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Mission Statement Community History School Traditions Facilities Centennial Anniversay of the PS 3 Building |
Mission Statement PS 3 provides children with a learning environment that nurtures their intellectual, social, physical and ethical growth through hands-on involvement with materials and subjects that have meaning for their lives. Respect for the individuality of each child is central to the school’s teaching philosophy. Teachers at PS 3 actively encourage children to take initiative, be resourceful, and show independence of judgment in their classroom work, with the intent that each child will become a confident, self-motivated and passionate learner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Community Our school is conceived as a learning community, with all members sharing in a common enterprise. Children, teachers, staff and families work together in an atmosphere of generosity and mutual respect. PS 3 encourages engagement with the local community and the wider world. The school works to eliminate bias according to race, class or sex. We are a population with a wealth of ethnic, racial, socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds. Active participation by parents and guardians is invited. Parents are integral to setting policy, raising funds and supporting the staff and faculty. They also provide a reliable and friendly presence in the classroom, during lunch and recess, and at extracurricular events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . History The first public school known as PS 3 was established in the 1820's, when the visiting Marquis de Lafayette was taken on a tour to see this model of progressive American education. The current PS 3, also known as the John Melser Charrette School, is very much a child of the 1960's, which is one reason you may occasionally hear it referred to as the 'hippie school.' It was founded in 1971 as a progressive and experimental school. The PS 3 of today came into being through a community workshop process known as a 'charrette,' at which parents and other community members, teachers, administrators, public officials, social planners and educational consultants arrived at a vision of child-centered learning in open multi-age classrooms, with a nonhierarchical structure, active parent involvement and an emphasis on the arts. John Melser, an educator from New Zealand, served as the school’s first leader, and remained its director until 1991. Many of the John Melser Charrette School's founding teachers have spent their entire careers at the school. That generation began to reach retirement age in the late 1990's, but the teacher turnover rate remains low. Though the school has adapted to change, we are pleased that the essence of the original concept has withstood the test of time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . School Traditions Over the years PS 3 has developed a variety of cherished student rituals. Each Halloween, the students, teachers and staff arrive at school in costume and parade around the block. The coordination of the schoolwide UNICEF coin drive, for which PS 3 has raised record sums, is an annual fourth-fifth grade class project. Several times during the year, the whole school body and parents are invited to multicultural concerts and dance performances showcasing the hard work and talent of several classes. Fifth graders who receive the okay from their families are granted the privilege of 'out to lunch,' which allows them to buy their own lunch in the immediate neighborhood, provided they go in pairs and stay within the designated radius. Winter is celebrated with overnight trips taken by the fourth-fifth grade classes to environmental education centers outside the city. Each spring, a parent committee produces a glossy yearbook, complete with a page designed by each class, and June marks the evening Talent Show and the always-poignant graduation ceremony, complete with the annual rendition of the school song. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Facilities The landmarked building housing PS 3 was built in 1906 as a public school, and the Auditorium was added a decade later. C.B.J. Snyder, the well-respected first superintendent of school buildings for the Board of Education, was the architect. We share the facility with the Greenwich Village Middle School, which has an entirely separate administration and is located on the fifth floor. The exits on the Grove Street and Bedford Street sides of the buildings are for school bus access and emergencies only. All parents and caregivers enter the building via the Hudson Street lobby. You are asked to show your ID card to the School Safety Officer at the desk, even if the officer knows who you are. Cards can be obtained in the Main Office. Though the facility is old, it has been upgraded and maintained, and the custodial staff works with zeal to keep the building clean and safe. In recent years the exterior has undergone a major repair, some floors have been replaced, the exterior and the interior have been repainted, the front and back stairwells rebuilt and the climate control system upgraded. The Community Room serves as a gathering place for parents, a meeting room, a mail room for School Community Council officers, the Afterschool headquarters, and a resource room. Parents and caregivers are welcome to stop by to seek information or solutions to problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Centennial Anniversary of the PS 3 Building By Carlton E. Wynter Jr. As many might know, the PS 3 building was constructed in 1905 by the Board of Education specifically as a public school. The architect was not a faceless bureaucrat, but a well-respected designer of public education buildings. C. B. J. Snyder was the first Superintendent of School Buildings for the Board of Education At the turn of the century, public education was undergoing a period of great physical expansion. This mirrored changing views of the role of public education, which was now seen as a means to bind the society, integrate rising numbers of immigrants into the American culture, and respond sensitively to the needs of the young. Snyder embodied all of these concerns, and had been working on school design for almost twenty years when he designed PS 3. Snyder created many other New York schools, most famous of which is the old Stuyvesant High School on 15th Street. He introduced a number of design innovations. Most famous is the H-design, in which "two wings contained classrooms facing interior courts, while the center bar held a stack of flexible classrooms with walls which could be rolled back to provide a continuous open space for assemblies and games." (Stuyvesant has this design, but the small PS 3 site precluded it.) Large double-hung windows for classroom light became another of his trademarks, and are a feature PS 3 parents still appreciate. Snyder’s early inner-city schools had a forbidding, castle-like appearance. By the late 1890s he was using a more domestic, sloped roof design, perhaps reflecting an increasingly humanitarian attitude toward the poor. But this did not allow for roof playgrounds. Finally, Snyder combined the two styles by using a flat roof with false fronts to give a sloped-roof appearance while still permitting a roof playground. That is the arrangement we have at PS 3, although there is no evidence yet of a playground ever having been constructed on the roof. In fact, plans show that there were originally large skylights on the roof letting light into the fifth floor. An historian has said: "At PS 3 Snyder combined the domestic character of his ealier schools with a Modern French skyline, making a serious attempt to give the school a grand public character that was still sympathetic to the Federal style domesticity of its West Village neighborhood." Stephan Freid, architect and chair of the Building Committee, was able to obtain a complete record of PS 3 building and renovation plans going back to 1905. These plans indicate that almost all the work done since 1905 has been for maintenance and code upgrades. The building remains remarkably true to the original 1905 design. The space used as the gym today had been assumed to be an elaborate lobby for the entrances on Hudson and Grove streets. The plans indicate the there originally was a wall separating the space into two large rooms, each with its own entrance onto Grove Street. The rooms were labeled "Boys' Playroom" and "Girls' Playroom" (with entrance signs that are probably still under the concrete facing over the doors on Grove Street). This might reflect an Edwardian era view of appropriate child play - much less athletic than we are familiar with today. There is no other evidence of a gym in any of the school plans, although gyms are present in other Snyder school designs. The PS 3 main building was constructed in 1905; the auditorium was added in 1915. Plans show that the room now used as a lunchroom was originally a support area for the auditorium above. It contained dressing rooms, a wardrobe storage area, and a large kitchen, but no large eating area. The purpose of the kitchen is not clear. It is likely to have supported events in the auditorium. Food also might have been served in the playrooms. There is no evidence of any student lunchroom in any of the original plans. 2005 was the centennial anniversary of the PS 3 building. But PS 3 as a school is much older, and with a grander history in the 19th century than in the 20th. The Building committee is researching this earlier history. We look forward to sharing our findings on what was known back then as 'Old Number 3.' |