Little Red School House Founded by Elisabeth Irwin
Elisabeth Irwin founded the Little Red School House in 1921 in the attic room of the P.S. 61 Annex at 535 East 16th Street as an alternative public elementary school. Parents and students loved the new dynamic learning community. It..Read More
Democracy Pamphlet
As is promised in LREI’s mission statement, “Students graduate from our diverse community as active participants in our democratic society,…” Elisabeth Irwin and three of her early colleagues, in the language of the times, shares their thoughts on this important..Read More
LRSH Student Gives Speech Before State Legislature, Receives Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt
Paul Coburn, a ten-year-old at LRSH, made a speech before the State Legislature, in favor of the Ives-Quinn Anti-Discrimination Bill, which would make New York the first state to enact legislation curtailing the practice of discriminating against job applicants and employees based on race, religion, or creed...Read More
Students Visit Phelps-Dodge Strike
Ninth graders visit the Phelps-Dodge Strike at the Phelps-Dodge Copper Products Corporation plant in Elizabeth, NJ. The eight-month-old strike was one of the longest major industrial disputes on record in the nation, resulting in a 18.5% hourly wage increase and..Read More
EI Marches with NAACP
Elisabeth Irwin students marched with a delegation from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Washington D.C. on January 16, 1950 to advocate for Congressional action on the passage of the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC). EI..Read More
W.E.B. Dubois Visits
Dr. W.E.B. Dubois, well-known scholar, philosopher and writer, spoke to the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades on February 14. His topic was freedom of opinion in the United States. In a short analysis of the fight for freedom of opinion..Read More
EI Students Attend Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
The date was May 17, 1957. Three years ago on that date the Supreme Court of the land added a new verse to freedom’s song. “Desegregate and state to integrate” chorused the nine men in black. And now three years..Read More
10s Play About Integration
A play by the 10s about integration was performed at an assembly in 1957, and then later at the high school. Teacher Mimi Levy transcribed phrases from class discussions of integration and turned their words into the script, which was..Read More
EI Students Attend Youth March for Integrated Schools
On Saturday, October 25, 1958, EI students traveled to Washington D.C. to attend the Youth March for Integrated Schools led by A. Philip Randolph, Jackie Robinson, Coretta Scott King, Harry Belafonte, Bayard Rustin.
EI Students Picket Woolworth’s
Students from EI picket Woolworths at 39th Street and Fifth Avenue as part of a Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) drive.
Students Visit Pennsylvania Coal Mines
As part of our social studies course, the 11th grade took a 6 day trip to Pennsylvania. The three main objectives of the trip were to study coal mining conditions in the mining towns themselves and to visit farms of..Read More
Students March to Fight Global Warming
On Saturday, April 14, 2007 over 90 members of the LREI community covered themselves in blue and joined hands with thousands of others to form the human coastline around lower Manhattan called the Sea of People. Consisting of a U-shaped..Read More
The Power and Price of Privilege
Tim Wise, Director of the Association for White Anti-racist Education (AWARE) came to LREI to facilitate dialogue on race and privilege in America with students, faculty, and parents. He discussed the historical foundations of white privilege and how it is..Read More
LREI’s 90th Anniversary + Ideas Speaker Series Launch
LREI celebrated its 90th anniversary by launching the Ideas Speaker Series. The inaugural series included talks by author Siddhartha Mukherjee (P’29, ’23), activist Christy Turlington (P’22,’24), PBS education correspondent John Merrow, and author Steven Johnson.
Gloria Steinem Visits Feminism Class
Gloria Steinem, feminist journalist and social political activist, visited Ileana Jiménez’ Feminism class.
Facing Whiteness
Filmmaker and educator Whitney Dow spoke at LREI as part of the 2017 ideas Speaker Series. His project “Facing Whiteness” examines how Americans who identify as “white,” or “partially white,” process their ethnicity, and pair it with secondary quantitative data..Read More
The Democracy Project
LREI launches a collective, school-wide effort called The Democracy Project to uphold this country’s core democratic values. The Democracy Project is a student-led initiative to help the LREI student community become more knowledgeable on and involved in the democratic process,..Read More
Back to School 2020-2021
LREI opened for in-person classes in October 2020 after several months of LREI@home. Masked, socially distanced, and with windows open through the winter, students and teachers rallied to find creative ways to make school not only a safe space for..Read More