Track coach and teacher Ozzie Henderson is taking Success Academy’s track program to the next level, as this year’s indoor season and championship meet made clear.

Is a specialized high school the best option? Should I stay or go, is what many kids are asking themselves. In the case of Idalis Antonia Soto and Cana Iinuma, two SA scholars who were accepted to Brooklyn Tech last year, the answer was to stay. They’re now in the spring of their freshman year at Success Academy High School of the Liberal Arts, and agreed to share how they came to their decisions and what they’re enjoying so far about this first year at SA HSLA.

Success Academy debaters and athletes competed in some major tournaments this January, marking several significant milestones for our programs. We’re excited to share the news about these incredible accomplishments!

A select group of Success Academy scholars headed south this past weekend to compete in the 2018 National K-12 Grade Chess Championships. This event, held in Orlando, Florida, is set apart from other national tournaments in that scholars compete in teams and divisions based on their grade in school rather than on their chess ranking. Scholars from SA Upper West (3rd grade), SA Union Square (4th grade), SA Hudson Yards (5th, 6th, 7th grades), SA Bed Stuy 1 Middle School (8th grade), and the SA High School of the Liberal Arts (11th grade) gave it their all during seven intense games, and they returned laden with trophies!

Even though Keagan Whitehurst-Nicks is still learning and growing — after all, he’s only in fourth grade — there are a few things that he’s absolutely certain about. The first is that he will one day host his own talk show, titled Keeping up with Keagan. Secondly, his favorite subjects are theater and math. Third, […]

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 […]

Have you ever accomplished your greatest dream? Or achieved something so incredible you feel like you’ve conquered the world? If you have, it must feel fantastic knowing you worked through your challenges and ended up with a great ending. But getting to that great ending is like walking on a rocky hiking trail: it’s hard, […]

When Success Academy 10th graders Ebrahim Jaiteh and Kiera Toussaint first arrived at the Loomis Chaffee boarding school campus, they were slightly shocked by the sound of silence — and the number of trees. The setting, so unlike the noisy bustling streets of where they grew up, would be the first of many differences that […]

What do track and field runners at Duke, Stanford, and Georgetown have in common? They are all members of some of the most competitive collegiate teams in the nation — and they all have to balance intense training with rigorous academic workloads. Success Academy coach Ozzie Henderson thinks he has the next big star for top collegiate programs like these — someone who thrives both on the track and in the classroom: sophomore Ronn’e Bailey.

Yesterday, Success Academy 8th graders celebrated their graduation from middle school. Speakers from each of the seven graduating classes reflected on their middle school experiences and shared their hopes and ambitions for high school. Here are excerpts from their speeches. Nia Hardaway, SA Harlem Central Middle School June 14th has finally arrived! It seems like […]

On Thursday, June 7, our very first class of high school seniors graduated at the stunning Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, 100% of them college-bound, many with full scholarships.

Sixteen Success Academy scholars took on some of the nation’s toughest chess competition at the Junior High Championships in Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this month. They tested their skills and stayed focused over seven rounds. Sean O’Hanlon, SA senior manager of chess, noted that our scholars demonstrated high levels of effort and fortitude — even under […]

When Nolan McDaniel and Malik Sahabi first unveiled their poem — a thought-provoking spoken-word piece that they coauthored — it was in front of an auditorium packed with scholars, teachers, and families. They electrified their listeners, who snapped their fingers and cheered with enthusiasm at what turned out to be one of the highlights of the Success Academy Harlem Central Poetry Slam. Since then, the entire school has been talking about “Black Boy, White Man”.

The March for Our Lives was a day for reflection and of empowerment, when parents could see the future through their children’s eyes and feel hope that the world would indeed be a better place because of them.

During this year’s New York State Chess Championships, spectators likely saw a sea of Success Academy blue and orange: about one in eight competitors at the event was an SA scholar, with 135 participants representing 14 Success Academy schools.

Congratulations to all our middle schoolers who participated in the SA Network Basketball Championships, and a huge shout-out to the commitment shown by all of our coaches this season!

The Performing Arts Showcase featured 11 acts — from musical theater performances and energetic dance routines, to upbeat choir songs and African drumming. Every group auditioned for the chance to represent their school at the showcase. Throughout the Showcase, scholars fused their passions for dance, song, and theater, with strong social messages about racial equality. We know you’ll be inspired as we were by their talent.

42 middle school scholars and 14 high schoolers from Success Academy competed in the 44th Annual Harvard National Forensics Tournament, where they faced hundreds of top-ranked debaters from around the country in policy debate. The tournament concluded with 36 wins for SA’s 19 middle school teams at the high school tournament. Our high schoolers performed exceptionally well — with SA High School of the Liberal Arts senior Sekou Cisse winning the Lincoln-Douglas division and his peers senior Aida Bathily and sophomore Tajaih Robinson making it to the quarterfinals and earning a trip to the Tournament of Champions in April!

This past weekend, fifteen Success Academy scholars boarded a plane to Atlanta, Georgia, to participate in one of the most competitive track meets of the indoor track and field season: el Superencuentro Dunamis. We’re so pleased and proud of how our scholars performed, especially given their youth and relative inexperience!

This November, Imani Johnson and her classmates from SA High School of the Liberal Arts were invited to visit a home in Derbyshire, England. Step inside their journey to England and find out more about our experience at Chatsworth House!

Many people understand that you need strong scores to get into elite colleges, but they don’t realize how much our education system is flawed — that it often stacks the odds against minority students. So the top score isn’t always what’s the most important. Together, my class and I achieved an average score that was far above the rest of the country’s. It wasn’t just me who took part in this achievement — it was all of us.

As the manager of Success Academy’s debate program, I am proud that we are introducing policy debate to our scholars this year — and just as proud to launch the Success Academy Debate League, which will bring students from across the city to rigorous, Success Academy-run tournaments.

During one of the first Humanities lessons this year, the hands of my 7th grade historians shot into the air in response to my question: should statues honoring Confederate generals be removed from cities and towns across the U.S.? I’m always inspired by how much our scholars care about the world around them, and I’d been looking forward to this class discussion ever since summer T School, when I saw the topic on the history syllabus for middle school students.

One of our scholars was selected as one of just 80 participants (out of 2.400 applicants) for the prestigious Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science (MITES) program at MIT. High School of the Liberal Arts Principal Andy Malone shares two emails from the scholar recounting this truly special experience.