Washington Heights and Inwood (WHIN) Music Community Charter School is building a new facility to provide more space for the students and staff. This is a new milestone for the school since it opened six years ago.
Construction for the new 44 million dollar building is slated to be completed by August of 2025. The new location will feature a modern theater at its core, creating a gathering place for students to showcase their educational achievements. It will have state of the art classrooms to ensure students are given the best instructional opportunities while attending. The new building will have a separate cafeteria and gymnasium, outdoor space for students and staff as well as above grade security and air filtration systems.
Since its founding the school has been growing at a consistent rate and the new building is enabling the school to keep up with that growth. The staff at WHIN has plans to expand the services to teaching grades kindergarten through eight.
Once the new building is in operation, the school will take extra focus on the successes that have enabled the institution to provide high quality education services to their students. These services will then be further maximized and improved upon to bring an even higher quality of instruction to their students. This unique and progressive school model is positioning them as leaders in the field of education and music education reform.
The school’s commitment to excellence is a large factor that has enabled it to begin the opening of a new building. At the core of the school’s teaching is the El Sistema model, which is a model for social action through music. Through the model, every student receives two periods of music instruction everyday. This is accompanied by extended learning time in literacy, math, writing ,science and social studies. Students also learn social emotional learning and character building.
Through the music ensemble, students develop fundamental character skills including growth mindset, perseverance, self accountability and collaboration. The staff at the school have been very thorough in creating a culture of music creation and learning. The music program involves every student participating in choir and orchestra. Students choose the instrument they desire to play which consists of the violin, viola, cello and percussion. When the new building opens they will have enough space to offer woodwinds and brass instruments. When the students are picking an instrument their parents and staff are part of the process. This is to ensure the student makes the right choice for an instrument they are willing to commit and make a connection with.
Charlie Ortiz, Founder and Executive Director of the WHIN School, says his staff is deeply committed to the students.
“Our staff are dedicated to working together to engender our vision of creating and maintaining a joyful and rigorous school culture where students engage in authentic musical, academic, social-emotional, and character building, so that they can grow into citizen artists of the future ready to make the world a better place,” says Ortiz. “This new facility will allow us the opportunity to expand our program and become a laboratory to refine and showcase our educational model, which has been a key component in furthering the educational system in the United States.”
Media Contact:
Name: Charlie Ortiz
Email: [email protected]
