Edward R. Murrow High School is located in the

Midwood Midwood is a neighborhood in the south-central part of the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded on the north by the Bay Ridge Branch tracks just above Avenue I and by the Brooklyn College campus of the City ...

section of

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and is part of the New York City Department of Education. The school is known for its theater program. Its success in the arts was recognized by

Mel Brooks Mel Brooks (born Melvin James Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. He began h ...

, who granted the school to be the first-ever to gain rights to the musical '' The Producers'' in spring 2008. It is a school of the arts where students are either music, dance, communication arts, theater, or art majors. The school was created under the supervision and leadership of Saul Bruckner, who was also the first principal of the school. Murrow H.S. opened in 1974 with Saul Bruckner as principal. The school was named for the pioneering broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow. Murrow H.S. was founded according to the

pedagogical Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and Developmental psychology, psychological development of le ...

theories of

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the f ...

and the learning and teaching methods of John Dewey High School. Bruckner retired in 2004 and died on May 1, 2010, in Brooklyn, New York. Anthony Lodico became Murrow's second principal. In March 2012, Lodico announced his resignation from Murrow in order to accept a High School Superintendent position. On April 2, 2012, Allen Barge assumed the role of principal of the school.

Academics

Murrow's academic year is divided into two semesters. Students receive new class schedules and teachers at the end of January. The daily schedule shifts depending on the day of the week, with class lengths varying from 45 minutes to an hour, and each class meets only four times a week. Rather than having a lunch period or study halls, Murrow students have free periods called "OPTA's" (Optional Time Activities), used for studying, eating, or relaxing. Murrow has a number of unique features including: * NYC High School adjusted its grade policies in 2013 so that a "U" is used instead of an "N". The letter grading system, with each letter corresponding to a numerical measurement, e.g. E = 90-100, G = 80–89, S = 79–65, U = 65 - 55, NS = below 55 (No Show = student who never reported to class), and MI for Mastery in Independent Study. * In calculating the average, E is treated as a 95, G = 85, S = 75, and U = 55. This means that for getting the highest grade in all classes, a student will not achieve an average higher than 95. In college admissions applications, an explanatory letter is forwarded to colleges to explain this fact. * Instead of using numbers to represent class periods, Murrow uses letters from A-J, excluding I. The periods are called "bands" (e.g., A-Band, D-Band). Some students take classes that meet before A-Band and after J-Band. These bands are "0 (zero)-Band" and "K-Band" * There are no daily "home room" meetings. Entering students are assigned to a "Student Communication Section", or SCS, and remain in that SCS until graduation. The SCS meets only on an "as needed" basis and is used solely for dissemination of school-wide administrative/logistical information (e.g., distribution of report cards or new class schedules; election of class officers); 2 morning bands are cut short to allow time for SCS to convene. For mandated citywide testing, students usually attend a half-day of classes, followed by the test in the SCS. * While many state-mandated courses (e.g., science- and math-based courses) are geared toward students of a particular class year, other elective courses (e.g., performing arts, physical education electives) are not; students taking these electives will usually find themselves in classes with students from other class years. Edward R. Murrow High School is also known for its outstanding theater program. Their success in the arts was recognized by Mel Brooks, who granted the school to be the first-ever to gain rights to the smash hit musical "The Producers" in Spring 2008. In attempt to diversify schools, some high schools in NYC, including Murrow, use the DOE's "Educational Option" model. Instead of tracking, schools admit learners of all capabilities by purposefully accepting a set percentage of students with high, middle and low test scores.

Student demographics

There were over 4,000 students in the school as of the 2016–2017 school year. The ethnic breakdown of the school is 28%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

(non-Hispanic), 23%

Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

, 26%

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, 21%

Hispanic or Latino ''Hispanic'' and ''Latino'' are ethnonyms used to refer collectively to the inhabitants of the United States who are of Spanish or Latin American ancestry (). While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, for example, by the United States C ...

and 0.2% Native American. The student/teacher ratio is 30/1. The Department of Education has released the annual Progress Reports for all high schools and Murrow.

Programs and activities

Theater

Murrow has a theater program that explores all the collaborative components of theater. Students learn all the aspects of theater including acting, technical theater, musical theater, and theater management. According to an article in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', students voluntarily stay after school work with theater program even on weekends and free periods. Students were painting the backdrop for the school's annual musical ''Into the Woods''. Students prepare months before the musical. In the

costume Costume is the distinctive style of dress or cosmetic of an individual or group that reflects class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch. In short costume is a cultural visual of the people. The term also was tradition ...

department, freshmen were busy sewing leaves and vines. Students were designing

lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylig ...

sets.

Music

The school has instrumental and vocal music programs that includes large ensemble, small ensemble, solo performance, and musicianship. Both programs require audition. For instrumental music, students may audition for more than one instrument. Students must bring their own instruments (except piano, tuba, double bass, harp, percussion and guitar amplifiers, which are provided by the school) and a copy of the music they are performing. For vocal music, students must perform a song without accompaniment. In 2018, the schools music technology program hosted the Second Annual Music x Tech Fest, a show in which students and alumni performed original songs and presented music videos that they had created to raise money for charity.

Fine and visual arts

The school has a discipline-based visual art program that includes studios in drawing, painting, sculpture, mixed media, animation, digital media, photography, fashion, art history, and portfolio development. In 2014, the school renovated its TV studio.

Bilingual programs

The school has Spanish and

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

transitional bilingual program open to English language learners. Classes in two major content areas are taught in English and the other language.

Sports

The school offers a variety of varsity and

junior varsity Junior varsity (often called "JV") players are the members of a team who are not the main players in a competition (such as any football, basketball, or baseball game), usually at the high school level–– and formerly at the collegiate level� ...

sports. These sports include

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...

, cross country,

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

. The school shares an athletic field with

Midwood High School Midwood High School is a high school located at 2839 Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, New York City, administered by the New York City Department of Education. It has an enrollment of 3,938 students. Its H-shaped building, with six Ionic order, Ionic co ...

Extracurricular activities

The school offers extracurricular activities including academic teams, art shows,

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

, community services,

concert A concert is a live music performance in front of an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, choir, or band. Concerts are held in a wide variety a ...

s and productions,

digital media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...

key club Key Club International, also called Key Club, is an international service organization for high school students. As a student-led organization, Key Club's goal is to encourage leadership through serving others. Key Club International is the hig ...

, mock trial,

moot court Moot court is a co-curricular activity at many law schools. Participants take part in simulated court or arbitration proceedings, usually involving drafting memorials or memoranda and participating in oral argument. In most countries, the phrase " ...

, music technology,

National Honor Society The National Honor Society (NHS) is a nationwide organization for high school students in the United States and outlying territories, which consists of many chapters in high schools. Selection is based on four criteria: scholarship (academic achi ...

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...

, s!ng, technical theater and virtual enterprise.

Chess

The Edward R. Murrow chess team has won seven national championships, fifteen state titles and sixteen city championships. The Edward R. Murrow HS chess team's success has been chronicled in the book

The Kings of New York ''The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top High-School Chess Team'' is a 2007 book written by Michael Weinreb, that follows the day-to-day activities of the Edward R. Murrow High School chess ...

, by sportswriter

Michael Weinreb Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...

follows the 2005 championship-winning season of the Murrow Team. It was reviewed positively in the March 4, 2007 NY Times Book Review. The team was personally congratulated by President Bush in the Oval Office on December 15, 2004. A movie, based on "The Kings of New York" will begin production sometime in 2014.

Notable alumni

* Darren Aronofsky - director * Joey Badass - Rapper, actor *

Jean-Michel Basquiat Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside Al ...

- artist *

Salvijus Bercys Salvijus "Sal" Bercys (born 8 September 1989 in Lithuania) is an American International Master. His peak FIDE rating is 2512. He is a major figure in Michael Weinreb's book ''The Kings of New York'' and was part of the "dream team" from the Edward ...

- International Chess Master * Vitaly Borker – Internet criminal, cyberbully * Capital STEEZ - rapper *

Nyck Caution Pro Era (short for The Progressive Era) is an American hip hop collective group from Brooklyn, New York. The group is a collective of rappers and record producers that includes East Coast rappers Joey Badass, CJ Fly, Kirk Knight, Nyck Cautio ...

- rapper, actor *

CJ Fly Chaine St. Aubin Downer Jr. (born July 6, 1993), better known by his stage name CJ Fly, is an American rapper and producer from Brooklyn, New York City. He is a founding member and the oldest member of the hip-hop collective group Pro Era. Throug ...

- rapper *

Yvette Clarke Yvette Diane Clarke (born November 21, 1964) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for New York's 9th congressional district since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, she first entered Congress in 2007, representing New ...

- U.S. Congresswoman * Jerry Colonna - venture capitalist * Dyme-A-Duzin - rapper *

Arabella Field Arabella Field (born February 5, 1965) is an American actress and film producer known for her roles in films such as ''Dante's Peak'', '' Feeling Minnesota'', ''Godzilla'', ''National Treasure'', '' Paper Man'' and as Melinda Bitterman in the ...

- Actress * Anna Hahn - US Women's Chess Champion * Eliza Hittman - director *

Jason Katims Jason Katims (born November 30, 1960) is an American television writer, producer, and playwright. He is best known as the creator of several television series, including '' Relativity'' (1996), '' Roswell'' (1999–2002), '' Friday Night Lights' ...

- screenwriter, producer * Irina Krush - US Women's Chess Champion *

Alex Lenderman Aleksandr "Alex" Lenderman (born September 23, 1989) is an American chess grandmaster. He won the 2005 World Under-16 Championship in Belfort with a score of 9/10 (+8 −0 =2), becoming the first American to win a gold medal at the World Youth ...

- International Chess Grandmaster and 2005 World under 16 Champion * Lil Mama - rapper * Zoe Lister-Jones - actress *

Christine Marzano Christine Marzano (born September 5, 1986)Simon Keegan"Who is Stephen Merchant's stunning new girlfriend Christine Marzano?"''Daily Mirror'', June 28, 2015. is the CEO and founder of an LA-based, fashion, tech company BODS. She is a former model ...

- actress * Javier Muñoz - actor * Adepero Oduye - actress * Edward Quist - director, artist * Kris Sanchez - Founder of UberFacts *

Jennifer San Marco The Goleta postal facility shootings were a spree killing perpetrated by Jennifer San Marco on January 30, 2006. San Marco, a former United States Postal Service employee, shot and killed six people in Goleta, California, before taking her own l ...

Goleta Goleta or La Goleta may refer to: * ''Goleta'' (spider), a spider genus * Goleta, California, United States, a suburban city in Santa Barbara County * La Goleta, the Spanish and Portuguese name for La Goulette La Goulette (, it, La Goletta), i ...

postal facility shooting *

Dave Sardy David Stuart Sardy (born 1967), more commonly known as D. Sardy, is an American composer, musician, songwriter, and multiple Grammy winning record producer. He came to prominence as the leader of 1990s noise rock band Barkmarket before turning mo ...

- producer *

Jeffrey Alan Schechter Jeffrey Alan Schechter (usually credited as Jeff Schechter) is a screenwriter whose work has been nominated for two Emmy awards, a Writers Guild of America award, and a Writers Guild of Canada award. His writing credits include ''Strange Days at B ...

- screenwriter/producer * Marcia Schofield - keyboard player * Michael Spiller - TV director/producer * Peter Steele - singer-songwriter * Marisa Tomei - actress *

Richard Velazquez Richard Velazquez is a nationally recognized leader in the Hispanic community and in business. Velazquez leads international marketing for Amazon Alexa for Latin America and Australia/New Zealand, and the Smart TV segment. Prior to this, Velazqu ...

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manuf ...

executive; first automotive designer at

Porsche Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, usually shortened to Porsche (; see #Pronunciation, below), is a German automobile manufacturer specializing in high-performance sports cars, SUVs and sedans, headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany ...

AG (Germany) * Adam Yauch of the

Beastie Boys Beastie Boys were an American rap rock group from New York City, formed in 1978. The group was composed of Mike D, Michael "Mike D" Diamond (vocals, drums), Adam Yauch, Adam "MCA" Yauch (vocals, bass), and Ad-Rock, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz (voca ...

- rapper * Xochitl Gonzalez - writer

Transportation

The school can be reached by public transportation, including the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...

Avenue M station The Avenue M station (formerly South Greenfield, Elm Avenue), is a local station on the BMT Brighton Line of the New York City Subway. It is located in Midwood, Brooklyn, at Avenue M between East 15th and East 16th Streets. The station is served ...

() as well as

MTA Regional Bus Operations MTA Regional Bus Operations (RBO) is the surface transit division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). It was created in 2008 to consolidate all bus operations in New York City operated by the MTA. , MTA Regional Bus Operations ru ...

' routes.

References

External links

School WebsiteMurrow Band-Aid (Schedule)Saul Bruckner NYT Obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Murrow, Edward R. High 1974 establishments in New York City Educational institutions established in 1974 Murrow