BROOKLYN EDUCATION: Week of February 23

Saint Saviour High School students reach out to homeless.

Several Saint Saviour High School students volunteer for an outreach program run by Saint Saviour’s Church called Brown Baggers. As part of the program, the students and some of the church parishioners visit Tompkins Square Park in the East Village to deliver food, including homemade sandwiches, socks and gloves to the homeless. Saint Saviour High School students Ariel Abdullah and Amanda Connolly, and Spanish Teacher Claudia Centeno were part of the group that recently visited Tompkins Square Park with donations.

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The McKinley Park SchoolP.S. 127

Agatha Alicandro, P.S. 127’s principal, described the grant as a tremendous resource that will help the school reach its goal of building a living, dynamic and sustainable garden that will enrich its student body.

By New York City standards, P.S. 127 is a small school, but with 527 students who speak 23 different languages and whose families hail from more than 55 different countries, the school is immense in language, culture and diversity.

The grant funds will be leveraged to support the school’s beautification projects including planting shrubs and flowers in the front and back outdoor space, as well as adding benches. Additionally, the goal is to add flowering vines along the school’s chain link fence, flowering ground cover and edging along the dirt-covered areas of the playground.

Launched in partnership with PTO Today, a leading organization serving parent-teacher groups, the Toolbox for Education program has provided nearly $30 million through more than 6,000 grants since its inception in 2006.

The grants have affected more than 3.7 million schoolchildren. Lowe’s supports the communities it serves through programs that focus on K-12 public education and community improvement projects.

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The Community Education Council for District 20 hosted a Special Education workshop titled Diagnosing/Testing for Disabilities on February 1. Over 50 attendees, parents and school staff, from the district and throughout the city, came to hear Dr. Akila Venkataraman, a pediatric neurologist from Lutheran Medical Center, speak. This presentation was made possible through the partnership between the CEC and LMC. It was well received, and many attendees expressed their gratitude for the information provided.