One nation, under 30 Rock…

By Elizabeth Chuck, msnbc.com

Even though the heavy rain forced NBC to switch the location of Education Nation early Monday, it was a bright and rewarding morning for five students from Public School 399 in Brooklyn.

“We had to get here at 6, maybe 7 o’clock!” exclaimed fifth-grader Amanda Rodriguez in between bites of breakfast after they recited the Pledge of Allegiance on a stage outside of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

The kids managed their parts in the NBC-sponsored gathering before a downpour forced much of the event to take place in various parts of the 30 Rock building.

While many public schools throughout the state of New York have been suffering from dips in test scores and attendance, PS 399 isn’t – which is one of the reasons Principal Marion Brown believes her students were selected to attend the education summit.

“This is our fourth year receiving an A rating,” Brown said. “Our progress actually went up this year; we’re considered one of the higher performing schools in the community.” As for attendance, anything below 97 percent is considered unusually low at PS 399.

With the majority of the 514 students coming from Caribbean countries and many of them having already attended a handful of schools, PS 399 puts a special emphasis on creating a family-feel, where students feel part of a community. The kindergarten through fifth-grade school also welcomes students from a homeless shelter two blocks away.

Each day starts out with an assembly where staff members announce birthdays and perfect attendance awards. Everyone sings the “Star-Spangled Banner,” the so-called black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and the school’s song, ‘The Greatest Love.”

If a student has experienced a hardship, that, too, is announced at the daily assembly.

“Last year we had a rough year,” said Performing Arts Specialist Deborah Kennedy Baker, another chaperone at the education summit. “We had a lot of deaths. The school as a whole would write letters to the child or staff person” who lost someone, and sends flowers or fruit baskets to hospitals if a family member were sick.

Today, the five 10 and 11-year-old representatives of PS 399 were all smiles. When asked what her favorite part of Education Nation has been so far, fifth-grader Allana Ragler said, “Eating and seeing all the people going on stage and talking and all the lights!”, which pretty much encompassed everything the kids had done and seen so far today.

Being chosen to participate in such a large event was particularly meaningful to these kids because of the big emphasis their curriculum puts on learning outside of the classroom, Kennedy Baker said.

“You don’t just wake up one day as an adult and say, ‘I know what I want to do.’ In addition to academics, we know students need to be able to show their creativity." The students are exposed to a wide variety of programs such as tap dance, robotics-building, violin, and more.

“We want them to feel that they are safe, they’re cared for, they’re nurtured, and most of all, they’re taught academics, the arts, and basic life skills,” Baker said.

Michael Johnson, one of two assistant principals at PS 399, has been with the school for three years.

“It’s above and beyond all the other schools I’ve worked at, and a lot of that has to do with the leadership of [Principal] Brown and her bringing the arts into the school,” he said.

As the kids finished their breakfasts, fifth-grader Akele Rodney was disappointed their field trip was over. “We gotta go back to school after this,” he said. But with some dance classes and rehearsals for their holiday show on today’s schedule, going back to PS 399 doesn’t sound so bad.