Dear Families and Staff,

During the summer months, we reflect on the past school year as we reset our school for the year ahead. Today, we celebrate with our community many of the student accomplishments from the past year and pay tribute to our 2024 graduates. We are incredibly proud of our Bears.

Let us start with academics. Data from across our BASIS Independent Schools inform our practice, identify our areas for growth, and allow us to celebrate our successes knowledgeably. For these reasons, we can truly say we practice both the art and science of teaching. Without data, we would not understand our own goals, or we would just assume we were lucky when we met them!

This year more than 60% of our students earned the AP Scholar designation (scoring a 3 or higher on at least three AP Exams). This impressive result is consistent with year-over-year scores, showcasing our program’s strength. Also, in high school, we celebrated our National Merit Scholar winner Jack B. ’24, and 30% of our seniors were recognized as commended scholars.

Speaking of our seniors, let us take a moment to reflect on our sixth graduating class about to head off to the next stage of their educational journey! Approximately 60% of students were offered seats at universities in the top 25 ranked national and international institutions. Today we can share that our students will matriculate at:

• University of Pennsylvania (2), Duke University (2), Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, Cornell University, University of Michigan, Georgetown University (2), Emory University, University of Southern California, NYU (2), Boston University, Northeastern (2), George Washington University, Barnard College (2), Colgate University, Haverford College, Skidmore College, Stevens Institute of Technology, Chapman University, and Cooper Union.
  

Our Class of 2024 posed on the roof during their senior year. Photo Credit: Danny Dolan at www.dannydolan.com

Celebrating Accomplishments

Throughout the 2023-2024 school year one thing remained the same— student accomplishments across all grades continued to reaffirm the vision behind all that we have built here in Brooklyn. Our educators took pride in providing structure and stability to support content mastery. 

Our students continued to excel at their studies and outside the classroom, our students’ accomplishments made us incredibly proud. An overview of 2023–2024 student accolades and significant developments follows.

Fine Arts

• Scholastic Arts and Writing Competition: Our students were recognized yet again with many honors this year. One National Gold Key in photography was awarded to Mateo K. ’25; Yuna S. ’24 received a National Silver Key for her work in Digital Art. Many other students were recognized with regional awards: 7 Gold Keys, 6 Silver Keys, and 9 honorable mentions in photography, digital art, painting, and drawing illustration.
• Our Upper School Choir was invited to perform at Radio City Music Hall before the Christmas Spectacular once again! They won top honors at the Hershey Park Choral Festival as well!
• High School Choir and Band were invited to play at Universal Studios as part of the Disney Music Series.
• Our Spring Musical SpongeBob was a rave hit. Upper School drama performances in elective classes were a wonderful celebration of creativity all year long.
• Our entire Fine Arts team hosted wonderful festivals before Winter Break and at the end of the school year.  
  

National Scholastic Arts Gold Key winning photo by Mateo K. ’25

Humanities/Social Sciences

• High School Debate Team won 1^st place in team and 1^st place speaker in the NYC Urban Debate League Championships.
• Our Middle School Debate Club tied for 3rd place in the New York Debate League Championships.
• The Grizzly Co-Editors-in-Chief founded our initial chapter of Quill and Scroll International Journalism honor society, initiating six student journalists.
• Our Bears won 1^st place team in the very competitive K-5 U1200 division at the Primary Chess National Championships! Our K-5 U900 team came in 7^th place, and our team of two in K-3 U700 tied for 16^th place with just two students. This news came on the heels of winning big at the New York State Championship. There were many, many other chess accolades throughout the year.
• On the National Latin Exam, Abraham G. ‘29 earned a gold medal, Indi S. ’29 a silver. One of our Grade 6 students Dylan C. was recognized by both the American Classical Association and National Junior Latin League for receiving a perfect score. Four students received gold medals, ten received silver medals in Grade 6 this year as well!
• This year we launched our inaugural Quiz Bowl team under the leadership of Mr. Koppel. The team performed well in their first year and look forward to picking up steam in the fall!
  

Our Chess Team at Nationals. Photo credit: Ian West of ICN

Math/Science

• Our MATHCOUNTS team came in 1^st Place in Brooklyn regionals and went on to compete at the New York State Championships. Special shout out to Michael S. ’28 who won top individual honors in Brooklyn. Coach Hughes was very proud of them.
• The largest group of students ever sat for the MATH KANGAROO assessment for younger grades across both our campuses and comprised our largest group yet to receive accolades from the organization.
• NOETIC Math accolades poured in with national winners across several grades across both of our campuses.
• Our school won both 2^nd and 3^rd Place in New York State TEAMS competition. Thank you to Physics teacher and coach Josh Winter for continuing to grow the team.
  

Our Lower School Cubs proudly posing with their NOETIC math ribbons and medals.

Sports

• Our Middle School Baseball team won the CSAA league championship after an incredible first season under Coach Starks. Go Bears!!!
• Our Middle School Girls Volleyball Team won the CSAA Region 3 Championships!!! Coach Nalipinski was incredibly proud of her players, who participated in this middle school division for the first time.
• CSAA Boys and Girls Track Team: Our Bears had a great season, and the High School team took home 3^rd Place in the CSAA Region 3 championship. Given this was their first season, we could not be prouder of them!
• Our CSAA Boys Varsity Soccer team made the league playoffs and we were very proud of their determination and drive during the year.
• CSAA Girls Volleyball made the playoffs after a tremendous fall season with Coach Nalipinski.
• CSAA Co-ed JHS Flag Football team finished 2^nd place in the league! Team spirit could not be stronger, and we want to thank families for showing up consistently to cheer on our Bears.
  

Coach Starks and our middle school baseball team won 1st place in their league.

Community Involvement

• This year our high school team arranged a Third Annual Day of Service in the fall to bring our community together and make a difference locally.
• Our National Honor and National Junior Honor Society students dedicated more than 2,000 hours to service projects this year!
• Back-to-School Textbook Exchange – Families donated nearly 3,300 textbooks and others bought used textbooks to benefit the Red Hook Art Project.
• 500 coats, hats, scarves, gloves, and blankets as well as 200 care packages were assembled to support Red Hook’s Redemption Church community.
• Our Lower School Cubs created more than 100 toiletry kits around the holidays to share with families in Red Hook through Redemption Red Hook Church.
• Our community created more than 100 Thanksgiving cards for Heights and Hills to deliver with their Thanksgiving meals to seniors.
• Our Primary School assembled more than 300 bedtime bags for asylum-seeking families through Project Rousseau!
• Our High School students formed a chapter of JASA at the school with 16 student members who collectively spent 200 hours spending time with nursing home residents and participating in projects to support them.

These awards and examples of community involvement are an amazing testament to the school and the power of the curriculum and teachers. Most importantly, they are an incredible representation of our creative, diverse, driven scholars. It is important to us that as a school we prioritize opportunity, finding opportunities for students to showcase their skills, define their interests, and pursue their passions. 

Looking Ahead

Without community, academic success is temporary and limited. We have made significant growth as a community this year, and it is our priority to support and grow in the year ahead. Cultivating mutual respect and trust is key for our school after ten years in Brooklyn.

Teachers continue to express to us that they love this school because they are allowed to teach the subjects they know best the way they know best. They are allowed to share their passion for their subjects with their students and this builds engagement. We are excited to bring new faculty into the fold and continue supporting veteran teachers returning to our campus.

As we close our thoughts on the year, we want to salute our Class of 2024 for their leadership in shaping our sense of community and traditions at our school. We are grateful to them and want them to know they always have a place here. What we want to ask from our alumni and parents is help to provide professional advice and even connect our students after they graduate to internships and opportunities. This coming year we will be expanding our mentorship program, and we need the help of our community to open doors for our wonderful students.

Overall, we want our students to look back, feel a great sense of pride in their school, and share in the school’s success that they helped create. We have much to celebrate, and we are in an exciting position after ten years of educating students in Brooklyn. We truly look forward to the year ahead!

Sincerely,

Josh Harmon and Rose Miller-Sims