Global COmmerce in the news

Pix 11 - How social emotional learning has helped nyc students amid pandemic - March 23, 2022

NEW YORK — In a time where we know the pandemic has taken a toll on everyone’s mental health, Urban Assembly schools across New York City are responding to the trauma.

Students at the Urban Assembly School of Global Commerce in Harlem say social emotional learning has taken away the stigma around mental health issues. Principal Roony Vizcaino said the pandemic has affected both students and adults.

“We focus a lot on teaching the social emotional skills to adults so they can be transferred to students as well,” Vizcaino said.

The social emotional learning program implemented in 23 Urban Assembly schools across the city is the framework for social emotional learning across 1,600 New York City public schools under the strong, resilient New York City program.

Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks emphasize mental health and student well being should be the center of academic curriculum as we come out of the pandemic.

Fox 5 - As NYC school enrollment shrinks, small schools fear for their survival - February 28, 2022

Harlem high school Principal Roony Vizcaino is trying everything he can this year to attract new students — even driving to middle schools in Washington Heights and the Bronx to drum up interest in his small public school.

For Vizcaino, who’s seen enrollment at his school, the Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce, shrink from more than 250 before the pandemic to just 184 this school year, finding new students feels like a matter of survival.

“I’m concerned a school the size of my school ... will continue to lose resources and people, and they will close it,” he said.

The pandemic battered public school enrollment nationwide, including in New York City, where the number of K-12 public school students cratered by 73,000 since the 2019-20 school year, a drop of 8%, according to Education Department figures. Preschool enrollment, however, is up, thanks to the federally funded expansion of a program for 3-year-olds.

Enrollment drops hit schools both small and large, but the effects were often felt most acutely at the smallest schools, where the absence of a handful of staffers can send shockwaves and upend school planning — and some administrators fear that losing too many students could make them targets for a closure or merger.

“It’s in the forefront of my mind,” said the principal of a small Manhattan elementary school that’s lost roughly one-third of its enrollment during the pandemic. “I know I need to get my numbers up.”

Before the pandemic, during the 2018-19 school year, the city Education Department had 108 schools with fewer than 200 students. By this school year, that number had ballooned to 174, according to a Daily News review of preliminary state enrollment data.

There’s no set threshold under which a school becomes too small, and some have operated successfully for years with tiny enrollments. But for many, growing too small can come with significant costs — forcing administrators to cut back on vital staff and diminishing the variety of classroom and extracurricular options since budgets are largely tied to enrollment.

“A school can work at a size as small as 120 students if it’s designed for that,” said Shael Polakow-Suransky, president of Bank Street College and a former Education Department deputy chancellor under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

But he added that if a school arrives at ultrasmall enrollment levels by accident, it could “call for either closing it or replacing it with something that works better.”

If enrollment continues to fall dramatically in the coming years, the Education Department could also face pressure to cut facilities’ costs by closing or combining schools, said Polakow-Suransky, adding that the city’s not at that point yet and he expects enrollment to rebound next year.

At Vizcaino’s school, the impact of falling enrollment — and the accompanying budgetary hit — has felt comparable to “having a car that is used to functioning a certain way … and then giving it extra stress. Maybe you have an assistant principal who’s used to doing scheduling and now has to teach a class.”

At the Manhattan elementary school that’s lost about a third of its students since the start of the pandemic, the principal was forced to lay off, or “excess,” teachers and can now only offer one class for most grades instead of two.

“Sometimes when you’re excessing a teacher, you’re excessing a really strong teacher,” said the principal, who wished to remain anonymous.

City officials have blunted the budgetary impact of the citywide pandemic enrollment losses by temporarily pausing a longstanding rule that required schools to give back excess money mid-year if they failed to hit the enrollment target established by the DOE.

But Education Department officials are planning to phase out that relief over the next two years — further raising the stakes for schools like Vizcaino’s.

Facing that pressure and uncertainty, Vizcaino is starting to see the benefits of a merger.

“I look for that opportunity … I think it makes more sense to combine resources,” he said.

But mergers come with a host of new complications, and are a nonstarter for some principals.

For one, only one principal can take over the combined school. When schools with very different enrollment numbers, pedagogical approaches or student demographics come together, the mergers can become contentious.

That’s clear in the East Village where there is a proposed merger between an undercrowded, mostly Black and Latino East Village elementary school with its overcrowded, majority-white and wealthier neighbor.

Education Department spokesman Nathaniel Styer said “whenever a merger is undertaken, school and district leadership work to create an inclusive process that brings communities together to co-create plans for the merged school, and that will remain a priority of this administration.”

New York Amsterdam News - Rapper Dave East goes back to harlem for the youth - january 24, 2020

Last week rapper Dave East visited East Harlem’s High School, Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce to talk to the students about his journey to success, as well as answer their questions pertaining to his life before and after success.

“Dave represents and skillfully chronicles a story of struggle, hardship and triumph similar to that of our students,” stated the school’s principal, Roony Vizcaino. “Through his art form students are inspired to hustle and succeed. The visit was inspirational and important for our community.”

East was born on June 3, 1988 in New York City, Harlem to a Dominican mother and Bajan father. Before becoming a professional rapper, he was a basketball player. East gained recognition from his consistent mixtapes and was signed by the Queens rapper, Nas, in 2014 to Mass Appeal Records. In 2016, East joined Def Jam Records as he continued to release successful mixtapes. However, reaching his level of success did not come with ease.

“It was a grind. It wasn’t easy for me. I wasn’t born to a rich family…It wasn’t easy, but I feel I had the love from him and that’s what made me keep moving the way I was trying to move,” said East. “I feel like it was important to come to a high school in Harlem because I feel like I could relate to y’all more than anywhere else in the world… I was excited to get up this morning to come talk to y’all.”

Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce is a High School that aims to help its students thrive globally by becoming familiar with different cultures and the diversity of this world. They offer advanced programs and curriculums for their students who receive in-depth help from teachers since the classes are small in size.

East’s motivations to become a better man went beyond himself, as he wanted to support his mother who worked three jobs. He also dedicates his elevation and determination to become a better man and role model to his daughter, Kairi.

“I never really looked at myself as a role model, that’s dope. But I have a daughter now, she’s three. So since my daughter was born I feel like my influence is a lot stronger than I thought and I have to really watch how I move, watch what I say, watch who I’m around because more than ever I feel like there’s a lot of people younger than me who are watching what I do and seeing how I came in the game,” says East.

Most of the students at Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce are children of immigrant parents, mostly immigrants of color, who want to make life for their parents here in America easier. One of the students, a female from Ivory Coast, talks about wanting to build affordable housing for people back home as well as for people here in Harlem. Another student of Jamaican descent talks about wanting to build generational wealth for his children as well as making his parents proud to finally achieve the “American Dream.”

One advice that East had for the students was for them to find their passion, become experts in it, go for what excites them, and for them to believe in themselves even if the world doesn’t. “You gotta believe it before anybody else believes it. Don’t wait on your teachers, don’t wait on your friends, don’t wait on your family. You gotta already have the belief that you could do what you want to do,” he says.

In collaboration with Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce to organize this event were; Hustler’s Guild, Def Jam Records, Champions for Philanthropy and Mass Appeal.