Junior High School 54 Booker T Washington

Delta Honors is a great program. Children in 6 grade are learning Shakespeare and in 7th grade they are learning 9th grade math. However, the program needs to be more diverse and recruit more minorities into their classrooms.
--Submitted by a parent

currently i am enrolled in this school and this is my third year and im in the 8th grade Delta. Some of these comments are correct there really is a big diffrence between Delta and Core racialy. I feel as if its not the Delta programs fault. No offence but when im around core kids they tend to not really care for there work and be really rude, but not all of them. Also you can always retake the test for Delta the second year yo attend Core so....By the way im one of the black people in Delta.

I recently started the 6th grade DELTA program at Booker T. Washington MS54. Most of the staff is amazing. There are a couple of people who are not as remarkable as the other staff members. Class changes are loud and busy, but it pays off to get to class for an amazing education. The humanities, math, science and art teachers are AMAZING at their jobs. I recommend this school, but advise incoming students to be ready for more work than elementary school.

I am starting my first day of sixth grade at DELTA pretty soon. I am very excited, I know this is an amazing school. But, we already have so much summer homework to bring in on the first day of school! **I went to PS166 gifted and talented program for elementary

I use to tutor for the Core program and although I loved the teachers and the students - I am ashamed of this school. It is a SEGREGATED school and I am surprised that none of these reviews bring up the issue. The CORE program is I the regular school and Delta is for accelerated students. Well, Delta is like 97% Caucasian and the "regular" school is all Latino and Black. The Core program is underfunded. Most of the teachers are amazing and genuinely care but it is hard for them and they have no real support. Also, there are A LOT of extremely bright and talented children in the Core program - they can grasp physics and math and are very creative. So why aren't they in Delta? B/c the entrance process keeps them out due to the way they speak and answer questions. It saddens me.

To the parent who used to tutor for the"Core program": Believe it or not, I attended Booker T from 1952 to 1954, and it appears not much has changed! Basically, if you were could speak English well, you went into an advanced program that basically compressed the normal 3 years into 2. The "advanced students" made up 2 classes in each year, as I recall. Many of the other classes consisted almost entirely of recently arrived students from Puerto Rico who only spoke Spanish. Unfortunately, none of the teachers could speak Spanish (as far as we could tell), and those classes were a stand-off of nothing at all happening...

I am the parent of a sixth grader. The school has made the transition easier than I thought it would be. I especially liked the curriculum evening it was nice to go through a typical day of a sixth grader.The teachers seem to be understanding that is a big change from elementary school, but still send the message that there are high expectations and there were so many students vying for their seats.
--Submitted by a parent

What happens when the child is not in the delta program. Not a good school if your child is not in the gifted program.
--Submitted by a parent

I visit middle schools throughout the city as a part of my job. I will honestly say that the Delta Honors Program within MS 54 is one of the best schools I have seen in NYC. THe dedication of the teachers, the high quality of education and the curriculum development are unparalleled. The Prinicpal is working hard to minimize the separation between the two programs and I have faith that she will be successful. Regarding claims of safety issues, I have to say that we are in NYC and the kids are burgeoning teenagers. Issues of safety would be hard to avoid and a concern anywhere.
--Submitted by a parent

My daughter will graduate from Delta in 2 months. She has had an extraordinary experience there, due in large part to haaving an incredibly gifted and dedicated humanities teacher in 7th grade, who was also her homeroom teacher. He is that rare individual who goes way above and beyond any expectations of what a teacher should do, and the students reward him with remarkable work. Through him, my daughter got involved in the Middle School Model United NAtions program, and repeated her participation in 8th grade. I suspect she'll continue the high school version when she matriculates at Bronx Science in the fall.
--Submitted by a parent