Chris Whittle, the co-founder of the private Avenues School in Chelsea – is launching a Whittle School campus in the fall of 2020 in Brooklyn. His company has leased 10 floors with 622,000 square feet of office space at 181 Livingston Street of which 400,000 will be likely used for academic purposes and 200,000 for residential space for boarding. Whittle plans to roll out a global school with 30 campuses in the world’s leading cities for ages 3 to 18.
“At the core of our beliefs is a commitment to global education with local roots. We believe in the cultivation of global experiences and perspectives, and facilitate this from the very beginning of a child’s learning journey: beginning with language immersion with our tiniest students and culminating in study abroad programs for our older students. Our emphasis on taking action in the local community is just as strong, and helps our students to develop empathy, compassion and real-world, problem-solving skills.”
Two campuses for 900 students each have opened in in Shenzhen, China, and Washington, DC, both designed by star architect Renzo Piano. Schools feature flexible workspaces, theaters, private music rooms, sports facilities, and robotics and coding labs.
According to their website, “their core academic curriculum— science, technology, engineering, math, humanities, global and local history, creative arts and design— will integrate best practices from schools around the world”. Immersive language learning will be combined with global study for all students so that they graduate with a level of written and spoken proficiency in a second language that will allow them to work and study in another culture. In New York, Mandarin will be the offered second-language choice. Find out more about their curriculum here.
Larry Weiss, former Head of School at Brooklyn Friends School will be the Head of School at the Brooklyn campus. Tuition for the Brooklyn campus will be $48,000 plus $1,500 lunch fee. The Reggio-Emilia inspired Early Learning Center will open for ages 3 (Pre-K 3) to 6 (Kindergarten) in 2020. Find out more here.
