A Letter from
Principal Byam

Welcome to the Bushwick School for Social Justice

The Bushwick School for Social Justice (BSSJ) is a small school in Brooklyn that is doing big things. In the four years since our opening, with the help of our partners, our parents, and our amazing students, we have changed the face of high school education in Bushwick. The old Bushwick building is now a burgeoning community of young learners where students are being challenged by rigorous curriculum and succeeding; where students are taking AP classes for the first time; where incidents are down over 65% in three years; and where the attendance rates for the building as a whole approach 90%. We are excited about the change taking place in Bushwick and determined to get even better.

At BSSJ students are making change every day. All students do action projects in the ninth and tenth grade. These are developed by the students themselves around issues that directly concern and affect them. The topics range from addressing the state of the bathrooms in the building to studying and raising awareness about the high asthma rates in our community. Our students have raised money for HIV positive children in Africa and visited middle schools to talk to younger students about the dangers of gangs. Our students are also making their voices heard at demonstrations and rallies. The school participated in the Healthy Homes march and numerous immigration rights rallies. This year we inaugurated our Social Justice seminar, a senior-level capstone course. Students are exploring the education, criminal law and labor issues through a lens of social justice.

Our Advisory program is one of the best in the city. Every student has an advisor so that we can be sure they are connecting with an adult in the school. This advisor is the “go to” person for teachers, students, and parents. Advisories go on trips together, develop their action projects, talk about issues around violence, relationships, identity, and social justice, and even stop everything when need be to study for an upcoming exam. BSSJ has conducted workshops for schools all over the city on our advisory program, and we believe it is central to our success.

Finally, allow me to say a word about the marvelous partners the school works with hand in hand. Make the Road by Walking is a neighborhood community action organization that has helped us stay true to our social justice mission and strengthened out ties to the community. They offer us a host of great activities after-school for our students, including a youth newspaper, hip-hop classes, and tutoring. We are proud to be partnered with Brooklyn College and receive a great deal of support from faculty their around teaching and learning. We are also able to offer student at BSSJ the opportunity to visit the college frequently, and even take college credit courses. Finally the Institute for Student Achievement (ISA) works with the school to make sure the instructional program is top notch. Teachers at BSSJ are modeling life-long learning by attending workshops and retreat through out the year, and ISA helps make this possible.

Thanks for visiting and at any time please feel free to contact me or anyone on my staff with questions or concerns. – Terry Byam