This winter, the halls of the Bronx Aerospace Academy, a small military-themed high school on Gun Hill Road, look fresh and new thanks to a nonprofit group that is making it their mission to spruce up the city’s drab and dilapidated public school buildings.
Publicolor, founded in 1996 by industrial designer Ruth Lande Shuman, aims to engage at-risk students with their learning envrinoment by getting them to paint their schoolhallways, classrooms and other facilities.
Each semester Publicolor works with students to paint a handful of schools in New York City. Last fall, Publicolor brought new color to three Bronx schools: Bronx Aerospace, Philip Sousa Middle School and PS 69.
Following these colorful transformations, schools say they see tangible changes that go beyond the aesthetic, including an enhanced academic experience, increased teacher attendance, an overall better sense of school community, increased feelings of safety and improved perceptions of at-risk students who participate.
This semester, Publicolor is helping students paint at PS 112, Bronxwood Elementary.
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.