Out & About
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The most star-studded premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival belonged to the children and teachers of the United Federation of Teachers Elementary School, a charter school in East New York.
In September, the union opened the school and decided to document its progress on film. The result, “Climbing to the Crest,” shows children singing, reading, and counting in colorful classrooms. There are also interviews with teachers about how the school’s set-up improves upon the public schools in which they have worked previously.
The film also shows the union’s president, Randi Weingarten, leading a rally during contract negotiations; announcing the final agreement with the mayor at her side, and flying to Denver to attend a conference on charter schools, where she spoke about how the UFT and the charter school movement should work together.
Whatever impact the union, which funded the film, hopes it may have, it most certainly has given students a taste of fame.
Guests caught their first glimpse of East New York’s newest stars on the red carpet at Stuyvesant High School, the site of the premiere on Friday night (and a very fancy venue compared to the UFT Elementary School’s building). The boys wore suits and tuxedoes and the girls twirled in party dresses. Later they served as escorts for some of the B-listers at the event, including the Tribeca Film Festival’s founder, Jane Rosenthal; the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, and Senator Hillary Clinton.
During the screening, parents and friends provided near-constant applause for their stars, howling and calling out their names each time they appeared on screen. The teachers and students seemed just as excited, even though they’d already seen the film a few days before at a screening held at their school.
When the film ended, it was time for students to pose for the cameras at a reception in Stuyvesant High School’s cafeteria, which included an open bar (for grown-ups) and huge quantities of party food such as mini-hamburgers, pigs-in-a-blanket, hummus, sushi, and chocolate fondue.
While being famous is certainly a thrill, hopefully the children will see that the lasting benefit of attending the school is the quality of education they receive there.
