CWK Network

The ESI team pays tribute to a young man, U.S. Naval Academy Midshipman Justin Zemser who was tragically killed in the recent Amtrak train derailment. Justin was returning to NYC to see his family and to present at the 2nd Annual ESI Male Summit that took place on May 16th at Channel View School for Research. Before attending the Naval Academy, Justin spent 7 years at Channel View where he graduated and was the valedictorian for the Class of 2013. In his speech he encouraged his classmates by saying: “The time has come for all of us to take a Read More >

The Expanded Success Initiative’s name challenges the stereotype that African American and Latino youth are swept up in a social pathology of disinterest in education, irresponsibility and criminality. At SEO, we can attest to the determination of low income youth to succeed, despite the daunting adversity that many of them face daily. This past winter, we had one thousand seventy New York City 9th grade public school students apply to SEO Scholars. They applied knowing that for the rest of high school our program requires students to attend SEO classes in English and math three Saturdays per month, from 8:45am Read More >

“If we had the opportunity to build a school from scratch that followed the same mandate, in terms of improving the college and career outcomes of black and Latino males what might it look like?” This is the question the ESI Design Fellowship is working to answer. Consisting of EPIC North, EPIC South, and the Nelson Mandela School for Social Justice, the new ESI schools follow a newly designed curriculum with a heavy focus on culturally relevant education and competency-based learning. During our ESI conference, one of the design fellows, Harvey Chism, spoke on the work being done at the Read More >

During the ESI Conference, Ingrid Chung gave an Ed Talk that moved the audience. Ingrid Chung is a high school English teacher at Urban Assembly for Applied Math and Science. Here is what she said: We were well into the school year when I first met Devante three weeks after I started teaching humanities, for the first time, to seventh graders in the South Bronx. I had practiced saying his name in front of the mirror like I did with the other students on my class roster. De-Van-Te. I was determined to memorize all of my students’ names before my Read More >