The halls at Achievement First Ujima High School were bustling Monday as students and staff explored their new permanent school building in East New York.
For years, the public charter high school operated out of shared and temporary spaces, without its own dedicated building. The new space at 475 Euclid Ave. spans 60,180 square feet across four floors, and was specially-designed to accommodate student and teacher needs.
Achievement First Ujima Principal Nana Effah, standing in the new building, said she was still feeling “a little bit of disbelief.”
“I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude because it took an inordinate amount of work and uncertainty to get to this point, so now that we’re finally here, we can breathe,” she said.
The new school features large classrooms with plenty of natural light and additional shared spaces for clubs, sports and after-school programs. School leaders said the larger building would let students explore their interests and education more fully, even outside the classroom.
Carlosluis Perez, Dean of College and Career at Achievement First, said the old school building didn’t have a dedicated space for college and career fairs, and it was challenging for students to meet one-on-one with college representatives.
“The old building was super challenging. Coming here and seeing all the space, we finally get to see the promised land,” Perez said. “[We] are excited to just have a new home where we can finally do the programming that we had been envisioning for all of our students.”
Effah marveled at the small details in the building, like the rounded corners in the hallways and larger lockers.
“I think my kids deserve that,” she said. “I think all kids deserve to be in a space with the amenities that they need to do well.”
Perez said the old building had some larger issues, too. For three years, it didn’t have heat, he said, and the school sometimes had to shift to remote learning because temperatures were too low.
“I do remember in my previous winters having to work at Ujima with a coat on,” he said.
Students said the old building was “very crowded.”
“The hallways were very cramped,” said Eliana Crisostomo, a “founding senior” who has been at the school since it opened in 2021. “Especially during transition time, when everyone was in the hallway, it was very hard to reach your next class. We have more space to move.”
Some students didn’t have their own lockers in the old building, said founding senior Kaiden Green, and had to carry their books around all day.
When Achievement First Ujima first opened, the first class had the building all to themselves, said founding senior Jovanna Rosario.
“I loved that. But as more grades started coming in, I realized we needed to expand our space to allow for more student creativity,” she said. “It feels nice to see the underclassmen enjoying the new building. I am enjoying the new building as a senior, but the underclassmen will be here longer. It is nice seeing them adapt.”
The students were also excited about the new shared spaces. Crisostomo was particularly looking forward to using the new student workspace.
“At our old school, we didn’t have that,” she said. “It is a step up to have our own space to study. It is a new way to interact with people.”
Rosario, meanwhile, was excited about having more space for the school’s dance company.
“We have an actual dance space now,” she said. “It feels premium.”
