Spring Fling Message From Pete  

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Hey ICE Community,

Once a year we all get to kick back together, celebrate the school, raise a little money for the students, and that day is coming up soon.  Yes, I mean Spring Fling!  May 3 at the Dumbo Loft.  I have a great time there every year and I have every reason to believe that the party this year will be better than ever.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in just a few weeks from now.

Pete


P.S. – Don’t forget to purchase your tickets at http://www.iceschoolnyc.org/spring-fling-2019

Free NYC ID Cards 

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Do you want to go to the Bronx Zoo for free this summer? How about the Museum of Natural History? MoMA? The aquarium? 

The City of New York is currently offering photo ID cards free of charge. City residents can gain entrance into a wide variety of cultural institutions for free as well as get discounts at businesses around the city.  Cardholders have access to one-year free membership all of these incredible places! For more information on how to apply, please visit the website here. Anyone over ten years old can get a card - including adults! 


To make an appointment at an enrollment center and learn more - click here. 


Paid Summer Employment Opportunities with DYCD 

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NYC (Department of Youth and Community Development) offers paid summer employment opportunities for 14-24 year olds. More info can be found here for 14-15 year olds, and here for 16-24 year olds.

Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) Applications are out now and can be found here. 
All applications are due 4/26/19. 

Anyone who would like help filling out an application can email Danya.


Request for Guest Speakers on Accessibility Needs 

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Dear ICE Community,

9th Grade Physics classes will spend Cycle 4 designing an electronic device to assist users who struggle with accessibility in their daily lives.  We are seeking speakers who have experience with accessibility concerns to provide insight to our community about common challenges that exist in their lives or in the lives of those they work with. If you or someone you know is interested and available to meet with the grade April 29-May 10, please contact Sammi.


Not Too Late to Apply:  Girls Rise Up! Three Week Summer Program that Combines Dance & Coding 

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Great Scholarships Available - cost can be reduced from $425 to $50 (based on need). Exciting field trips and guest speakers. Last year they visited the Spotify offices, Palantir, and NYU Tandon School of engineering. They also had professional women in tech come in and speak about their experience.

Also here are some highlights from last summer. 

Girls Rise Up by STEM From Dance: 2019 Summer Program 
Spend three weeks falling in love with code and dance - and the magic that happens when you bring the two together. Over the course of the program, girls will be introduced to software and electrical engineering principles, as well as choreography fundamentals. They will learn to write code, construct circuits, and create movement. By the end of the three weeks they will have a tech project they imagined and brought to life, and a dance routine that incorporates it. This is an opportunity to collaborate with inspiring instructors, build community, and let creativity flow. This program runs July 8 - July 26 (M - F) from 9AM - 3PM. Learn more here, and apply by May 5!

Details:

  • July 8 - 26 | Monday - Friday | 9AM - 3PM

  • Location: Bishop Loughlin High School |  Brooklyn (Fort Greene)

    • Accessible by 2/3/4/5/B/D/C/G/N/Q/R trains and several buses

  • New York City girls ages 12 - 18

  • Only 100 spots available

  • No code/dance experience necessary

  • Apply by May 5th

  • Read our brochure for more info 

ICE PAC

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Help spread the word on test refusals beyond ICE!

In case you missed it, ICE PAC announced in the last edition of this newsletter that 89% of ICE middle school students had refused the New York State ELA tests. (It actually turns out to be 90%, but that's not the subject of this item.) Families in other schools around the city may not have realized they had the right to refuse or were incentivized or intimidated not to opt out. In fact, the scare tactics reached such heights that NY's highest education officials were compelled to issue a statement reaffirming parent rights of refusal (and chastising school and district actors who have blocked information, or worse, misled parents). 
 
While that statement is appreciated, it is long overdue and we're not sure it will make it to parents on the ground. So, in advance of the math tests in early May, we at ICE PAC ask YOU to help get the word out. Do you have children at another school? Does your neighbor have a 5th grader? Your sister an 8th grader? Let them know that they can refuse the math tests even if they took the ELA. (And for the record, word on the street and online is that the ELA tests were BAD: children as young as 8 testing from 8:30 to 2:30 with just a brief lunch break, students staying beyond dismissal, passages rated at reading levels multiple grades above that of the children being tested, and computer system malfunctions so egregious the state had to suspend computer-based test administration.)

Need resources to help you out on this mission? Check out NYC Opt Out on Facebook or Twitter or optoutnyc.com on the web.

Free Feminine Products in ICE Girls' Bathroom

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Around a year ago a group of young women who were soon-to-be graduating 12th graders gathered at ICE to talk about ways to improve the experience for other girls at ICE. One of the important recommendations that arose from that meeting, was suggestion that the ICE Girls' Bathroom should always have a supply of feminine products available to students for free. The group felt this would be helpful for many reasons, and for students of all ages. 

Since that time, our school has been committed to keeping a steady supply available. If you would like to help us in this effort, please see our amazon wish list here. Contributions of any size are welcomed and appreciated! 
 

ICE Community Lunches

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Our community lunches have been a huge success this year! Thank you so much to all of you who have so generously contributed food! Kids from all grades and advisories have come together to eat beautifully cooked food and spend time in community. Thank you so much for all your support in making these happen! 

If you would like to contribute to the upcoming meal on Tuesday April 16th, please fill out (the very short) form. 

Thank you as always for your time, commitment and love! If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to Marlyn Gomez. 


Spring Fling Volunteers 

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Get into the Party for FREE as a VOLUNTEER

ONE HOUR SHIFTS BARTENDING (aka pouring wine)

TWO HOUR SHIFTS HELPING WITH FOOD

ONE HOUR CLEAN UP SHIFTS

SPRING FLING DONATIONS  

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Museums, Music, Art, TV shows - Cultural activities, whether a private museum tour or a night at a jazz club raise lots of money for our school and your kids.  Can you drum up a donation for:  

  • tickets to a musical event - any genre!

  • seats to a Broadway show

  • Beautiful, often handcrafted jewelry & bags are big favorites at the Spring Fling auction.

  • Vacation homes - ICE families love travel! Donate a vacation home for a few days or more - local or international

  • Restaurant donations - dinner for two or four, a bottle of wine to accompany a dinner or complementary appetizers and/or dessert
     


    Use the Online Donation Form  or the Printable Donation Formwhen asking for donations. Be sure to give your donors the Merchant Letter which includes our tax id number for those who are donating.

Free NYC ID Cards 

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Do you want to go to the Bronx Zoo for free this summer? How about the Museum of Natural History? MoMA? The aquarium? 

The City of New York is currently offering photo ID cards free of charge. City residents can gain entrance into a wide variety of cultural institutions for free as well as get discounts at businesses around the city. Cardholders have access to one-year free membership all of these incredible places! For more information on how to apply, please visit the website here. Anyone over ten years old can get a card - including adults! Photo ID cards also valid to apply for working papers

To make an appointment at an enrollment center and learn more - click here. 

ICE Community Lunch 

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Our community lunches have been a huge success this year! Thank you so much to all of you who have so generously contributed food! Kids from all grades and advisories have come together to eat beautifully cooked food and spend time in community. Thank you so much for all your support in making these happen! 

If you would like to contribute for an upcoming meal, please fill out (the very short) form. 

Thank you as always for your time, commitment and love! If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to Marlyn Gomez. 


ICE PAC

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ELA tests are over! At ICE 89% of eligible students refused the test. Many school districts around the state very actively tried to suppress opt out this year, leading the state's highest education officials, Chancellor Betty Rosa of the Board of Regents and Commissioner Elia of the State Education Department, to issue a statement today affirming opt out rights. We at ICE PAC are happy that our school needed no such reminder and view our work in the context of another statement, released earlier this week by the grassroots group Jackson Heights People for Public Schools. An excerpt (it's long!) appears below.

In a system of school choice championed by Trump, DeVos, and leading Democrats, middle and high-income parents will almost always choose the schools with higher test scores, which enroll wealthier students and fewer students learning English. Zoned schools that accept all students face intense pressure to raise test scores and resort to excessive time for ELA and math classes at the expense of a well-rounded curriculum. On the other hand, students at schools that serve disproportionately wealthy and white children are offered a more balanced and arts-enriched curriculum.

Jackson Heights People for Public Schools rejects state tests that are used to further segregate our schools, and unfairly evaluate children in our community and the educators who serve them. 



Free Feminine Products in ICE Girls' Bathroom  

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Around a year ago a group of young women who were soon-to-be graduating 12th graders gathered at ICE to talk about ways to improve the experience for other girls at ICE. One of the important recommendations that arose from that meeting, was suggestion that the ICE Girls' Bathroom should always have a supply of feminine products available to students for free. The group felt this would be helpful for many reasons, and for students of all ages. 

Since that time, our school has been committed to keeping a steady supply available. If you would like to help us in this effort, please see our amazon wish list here. Contributions of any size are welcomed and appreciated! 
 

URGENT:  Chaperones Needed for Wednesday April 10 - High School Community Service Day 

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On Wednesday April 10th, all of our high school students will be leaving the building to participate in a variety of service projects around the city. We are partnering with sixteen organizations including senior centers, urban farms, soup kitchens, food pantries, the billion oyster project, the parks department and more. 

Students will be divided into groups of between 10 and 25 kids. Each group will be accompanied by a teacher. A few of the larger groups need a couple of extra chaperones. We're looking for parents interested in spending a few hours chaperoning one of these groups, along with one teacher. Middle school parents are MOST WELCOME to participate. You do not have to accompany your own child's group (students will not be assigned groups yet).

Please use this link to sign up for one of the slots available:

Thanks for your help to make this day a success.

Letter from Pete 

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Dear ICE Families –

At this time of year our school is abuzz with energy – students of all ages are busily working on cycle projects, including our 11th graders who are fully immersed in research and data collection for two graduation requirements. It’s a great part of our culture that 11th graders gather students from classrooms to take part in their Neuroscience research projects. Along the way the younger kids learn about scientific investigations and see the models of focus and intensity in the older students. It becomes a rite of passage for all children here that they conduct professional scientific research.

On that note I want to congratulate our current 12th grade students on an amazing year of college acceptances. This cohort of students may be our most successful yet as they are accepted into elite public and private universities at an unprecedented rate. Additionally 7 of the 8 12th graders who entered the New York Science and Engineering fair made it to the final rounds – outperforming all other NYC high schools including the specialized high schools by a large margin. In the final rounds ICE students received a total of 11 awards – including one “First Award” – the highest possible honor.

Academic achievement is something I constantly encourage along with the ICE teaching staff, but we also focus on community engagement and activity whenever possible. I want to highlight the recent community lunches that the ICE Community Service Club has organized. Each week we serve fresh, healthy and homemade lunches to 75 to 150 students in a large classroom. This activity has been a highlight because it brings students together who normally would not sit and share a meal, and it encourages our kids to eat healthy home cooked meals.  Special thanks to Marlyn and Danya who have organized this event and all of the parents who have prepared and donated food to the cause.

Parent engagement has always been a linchpin that keeps ICE a cohesive community that thrives beyond all expected limitations. It is the time, money and effort donated by you parents that enables Mark and I to send every child on every trip, to fund improvements in technology, to hire additional music, art and theater teachers and to keep ICE operational as a school using a small administrative team.

Thank you for giving – and for choosing to make ICE your community.

Pete