East Harlem School To Get MLK Day Makeover After Attendance Wins

HARLEM, NY — Mosaic Preparatory Academy in East Harlem has bucked the trend when it comes to attendance and chronic absenteeism.

And on Martin Luther King Day, the school is hosting a day of service makeover to celebrate with a beautification project, where volunteers will paint a vibrant mural, walls and planters where students can grow flowers.

In 2023, nearly 13.6 million students were chronically absent nationwide, meaning they missed more than 10 percent of all school days — twice as high as the previous year.

For New Yorkers, at least 36 percent of public school students were chronically absent in 2022-2023, according to Education Department numbers.

Although better than the year before, city schools are still struggling to combat the issue, which had been persistent since the early COVID-19 lockdowns.

But at Mosaic Preparatory Academy on East 111th Street and Park Avenue, which serves students from Pre-k to Fifth Grade, they flipped the script.

And Mosaic is not a typical school.

In 2021, about a third of their students lived in city shelters. Now they say 30 percent of the student body is made up of new migrants, many of whom also live in emergency family shelters.

By teaming up with City Year New York and AmeriCorps student success coaches, the school actually raised the average daily attendance by 10 percent for their more than 400 students — to 85%.

The school's success, they say, is due to the use of several strategies highlighting attendance, including monthly attendance celebrations and getting parents to better understand their role in helping their kids show up through family breakfasts at the school.

Mosaic has received attention in the past for their inventive ways to help students keep focused.

In 2021, the now-retired Principal, Dr. Lisette Caesar, brought a book vending machine where students could redeem tokens awarded for good behavior to get out a new book.

The event kicks off at 9:15 a.m. at 141 East 111th St., and will feature keynote speakers like Quamid Francis, the Executive Director of City Year New York, Mosaic Preparatory Academy's Principal Daliz Vasquez, and Lieutenant Gov. Antonio Delgado.