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Respect for All (RFA) Week is February 10–14, 2025, when City schools celebrate the diversity of our student body and staff members while promoting respect and understanding through theme-based activities and lessons. If you want to join in on the celebration and need some ideas, consider some of the following activities!
Monday, February 10: Celebrating Kindness/Be an Ally
Celebrate kindness by wearing red and pink.
Twin with a classmate or faculty member. Teachers can pair up students (randomly) to dress alike. Faculty can do the same! Take photos and post them around the school.
Start a class gratitude session. Talk about a moment when someone at the school made a kind gesture or showed respect towards you. A small moment can have a large impact!
Design plain white T-shirts with positive messages and wear them later in the week.
Tuesday, February 11: Anti-Bullying/Cyberbullying
Orange is commonly associated with safety and is a good color choice to wear to highlight anti-bullying/cyberbullying.
Know your rights! Start the day by reading the Respect for All FAQ and other resources available. Recognize if you’ve ever been bullied and what you can do to get help. Also, realize if you’ve ever exhibited bullying behavior yourself.
Decorate your school doors, walls, and halls. Create positive and uplifting artwork to display throughout the school's public areas.
Student role-play in interactive bullying scenarios—what would you do?
Pause before you post—what you write online will stay online forever. Think if you’re hurting someone's feelings or want to be known for your post when you apply for higher education, interview for a job, etc. in the future. What you do today matters to your future self.
Wednesday, February 12: Respect for Diversity, Disability, Religious Acceptance and Racial Diversity
Showcase student and faculty diversity by
wearing your cultural outfits
holding presentations with fun facts about your life
having a potluck—bring and eat your ethnic cuisines to celebrate the school's diverse makeup and share recipes
Research the demographics of the City and NYCPS students, and discover how you’re part of one of the most diverse cities in the world.
Learn about inaccessibility and how it impacts our friends with disabilities. Can you identify ways your community is inaccessible such as a lack of wheelchair ramps and elevators at your school, subway station and more areas?
Do a lesson on screen readers. Make your online content and printed materials, such as flyers and posters, easily readable by all!
Thursday, February 13: Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and LGBTQ Pride and Acceptance
Wear the rainbow colors of the LGBTQ+ flag to honor gender identity, sexual orientation, and LGBTQ pride and acceptance. Check out other pride flags for outfit color inspiration as well!
Celebrate advocates for the LGBTQ+ community from throughout history and up to the present day. You can learn about history-making individuals with the “Hidden Voices: LGBTQ+ Stories in United States History” profiles. Like Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and Ellen DeGeneres coming out on her eponymous show in 1997, what moments in pop culture stand out to you?
Decorate your classroom doors as colorfully as possible. Make your entryway to learning open to all students.
Friday, February 14: National No One Eats Alone Day
Teachers pair up (randomly or not) two students to each lunch together and provide some fun questions for them to discuss. Using their answers, each student can create a friendship bracelet for their lunch buddy.
Speed dating, friendship edition: Talk to someone for three minutes and move on to the next person. Use guided questions and recap at the end of the session.
Write a heartfelt note to your school custodians, cafeteria staff, school safety agents, and school nurse expressing your appreciation for them. This simple act can brighten someone's day.
Let us know what you think about NYC's public schools by completing the 2025 NYC School Survey! Learn more about this year's Survey, and submit your answers by April 4, 2025!
February is a great time for NYC students to begin securing outstanding learning and earning opportunities for the rest of the school year and beyond, including scholarships, grants, free classes, and even paid jobs. See what's available for NYC public schools students this month, and register/apply for them today!
Take a look and see what's in store for NYC Public Schools in February 2025. Key dates and celebrations this month include Climate Action Day, Respect for All Week, Midwinter Recess, our monthlong celebration of Black History Month, and the last days to submit applications for this year's CEC elections and 3-K/Pre-K admissions.
The 2025 Community and Citywide Education Council Election season has begun! If you are a parent or legal guardian interested in shaping education policies and priorities in New York City and in your community, you can apply to run for a seat on your education council until February 16.
As teens start to think about next steps, apply for financial aid for college, and brush up their resumes in preparation for entering the workforce, NYC's public libraries are here to provide support and clear information.
From January 15, 2025 until February 28, 2025, NYC families with children born in 2022 can apply to 3-K programs and children born in 2021 can apply to Pre-K programs for the 2025–26 school year. Learn more about this year's admissions processes, including suggested tips and tools that you can use to discover and select programs, and submit your application!
With winter in full swing, learn more about the resources available to you and your family that can help boost your physical and mental health all season long.
In celebration of Black History Month, we’re sharing the story of Victor Hugo Green, a postal worker from Harlem who created the “Negro Motorist/Travelers' Green Book”, an annual travel and vacation guide published from 1936–1967. The "Green Book" helped readers identify and travel to businesses that accepted Black customers back during an era where legalized segregation between the races was the norm.
Wednesday, February 5 is our next Climate Action Day! This month, the Climate Action Day theme is energy, so students will be participating in activities and lessons focused on reducing their energy use and switching to renewable sources of power in our communities.
We encourage families to join in on the fun and learning at home with these books for readers of all ages, which showcase the importance of climate action and sustainability practices on both a local and global level. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!
Early Readers (3K–Grade 2)
Iqbal and His Ingenious Idea: How a Science Project Helps One Family and the Planet, by Elizabeth Suneby; illustrated by Rebecca Green
Our Green City, by Tanya Lloyd Kyi; illustrated by Colleen Larmour
Solar Story: How One Community Lives Alongside the World’s Biggest Solar Plant, by Allan Drummond
Elementary (Grades 3–5)
Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth, by Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm
Earth Hour: A Lights-Out Event for Our Planet, by Nanette Heffernan; illustrated by Bao Luu
Planet Power: Explore the World’s Renewable Energy, by Stacy P. Clark; illustrated by Annalisa Beghelli
Middle School (Grades 6–8)
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Young Readers Edition, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
Forest World, by Margarita Engle
Nowhere Better than Here, by Sarah Guillory
Upper Grades (Grades 9–12)
Black Gold: The Story of Oil in Our Lives, by Albert Martin
Hothouse Earth: The Climate Crisis and the Importance of Carbon Neutrality, by Stephanie Sammartino McPherson
The Twenty-One: The True Story of the Youth Who Sued the US Government Over Climate Change, by Elizabeth Rusch
You can find these books and many more great reads on Sora, our Citywide Digital Library, which provides free access to thousands of digital e-books and audiobooks for our students. You can also find even more great recommendations in the Climate Climate Action Day collection. Day collection.
At the start of 2025, we’re looking back at one of our favorite memories from 2024: the first Climate Action Day of the 2024–25 school year! With a focus on reducing waste in their schools, students across the City participated in a variety of fun and educational activities, and helped clean up their schools and communities in the process.
The theme of our first Climate Action Day of the school year 2024 was waste! In recognition, schools throughout NYC cleaned up their communities in numerous ways. Students in Staten Island kicked off their plans by bringing in reusable water bottles. Expand Image
Students and teachers at P.S. 069 Jackson Heights in Queens conducted a “waste audit!” A waste audit helps schools identify ways to reduce the amount of waste going to landfills and increase the amount that is being recycled or composted.
Lyons Community School students in Brooklyn venture outside and clean up litter around their school building. Removing litter bit by bit can go a long way towards improving the environment in your community! Expand Image
How creative can you get? Ask Tottenville High School students in Staten Island! They turn old t-shirts into tote bags. A great recycling project—and now they can be used to avoid plastic bags when shopping! Expand Image
P.S. 024 Andrew Jackson take their waste auditing task seriously! Meet the Green Team surveying the cafeteria for trash and recyclables.
Students at The Barbara Esselborn School in Staten Island also took part in the Climate Action Day: Waste mission by bringing their own reusable water bottles. One small act can make a big impact on our planet! Great job, kids! Expand Image
Community and Citywide Education Councils (CCECs): Your Community, Your Voice
Education councils help shape policies and priorities for NYC Public Schools. Learn all about New York City's Community and Citywide Education Councils, what they do, and how you can get involved.
Deadline for the G&T Application (Grades 1–4) Extended to May 10
If your child is entering first, second, third, or fourth grade in the 2024–2025 school year and is eligible for New York City's Gifted and Talented (G&T) programs based on their current grades, you should have received a mailed letter notifying you of their eligibility. If you’re interested in applying, you now have more time to submit your application online through MySchools—until Friday, May 10, 2024!
Since exploring G&T programs and choosing up to 12 options for your child can be overwhelming, we’re here to help! Here are our recommended resources for you to use during the application process—take a look!
Sign up to receive emails with the latest alerts, updates, and reminders about NYC Public Schools, including admissions events. Go to our Sign Up page now.
Visit our G&T page for the most up-to-date, detailed information about G&T admissions. Keep in mind that the G&T admissions process has different requirements than others, therefore you should review the webpage thoroughly.
Read the 2024 NYC Public Schools Admissions Guide at the bottom of the webpage. Available in 10 languages, this book provides an overview of NYC's public school admissions processes and resources for all NYC public schools.
Use MySchools as your main tool for exploring and applying to G&T programs. After you create a MySchools account and log in, you can explore elementary schools and learn about the two types of programs:
District programs give admissions priority to students who live in a particular district and are offered beginning in kindergarten and ending in fifth grade.
Citywide G&T programs accept students from all boroughs and give no admissions priority to any district of residence. Current G&T students who are eligible can apply to citywide.
Find and register for in-person and virtual events listed in the MySchools events calendar, including open houses and information sessions. You can also visit schools’ and programs’ websites or contact programs directly to learn about resources or events for prospective families.
Finalize your choices and submit your child’s application! If you need to make changes afterward, you have until 11:59 PM on Friday, May 3, 2024 to update and submit again. Please note that only your last and final application will be used. Cue the confetti (literally, you’ll see this once you hit the “Send” button!).
We hope these tools and suggestions make applying to G&T a smooth process for you and your family. Don’t wait, apply today!
On behalf of NYC Public Schools, we wish all our families the best of luck during this exciting time!
Throughout any stage of New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) application processes for 3-K, Pre-K, Kindergarten, middle school, high school, and Gifted and Talented (G&T) for grades 1, 2, 3, and 4, you can use MySchools.nyc—learn how to today!
In the event that weather conditions or other emergencies require the temporary closure of public school buildings, students will participate in remote learning at home. Make sure your family is ready with these tips and answers to frequently asked questions.
NYC Reads is reshaping the way that we teach our students to read, but the learning doesn't have to stop at the classroom door! Whether it's a family book club or a phonics-based 20 questions game, you can bring the "science of reading" home by using any of our helpful resources that will help your children continue to develop their literacy skills, like:
