![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Rock_2-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
CB 14\u2019s Youth Services\/Education Committee convened at the Rockaway YMCA to discuss the ROCK School project proposal. Photo by Gabriela Flores<\/p>\n
A team of Rockaway mothers are advocating for a new elementary school in the Edgemere-Arverne area that will bring children hands-on environmental lessons with the peninsula\u2019s surrounding Atlantic Ocean and Jamaica Bay as an extension of their classroom.\n<\/p>\n
ROCK School is a project proposal that its designers say will bring young students the emotional and learning support they need tuition-free.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking to integrate our whole ecosystem here \u2013 that is so rare and wonderful\u2013 into a school system,\u201d said Corinne Sommer, an engineer and Rockaway local who first conceived the idea for ROCK School.\n<\/p>\n
ROCK School stands for \u201cRespecting Oceans, Culture and Knowledge.\u201d Its goals include outdoor learning, Spanish-English programing, swim training for students and full-time behavioral specialists on standby to support students\u2019 non-academic needs. The end goal is to create a school that\u2019s designed by the community for the community.\n<\/p>\n
Currently the project is in its early stages, with Sommer and her project partner Amira Beatty looking to secure more community support for elected officials and the Department of Education to take notice. The duo presented their proposal in front of five Community Board 14 leaders during a Youth Services\/Education Committee meeting on Tuesday, June 2, in hopes of getting a letter of support.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really want to see who really wants to engage and have their child exposed to this particular kind of program,\u201d said Beatty, a special education educator, while addressing CB14 leaders. \u201cIt\u2019s not regular, it is going to be state curriculum aligned, but we\u2019re developing our own peninsula specific [school].\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The board asked about the proposal\u2019s budget, specific location, financial commitments from elected officials, and who they\u2019re \u201cgoing to target\u201d in terms of teachers and students.\n<\/p>\n
Though those specifics are still being ironed out, Sommer and her team have secured written letters of support from business owners, peninsula locals, and the Rockaway East Merchant Association 4 United Synergy. Notably, there are no written letters of support from public school officials, which is part of the challenges the ROCK School project is facing.\n<\/p>\n
Another challenge lies in securing a viable route for the school to be built. Ideally, the ROCK School would open shop as a charter school, and though some have suggested making the school private to avoid dealing with the \u201cmonopoly on charter schools,\u201d the goal is to keep the institution tuition-free, according to Sommer.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOur problem with that is that it leaves out a large amount of kids. We want to make this school accessible to everyone, and we don\u2019t want it to be just for kids who have the money,\u201d said Sommer during the committee meeting. \u201cSo there are some gaps right now, and really it\u2019s like, how do we get approval for the school itself.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
For advocates of ROCK, the school would offer students the much needed community space they need as well as the behavioral support that\u2019s lacking in most New York City public schools. Beatty envisions having Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and Registered Behavior Technicians built into ROCK\u2019s programming. If students suddenly exhibit problems in the classroom, data could be collected for their parents and teachers to intervene before conditions worsen, she explained.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have ABAs and RBTs in the building, those individuals are able to target those behaviors and get to it straight. Get ready to address it. And that\u2019s the biggest difference between the model of school that we\u2019re introducing versus what already exists,\u201d said Beatty.\n<\/p>\n
Beatty, who is the education chairperson for the NAACP Far Rockaway branch, also noted that ROCK could offer potential partnerships with high schoolers who are interested in early childhood education and in need of training to become RBTs by the time they turn 18-years-old.\n<\/p>\n
During Tuesday\u2019s committee meeting with CB14, Sommer and Beatty received suggestions from leaders on how to sharpen their pitch for elected officials and what steps to take to secure the board\u2019s letter of support on Tuesday, June 9, where the full board will decide whether or not to fully support ROCK School.\n<\/p>\n
Once the CB14 letter is secured, Sommer and Beatty hope to show elected officials and potential funders the importance of backing ROCK School.\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CB 14\u2019s Youth Services\/Education Committee convened at the Rockaway YMCA to discuss the ROCK School project proposal. Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-256150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}