Intermediate School 318

Coordinates: 40°42′12″N 73°56′54″W / 40.70344°N 73.94842°W

Intermediate School 318 (IS 318)
The Eugenio Maria de Hostos School
Address
Intermediate School 318 (IS 318)

Location in New York City

101 Walton Street
Williamsburg
Brooklyn
New York City, New York, 11206
Information
School type public junior high school
School district 14[1]
Principal Leander Windley[1]
Asst. Principal John Galvin[2]
Faculty 134
Grades 6th–8th
Enrollment 1,623 (2014)[1]
Website www.is318.com

Intermediate School 318 (IS 318; also known as the Eugenio Maria de Hostos School) is a public inner-city junior high school at 101 Walton Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York City.[3][4][5][6] Most of the school's 1,623 students, who are sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders, are from Williamsburg.[1][4][7] The school has 134 teachers.[5]

Over 70% of the students come from families whose income is below the poverty line. Over 90% of the students are of Latino, Black, or Asian/Pacific descent.

The school's chess program has been called the best middle-school program in the United States, and in 2012 the school's team became the first middle school team to win the United States Chess Federation national high school championship. The school's team was followed and featured in a 2012 documentary film entitled Brooklyn Castle.

Student demographics

The student poverty rate is over 70%.[3] The school is in the Federal Title I Program, which gives money to schools who have many students from low-income families.[3]

Two thirds of the students are Hispanic. Over 90% of the students are of Latino, Black, or Asian/Pacific descent.[3][8]

Chess program

Author Paul Tough wrote in How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (2012):

the chess program in the Intermediate School 318 is the best middle-school program in the United States, bar none. In fact, it is almost certainly the best scholastic chess program in the country at any grade level.[3]

About half the school's students take chess classes.[9] Elizabeth Spiegel was hired a part-time chess tutor in 1999 and as the team's full-time chess teacher in 2007, and oversees its 80-member chess team as chess coach.[6][10][11] She herself was one of the top 30 female chess players in the United States in 2013.[6]

In 2009, the team won the national sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade titles against more than 100 schools that participated in the United States Chess Federation's National Scholastic K-12 Championship in Florida.[12]

In 2011, as the school's team faced budget cuts, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Cogeneration Plant donated $25,000 to the school's chess program.[9][13]

By 2012, it had won at least two dozen national championships since 2000, according to one of its coaches, and two of its members, both 13 years of age, were rated as chess masters.[9]

Team member Rochelle Ballantyne, who was raised by a single mom from Trinidad and is aiming to become the first African-American woman to become a chess master, said: "We were meant to break stereotypes. Chess isn’t something people are good at because of the color of their skin. We just really work very hard at it."[11] Team member Justus Williams became the youngest-ever African-American "National Master", at the age of 12.[6][14] Team member Isaac Barayev, 2012 New York City junior high school chess champion, is the grandson of émigrés from the former Soviet Union.[7]

In 2012, its team became the first middle school team to win the United States Chess Federation national high school championship since the competition started in 1969, beating students four years older.[4][10][11][15] A total of 318 teams competed in the championship.[14] Along the way, it defeated several chess teams including New York's Stuyvesant High School and Edward R. Murrow High School.[9] 87% of the team members came from homes with incomes below the federal poverty line.[16][17]

In 2013, the team was struggling to raise sufficient money to continue to pay for the after-school classes and travel that allow it to continue to compete.[18]

The school's chess team was followed and featured in a 2012 documentary film entitled Brooklyn Castle.[5] The film won the audience award at the 2012 South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas.[9]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "I.S. 318 Eugenio Maria De Hostos", nyc.gov
  2. ↑ "(14K318) Eugenio Maria De Hostos – Administration". IS318. April 18, 2012. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Robert R. Desjarlais (2011). Counterplay: An Anthropologist at the Chessboard. University of California Press. p. .
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Anne Barnard and Dylan Loeb McClain (April 17, 2012), "At a Brooklyn School, the Cool Crowd Pushes the King Around", The New York Times
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "'Brooklyn Castle' in Context: Intermediate School 318 (I.S. 318) | Brooklyn Castle". PBS. October 7, 2013. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Celia Walden (March 22, 2013). "Mini masters: the hard-up Brooklyn school producing chess champions". Telegraph. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Steve Lipman (April 24, 2012). "'I Like To Attack'". The Jewish Week. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
  8. ↑ Michael Weinreb (2007). Game of Kings: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top High School Chess Team. Penguin. p. .
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Meyer, Theodoric (April 16, 2012). "Middle School Chess Team Wins National High School Championship". WNYC. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Reddy, Sumathi (April 19, 2012). "I.S. 318 Champion Chess Team: A School Where Chess Is King". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Nicholas D. Kristof (January 30, 2013), "Meet the Champs", The New York Times
  12. ↑ "Chess champions". Brooklyn Daily. January 14, 2009. Retrieved June 13, 2014.
  13. ↑ Mark Morales (December 2, 2011). "Brooklyn power company donates $25,000 to needy IS 318 chess team". NY Daily News. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 ""Brooklyn Castle" and I.S. 318". Chess.com. Retrieved June 13, 2014.
  15. ↑ "Williamsburg middle school wins national high school chess championship". NY Daily News. April 18, 2012. Retrieved June 13, 2014.
  16. ↑ Jen Chung (April 18, 2012). "Brooklyn Middle School Chess Team I.S. 318 Easily Pwns High Schoolers". Gothamist. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
  17. ↑ "Take Action Now!". Brooklyncastle.com. Retrieved 24 June 2014.
  18. ↑ Mark Morales (June 6, 2013). "Looming city budget cuts leave famed Williamsburg middle school chess team on the chopping block". NY Daily News. Retrieved June 12, 2014.

External links