A Cup of Three C Tea

A taste of the Inwood Academy's focus on community-focused leadership, character development, and college preparedness.

Awards and Honors

By: Christina Reyes, Founder & Executive Director

Since our school opened its doors to our first class of fifth-grade students seven years ago, award ceremonies have placed an important role in how we recognize students’ hard work and achievements. On June 7, our Academic Ceremony for grades nine to eleven recognized individual students’ achievements in academics, arts, athletics, community service, character, and […]

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Reflecting on my internship at Inwood Academy

By: Josmel LaFontaine

In between the stairway steps at the high school you see the letters V A L U E S as you enter the building. The word is a part of a sentence “Our values can change the world.” It’s meant to inspire the students as they bustle up the stairway. It’s likely that over time […]

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Congratulations to this year’s National Junior Honor Society Students!

By: Valerie Hoekstra

This week, we held our 2017 National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) Induction Ceremony. The NJHS is the leading organization that recognizes exceptional middle school students who have successfully demonstrated excellence in the areas of scholarship, leadership, service, citizenship, and character. Our seventh and eighth-grade students must have a cumulative 3.0 GPA average to be accepted […]

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Anything is Possible

By: Kenneth Tejeda, Director of College and Career Success

We tell our students that anything is possible and we bring mentors, like Arel Moodie, into our school who can reinforce what we teach. We do this to help students build self-confidence. Arel Moodie teaches young people that anything is possible. He spoke to our high school students about how to succeed in college through […]

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Beyond School Walls

By: Daniel Gaffney, High School Assistant Principal

Too often, people take for granted that kids have access to certain things. Some assume that any child who lives in a vibrant urban city has experienced many of its free learning resources. At Inwood Academy, we take full advantage of what New York City has to offer by taking our students on field trips. […]

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IAL Walks Against Bullying

By: Jeannie Infante, Associate Director of Family and Community Engagement

More than 300 members of our Inwood Academy community—adults, children, and teens—enjoyed the beautiful weather on October 10, the day we held a Walk Against Bullying. This walk was the focus of our first annual Family Day of Service event and not only did our staff and families participate in the walk through Inwood Hill Park […]

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Artwork in Action

By: Valerie Hoekstra

On Monday, September 19, Frenando Olivencia’s and his eighth grade English students participated in a global Artwork for Action: Refugees and Migrants Summit campaign. They joined World Vision’s International President and Chief Operating Officer Kevin Jenkins in writing messages to the world leaders who attended the United Nations Refugees and Migrants Summit in New York […]

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Why I’m Excited About Athletics this Year

By: Jason Marchena

August 29th was the first day of school. On that first day, many emotions were detected in the students, both hopeful and doubtful. However, for a student-athlete, the cheers and excitement of last year accompanied them as they came into a place that signifies triumph. The triumph in being the New York City Charter School […]

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What I Learned This Summer

By: Denise Canniff

Gabriel is a 10th-grade student at Inwood Academy and he is sharing with us what he learned while working as an intern at the high school this summer. This summer has been great. I’ve had a positive experience and great support at my first summer job, which was very exciting. I learned many things about […]

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Embracing Mistakes and Feedback

By: Valerie Hoekstra

There is a science behind learning from your mistakes, after all, learning is a process, but how do you teach that concept to students and how do you encourage them to take advantage of feedback they receive from their teachers? One of the ways we accomplish this at Inwood Academy is to display classroom work, […]

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Mastery–based Learning

By: John Harrison

We began our first school year in 2010, a small group of eager teachers, myself included, housed in a trailer outside a local public school. We were entrusted with 125 fifth graders, charged with the task of supporting their educational growth by meeting their specific learning needs. This first group of children will be entering […]

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Civic Leaders at Inwood Academy

By: Stacy Woodard

One of our goals at Inwood Academy is to ensure our high school graduates are young men and women of good character, with outstanding leadership ability. Sometimes my job is easy because I believe you can be a natural leader and my tenth grade student Leydiann is one such student. Manhattan Borough President Gale A. […]

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A Silent Debate

By: Brett Shablak

While a silent debate might sound like an oxymoron it was a tool that I used to encourage my students to come up with ways to reduce waste in their daily lives. From thoughts on unplugging unused electronics, to changing construction materials, the sixth graders made some very viable suggestions to reduce energy costs. When […]

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Scholarship, Leadership, Service, Citizenship and Character

By: Valerie Hoekstra

Parents, families, students, faculty, administration and friends of Inwood Academy celebrated scholars at the 2016 National Junior Honor Society Induction Ceremony. The National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) recognizes the highest achieving students. More than just an honor roll, NJHS welcomes students who have demonstrated excellence in the areas of Scholarship, Leadership, Service, Citizenship and Character. […]

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Young Scientists

By: Brett Shablak

It’s amazing when young scientists come together! The Inwood Academy Middle School science fair became far more than was expected. The sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students that were featured in the 2016 Science Fair represented an elite group of young scientists at the school. As the projects came in, the science teachers couldn’t help […]

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Our Dream of Becoming Professional Dancers

By: Fabian and Sebastian Garcia

Fabian and Sebastian are 10th grade students at Inwood Academy. This is their blog post about what they’ve been doing outside of school and a huge honor they recently received. Read on. Ever since we were young children we have dreamed of going to a famous dance school and training to be professional dancers. We want to […]

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Garden Growers

By: Christina Reyes, Founder & Executive Director

One of my goals is to ensure the school engages all students and to help us achieve this we use personalized learning strategies and integrating technology into the classroom. The result, Inwood Academy is creating learners—children who are engaged and thriving in a learning environment. Another means to achieving my goal is to partner with […]

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Harvard University’s CS50

By: Denise Canniff

Inwood Academy scholars had the privilege of participating in a coding event this month—CS50 Hackathon NYC. We were just one of nine schools invited to participate in this Microsoft sponsored event. The hackathon was more than a room filled with free t-shirts, bags, candy, and pizza. It was a collaborative computer science learning environment where […]

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The Joy and Wonder of Being a Medical Student

By: George James

It was an honor and a privilege to welcome medical students from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons to my fifth grade math class. As a teacher, I liked how the Young Doctors were very organized and they set up four stations for small groups to rotate through—circulatory and digestive systems, skeletal, and nerves […]

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Middle School Debate Team News

By: Rikelma Jimenez

Are you interested in becoming a lawyer, a politician or just like to have the last word with your friends, parents and teachers? That’s what we asked our students last month and within three weeks Inwood Academy Middle School had its first debate team and were off to its first tournament. The debate team is […]

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Q&A with Valerie Hoekstra – Part 2

By: Denise Canniff

Welcome to Part 2 of the interview with Ms. Valerie Hoekstra, Inwood Academy’s Middle School Director. See Part 1 here. Q. Based on your five years of experience at Inwood Academy, are you making any major changes at the middle school? We spent a lot of time focusing on academics and trying to make it rigorous, […]

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Q&A with new Middle School Director – Part 1

By: Denise Canniff

Valerie Hoekstra has led the school’s special education and academic intervention services since Inwood Academy launched in 2010 and was named its Middle School Director in June 2015. She was one of the authors for the original Charter School Application in 2009, outlining how the school would serve students with special needs. For the past five […]

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Welcome Families

By: Christina Reyes, Founder & Executive Director

Welcome new families and welcome back returning families. School officially began this week for all students. The start of a new school year is such an exciting time to meet new people, reconnect with friends, and reflect on your goals for the coming year. One goal that I am most happy to share with you […]

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A Few Introductions

By: Christina Reyes, Founder & Executive Director

I hope you enjoyed your summer and had an opportunity to spend extra time with your family and friends. This is the first of many times I hope to connect with you throughout the course of the year on this blog. Today, I want to introduce two new staff members and announce new roles for […]

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