Satellite West Middle School

I went there...a long time ago early 90's but this was a great school when I was there. The teaching staff was very dedicated. It's a small school on the top floor of an elementary school. As a Parent, I suggest you go take a tour & meet the staff before you discount it.

The are is a little rough & the bus is crowded. But I lived...so did my classmates.

I attended this JHS over a decade ago. To say I disliked my two year stay in this place is an understatement. The sad thing is this may very well be one of the better junior highs in Brooklyn if not for the rotten environment. At the very least it had better students. They had to be or they'd be dumped to JHS 265.

Located atop an elementary school, Satellite West was a specialized program detached from another JHS (265 I believe). Described as the second best program in the district along with its sister school, creatively named Satellite East, Sat West looked attractive enough on paper.

Located near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the neighborhood around it, from the streets to the warehouses to the public housing, was rundown and dangerous. During lunch time, smoke (rumored to be from Navy Yard incinerators) often blew into the school yard, forcing students to take shelter inside.

Winters were especially harsh as crowded buses became even more crowded as students wore heavier clothing. Garbage piled up near the public housing buildings and would grow to phenomenal heights when snow storms prevented collection. For purposes of safety, students should refrain from walking through the public housing buildings and keep in tight groups.

The program itself was limited to a small number of rooms in the third floor. The building was in fair condition and the teaching staff were for the most part dedicated to their profession. Equipment was limited at the school and its regents biology class required students to attend extra classes on the weekend at a separate school to conduct dissections on corpses of pregnant cats. Each successive grade seemed to contain less and less students. By my last year, the seventh grade was reduced to one class and there were rumors that the school may be annexed to Sat East.

There were three public transportation options, the b61, b69 and the F train at York Street. All Sat West students used public transportation. The main method of transportation was the b61. On York Street in front and across the street from the school building, competition to get into the first bus in front of the building after school was fierce. More often than not, the driver would not bother checking student bus passes instead allowing crowds to flow into the front and back doors. Students were often packed so tight that people would spill out of the stair well during stops between York Street and Downtown.

That said, avoid the b69 bus to park slope. Situated south of the public housing buildings across the street, the stop itself is far less frequented than the b61. On the bus, people shied away from the rear as it was favored by loud mouthed delinquents from the JHS 265 building. This left a large gap at the end of the bus, limiting its capacity. Even more students a from JHS 113 also boarded further down the line. Overcrowding was so bad that I saw one stressed driver was ready to quit on the spot, moving only after listening to the entreaties of an elderly passenger sitting in front. If you go to Sat. West, take alternate routes if possible. I would say don't go but frankly speaking, kids who went there didn't have any place better to go to.