An Alternate Pathway to College Readiness

At Gotham Professional Arts Academy, we believe that students should be assessed when ready, and we work incredible hard to equip our students with truly transferrable skills that transcend content knowledge and enable students to tackle unfamiliar, unusual and novel challenges with flexibility and tenacity.

We are one of almost forty schools in New York state granted the honor and privilege of graduating students through means of alternate assessment.  Our assessments, collaboratively designed and evaluated through annual network-wide moderation studies, meet and exceed the rigor of New York State Regents Exams.  These Performance-Based Assessment Tasks culminate in extensive, thesis-like papers and require oral defense before a panel of educators and experts in pertinent fields of study and practice.

deep inquiry and investigation

As a proud member of the New York Performance Consortium, all students must engage in a full course load each year.  In addition to engaging in a rigorous Common Core-aligned curriculum, each course asks students to complete and present at least one project per semester that aligns to PBAT (Performance-based Assessment Task) standards in each content area.  These standards include, but are not limited to, problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication, contextualization, analysis and interpretation, effective organization and the understanding of implications.  Additionally, students use CCLS-aligned PBAT rubrics to self and peer-assess work over the course of their high school career.  In the junior and senior years, these PBAT tasks are presented to a panel of relative experts and satisfy Regents Exam requirements.

students are college ready when they...

Earn 44 credits by demonstrating mastery in all courses offered.

Demonstrate mastery of ELA standards by way of  the New York State ELA Regents Exam.

Complete  PBATs in each content area.

1. English - Literary Analysis
2. Social Studies - History Thesis
3. Mathematics - Problem Solving Defense
4. Science - Design and Conduct a Rigorous Science Experiment
5. Art - Gotham is one of only a few consortium schools requiring demonstration of mastery in the arts in order to receive a diploma, and we are working toward CTE certification to support arts career readiness.