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Teachers College Community School (TCCS)
Teachers College, Columbia University
About the School > School Culture

School Culture




The Teachers College Community School (TCCS) has high expectations for all members of the school community.  As a community of learners, our goal is to develop the ability to use our minds well; in and out of school and in our relationships with each other.  We aim to develop inquiring, knowledgeable, and caring young people who, through engagement, understanding and respect, help to create a better and more peaceful world.



Habits of Conduct
In order to create a culture that promotes these goals, we have four habits of conduct that guide our actions:
1. Be Safe          2. Be Kind         3. Do Your Best          4. Take Care of Our Community

As a public school in the New York City Department of Education, we are also bound to a set of official rules, which can be found at their website, here: NYC DOE Citywide Standards

Attitudes
We promote and model the following attitudes as an entire community (students and adults)

Appreciation Appreciating the wonder and beauty of the world and its people.

Commitment Being committed to our own learning and showing self-discipline and responsibility.

Confidence Feeling confident in our ability as learners, having the courage to take risks, applying what we have learned, and making appropriate choices.

Cooperation Cooperating, collaborating, and leading or following as the situation demands.

Creativity Being creative and imaginative in our thinking and in our approach to problems and dilemmas.

Curiosity Being curious about the nature of learning, about people, and the world.

Empathy Imagining another's situation to understand his or her thinking, emotions, and actions so we can be open-minded and reflective about others' perspectives.

Enthusiasm Enjoying learning and willingly putting effort into the process.

Independence Thinking and acting independently, making our own judgments based on good reason, and being able to defend our judgments.

Integrity Being honest and demonstrating a sense of fairness.

Respect Respecting ourselves, others, and the world around us.




Announcements

  • The Chancellor Pays a Call

    The Chancellor Pays a Call

    Published in NYC Schools

    Dennis Walcott visits Teachers College Community School as part of the city’s pre-k registration drive

    By Patricia Lamiell

    The visitor who seated himself cross-legged on the floor during story time in Carissa Sinanan’s pre-kindergarten class at Teachers College Community School yesterday clearly had some pre-k experience. When Sinanan’s reading selection, “A Sick Day for Amos McGee,” prompted a discussion of the relative benefits of handkerchiefs and tissues, he patted his suit pockets in search of a handkerchief but instead produced a white tissue.

    “This is what a tissue can do,” he said, tearing it at one corner. 

    Earlier this year, the visitor – Dennis Walcott, Chancellor of New York City’s public schools, who is indeed a former preschool teacher – and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg  said the city would invest $20 million to add 4,000 full-day, pre-kindergarten seats in its neediest neighborhoods. Walcott visited TCCS and other schools this week to encourage parents to register their children for new pre-Kindergarten seats before the April 5 deadline. After leaving TCCS, he went to a DOE registration site nearby, where volunteers called families and passed out flyers in the neighborhood, encouraging them to register any child for pre-k who turns four by December 31 of this year. 

    TCCS Principal Jeanene Worrell-Breeden said Walcott chose to highlight her school because, unlike other schools in Harlem, TCCS – which has consolidated 36 half-day pre-k seats to 18 full-day seats – has been over-subscribed with pre-K applications. “Our school was in great demand,” Worrell-Breeden said. “Most parents want full-day.” 

    TCCS, which opened in its permanent home on Morningside Avenue in Harlem last September, is a joint venture of Teachers College and the New York City Department of Education. TCCS is a “university-assisted school,” which means it will benefit from a full range of resources provided by Teachers College and Columbia University, including an afterschool program, programs in physical education, nutrition and health, and other health and social services.

  • They Have a Dream, Too

    They Have a Dream, Too

    Published in NYC Schools
    2/6/2013


    N’Deye M’Baye and Trinity Faulkner, two first-grade students at Teachers  College Community School (TCCS), were semifinalists in a recent nationwide art contest celebrating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  

    N’Deye and Trinity were among a group of New York City elementary student semifinalists who were recognized at an awards ceremony on Saturday, January 26 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their teachers, friends, family, and school administrators were there to cheer them on.

    “This is so exciting and wonderful for these students and our school” said Sara Malekzadeh, who teaches art at TCCS.

    The projects of both TCCS students focused on the issue of littering. N’Deye’s multimedia effort was titled “My Dream is to Help the World Be a Better Place by Stopping Littering.” Trinity’s collage, done with oil pastels and textured materials, was titled “I Dream that All the Garbage…”

    “I came up with the idea for my artwork because there is so much littering in my community, wrote N’Deye, who is six years old, in her artist’s statement. “My dream is for my community to stop littering. I see people throwing trash on the sidewalk and on the streets. People should throw their trash in the trash cans.

    “Dr. King had his own dream. His dream was for everyone to be free and equal and for the world to be a better place. He used his words not his fists. I hope people will stop littering so our world can be a better and cleaner place.”

    Trinity, who is also six, wrote, “Sometimes when I go outside it is stinky because there is so much garbage on the ground and that makes me sad. Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech has taught me that we need to make the world a better place. I learned that if we start a community that cares about the world that will follow to other people. Dr. King was a loving and caring person and I want to be too.”

    The co-presenter and curator of THE DREAM@50 Art Contest is Karz Productions, which created the critically acclaimed documentary feature, Legacy: Black and White in America, the third film in The Millennium Dinners documentary series.

    TCCS is a public, university-assisted school for pre-K through eighth grade, run by the New York City Department of Education and formally affiliated with Teachers College. The school admitted its first class – a group of kindergarten students in fall 2011 – and this past fall moved into a permanent facility at 168 Morningside Avenue and West 126th Street. Designed with community input, the school integrates delivery of services for children and families in order to optimize educational opportunities and achievement.

  • TCCS Grand Opening

    TCCS celebrates its new home, cheered on by the community and a cast of dignitaries 

    By Joe Levine

    “Good afternoon, everyone. I want to welcome you to the Teachers College Community School’s permanent home. Thank you!”

    Following those words from Principal Jeanene Worrell-Breeden, an audience of more than 300 parents, teachers, neighborhood residents, city and state dignitaries, and members of the Teachers College and Columbia University communities filled the TCCS auditorium with cheers and loud applause.

    TCCS, a public university-assisted PreK-through-8 school run by the New York City Department of Education and formally affiliated with TC, admitted its first class – a group of kindergarten students – last year in a temporary facility. The school was designed in collaboration with neighborhood residents and fulfills a pledge made by Columbia University, as a part of the Community Benefits Agreement it signed in undertaking an expansion into the Manhattanville area of Harlem, to create a community school. The school's vision also integrates delivery of services for children and families in order to optimize educational opportunities and achievement. 

    Now serving 125 students in pre-k, kindergarten and first grade, and with plans to add one additional grade per year, TCCS is operating in a refurbished building located at 168 Morningside Avenue at West 126th Street.

    For Worrell-Breeden, the new home is simply the icing on the cake.

    “I’ve been quoted on numerous occasions saying that this is the school of my dreams, and it may sound a little like a cliche, but there a million reasons why I feel, as any administrator would, that this is really the school of any administrator’s dreams,” she said, beaming. She proceeded to enumerate several of the most important ones, including her team of “fantastic and dedicated teachers,” the school’s parent community, and the support TCCS has received from Teachers College’s faculty and students.

    TC President Susan Fuhrman also spoke of hopes achieved.

    “When I took on the presidency of the world’s oldest, largest and best school of education, I had several dreams,” said Fuhrman, who spearheaded the launch of a university-assisted neighborhood public school in West Philadelphia while serving as Dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. “Today marks the realization of one of them. This is a dream become reality – a university-supported public school that will offer unparalleled education for the children of our community.” 

    Fuhrman extended a special welcome to “those of you who are in many ways the most important guests here” – the TCCS parents and students – and added, “It’s for you that we have worked to make this happen, but it’s only with you that we were able to do so. Our vision was to create a university-assisted public school that serves children in the surrounding area, where the college and the community together would develop a high-quality education program, and where, as a stakeholder in our community and as a neighbor, we would share responsibility for students’ educational outcomes.” TCCS – the centerpiece of the College’s Partnership Schools Consortium, which supports a number of Harlem public schools with similar education services – is the embodiment of that vision, Fuhrman said, “an example of what can be achieved through a close university-public school affiliation.” She added, to cheers, “Can you imagine the improvement we would see in public education in America if every university worked in concert with local schools and communities?” 

    Fuhrman acknowledged many people and organizations who helped to make the creation of TCCS possible, including: the Reverend Georgiette Morgan-Thomas, Chair of Manhattan Community Board 9; Kofi Boateng, Executive Director of the West Harlem Local Development Corporation Manhattan; Donald Notice, Executive Director of West Harlem Group Assistance; New York City Councilman Robert Jackson, who chairs the Council’s Education Committee; Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer (represented at the event by Deputy Borough President Rosemonde Pierre-Louis); New York State Board of Regents Chancellor (and TC alumna) Merryl Tisch; New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott; Columbia University President Lee Bollinger; and Worrell-Breeden, whom she praised as “an intrepid, passionate, educator.”

    Fuhrman reserved special praise for Nancy Streim, TC’s Associate Vice President of School and Community Partnerships. “Nancy has truly been a driving force behind this school. While everyone here today contributed hugely to this effort, without Nancy it would never have happened.” 

    After offering her own round of thank yous, Streim said that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and then introduced a special video about the school, titled “A Model for the Nation.” When the video concluded with Principal Worrell-Breeden saying, “We did it!” as children are seen dancing in the school’s new gym, the room again rocked with applause.

    The message that came through most clearly from the other speakers was that TCCS does indeed represent a genuine community partnership.

    “TCCS illustrates for us the value of collaboration and it represents a triumph of partnership among Community Board 9, Teachers College, Columbia University and the Department of Education,” said Morgan-Thomas. “I can tell you that we at Community Board 9 – our Youth and Education Committee especially – have enjoyed a great partnership, full of respect, full of patience. Nancy [Streim] has worked very closely with us, has heard us and has always been willing to re-listen and re-visit situations that we were not clear in terms of our journey forward. TC has heard the needs of our community and been extremely responsive.” Morgan-Thomas said that TCCS “honors the spirit of the Community Benefits Agreement with Columbia University.

    “We trust that the children from our district will receive keys needed to open their minds… to open their spirits… providing the kind of confidence that will enable them to swing open wide the freedom gates and access the kinds of opportunities that will assure them a seat at the global table, this year, next and year, and for always.”

    New York State Assemblyman Keith Wright also drew thundering applause with his brief, poignant remarks. 

    “Langston Hughes wrote a long time ago, ‘What happens to a dream deferred – does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?’” Wright looked around the room and grinned. “No! A school gets built on 126th Street and Morningside Avenue!’”

    Following the speeches, the TCCS first-graders filed onto the stage and sang accompaniment to recordings of Louis Armstrong’s rendition of “What a Wonderful World” and Bruno Mars’ “Count on Me.” 

    And finally, to cheers so loud that some of the children covered their ears, kindergarteners Two’Moons Fields and Najah Parker carried a giant ribbon to the center of the stage. Then, two first-graders – Mirelle Sarah Liimatta and Calvin Butts V (the son of TCCS Parent Association President Tiffany Butts and grandson of Calvin O. Butts, Pastor of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church) – cut the ribbon with a giant pair of scissors specially created for the occasion.

    Teachers College Community School had come home.


    Read more: Teachers College Community School Ribbon Cutting
    Teachers College Community School Finds Collaborative Success

  • TCCS Wins Blackboard Award!

    In November 20122, the Teachers College Community School was honored with Manhattan Media's Blackboard Award, in the category of New and Noteworthy Schools.  This is the 9th year of the award honoring local education by celebrating schools, principals and teachers who make a big difference.  The goals behind the award are to:  1) Honor deserving schools, principals, and teachers; the everyday heroes essential to the fabric of society; 2) Be a resource for city parents as they strive to find the best education for their children; and 3) Boost the reputation and morale of schools so that the best practices may be shared throughout the city's top schools.

    The TCCS is proud to have received this honored award!