PS 32’s Open Streets: Building Relationships and Growing Capacity

 This blog post was written by Maurelhena Walles, Founder and CEO of Equity Design and Diana Bernal, Program Coordinator for the Creating Healthy Schools & Communities program at Bronx Health REACH.

Three years ago, the principal and staff of PS 32 located in the Bronx, expressed a far-reaching vision of becoming their community’s fitness hub. As part of the New York State Creating Healthy Schools and Communities (CHSC) program, PS 32 teamed up with Bronx Health REACH, Equity Design, and Street Lab to make this vision happen. The first step Equity Design, whose role was facilitator, took, with the permission of PS 32’s Principal Rebecca Lew, was to gather together the school teachers and staff to assess the challenges and aspirations for improving the physical and social well-being of the school. As a result, they decided to implement Open Streets, a program that temporarily closes down a street to cars during the day to provide open space for people to gather and play. 

To successfully implement Open Streets at PS 32 every school year, teachers and school staff held team building and mind-mapping sessions to get to know each other better. Through these relationship building exercises, their school wellness council was formed. As PS 32’s school wellness council grew, so did the ideas for Open Streets events, and how to utilize them for more than just physical activity for the students. PS 32 came up with their Outdoor Learning initiative, which aimed to provide a blend of academics and physical activity. Through this initiative, the school has connected with their surrounding community and built relationships with community residents and nearby organizations. An example of an event that came together through these partnerships is PS 32’s Hispanic Heritage Month event. This event combined physical activity and academics through dancing and interactive activities centered around the cultures from different Latin/Hispanic countries. One of the teachers involved in planning the event connected the school with her church’s dance group, who performed a folkloric dance, showcasing what can be accomplished when relationships are built between a neighborhood and school community. 

Through this process of relationship building, PS 32 has brought together teachers, students, and the neighborhood community to participate in physical activity. Another collaboration coming out of Equity Design’s team building session was connecting PS 32 and Fordham University’s athletics department. The outcome of this is Fordham students volunteering at PS 32’s Open Streets events. By taking the time to build relationships, PS 32’s Open Streets program has gone from happening 3-6 times a year to now occuring once a week.