Education

The Co-op City community of over 15,000 families is one of the largest lower middle-income cooperative housing communities in the country. Many of these families felt that the public schools in the Bronx were not adequately preparing their elementary school children to become productive adults in the future.

In an effort to address that need, the first program started by the Co-op City Section in 1972 was a Tutorial Program. It was originally structured so that volunteers from our section and from the community, under the direction of a certified teacher who was the Educational Director, worked for two hours each Saturday with elementary school children on their reading and math. This soon expanded to four hour sessions.

Our Education Program now serves 75 children, predominantly African-American and Hispanic, in grades 2-8. These children are taught by 7 licensed teachers under the directorship of a retired, 33 year veteran of the New York City School system. They meet each Saturday of the school year, a total of 29 sessions, for four hours. Children are taught in small groups of approximately 12 children in order to give each child individual attention.