Rare New York City Charter School Has a Unique Mission: Best-Serving Homeless and Foster Children [imprintnews.org]

^{A kindergarten class at Mott Haven Academy Charter School. Photo by MacKenna Lewis.}

By Madison Hunt, The Imprint, April 16, 2023

Each weekday, students at a Bronx elementary school pass a rainbow-colored mural dotted with flowers and butterflies on the way to the front office. Outside their classrooms, every teacher they pass offers a quick hug or a high-five. And there’s music. On a school day earlier this year, trumpets and flutes blasted Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.”

Mott Haven Academy Charter School is believed to be the first school in the country created specifically for children in foster care, and likely one of the few in existence. Its foundational goals can be found inside and outside the classroom, where the children’s emotional needs are as important as their academics.

Not all of the school’s 500 students from preschool through eighth grade are in foster care. Some are living in the city’s homeless shelters, others come from the surrounding low-income neighborhood.

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