September 26, 2023

Dear Families,

This Wednesday, September 27, from 6:00 to 7:30, we have our curriculum night. 

Families and staff begin curriculum night in the auditorium.  Then, everyone goes up to their child’s classroom, where teachers talk about goals for learning in the year ahead.

On curriculum night, we do not provide childcare. 

Please come Wednesday evening to hear more from your child’s teachers.

Special Letter about CPE’s Anniversary

The attached letter is a treat.  Deborah Meier, the very first director of Central Park East, is writing to you.

Our school is now 49 years old.  Our fiftieth anniversary will celebrate education history.

Back in 1974, a small group of teachers created a school unlike any other.  In those days, progressive education existed mostly in private schools, for children whose families could pay.  Central Park East pioneered having this powerful thinking, learning, and creating for children in public school.  Researchers studied CPE and the results students achieved.  Today, most more progressive public schools, most of which were inspired by CPE.

Starting this winter, the Progressive Education Network of New York (PENNY) will celebrate 1974 as the year progressive education was re-born.  School visits and special events will happen throughout the year.  And our community will celebrate, too. 

Deborah Meier was the founding director of Central Park East and several spinoff schools, including the high school that shares our building.  She has authored or co-authored nine books on education.  Deborah’s work at CPE made her the first-ever teacher or principal to win the MacArthur Foundation’s ‘genius’ grant.  But to hundreds of CPE graduates, Debbie is the principal who led the school that changed their lives. 

Now in her nineties, Debbie is still passionate about the school she led, still buzzing with ideas, and still writing.  Turn the page.  She’s writing to you.

Letter from Deborah Meier

Dear CPE Community,

Who would have thought that I would be writing CPE Notes after almost forty years have passed since I moved from being its first Director to opening our secondary school? Did I ever imagine that after all these years (almost 50) CPE would be as present in my mind and heart as it was in the fall of 1974 when we opened our doors for the first time?  I wonder if I even thought that CPE still would be thriving 50 years later.

So, I was very delighted when Gabriel called me to talk about how I would like the coming of its 50th year to be acknowledged and celebrated. As we spoke, I could feel Gabriel’s sense of pride at being the current Director/Principal and how much he wanted to honor its history and journey throughout these years as well as make visible how the original spirit and intention of the school is expressed in the work of the children and adults now.

We put our heads together, after consulting with past CPE Directors, and developed a concept for what would be a fitting and fun event that would honor past and present traditions. We decided to name the event WE STILL KNOW WHY WE’RE HERE, a variation on the title of the film, WE KNOW WHY WE’RE HERE, which was made of a CPE classroom in 1978. We thought that the weekend of the 2024 FALL FESTIVAL would be a wonderful time to celebrate the founding of CPE and the hundreds of children who have graced our classrooms throughout the years.

The festivities will begin on the Friday, October 18, 2024, the day before the Fall Festival and will include visits to the school by alumni and guests during the day to see classrooms and displays of student and adult work. Then we will move to a more formal gathering at one on our local museums for the evening program which will include a registration and reception, a program we have named The GRADUATES SPEAK, borrowing from our graduation tradition, followed by a catered dinner with tables arranged by decade for alumni and staff and families.

The two days will bring forth and honor the founding and history of the school, the district and the East Harlem community and make visible the enduring elements and iterations of the founding values of the school over 50 years. The thread that will weave the years together is the graduates’ testimony of their experience at the school and how they have drawn on that to inform and shape their lives. This locates the children who were and still are at the school at the center of the school’s thinking and work - the school’s reason for being.

The dual location of the school and the museum will honor the school’s continuing relationship with the museum and offer the opportunity for those who attend the events to walk back and forth between the locations as well as visit the Conservancy Gardens which were often used for All School Sings. 

Artifacts spanning the last five decades and the works of children and staff, parents and community members who participated in the forming and sustaining of the school will be displayed around in the CPE hallways, classrooms and common spaces and spaces provided by the museum.

And… the next day the annual CPE Fall Festival planned and presented by all the current children, staff and families will return in the school yard.  This one will likely have special meaning and be particularly festive and memorable.

As Gabriel and I imagined the weekend, we realized that we needed support to carry out these elaborate plans. We have enlisted the services of Kathleen Ruen, a former CPE teacher and parent. Kathleen will work with a task force of alumni to make the Friday evening event possible. She has been part of our recent conversations and will begin the work in the fall of 2023.

We are very excited about these plans and look forward to a wonderful event that will demonstrate what is possible when a group of people come together to enact their beliefs and values to work toward a democratic and fully participatory society and to show everyone that we do know why we’re here.
Thank you for all you do to keep our school and dream alive.

Love,

Debbie