Raise Your Hand is a series by Chalkbeat — a nonprofit news organization focused on covering local education and issues of inequity — that seeks to open up the editorial-decision making process to the public by creating community-driven stories. 

The news experiment (powered by an online platform developed by Hearken) collects education-related questions from readers and allows the public to vote on which questions they would like to see investigated by Chalkbeat reporters. Plus, the asker of the winning question is brought in to work with the reporter as the story is pursued. 

Stephanie Snyder oversaw the launch of the series in 2015 after being awarded a Knight-Cronkite Alumni Innovation Grant to cover the costs of using the technology, allowing Chalkbeat to join 50 newsrooms across the country — and abroad — that have started experimenting with the Hearken platform as a new way to engage with their audiences.

Since the project's launch, Snyder produced a variety of reader profiles, data analysis pieces and features to accompany each voter-selected question. Not only did the process allow Chalkbeat to build its base of loyal readers by involving question-askers in the reporting process and highlighting the stories of individuals who are invested in New York City education, but the longer-term pieces also brought in higher-than-average pageviews and a greater percentage of new Chalkbeat readers than is typical for the majority of our stories.

Here's a selection of winning questions and the stories that were produced to answer them.

Is there a building that houses many schools that are working particularly well together? How are the schools collaborating?

In a Bronx campus, principals say a new disparity won’t undermine their collaboration

In the Williamsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx, a thousand middle schoolers stream into the Richard R. Green campus every day. Then they divide into four similar schools, each trying to raise students’ scores while grappling with the personal challenges they bring into the building.

But when Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the start of New York City’s “Renewal” school turnaround program last fall, which promised to flood some schools with new resources, just three of the building’s four schools were included. Read more. 

What makes a charter school co-location work? Two Bronx buildings offer answers

Inside a six-story Bronx building last spring, 10 students served on a student council to dream up ways their building could be improved. The bathrooms could be better stocked, they decided, and the playground needed to be revamped.

Half of the students in the group were in the older grades at P.S. 55, an elementary school that has served the Claremont Village neighborhood since 1916. The other half attended Success Academy Bronx 2, which shares the building.

The adults in the building say the students’ cooperation largely mirrors their own. The two-school co-location has been held up as a model for years, and it’s also one that frequently surprises outsiders, since Success Academy — New York City’s largest and fastest-growing charter network — has been known for sparking backlash among schools it shares space with. Read more. 

Learn more about the reader who asked the question. 

“This was something that I really wanted to look into for the next year. I would like to see the schools that I work with be creative about what they’re doing with colocation,” said Kate Del Priore, executive director of Schools That Can NYC. “I know that schools are willing — they’re willing to share and collaborate, so I think it would maybe make sense to start with the people that are in your space. But I also know that there are variables that I’m not aware of, so I don’t want to come off as being naive.”

How do you remove a long-standing negative reputation from a school? Are there examples of schools that have successfully done this?

A day in the life of the staffer tasked with removing a Bronx building’s bad reputation

As she roams the halls of the Richard R. Green middle school campus, she picks up stray pens on the way to evaluate a classroom and returns a student’s missing notebook before talking to principals about how best to use their extra teaching time.

Tasked with overseeing four long-struggling schools in the Bronx’s District 11 in the city’s “Renewal” school turnaround program, Juanita Rodriguez is trying to ensure they make academic progress and become more welcoming places for students and families. Since three of the schools share a building in the Williamsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx, walking the halls with her offers a concentrated glimpse at the challenges the schools face from the ground up — as she is making sure a student gets to class on time one minute and meeting with city officials the next. Read more. 

How a Brooklyn school shed its old reputation and convinced new parents to give it a shot

When Deanna Sinito first landed a job at a Carroll Gardens middle school in 2007, she saw a lot of things the school needed to change — including its name.

“New Horizons School” didn’t sound like a middle school, she said. It sounded like “a rehab center.”

“It wasn’t a bad school, but it wasn’t necessarily somewhere I would send my child,” said Sinito, who became the school’s principal in 2009 and led its transformation until taking a district leadership position in August. “The academics weren’t there.”

The school, located just a few blocks south of the Gowanus Houses, is now called the Carroll Gardens School for Innovation. It has changed so dramatically in recent years that people familiar with Brooklyn’s District 15 say the school feels like a different place.

“Now it’s a school that people are asking for,” said Anita Skop, the district superintendent. “It is considered by the chancellor to be one of her hidden gems.” Read more. 

Which schools closely reflect the racial and economic diversity of NYC? Are these schools diverse because of location or specific purposes?

Do any schools’ populations mirror the city average? Just two.

It’s not quite Powerball odds, but it’s pretty rare for a school’s demographics to line up perfectly with the city average.

Still, when a reader asked us which schools closely reflect the racial and economic diversity of New York City, amid a spate of headlines addressing the city’s severe school segregation, we were up for the challenge. We analyzed nearly 1,800 district and charter schools to identify the ones that come closest to sharing the racial breakdown of the city’s overall student population.

We found just two schools that came within five percentage points of the city school system’s overall student demographics for Hispanic, black, Asian, and white students during the 2014-15 school year: P.S. 97 in the Bronx and International High School at Prospect Heights in Brooklyn. Read more. 

Learn more about the reader who asked the question. 

Mishi Faruqee is in a bind that many middle-class New York City parents find themselves in: she wants a diverse educational environment for her children, but has found that tracking down a top-rated school with a mix of students from different backgrounds is easier said than done.

Like many parents, she ultimately decided to send her son and daughter — who are in sixth grade and kindergarten, respectively — to the highest-performing schools in her district where she could nab seats. In Faruqee’s case, that meant opting out of her zoned elementary school in favor of gifted and talented programs at schools in the neighboring District 15, one of which is just blocks from her home.