The Berkeley Carroll School

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Paul McElfresh as Middle School Director beginning in the 2025-26 academic year, effective July 1, 2025. “Paul’s leadership, commitment, and expertise promise to enrich the educational experiences of Berkeley Carroll’s outstanding students and the dedicated adults who care for them,” said Head of School Lisa Yvette Waller. Berkeley Carroll looks forward to welcoming McElfresh to its vibrant school community next school year. Congratulations! 👏

https://www.berkeleycarroll.org/about-us/news/news/~board/all-school-news/post/paul-mcelfresh-appointed-middle-school-director

We are so excited to announce that registration for Berkeley Carroll Summer offerings is open! Click the link below for all of the fun activities we have in store!

https://www.berkeleycarroll.org/summer-programs

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Middle School Technology Integrator and 7th Grade Advisor Manuela Aronofsky recently had the honor of serving on the 2025 Award Selection Committee, a prestigious national book award committee that recognizes outstanding children’s books celebrating Latino/a culture.

Click the link below to read the full News Story!

https://www.berkeleycarroll.org/about-us/news/news/~board/all-school-news/post/faculty-spotlight-manuela-aronofsky-and-the-2025-pura-belpr-award

Berkeley Carroll students have once again showcased their incredible creativity, earning over 70 awards in the 2025 New York City Regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards—including 18 prestigious Gold Keys!

With thousands of students submitting work from 250 schools across the city, BC ranked #8 in both Art and Writing out of 144 and 149 participating schools respectively. This places Berkeley Carroll among the top creative schools in NYC!

Click the links below to view Reflections, the award-winning art and literary magazine of the Upper School, and to check out a full gallery of our student's award-winning work!

Congratulations to all of our talented student artists and writers!

Reflections link here: https://issuu.com/berkeleycarrollschool/docs/_reflections_10-25sing

Scholastic Art & Writing Awards link here: https://theberkeleycarrollschool.smugmug.com/2024-25/Upper-School/Scholastic-Art-Writing-Awards

BC is proud to announce that Upper School history educators Madeline Lafuse,
Sam Markwell, and Chris Whitehead all recently defended their dissertations, completing
their doctoral programs!

Upper School History Teacher and Department Chair Amber Thomas, congratulated her colleagues stating, "Everyone in the History Department is incredibly proud of Chris, Sam, and Maddy! As teachers, we strive to instill a lifelong love of learning and a spirit of endless curiosity in our students, and it’s inspiring to see our colleagues embody those values through their doctoral achievements.”

Click the link below to read more about their work!

https://www.berkeleycarroll.org/about-us/news/news/~board/all-school-news/post/three-bc-educators-earn-doctoral-degrees

As the culminating project for their unit on Civil Engineering, students in the Upper School Principles of Engineering class built scale suspension bridges out of nothing but popsicle sticks, string, and glue. Students researched traffic, transit, and pedestrian access, and then identified an area of New York City in need of a bridge. After designing their road deck and towers to accommodate community needs as well as river traffic below, they set to work constructing their models. All that hard work was then put to the test by hanging buckets from the road deck and filling them with sand until the bridge finally collapsed! Some were able to hold over 1,000 times their weight despite spanning a meter gap, thus demonstrating the suspension bridge's advantage over conventional designs, and why we see them all over our city!

Over a 7-cycle period, our Grade 3 Design Lab students researched, studied, and built roller coaster prototypes. The unit began by investigating the history and science of roller coasters, including how gravity, friction, and potential and kinetic energy impact a coaster's design. After thinking about and planning their roller coaster designs (the first two steps of the BC Design Process), the engineering teams dedicated weeks to bringing their designs to life, using a variety of materials. The final step in the Design Process–the review period–challenged students to test and present their designs to their peers. Join us in celebrating their hard work! 🎢

Last week, we had our first BC Talks of the year, titled “Reclamando Nuestra Historia: Latine Resilience in NYC,” where guest speaker, Dr. Sandra (Chap) Chapman spoke to students about three forms of resilience: artistic, academic, and family resilience. After a debrief of Dr. Chapman’s talk in advising groups, students participated in activities that related back to the theme of the day and showed how joy and creativity can be great ways to practice resilience as they learned more about various aspects of Latine culture!

Congratulations to all of the students who participated in this year's Middle School Musical: The Phantom Tollbooth! A huge thank you is in store for our Middle School Theatrical Productions Director and Theatre Teacher Zoe Huber-Weiss, who worked with over 30 middle schoolers to bring this production to our community.

Click here for more photos: https://theberkeleycarrollschool.smugmug.com/2024-25/Middle-School/MS-Play-The-Phantom-Tollbooth

🎉 Giving Tuesday is here! 🎉
We’re thrilled to announce a special matching challenge: A generous Grade 9 family will match up to $100,000 for any new or increased gifts to BC’s Annual Fund!

Donate or pledge by December 31 to double your impact! Let’s come together and make a difference for our students and their teachers.

https://www.boostmyschool.com/orgs/berkeleycarroll/campaigns/berkeleycarroll-2024-25-december-matching-challenge/challenges

On Tuesday, November 26, BC gathered as one community for its annual Thanksgiving Assembly. This gathering is special because it marks the only time in the academic year that the Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools convene in one place. At the assembly, we heard eloquent remarks from students Kallie S. '33, Gwendolyn L. '29, and Soraya G. '26 as well as the inspiring words of Physical Education Teacher, Coach, and Advisor Stephanie Ryan. We also enjoyed musical performances from the MS and US Choir as well as from the Third Grade Chorus, who led us in singing BC’s traditional “Thank You” song.

Head of School Lisa Yvette Waller shared a welcome message with the community and expressed her gratitude for "our students, faculty, staff, and BC families, who show care and kindness while building community each day."

Read Dr. Waller's full Thanksgiving greeting here: https://ow.ly/GIGk50UhLxU

Congratulations to Coach Beijon Warrington, who was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame for his outstanding basketball achievements! This incredible honor celebrates his contributions to the game, including leading his team to two back-to-back championships and two appearances from 2010 to 2012. 🏀

We are proud to have Coach Warrington as a part of our PE and Athletic Departments, sharing his passion and dedication to inspiring the next generation of champions.

Congrats Coach!

Congratulations to our talented students on the magical success of this year’s Upper School musical production, Into the Woods! This ambitious show came together beautifully with the help of actors, set designers, stage managers, and musicians—46 US students in all! Bravo! 🎭

Bravo to everyone involved for bringing this fairy tale adventure to life on stage. Click the link below to view the whole photo gallery!

Check out the photo gallery here: https://theberkeleycarrollschool.smugmug.com/2024-25/Upper-School/Upper-School-Musical-Into-the-Woods

On , we are thrilled to highlight a recent project which focused on design-thinking at its finest!

What are the ways we can make our BC spaces better for learning and comfort? Our Upper School Engineering students went to work tackling this question with creative, community-centered solutions!

Working in teams, students conducted surveys, gathered community feedback, and developed detailed proposals. Projects included, reimagining cafeteria flow, soundproofing the music room, more comfortable seating in the US Atrium, and more! Each team then presented their proposals to a panel of judges from different departments who asked questions, offered valuable feedback to help refine their ideas, and ultimately picked winners based on the categories of Best Prototype, Design, and Innovation.

Congratulations to our students on their amazing presentations and keep an eye out for some of these exciting innovations in BC soon!

🎉Congratulations to our latest round of Senior Speakers Dahlia G., Max G., Leah B., and Savannah B.

Dahlia told a harrowing tale from her job as a camp counselor, and how some overzealous campers managed to turn a normally fun day of sailing into a capsized catastrophe.⛵

Max shared an emotional speech about consistency, and what it means to him. While sometimes it can be as simple as his never-changing taco order, Max also reminds us it can also be as monumental as showing up for the people we care about, no matter what. ❤️

Leah brought the house down with her speech about her love of singing. From her humble beginnings, belting out her favorite Disney songs with her sister and a karaoke microphone, to joining the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and performing on some of the biggest stages in NYC including Carnegie Hall, Radio City, and Madison Square Garden. Joyfully exclaiming, “Take a look at how far I’ve come,” Leah ended with a song that left some in tears, and all in amazement. 🎤🎶

Savannah reflected on a significant memory from grade school involving a prized strawberry-scented eraser. While it ended with accusations and Savannah on the floor in tears, she now sees the memory through a new, grown-up perspective—one that allows her to let go of the hurt and even feel compassion for her former alleged eraser-breaking tormentor.🍓

Upper School students got gooey at the second annual “Slime Time” event hosted by the Creative Minds affinity group. Open to all students, the Halloween themed slime-making event featured candy, music, and of course lots of slime.🍬👻

🎉 BC Pride on Full Display! 🎉

Our Middle School Pep Rally brought the Lincoln Place gym to life with true lion spirit! 🦁 Students and faculty rocked their maroon and white, chanting the school cheer as Roary the Lion waved our school flag high! 🏴 The brass of our school band echoed off the walls, and the excitement was palpable during a maroon vs. white ping-pong ball relay race that had everyone cheering on their team color.

Congrats to our championship-winning teams and Go Lions! 🦁💥