Catching Up With Contreras

Whenever Principal Eric Contreras meets Stuyvesant alumni, he says, they consistently tell him that Stuyvesant prepared them for the world. To continue this tradition of equipping Stuyvesant students for what lies ahead, Stuyvesant’s curriculum, classes, and type of instruction must evolve with new technologies and innovations. To keep up with these rapid changes, Contreras has undertaken many initiatives and has hopes for many more in the future.

However, during Contreras’s first few months at Stuyvesant, he did not look to make any large changes. “[At the beginning], the goal was not for me to come in and start making drastic changes on anything because there had been a formula that worked,” he explained. “When you have this historic level of success, you don’t want to come in here and say, ‘This is what we need to do.’” Instead, Contreras watched what went on inside the school and listened to suggestions from students, staff, parents, and alumni to improve upon the pre-existing “formula” that governs life at Stuyvesant.

To do so, Contreras expanded the engineering and computer science program, created an innovation lab, increased freshman biology offerings, added to the art and music programs, opened more summer programs, linked alumni to current Stuyvesant students, and began teacher support programs.

Contreras did not make all these changes on his own. Instead, he worked with staff members and helped them hone their abilities to achieve these goals. He explained, “What I realized at Stuyvesant is that if you want to do meaningful work, you give it to people that are smarter, or are harder working, or have bigger ideas than you to get it done. So a lot of the really good work here is identifying the talent and then giving them the freedom of action.”

The first few people Contreras worked with were the technology teachers. Together, they brainstormed ways to expand on the current technology program, which consists of 5Tech's, 10Tech’s, drafting, and computer science. The purpose of classes in the technology department is to “prepare students for the technology of today and tomorrow,” Contreras explained. Because of the rapid advances in our technology, Contreras wanted to modernize the curriculum to better prepare students for the outside world.

The first major change in the technology “formula” was adding two more components to the current pencil-paper focus of the drafting curriculum: engineering design and fabrication. These additions are meant to “reimagine and keep tradition while looking forward into the future,” Contreras said. In the computer science field, a new robotics unit provides a more real-world application.

Contreras also changed Stuyvesant’s “formula” by adding an Innovation Lab, which until a few years ago had been a room crowded with outdated tech pieces from the old Stuyvesant building in lower Manhattan. “It was hard to even walk in there. They were all anachronistic tech pieces that we had moved in there and had been of high utility at one point but had lost value. When I saw that room, I imagined this blank canvas of what can be in that space,” Contreras described.

Meanwhile, Contreras visited an innovation lab at the Grove School of Engineering, a part of the City University of New York. The lab had been designed by Irwin Zahn, a Stuyvesant alumnus. Zahn reached out to Contreras with hopes of modernizing Stuyvesant by building one of Stuyvesant’s own labs. So, the two met and began thinking about the future for that crowded room on the third floor: “He came here, we met, and we looked at the space and thought of what we could reimagine. Then I got the input from teachers [and] students, and we created a space where we could have new engineering classes,” Contreras explained.

This past year, the Stuyvesant Science Olympiad team used the lab, and for the first time in four years, they won first place in New York City. Contreras hopes that courses including a class on aerospace engineering will soon be taught in the Innovation Lab.

In addition to the expansion of the technology options and the opening of the Innovation Lab, Contreras has high hopes for the future of freshman biology options. For the 2018-2019 year, students have the option to take regular biology, AP Biology, or AP Environmental Science. Contreras believes exposure to the AP Environmental Science curriculum is particularly important because of current global warming issues. These issues strike close to home as Stuyvesant is built on reclaimed Hudson River, not on terra firma. Contreras, along with the biology department, created an AP Environmental course “that would teach both sustainability and the science of AP Environmental, with some life science embedded,” he said. Further in the future, Contreras hopes to add real-life lab components to the curriculum and possibly even build a hydroponics lab in another empty room on the third floor.

The past two years have also seen improvements in the music and art programs through the addition of an ensemble and a guitar section of music appreciation. Contreras hopes to continue this by adding a bell choir and expanding the art appreciation curriculum by adding more artmaking and focusing more on world art, rather than focusing solely on European art. Contreras has a firm belief in the necessity of a serious arts program on top of a rigorous academic program. He explained, “I am a strong believer that a strong academic program is only made stronger with a strong arts program. Supporting the arts has been very important for me as a principal because I think it makes you a complete citizen. I think the arts give you a lens to deconstruct schema, to let you imagine the possibilities.”

Contreras also helped organize three new summer programs that took place at Stuyvesant this year: the Discovery Program, a science research program, and a civil engineering program.

The Discovery Program is aimed at students whose SHSAT scores were just below the cutoff and allows these students admission into specialized high schools. Those students take classes over the summer, and at the end of the summer, if they have done well in all of their classes, are admitted into a specialized high school. To Contreras, the program was a success. “I sincerely believe that they [the Discovery students] will be as successful as any other Stuy student. Their energy and enthusiasm is incredible,” he described.

A science research program headed by biology teacher Jerry Citron also took place at Stuyvesant this summer. In this program, students were exposed to lab techniques and were able to conduct their own independent experiments. Contreras believes that science research is a critical part of education. He explained, “Unlike a test or a quiz, for a science research project you are part of this long-term study and research where you fail, you succeed, you fail, and you succeed. You build on prior knowledge of past researchers. You build upon this larger narrative of scientific discovery that I think makes a part of something bigger than yourself.”

The civil engineering program was not, unlike the science research program, exclusive to Stuyvesant students. This program, headed by technology teacher Arthur Griffith, had two components: instructional days where students learn about civil engineering and engineering design, and work days at construction sights around New York City.

Contreras’s changes have not only been for the students; with biology teacher Marianne Prabhu, Contreras has worked to create sessions for teachers without tenure. During these scheduled discussions, teachers share ideas and goals for instruction and visit each other’s classes. Contreras explained the benefits of these meetings: “I think that we are such a big school and busy place that is is very hard sometimes to make time for sharing. Nobody has ill-intention, [it’s just that] making the space for it is hard. But we have been able to make that space for new teachers, and it is very exciting to see their work. And it is really impressive to see what they have brought to the table.”

In addition to working with teachers, Contreras has connected with alumni via the expansion of the alumni tutoring and mentoring programs. In the tutoring program, Stuyvesant alumni tutor current students. Additionally, students are connected to alumni in different fields through the mentoring program. Contreras explained, “They [the alumni] will talk on a panel and mingle. And these are [professionals] from [the] class of ‘50 to very recent graduating classes. I started asking if I could get 15 to 20 tickets to seniors who are interested in being [in this field].”

To Contreras, the purpose of all these changes, past and future, is to allow Stuyvesant students to be ambitious and think big. Contreras concluded, “I would rather you be bold in your thinking about your role in the world and what you will leave as a legacy to the rest of society because you have the gift of society. Because you have the gift of a great mind. And the gift of a great mind is only of tremendous benefit if it has a contribution of society. I have to give the tools to create that space.”