The Write Kind of Programming

When the last school bell rings for the day, that’s when Rachael Gazdick, Ed.M.'99, gets to work. Gazdick is the CEO of New York Edge, the largest provider of afterschool and summer camp programming in New York City (NYC) and Long Island, which offers daily activities for more than 25,000 students across NYC’s five boroughs. Projects range from the arts to sports and wellness to college and career readiness. 

Gazdick calls the 30-year-old nonprofit a “hidden gem” for the metropolitan area, and since taking over in 2019, she’s worked to elevate what afterschool time can look like by creating pathways for kids to imagine the kinds of adults they might become.

“I think we have to think of afterschool time as not just homework help or babysitting,” she says. “These are really structured activities that are accelerating kids to the next level, to professions and areas we want to see them in.” 

It’s led to some amazing partnerships and opportunities for students in New York City, from the flag football team getting to play their final game at the stadium where the New York Jets play, to getting to study up close a museum- quality replica of a Van Gogh work thanks to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. 

But perhaps nowhere is Gazdick’s goal to show students what’s possible better illustrated than in her student book publishing initiative. Inspired by a similar project Gazdick worked on as a faculty member at Syracuse University, New York Edge’s version teaches students how to write and think critically, “and get them excited about researching, writing, and thinking about what their stories are,” Gazdick says. “You see kids shine when they see how this could become a career, whether illustration or writing or research.” 

Middle school students work directly with award-winning children’s book author Jesse Byrd to learn about the writing process before writing their own stories. They are also paired with professional illustrators with different styles who illustrate the student books and bring them to life. 

When they’re finished, the books are professionally published. This year, students celebrated with a book release celebration for families and classmates at the famed Strand Bookstore in Manhattan. 

The program is in its third year and already has produced six books that are all available for sale, with five more in progress, but Gazdick has bigger aspirations. Her goal is to expand funding to provide access to even more students and eventually to offer their own publishing company. 

Getting to interact with professionals is an important part of what makes the organization so impactful, and that theme is what drove New York Edge to also launch their own podcast, Formative. The podcast features conversations between students and adults from an assortment of careers, including a NASA astronaut, a Tony award-winning producer, and a New York congresswoman.

More than just getting to meet famous people, Gazdick wants students to feel like they belong right alongside such accomplished individuals. It’s a philosophy she first honed through an adult literacy program she launched with Professor Jeanne Chall while earning her master’s at the Ed School.

“I said to her, we need to bring adult learners on campus so they can see themselves here,” Gazdick says. As part of the program, Gazdick set up a pen pal project. One Ed School student spent the entire time emailing with a person Gazdick only described to her as an active duty servicemember. 

“She wrote to him, and she was engaged, and I told her later that she had been writing to a general under Colin Powell,” Gazdick says, referring to the former U.S. secretary of state. 

Gazdick says the student was upset at first, saying she never would have sent [certain] questions to her pen pal if she had known who she was writing to, but the student also recognized the confidence she had gained thanks to the experience. 

It’s the same idea with New York Edge and its catalog of projects that provide students with the opportunities and most importantly, the same confidence, to make their dreams a reality. 

“There’s one thing about learning,” she says. “There’s another about feeling like you belong in the space.”

Andrew Bauld, Ed.M.’16, is a writer based in New York. His last Ed. piece profiled Patrick Tutwiler, Ed.M.’00