Urban Science Academy is one of the schools housed at the West Roxbury Complex, a five-story building surrounded by marshland off VFW Parkway. It is a traditional high school serving approximately 500 students in grades 9-12. I became interested in visiting when two former colleagues, both excellent teachers now “on assignment” at USA, told me they felt very welcome at this school.
Urban Ecology teacher Ramneek Saxena had assigned two students to do maintenance work in the school’s greenhouse, while small groups of eleventh graders in Tim DiMario‘s biology class were practicing their presentations about cellular respiration. I talked with a young woman interested in a healthcare career who expressed her excitement about beginning an internship at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, a year-long Student Success Jobs Program that recruits several USA sophomores and juniors every year.
Juniors in Humanities with Isabel Perez were reading All Quiet On the Western Front as part of a study of the conditions faced by soldiers in World War I. In a tenth grade class, Brigetta Johnson‘s students were using computers to write essays about whether the American Civil War was fought over slavery or economics, finding evidence to support their arguments.
Math teacher Louis Bonilla was giving a ninth grader 1:1 support as she worked on simplifying exponents; in another math class Alisa Fleming helped a tenth-grade student figure out how to solve a linear equation. Seniors in a Financial Literacy class with Siobahn Mulligan have been learning how to manage money and maintain a good credit score. During my visit, they were working in small groups to select a company in which they might purchase stock. Students taking this half-year course will study Statistics next semester.
Humanities teacher Ling-Se Chesnakas is reading Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart with her twelfth graders. She says what she likes most about working at Urban Science Academy is “the sense of family that is fostered by the close relationships I have built with students. Teachers [here] work hard making connections with students on a personal level so that they have a comfortable and safe learning environment every day.”
What do you like best about YOUR school? Please invite me to visit!
Amika Kemmler-Ernst, Ed.D.
amika45@gmail.com