By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — A new private school that emphasizes creativity is finalizing plans to move to lower Manhattan this fall.
Members of the alternative theater troupe Blue Man Group founded the Blue School five years ago to give their kids the hands-on education they couldn’t find anywhere else, and the school has bounced to several locations since then.
But this fall, the school plans to open its first permanent home in the former Seamen’s Church Institute building at 241 Water St.
"To have found our permanent home … is just a miracle for us," said Matt Goldman, co-founder of both the school and the theater group, at a Community Board 1 meeting Tuesday. "We could not be happier to be part of this community."
Downtown is starved for elementary seats, which makes the new nonprofit private school a welcome neighbor, local residents said. Tuition at the Blue School runs about $28,500 per year, but the school offers a handful of scholarships and hopes to add more soon, Goldman said.
To renovate the 33,000-square-foot Seamen’s Church Institute space, the Blue School recently hired architect David Rockwell, who built the new Imagination Playground nearby.
"It was just a match made in heaven," said Simon Bogigian, operations manager for the Blue Man Group.
The school plans to make frequent trips to Rockwell’s playground, so the kids can play with the movable pieces and interactive features Rockwell designed.
At the 241 Water St. building, the school plans to keep the original ship-themed architecture in place as much as possible, Goldman said. Changes include adding more bathrooms, dividing larger spaces into classrooms and converting the former chapel into a multipurpose gym, with a half basketball court and a climbing wall.
The school will house about 200 children from 2-year-olds through third graders next fall and will ultimately grow to a 320-student preschool and elementary school, Goldman said.
The curriculum includes traditional subjects like reading and math, but they are woven together with other skills that often receive less attention at public schools, Goldman said.
"Creativity gets sewn into everything we do," Goldman said. "Social/emotional learning gets sewn into everything we do."
The small class size — between 16 and 20 children — helps facilitate the school’s individualized approach, Goldman said.
The school has received a charter from New York State and has an advisory board that includes Sir Ken Robinson, an international expert in creativity in education and human resources.
Applications for this fall have already closed and will reopen in the fall for the 2012 school year.
