Valerie Book Valkyrie’s Reviews > Skeleton Crew > Status Update

I looked up PS41. Their website doesn't show too much of the school, but the vid is an excellent propaganda piece! I'd want to send my kid there, too, after watching that. Wonder if it squares with reality, or if it really is strictly promo. No mention of "The Basement" and it looks like there are no dark corners there now.

Schools have changed so much. I watched the vid from my former high school and while the building is the same, I can't believe how different it looks and how different of an attitude the admin seems to have.

Whoa! B! thanks for alerting me to the PS41 website and vid.....I'm totally blown away! Either things have changed 1000% for the better since 1965 or else this is a 5++++++star PR vid!
I only attended 1st grade there and then we moved to South Jersey where I loved both schools I went to over the course of 4yrs.

My vivid rememberances of PS41 were:
☞35 kids to a classroom.
☞Every morning started standing next to your little desk reciting The Pledge of Allegiance followed by ♫My Country 'tis of Thee♫.
☞lining up in single file by height-shortest to tallest, girls on one side and boys on the other, no talking (I was always next to last, followed by Grace Kish!) whenever moving through the building & grounds as a class - to assembly, to the schoolyard, firedrills & bomb threats, cafeteria, etc.
☞Cafeteria lunch was 35¢ (if you brought your own lunch, which I usually did - in a metal Barbie lunchbox, & just wanted a 1/2pint carton of milk it was 2¢), boys on one side of the caf & girls on the other, you sat at a table with kids from your own class.
☞Air raid drills: an ear shattering siren would sound at which time each child had to duck under his/her own little desk & cover their head with their hands in a fingers interlaced position.
☞The school yard was asphalt, divided into 4 quadrants - younger girls, older girls, younger boys, older boys - no running, no fraternizing through the fence to talk to kids in another quadrant, no screaming/yelling (unless you were hurt). At the end of Recess a bell would sound at which time everyone was required to "freeze" in place, listen to any announcement on the loudspeaker, then each class lined up as described above and went back to the classroom.
☞If you needed to go to the bathroom then you raised your hand with one finger in the air (☝️ not 🖕) and the teacher would appoint another same sex classmate to escort you to "the basement."

Those were some days!