DreamYard Preparatory School

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The DreamYard Preparatory School is a four-year public high school located in the New York City borough of The Bronx. Opened in September 2006, DreamYard Preparatory School resides in the former William Howard Taft High School building and operates in partnership with New Visions for Public Schools, Lehman College, and the Bronx Museum of the Arts. [1]

The school offers a core academic curriculum along with a heavy emphasis on the arts, requiring a major in dance, choir, creative writing, photography, or video filmmaking. [2] Students are required to observe a uniform dress code, as well as submit an academic portfolio for assessment, participate in a community service project and a senior internship. [3]

DreamYard Preparatory School established the Martin Espada Poetry Award, which is given to students excelling in poetry and is named in honor of the Puerto Rican poet laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts, who participated in school programs in 2006. [4] In 2004, DreamYard Preparatory School received a grant from the Annenberg Foundation to support development and planning for the school. [5]

DreamYard Drama Project

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The DreamYard Preparatory School is operated by the DreamYard Drama Project, which brings writers, directors, dancers, painters and musicians into inner-city public schools on a sustained basis to help children learn the skills to express, write, and perform their own stories. [6] DreamYard is the primary provider of arts education at South Bronx Public School 220, which has become a model for creative financing of public school arts programming in New York City. [7] In 2003, The President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities recognized DreamYard as a semifinalist for the "Coming Up Taller" awards, which recognize and support outstanding community arts and humanities programs that foster the creative and intellectual development of America's youth. [8] [9] DreamYard was also selected as a 1997 - 1998 "Promising Practice" by the Clinton Administration's "One America" initiative, which highlighted efforts designed to improve race relations. [10]

In 2006, DreamYard students in New York performed in front of Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell as part of a live Tartan Day cross-Atlantic slam poetry competition via videoconference with YMCA students in Levenmouth, Scotland. [11] Students also have the opportunity to exhibit artwork at the famed Sotheby's auction house. [12]

A.C.T.I.O.N. Project

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The DreamYard Drama Project also operates the A.C.T.I.O.N. Project, a four-year arts and civic engagement program for Bronx teenagers. After Hurricane Katrina, A.C.T.I.O.N. participants spent 18 days in the Gulf Coast, connecting with and using art to help local students and families from Mississippi and Louisiana. More than 80 students, along with teachers and principals, from Ocean Springs High School, Laurel High School and Bay St. Louis High School worked in two-day intensive theater, poetry, and kite-building workshops with A.C.T.I.O.N participants and DreamYard teaching artists -- the kites were built with wood gathered from the hurricane's wreckage. [13] [14] [15]A.C.T.I.O.N. students have also visited San Antonio, Texas as part of this initiative, [16][17][18] and have participated in the First Annual Youth Film Festival, featuring thirteen films focusing on some of the toughest problems facing Bronx teens, including teen pregnancy, drug addiction and incarceration. [19]

Notes

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  1. ^ New York City Dep't of Education High School Directory. Retrieved February 26, 2008.
  2. ^ / Inside Schools School Profile. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
  3. ^ New York City Dep't of Education High School Directory. Retrieved February 26, 2008.
  4. ^ / Bill Moyers' Journal, July 20, 2007. Retrieved February 26, 2008.
  5. ^ Annenberg Foundation Grant Database. Retrieved March 12, 2008.
  6. ^ One America: The President's Initiative on Race: Promising Practices. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
  7. ^ Hoffman, Claire. "The Scramble to Finance Arts Courses in City Schools,"(August 4, 2004). The New York Times. Retrieved March 12, 2008.
  8. ^ President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Retrieved March 10, 2008.
  9. ^ 2003 Coming Up Taller Awards. Retrieved March 10, 2008.
  10. ^ One America: The President's Initiative on Race: Promising Practices. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
  11. ^ Coyle, Mark. "Street Talk Bridges Cultural Divide," (April 8, 2006). BBC News Scotland. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
  12. ^ "Student Artwork on Display at Famous Auction House" (February 6, 2008). NYC Dep't of Education: In Our Schools Today. Retrieved March 10,2008.
  13. ^ "The Education Innovator (Vol. 4, No. 2)" (January 26, 2006). Retrieved March 12, 2008.
  14. ^ Post-Katrina Arts Partnership. Retrieved March 11, 2008.
  15. ^ Pitts, Martha. "Using the Arts to Tame Katrina's Emotional Force," (June 12, 2006). Retrieved March 11, 2008.
  16. ^ WLOX Bay St. Louis News Report. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
  17. ^ News 12 Bronx Report. Retrieved February 28, 2008.
  18. ^ "Arts and Activism" (July 26, 2007). San Antonio News. Retrieved February 27, 2008.
  19. ^ Almanzar, Jonalys and Wu, Surinay. "Showing it Like it Is," (August 14, 2007). New York Daily News. Retrieved March 12, 2008.



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DreamYard Preparatory School
DreamYard Drama Project
Overbrook Foundation Page on DreamYard
Martin Espada Homepage
Videos about DreamYard