A tiny new middle school is gearing up to bring big drama to Fort Greene. Miss Major Middle plans to open a one-room, tuition-free microschool in fall 2027 that centers theater, movement and what organizers describe as a "genderful" approach to learning. The arts-first model is set to launch with a single sixth-grade cohort, folding rigorous academics into a day built around teaching-artist units, book clubs and student productions. The plan lands at a moment when national battles over protections for transgender students have turned local, affirming school spaces into a flashpoint for many families.
According to Miss Major Middle, the community school will operate in partnership with New York City Public Schools in Community School District 13. It will be tuition-free and open to all families. The site lists a founding year of fall 2027, with plans to start with sixth grade and expand to serve grades 6 through 8 by Year 3. The school says its admissions lottery is scheduled to open in October 2026 for fall 2027 enrollment.
Local reporting says organizers have secured a compact, roughly 1,200-square-foot, one-room site and intend to reserve half the seats for students from low-income families. The affiliated nonprofit has drawn teacher-training support from District 13, along with fundraising tied to the Brooklyn borough president's office and Brooklyn Org, and the school plans to use digital standardized exams that adapt to students' proficiency levels, according to the New York Daily News.
Curriculum blends arts and standards
The school's website outlines a schedule where mornings revolve around four lenses - performance, bodies, stories and the city - with teaching artists leading two-week, arts-based instructional units. Core subjects like math, humanities and science are woven into that project work rather than broken into separate traditional blocks, according to Miss Major Middle.
Afternoons begin with book club, then shift into play-making. Students end the day spending the final hour on whatever their current production needs most: technical theater, music, scriptwriting or marketing, all structured to meet middle-school learning goals, the school says.
Founders, fundraising and an earlier charter push
Miss Major Middle lists Joji Florence as founder and head of school, with Rajendra Maharaj as founding artistic director and Andre Zarate as director of curriculum and instruction, names that surfaced in earlier coverage of the proposal, including Chalkbeat.
The project traces back to a 2024 charter application and related public filings, according to state charter records posted at NewYorkCharters.org. Those documents outline an earlier attempt to open Miss Major Middle as a public charter school before the current district-partnership model came into focus.
Why organizers say the timing matters
Organizers frame Miss Major Middle as a local response to national policy shifts. In April, the U.S. Education Department moved to rescind several civil-rights settlements that had enforced protections for transgender students, a rollback that advocates say has increased uncertainty for LGBTQ+ youth in schools, according to The Washington Post.
Florence told the New York Daily News that building affirming, evidence-based school spaces is especially crucial now, saying that one fight may be playing out in the courts but that if educators do not continue to create strong, evidence-based, beautiful, caring places that can be supportive and center the LGBTQ+ community at the school level, the erosion of protections is likely to continue.
Organizers say Miss Major Middle will admit students through a lottery, with applications open to all families regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. They report that fundraising from private donors and public partners is ongoing to outfit the small space. Families interested in enrolling are urged to follow the school's official enrollment materials for the latest dates and application details.
