Ashoka
Cypress Hills Community School
Cypress Hills Community School is a small, community-based dual language school founded in 1997 by parents in collaboration with the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation. Before Cypress Hills Community School even had a school leadership team, it had a school governance council consisting of 50% parents and 50% teachers. Furthermore, Cypress Hills Community School is the only New York City public school with a dual leadership structure that includes both a parent co-director and a principal co-director. Leading from this strong base of parent engagement and family involvement, Cypress Hill Community School students benefit from a number of social and emotional learning programs (such as RULER, the 4Rs and a partnership with the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility) as well as student-led service-learning effort in which students work in small teams to plan service-learning projects during their advisory periods.
Irene Leon
After graduating from Amherst College, Irene earned a master’s degree in bilingual education before joining the Peace Corps to do environmental education in Panama. Upon returning to the United States, Irene joined the Cypress Hills Community School as a founding teacher. After a two-year hiatus as an assistant principal in Washington, DC, she returned to the Cypress Hills Community School as principal. As the instructional leader of the Cypress Hills Community School, Irene has supported the school in establishing itself as a community laboratory for learning by capitalizing on resources in the neighborhood. Irene attributes the success of the program to three factors: 1) the power of a grassroots movement, 2) the importance of parental involvement, and 3) the power of collaboration. Cypress Hills’ students have shown progress because of Cypress Hills Community School strong collaboration with families. The students trust the educators and see the educators an extension of their homes, and so they are more motivated to learn.