Welcome to School District 15

Our District 15 Office is temporarily closed due to the current pandemic.  If you need to reach us by phone please call 201-731-6507.  You may also email us at NYCDOED15@gmail.com

·  Weekly Testing: All schools will have 20% of students and staff randomly tested on a weekly basis.

·  Student Consent: All students in grades 1 and higher are required to provide consent for testing by their first scheduled in-person learning day. Families can submit consent using NYCSA or this updated paper form.  Students who do not submit consent will be transitioned to remote only learning.

Schools Chancellor Carranza launched Parent University, a new online platform that offers a centralized catalog of courses, life events, and activities to help connect with families and support students.

Families can visit Parent University at https://parentu.schools.nyc/

Kamala D. Harris is the first female vice president of the United States. After attending Howard University and the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law, Kamala Harris embarked on a rise through the California legal system, emerging as state attorney general in 2010.  Following the November 2016 elections, Harris became just the second African American woman and the first South Asian American to win a seat in the U.S. Senate.  In August 2020, Joe Biden announced Harris as vice presidential running mate.   On November 7, 2020, four days after election day, Biden was declared as the 46th president-elect after winning Pennsylvania, making Harris the first female vice president and first Black person and Asian American to hold the position.That evening, a beaming Harris took the stage at a victory rally in Wilmington, Delaware, her suffragette white pantsuit a nod to the efforts of her predecessors.

Learn more: https://www.biography.com/political-figure/kamala-harris

A member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), Pauli Murray worked to end segregation on public transport. In 1940, she was arrested and imprisoned for refusing to sit at the back of a bus in Richmond, Virginia. In 1941, Murray enrolled at the law school at Howard University with the intention of becoming a civil rights lawyer. The following year she joined George Houser, James Farmer, and Bayard Rustin to form the nonviolence-focused Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). President John F. Kennedy appointed her to the Committee on Civil and Political Rights as a part of his Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. Murray joined Betty Friedan and others to found the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. In 1973, following the death of her longtime partner Irene Barlow, Murray decided to become a candidate for ordination at General Theological Seminary. In 1977, Pauli Murray became the first African American woman in the US to become an Episcopal priest after the church changed its policy. 

Learn more: https://www.paulimurraycenter.com/who-is-pauli 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a U.S. Supreme Court justice, the second woman to be appointed to the position. Ginsburg graduated from Columbia Law School, going on to become a staunch courtroom advocate for the fair treatment of women and working with the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. She was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1980 and appointed to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993.As a judge, Ginsburg favored caution, moderation and restraint. She was considered part of the Supreme Court's moderate-liberal bloc presenting a strong voice in favor of gender equality, the rights of workers and the separation of church and state. In 1996 Ginsburg wrote the Supreme Court's landmark decision in United States v. Virginia, which held that the state-supported Virginia Military Institute could not refuse to admit women. In 1999 she won the American Bar Association's Thurgood Marshall Award for her contributions to gender equality and civil rights.

Learn more: https://www.biography.com/law-figure/ruth-bader-ginsburg 

Las Hermanas Mirabal (the Mirabal Sisters) are 3 women who followed their convictions with bravery and selflessness to fight for what they believed. Fighting against the Dominican Republic dictators’ rule they felt was wrong. Three of them – Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa – gave their lives for their cause when some henchmen, following the orders of Dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, killed them savagely. The four sisters and the group they were involved in were a threat to this commanding dictator because they were involved with plotting to overthrow Trujillos’ cruel, ruthless and fascist government. The remaining sister, Dedé, preserved their memories until her death in 2014. After the transition to democracy in the late 1970’s, las Mariposas (the Butterflies) as Dominicans call the sisters, became symbols of both democratic and feminist resistance.

Learn more: https://www.colonialzone-dr.com/hermanas-mirabal/ 

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani education advocate who, at the age of 17 in 2014, became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize after surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban. Yousafzai became an advocate for girls' education when she herself was still a child, which resulted in the Taliban issuing a death threat against her. On October 9, 2012, a gunman shot Yousafzai when she was traveling home from school. She survived and has continued to speak out on the importance of education. Nine months after being shot by the Taliban, Yousafzai gave a speech at the United Nations on her 16th birthday in 2013. Yousafzai highlighted her focus on education and women's rights, urging world leaders to change their policies. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban is an autobiography by Yousafzai released in October 2013. It became an international bestseller.

Learn more: https://www.biography.com/activist/malala-yousafzai 

Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rican actress and PEGOT winner who broke new ground for Latinos in entertainment. Rita Moreno is best known as Anita in West Side Story in 1961, a role that earned her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, making her the first Latina actress to win the honor. Moreno also appeared on the children's shows Sesame Street and The Electric Company and is one of only 11 people to have received the four major entertainment honors — Emmy, Oscar, Tony and Grammy awards (EGOT).  In 2019,  she added another letter to her list of accolades when she was honored with a Peabody Career Achievement Award, making her the first Latino to receive the award and only second person ever. With the award, she became a PEGOT, an honor only held by two other people. Today, she continues to act in feature films, make guest appearances on television, and sing and perform in theatrical productions.

Learn more: https://www.biography.com/actor/rita-moreno