Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools (LAB) is an urban public school in downtown Brooklyn. Schools like ours, which operate in densely built environments with limited points of entry and classroom space, will face unique challenges with new requirements for operations and facilities.

 

LAB has partnered with Urban Projects Collaborative (UPC) and five design firms — Gensler, PBDW, PSF Projects, SITU, and WXY; together they have begun to design a Back to School Facilities Tool Kit with ideas for addressing health, safety, and the requirement for social distancing and embeds equity at the core.

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First and foremost, our reopening plan will align with the recommendations of The American Federation of Teachers’ (AFT), which include: 

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1. Maintaining physical distancing. 

2. Putting the infrastructure and resources in place to test, trace, and isolate new cases.

3. Deploying the public health tools that prevent the virus’ spread and aligning them with education strategies that meet the needs of students.

4. ​Involving workers, unions, parents, and communities in all planning. 

5. Investing in recovery. 

 

Beyond meeting these requirements, we have set three additional goals for our reopening toolkit. It must be:

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1. Applicable to all students, especially students with disabilities. 

2. Practical and easy to adapt to ever-changing circumstances.

3. Modifiable for use by other schools in other contexts.

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We want to ensure that the plan we create meets the needs of our diverse student population and staff. 

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