Offer AP Calculus BC at Manhattan Bridges HS

Hello to you all. My name is Frank Crespo, and I am a Mathematics Teacher at Manhattan Bridges High School located in the West 50th Street Campus in New York City. This school has a lot of meaning for my professional life as it was the first and only school I have taught at since finishing grad school in 2015.

 

Manhattan Bridges HS is the dream school of pioneer Mirza Sanchez-Medina who founded the school in 2003 to serve Latinx newcomer students through a transitional bilingual program. Flashing forward almost two decades later, our school continues to serve this population, in addition to Latinx students who are English-dominant, through the Dual Language program.

 

Historically, this population of students has endured inequities regarding their access to rigorous instruction that would prepare them for college. Our school is at the forefront of dismantling the obstacles multilingual immigrant students often face when they are not linguistically supported in core-content classes.

 

One of the doors that the math department at MBHS wants to open up to our students is the opportunity to take AP Calculus BC.

 

This class culminates in a national exam that could grant students college credit for Calculus 1 and Calculus II, usually taken sequentially over two semesters in college.This opportunity would give our students who wish to pursue careers in STEM the ability to accelerate their coursework and save money in the grand scheme of funding their degree.

 

I am currently the sole Calculus teacher at our school and have been teaching AP Calculus AB to our students since 2017. In order to give students the opportunity to BC Calculus, I would need to be certified by College Board. After taking an AP Summer Institutes at an accredited institution, the certification is granted.

 

The cost of the BC Calc Summer Institute is $970. https://web.cvent.com/event/eb797cf7-4215-4922-99da-90195b7d6d04/summary

 

That link shows the details of the particular Summer Institute I seek to register for, offered by Fordham University.

The deadline to register for this Summer Institute is June 17th.

 

If my school had the funding to cover that cost, what I am asking of donors today wouldn't be necessary. Unfortunately, for this fiscal school year there was no funding that could be allocated towards covering such costs. I even asked about reimbursement as an alternative option, but was told that even that wouldn't be possible because the reimbursement cannot be processed for an order greater than $250.

 

This is why I'm going out on a limb here to try and make history for our school, bringing the first section of BC Calculus to fruition in September 2022.

 

If you can lend a hand by donating to this cause, please know that you will be making a significant impact on the future of students who are not financially privileged but who certainly are diligent and deserve this chance to accelerate their education.

 

 

 

Thank you so much for taking your time to consider these students and this fundraiser.