Fourth-graders have the chance to pretend to be pilots at LaGuardia Airport and much more on a field trip to the New York City Center for Space Science Education on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Every day, the students in A. A. Sieunarine's Studio Art 2 class at August Martin HS in Jamaica come prepared with five pieces of news to discuss. "I want them to know what's happening outside of Queens," Sieunarine said. "We don't live in a vacuum."

The aroma of breakfast permeates the Edison Café on a recent morning as special needs students learn how to make omelets, scrambled eggs and pancakes at Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Education HS in Jamaica, Queens.

Newtown HS sophomore Supriya Singh wants to own a business someday, and she very much looked the part of a young CEO when she welcomed parents and community members to an after-school resume-writing workshop in January.

As part of a speech literacy initiative launched by the Department of Education in 2014 in about 150 schools, Marjorie James pushes into the kindergarten Integrated Co-Teaching class at the East Elmhurst Community School three times a week and works closely with its teachers.

What’s a teacher to do when students are focused on their cellphones instead of the day’s lesson?