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Crown Heights Principal's Vision for P.S. 316: 'Provide Everything'

 Principal Olga Maluf, at right with a student, has led the P.S. 316 elementary school in Crown Heights for five years. At left, students take a string instrument lesson at the school.
Principal Olga Maluf, at right with a student, has led the P.S. 316 elementary school in Crown Heights for five years. At left, students take a string instrument lesson at the school.
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Composite: DNAinfo/Rachel Holliday Smith; P.S. 316

CROWN HEIGHTS — There are a lot of options for students at P.S. 316 in Brooklyn: steel drum lessons, Shakespearean theater, digging around in the school’s garden, learning coding or playing with a trained aquatic turtle named Francis Bacon who lives in one of the school’s science classrooms.

In fact, there are so many choices for students at the Elijah Stroud school in Crown Heights that when asked how running the school is challenging, Principal Olga Maluf answered immediately: “Logistics.”

“When you have so many children doing so many things, you need adult supervision. You need to make sure that everyone is where they should be,” she said.

But Maluf and her staff make it work — and, in fact, have been making it work very well since she took over as principal in 2011. Currently, the school has an “A” grade and is ranked in the top 20th percentile for math and English, according to the most recent Department of Education data; but just five years ago, the school had a “C” grade and ranked in the bottom 25th percentile.

Maluf, a 28-year education veteran who has taught in all five boroughs, attributes that improvement to hard work and a teaching staff that “really believe in the vision.”

“We try many different programs, many different strategies and we try to create in children a sense of agency — that this is their school, that this is their environment,” she said.

An aquatic turtle named after the inventor of the scientific method, Francis Bacon, lives in a science classroom at P.S. 316 and has been trained to follow a finger across the glass of his aquarium. (Photo credit: DNAinfo/Rachel Holliday Smith)

The varied programming at the school is reflected on its walls, decorated with artwork from the “Visual Thinking Strategies” program (which aims to get students to think critically about famous artwork) or “Merit Badges” given to students for atypical displays of valuable behaviors (two recent examples: “persistence” and “making good choices”).

P.S. 316’s curriculum is as varied as its extracurriculars. The school offers hands-on science classes, musical instruction, technology-based math lessons and a “brain-training program” called “C8 Activate” that assesses students in eight cognitive skill areas (“working memory,” for example, or “pattern recognition”) and tailors a specific program for each child.

“It’s not just academic,” Maluf said of the school’s curriculum goals. “It’s also resilience. It’s also the arts. It’s also theater. It’s also poise. It’s also inquiry. It’s also the excitement of learning something new.”

The school also offers a gifted and talented track from kindergarten through second grade (it will expand to third grade next year, she said) and special educational support for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder through the ASD Nest program, a collaboration between the DOE and New York University. P.S. 316 also has a full-time guidance counselor, social worker and, for the “neediest children” and their families, an on-site therapeutic psychologist, Maluf said.

“My vision has always been to provide everything and anything that any other school identifies as the ideal here at this school, because these children deserve it,” she said.

In her next five years at the school, she is aiming to bring yet more programs and amenities to P.S. 316, with plans percolating for a dual language program, more coding classes and a big upgrade: a $5 million roof garden, modeled after one opened recently at a Manhattan public school.

“I don't see why we can’t have that,” she said. “What’s good for Manhattan is good for Brooklyn. I just need the politicians to get behind me.”

P.S. 316 is located at 750 Classon Ave. in Crown Heights. To find out more about the school, visit ps316brooklyn.org.