100% certified in Google Classroom, Trey Whitfield School may be best school in US with remote learning. Graduates attend most prestigious private high schools.

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, July 8, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Trey Whitfield School, an African American private school founded by a former NFL player in Brooklyn, NY, may be the best prepared school in the nation to conduct remote learning education.

93.75% of parents say their children have coped well.

93.55% of parents are confident about progress their child is making.

With 100% of its faculty trained and certified in Google’s Online Classroom Teaching platform, the Trey Whitfield School (TWS), may be the best prepared K-8 school in the nation for remote learning education. Over the past 37 years hundreds of TWS graduates have gone on to attend many of the nation’s most prestigious private day schools, boarding schools and magnate schools.

July 8th, 2020 - East New York Brooklyn, NY - On Tuesday June 30th, 2020 Alfonzo Forrest (co-principal) addressed the teachers of the Trey Whitfield School (TWS) at their year-end faculty meeting. The meeting began with announcements and appeared uneventful. Then he made three extraordinary statements. First, during the covid-19 remote learning period, attendance for online classes was above 95%. Secondly, satisfactory completion of online assignments and tests were above 98%. Finally, within a matter of days 100% of TWS faculty will have completed their training, earned their badges and would be awarded their certifications in Google’s Online Classroom Teaching platform. While TWS has had an excellent academic track record for over 37 years, this was very special given that remote learning has such a troubled record. The Remote Learning Nightmare, a 2020 article in Forbes’ Magazine, stated “online schools the researchers discovered were pretty much a disaster. Even with all this intensive adult supervision and participation, the students enrolled in these schools fell so far behind their peers in bricks and mortar classrooms that researchers concluded that the children might have been better off if they had never bothered to log on at all.”

“We know remote learning hasn’t worked”
Randi Weingerten, President
American Federation of Teachers (7/2/2020)

Co-principal Debbie Johnson said “It’s no secret how TWS produced stellar results. Mr. Forrest and I are co-principals, but we also continue to teach classes. Everything we asked our teachers to do we first did ourselves. We knew what worked with students and what would burn out our teachers and parents. In short, we self-tested everything in our classes before we gave directives to the faculty.” The strategy of testing, then planning and adjustment, while also creating hands-on activities and small group instruction worked well. In a year-end parent survey of the TWS Remote Learning Program, 93.75% of parents said their children had coped well, 96.88% of parents were pleased with the level of communication with teachers and 90.32% were satisfied with the program. Even more impressive, 93.55% of parents were confident about academic progress their child was making in the TWS Remote Learning program.

East New York Brooklyn is not the location that comes to mind to find an elite private school. The 2010 census showed the community was 63.6% Black and 29.6% Hispanic. Both the poverty level of 30% and incarceration rate of 1,065 per 100,000 are among the highest in New York City (Community Health Profiles - Board 5 2018). Just how TWS was established in that community is a fascinating story. In the early 1980s, Janie Whitney and A. B. Whitfield, a former NFL football player, had a dream of forming a private school in East New York. A.B. Whitfield, currently the Chief Operating Officer of TWS said “When I joined the Dallas Cowboys, Coach Landrey told me that my priorities in life should be God first, family second and football third. When I left the Cowboys Coach Landrey and I had a long discussion. He advised me to consider education as a profession. I listened.” After retiring from football, Whitfield worked for the New York City Dept of Education for almost two decades before founding TWS in 1983.

TWS has overcome many obstacles and has had many successes, including putting hundreds of Black and Brown children into many of the nation’s most elite private high schools and boarding schools in and out of New York State, as well as magnate schools. In 2002 they acquired and renovated it’s present 60,000 square foot school building (17 Hinsdale Street - Brooklyn, NY) with financing with NYC Industrial Development Tax Exempt bond funds. However, dealing with covid-19 was unique. Whitfield stated “Daily briefings by Governor Cuomo and Mayor DiBlasio were helpful. On March 11th, the Governor announced that SUNY and CUNY colleges would start distance learning. At that time our administration began planning the TWS Remote Learning Program. We Knew K-12 schools would be next. By the way, several years ago Governor Cuomo’s mother visited TWS, she read to our younger students and raved about our school.”

TWS’s Initial concerns with Remote Learning were teacher preparedness regarding technology and technical preparedness of parents. They conducted trouble shooting sessions with parents on a one on one basis; later parent sessions were held by grade. Sessions with parents were informational regarding student accountability, assignments, and concerns regarding the current and upcoming school year. For scholarship students, devices were provided to students. Co-principal Forrest added “TWS was helped because of our school culture and small class size (no more than 17 students per class). But we worked hard. Often Ms. Johnson and I were trading emails at 3AM after reviewing upcoming daily activities." Forrest is a highly decorated former principal with the New York City Department of Education with over 23 years experience. He won’t get much time off this summer either; he’s currently writing the TWS Remote Learning Program policy book which will provide guidance for faculty, students and parents. He added, “We’ll be ready for the 2020/21 academic year whether it is a traditional return to physical classes, remote learning or some hybrid.”

On July 30th, 2020, TWS will be conducting an award ceremony to recognize its faculty for being 100% certified in Google’s Online Classroom Teaching platform.
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