Berkeley Carroll School

The Berkeley Carroll School is an independent, nonsectarian, coed day school, enrolling about 750 students from pre-kindergarten through high school. Berkeley Carroll School is located in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn at three locations: 181 Lincoln Place, 701 Carroll Street, and 515 Sixth Street.

History

Established in 1982, the school was created by the consolidation of the Berkeley Institute, an all-girls school chartered in 1886, and the Carroll Street School, a Montessori-style preschool founded in 1966. The Berkeley Institute was named after Irish empiricist philosopher George Berkeley.

In 1996, the school was designated a Blue Ribbon School by the United States Department of Education, the only private or public school in Brooklyn to win the accolade for general excellence. [cite web|url=http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/02-1996/blues.html|title=Riley Names 266 Blue Ribbon Schools|date=1996-02-08
publisher=U.S. Department of Education]

Berkeley Carroll School now

The school has four educational divisions, from preschool through high school. The Child Care Center is affiliated with New York Methodist Hospital and provides a year-round learning environment for infants and toddlers. The Lower School, with preschool through grade four, focuses on the fundamentals of reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. Middle School, grades five through eight, promotes social and intellectual growth with an academic program including language arts and literature, history, computer science, physical education, the arts, and French, Spanish, or Latin. The college preparatory objective of the Upper School, grades nine through twelve, is reflected in the academic and co-curricular programs including a foreign student exchange program, creative arts electives, independent study, advanced placement classes and community service. Additionally, many students are also involved in student government, choir,jazz, rock or chamber music ensembles, and team or intramural sports.

Berkeley Carroll has an athletic center at the President Street location. The facility has a four lane, convert|75|ft|m|sing=on long swimming pool, a full-size gymnasium, a mezzanine area for fitness and strength training, and an open rooftop playground.

Including alumni of The Berkeley Institute and Carroll Street School, Berkeley Carroll School has over 2,000 alumni.

Over the summer, Berkeley Carroll offers two summer camp programs: The Children's Day Camp (for ages 3 to 8) located at Carroll Street, and the Creative Arts Camp (for older children and teenagers) at Lincoln Place.

In December 2006, given the "brownstone-Brooklyn baby boom", Berkeley Carroll has experienced an unprecedented overload of preschool applicants. This led the school to stop accepting applications early, much to the dismay of parents, as reported in "New York" magazine. [cite news|url=http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/25335/index.html?imw=Y|title=The Preschooler Glut|author=Arianne Cohen|date=2006-12-18|publisher=New York]

A New York Sun article on Jan. 31, 2008, noted that the "amped-up academic program at the artist-chic Berkeley Carroll School in Park Slope, Brooklyn, has been expanding the school's family base: Not just brownstoners, but many Manhattanites now attend. Still, the school's parent base is heavily drawn from the publishing world, and the editor-novelist crowd has an impact on the school. After tenth-graders read "Motherless Brooklyn," author Jonathan Lethem came in to lead some classes on it. A Writers in Residence program has included Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri."

An honor code was implemented in the Upper School at the start of the 2007-2008 academic year.

Athletics

The school is a member of the New York State Association of Independent Schools Athletic Association.

Notable alumni

*Adam Ottavino - 2006 Major League Baseball Draft pick [Matthew Leach (06/06/2006), [http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060606&content_id=1491151&vkey=news_stl&fext=.jsp&c_id=stl Cards snag Ottavino with 30th pick] . MLB.com. Accessed 2007-03-10.]
*Karla Jay - professor and activist
*Zena Grey - actress
*Carol E St John - artist, author and playwright

References

External links

* [http://www.berkeleycarroll.org Berkeley Carroll School website]