The new retreat room at PS 146 in Howard Beach, Queens, has brightly painted walls, fluffy rugs and soft pillows and is a comfortable safe space, alternative learning environment, relaxation and de-escalation area, and club room for students in the pre-K—grade 8 school.

Pets in the Classroom, a program that gives financial support to pre-K through 9th-grade teachers for small animals to keep in their classrooms, provides teachers with one initial voucher or rebate to purchase a pet and necessary supplies and then a yearly $50 “sustaining” grant for upkeep.

Colleagues and students create a mosaic mural to remember Rulx Dagus, a paraprofessional at P 369K in Park Slope, Brooklyn, who died of COVID-19. 

Three New York City public school educators jumped into action when they saw their students in distress, and their help made the difference in each life-threatening situation.

Every Friday after school at PS 340 in the Kingsbridge Heights section of the Bronx, 20 students march into the school cafeteria and prepare to attack each other with swords. They are participants in the school’s first-ever fencing club, launched in February 2022 by school psychologist Amy Turchiaro.

Collaboration among three arts teachers and their classes at PS 295 in Brooklyn led to a 90-second commercial. They came up with the idea and designed a product in art class, composed a jingle in music class and wrote a script and acted out the commercial in drama class.