Important Dates:

First Day of School : September 12
Back-to-School Picnic: October 1

Excitement is Building!

Excitement is building! All teachers and staff are busy preparing to welcome students back to school on September 12. This year, K-12 students will be under one roof at our new school building at 1713 Madison Avenue.

Teachers are prepping classrooms, collaborating on new lesson plans and participating in professional development activities, including curriculum planning, classroom management, crisis response training and DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging) workshops.

We can’t wait to see our students on September 12!

Disability Studies in Special Education

As part of Cooke’s staff orientation, Jan Valle, professor at City College of New York, presented “DisCrit Theory: What does it mean for Special Education.” Professor Valle spoke about the intersectionality of race, class, gender, language, culture, and disability, through the concept of DisCrit.

What is DisCrit?

DisCrit is the shortened name for Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory. Disability studies (Dis) examines the meaning, nature and consequences of disability and focuses on the lived experiences of individuals with disabilities. Critical Race Theory (Crit) is a cross-disciplinary examination by social and civil-rights scholars and activists to explore how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. This field is focused on increasing access to civil rights and quality of life for people with disabilities.

Professor Valle discussed topics such as Ableism, theories of race that emerged from immigration policies, and the notion of “disability” within a larger social and political context. DisCrit emphasizes the ways in which the social construction of racism and ableism serve to exclude individuals with disabilities by categorizing them in ways that deny their rights. DisCrit aims to amplify the voices of marginalized populations through activism and support, to improve representation and inclusion for people with disabilities.

Better Together: Rooftop Celebration

Our staff came together for some summer fun on our rooftop to celebrate new beginnings in our new school building. We look forward to the opportunity to learn, share and accomplish new heights as a unified Kindergarten through 12th grade school … under one roof!