Rhea May is in her seventh year of teaching science at SA Bed-Stuy 1. We spent a day with her to find out what drew her to teaching, how she manages work-life balance, and what it’s really like teaching science at Success Academy!

This week, Success Academy friends and supporters gathered at the 2019 Spring Benefit to celebrate and support the “Joy of Discovery” that drives our approach to science, technology, engineering, and math education (STEM). The Honorable Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D., president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and recipient of the National Medal of Science, delivered the keynote address, touching on her own experience as the first African-American woman to receive a doctorate from MIT — in any field.

Imagine yourself on a stage — you’re 11 years old and about to perform — but instead of tap dancing or singing, you’re here to calculate. You’re presented with a question: Find a number, n, so that when you multiply n by itself, you get the product 0.000081. There are only thirty seconds allotted to […]

On Saturday, January 20, Success Academy Harlem North Central won first place in the Advanced Section at a tournament hosted by the Newark Debate Academy. Forty SA scholars from schools throughout the network traveled to Newark, New Jersey, to participate in the debate.

Most people don’t know this, but there are leading math educators whose celebrity status rivals Hollywood’s favorite movie stars. At least among math teachers! When Success Academy provided our high school math team with the chance to attend the annual National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference in San Antonio, Texas— essentially the Oscars of math education — we could hardly wait.

I truly believed in the importance of hands-on learning in the classroom, but I could never have expected just how revolutionary the Success Academy approach to science really is.

Discovery is the name of the game, and associate science teachers like Tracy make the most of every opportunity to engage their scholars, all while growing in their own careers through our exciting and selective Teaching Residency Program.

What would happen if the earth got too close to the sun? How could any living creature survive the Big Bang? Is there a way to keep your plants watered if you go on a month-long vacation?

Suddenly, the environmental issues that we were studying and discussing in class became more real and pressing — and that made learning more fun and exciting.

In the spring of 2014, I was visiting the New York Hall of Science in Queens when I came across a group of third graders in blue and orange uniforms. They were so excited to be exploring the museum.

For three days at the end of May, two dozen seventh-grade scholars from three Success Academy middle schools — Harlem East, Harlem West, and Harlem Central — traveled to Oyster Bay, L.I., to study marine biology, ecosystems, winds, tides, and sailing at the Waterfront Center.

Because Success Academy offers science five days a week, our scholars explore science in amazing depth and develop a breadth of foundational science knowledge. We present challenges and encourage them to make discoveries using a curriculum that builds on their natural curiosity and eagerness to understand how the world works.

Recently, a team of five SA Harlem East scholars who took my entrepreneurship class faced a panel of “potential investors” and presented their product…

In January, Mr. Yoo’s seventh-graders competed against 16,577 students from the U.S. and other countries, all of them taking the same five-question test.

It’s been another fantastic month! Check out some of our favorite last moments of 2014 here.

Read about our first Success Academy hackathon and what it meant to the scholars who participated….

The math bee is an annual tradition at Success Academy that invites scholars to flex their math muscles in front of family members, teachers and peers. The questions are crafted to align to Common Core fluency standards, but also go beyond simple calculations or facts that must be memorized.