Welcome back from spring break! It’s Amy with Chalkbeat New York.
A few weeks ago, I visited two Brooklyn public schools that are accredited International Baccalaureate programs, one an elementary school, the other a middle school. These schools were part of an effort by Kamar Samuels, the area’s superintendent at the time, to find an alternative to gifted education. I saw firsthand how the approach — which embraces inquiry-based, transdisciplinary learning — allows students to go deep into a specific topic across classes, connecting global issues to their own experiences.