and environmental science teacher Vanessa Spiegel is helping tend it.

Bronx International High School — a progressive, project-based school that serves recent immigrants — launched its urban farming program this year at the five-year-old Morris Campus Farm, adding it to its roster of career and technical education, or CTE, tracks. Students can graduate with a career seal on their diploma that is equal to an advanced Regents diploma and three college credits through a partnership with SUNY Cobleskill. They’re already getting a taste of running a working farm: their Serrano, Jalepeño, Poblano, and Bell peppers are being used by Small Axe Peppers to make its hot sauce.
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