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Achievement First Voyager Charter School

• Location: 601 Parkside Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11226
• Phone: 347-471-2640
• School Website

School Number: K876

Accessibility: Partially Accessible

Grades: 06,07,08

Geographic District: 17

Borough: Brooklyn

School Contacts and Information

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The DOE develops tools to help families and educators understand student achievement and school quality. The reports on this page provide information about school quality from multiple sources. These sources include feedback from students, teachers, and parents. Reports also include information from formal school visits and a variety of student achievement metrics.

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Achievement First Voyager Middle School

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601 Parkside Avenue Brooklyn , NY 11226

Our school is near the 2/5 train (Winthrop St.), Q train (Parkside Ave.) & B44, B49, B12 bus line stops.

Bus transportation is provided to all students from .5 miles to 5 miles. Families may also utilize a paid van service or request MetroCards to be used weekdays before and after school.

347-471-2640

347-402-6221

Opened:  August 2016 Grades: 6-8 Hours: 7:30 a.m.  – 3:40 p.m. Monday- Thursday; 8:00  – 12:45 p.m. Friday Enrichment : Art, Physical Education Extracurriculars : Anime, Debate, Basketball, Art, Film, Media, Student Government, Spoken Word, Korean, Yoga

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“Home of the Aviators”

About Achievement First Voyager Middle School

Achievement First Voyager Middle School is a public charter school located in Brooklyn, NY within the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens neighborhood. Serving students in 5th through 8th grade, our focus is on setting students up for success in high school and beyond. We are proud to offer a safe, enriching, and fun environment for students to grow and succeed.

We still have seats available at this school for the 2022-2023 school year! Please contact us [email protected] or 718-265-1437 to learn more.

School Leader

Chris Ford is the principal of Achievement First Voyager Middle School.

News & Announcements

• Meet Jahzir, a published author
• AF Voyager Greatness
• Safe Return to In-Person Instruction and Continuity of Services Plan
• Approved ARP ESSER Plan/Grant Application

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Achievement First Voyager Charter School

• Rating 4.26 out of 5   19 reviews
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• Cost of Living grade  C minus
• Good for Families grade  A
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Achievement First Voyager Charter School Reviews

• Rating 5 out of 5   Excellent 10   reviews ( 53 %)
• Rating 4 out of 5   Very Good 5   reviews ( 26 %)
• Rating 3 out of 5   Average 3   reviews ( 16 %)
• Rating 2 out of 5   Poor 1   reviews ( 5 %)
• Rating 1 out of 5   Terrible 0   reviews ( 0 %)
• 8 months ago
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Achievement First Voyager Charter School (Middle)

Achievement First Voyager Charter

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GreatSchools Summary Rating

Students at this school are making far more academic progress given where they were last year, compared to similar students in the state.

High progress with high test scores means students have strong academic skills and the school is a doing an excellent job at supporting academic growth compared to most other schools.

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Achievement First Voyager Charter School

601 Parkside Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11226 | (347) 471-2640 | Website

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Total Enrollment

Overview of Achievement First Voyager Charter School

Achievement First Voyager Charter School is a charter school located in Brooklyn, NY, which is in a large city setting. The student population of Achievement First Voyager Charter School is 190 and the school serves 2-8. The school’s minority student enrollment is 99%. The student-teacher ratio is 14:1, which is better than that of the district. The student population is made up of 50% female students and 50% male students. The school enrolls 72% economically disadvantaged students. There are 14 equivalent full-time teachers.

At a Glance

Achievement first voyager charter school 2024 rankings.

Achievement First Voyager Charter School is unranked in New York Elementary Schools and unranked in New York Middle Schools . Schools are ranked on their performance on state-required tests, graduation, and how well they prepare their students for high school. Read more about how we rank the Best Elementary Schools and Best Middle Schools .

All Rankings

• Unranked in  New York Elementary Schools
• Unranked in  New York Middle Schools

Students/Teachers at Achievement First Voyager Charter School

These counts and percentages of students and teachers are from data reported by state education agencies to the federal government

School information is provided by the government.

Enrollment by Grade

Enrollment by Gender

Student Diversity

Minority Enrollment

Black or African American

Hispanic/Latino

Asian or Asian/Pacific Islander

Two or more races

American Indian or Alaska Native

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander is not included in this breakdown due to an enrollment of 0%.

economically disadvantaged students at Achievement First Voyager Charter School

Full-time teachers

Percentage of full-time teachers who are certified

Student-teacher ratio

Percentage of teachers with 3 or more years experience

Number of full-time school counselors

Test Scores at Achievement First Voyager Charter School

At Achievement First Voyager Charter School, data for student performance in math and reading is unavailable.

Subject Proficiency

School Data

School profile information is based on government data.

Charter School

Magnet School

This information relates to schools run by this school's state operating agency. Many districts contain only one school.

Total Schools (all grades)

Total Ranked Elementary Schools

Total Ranked Middle Schools

Total Students (all grades)

601 Parkside Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11226

Nearby Schools

601 Parkside Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11226 (0 miles)

655 Parkside Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11226 (0 miles)

123 Linden Blvd, Brooklyn, NY 11203 (0 miles)

490 Fenimore St, Brooklyn, NY 11203 (0 miles)

None, Brooklyn, NY 11225 (0 miles)

400 Lincoln Rd, Brooklyn, NY 11225 (0 miles)

527 Rogers Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11225 (0 miles)

1187 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11225 (0 miles)

12 Crown St, Brooklyn, NY 11225 (0 miles)

911 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11226 (1 mile)

43 Snyder Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11226 (1 mile)

72 Veronica Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11226 (1 mile)

15 Snyder Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11226 (1 mile)

2707 Albermarle Rd, Brooklyn, NY 11226 (1 mile)

400 Empire Blvd, Brooklyn, NY 11225 (1 mile)

600 Kingston Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11203 (1 mile)

2520 Church Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11226 (1 mile)

46 Mckeever Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11225 (1 mile)

1023 New York Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11203 (1 mile)

Insufficient student data was reported by six states (California, D.C., Delaware, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington). As such, the rankings for these states were held at their previous positions. They are therefore based on assessment data from 2018-2019 and include schools that were active as of 2019-2020. Updated directory information from 2021-2022 was provided for schools when available.

Data is based on the 2020 - 2021 and 2021 - 2022 school years.

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A Message from InsideSchools: The data below is the most up-to-date data available from City and State systems. We are working hard to update the narratives for all schools. We welcome your insights in the Comments section. Questions?  Ask us!

Achievement First Voyager Charter Middle School

Share this school, our insights, what’s special.

Long school day

The Downside

Too soon to say

Opened in August 2016, Achievement First Voyager Middle School is part of network of charter schools that emphasize strict rules, an extra-long school day, and a focus on academic achievement.

Classes run from 7:05 am to 4:10 pm Monday through Thursday and from 7:05 to 12:20 pm on Friday.

Founding Principal Priam Dutta, who taught sixth grade math at Achievement First Bushwick Middle School  , is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Yale Law School. [photo from school website]

Admissions: Lottery. (Clara Hemphill, website, February 2019)

School Stats

Is this school safe and well-run, from the 2019-20 ny state report card, from 2023 end-of-year attendance and chronic absenteeism report, how do students perform academically, from the new york state 2022-2023 assessment database, who does this school serve, from the 2022-23 demographic snapshot, how does this school serve special populations, contact & location, other details, was this information helpful, you may also like …, parkside preparatory academy, m.s. 246 walt whitman.

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Andrew Hutcheson Co-Founder / Executive Producer Charles Frank Co-Founder / Director

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Weekly film reviews. by Howard Feinstein

Now, voyager: john crowley’s brooklyn.

by Howard Feinstein in Columns on Nov 4, 2015

Brooklyn , Colm Toibin , Domhnall Gleeson , Emory Cohen , John Crowley , Saoirse Ronan

“Sometimes it’s nice to be in a place where everybody doesn’t know your auntie,” her heavily made up, peroxided cabin mate tells unadorned Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) on the latter’s maiden crossing from Ireland to the US. It is 1952. Eilis is headed to Brooklyn, home to thousands of Irish immigrants. Having made the trip before (and hardly a maiden), the brassy young woman offers advice on comportment at immigration to avoid quarantine and other hazards. She proceeds to decorate the face of the pasty girl, a withdrawn naif who insists on not ending up resembling a trollop. “Looking like a tart won’t be a problem,” the self-appointed Henrietta Higgins assures her, implying inherent blandness on the part of the unworldly girl and perhaps a bit of her own street cred.

In the deeply affecting Brooklyn , a British/Canadian/Irish coproduction directed by Irish-born John Crowley ( Boy A ), Eilis embarks on a picaresque journey from her home village of Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in southeast Ireland — which just happens to be the birthplace of the source novel’s masterful author, Colm Tóibín . The trip is a hodgepodge of anomalies. She comes across both light humor and serious, perhaps religiously-rooted empathy; prim behavior and verbal putdowns, which, no matter how bitchy, reflect a cultural penchant for colorful language; nostalgia and attachment; deep melancholy and glib joyfulness; and encounters with the poor and uneducated as well as the sophisticated and privileged.

The brew rings as Irish as the striking Celtic crosses that dot her town’s cemetery. Oppositions enrich the dramatic impact of the transformative process the clueless Eilis undergoes in under a year from her solo embarkation in windowless steerage through a series of disheartening, seemingly insurmountable obstacles and unanticipated breakthroughs on the path to unconscious reinvention.

The gist of the story is that Eilis’s doomed bookkeeper sister Rose (Fiona Glascott) has quietly arranged passage, a job, and a place to live for her in the titular borough, with the help of kindly Father Flood (Jim Broadbent), who lives there. After informing her Wicked Witch of a boss, Miss Kelly (Brid Brennan), that she is off to America, the cruel but not incorrect woman reprimands her. “Mothers are always being left behind in this country. Rose will be looking after your mother for the rest of her life. It’s all over for Rose.” The seeds are sewn for potent guilt later on.

Having arrived at her destination, Eilis is lonely and miserable in a boarding house full of gossipy girls who have already learned the ropes. She begins work, selling women’s notions in a large, luxe department store. The tight sisters keep in touch obsessively though detailed letters read in voiceover, conveniently using exposition to short-circuit setting up multiple scenes.

At a chaste church social, Eilis meets a sweet, handsome, amusing Italian-American, Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen), a working-class plumber shyer than she. His absolute devotion to her is comforting. The budding relationship changes her perspective. She dresses better, sculpts her hair. Conspicuous white-framed sunglasses becomes the emblem of her crossover into cool . For the first time, she is at ease chatting with customers and relaxing at the dinner table at her residence. Newly motivated, she enrolls in a night course in accounting.

Just as things are looking up, family tragedy calls her back, temporarily, to Ireland. While consoling her devastated mother (Jane Brennan), ostensibly for a few weeks, she is courted by “the most eligible bachelor in town,” Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson, son of Brendan), the only child of wealthy parents and a gentleman with the patience of Job. She even accepts a stopgap bookkeeping position in this financially stagnant town.

Eilis begins to view the village with different eyes. The wedding of her best friend Nancy (Eileen O’Higgins) contributes to the allure of a settled relationship. That she and Tony got hitched just before she left New York presents a problem. So do Mum’s unending complaints about own impending solitude. Torn over where she belongs, her familial obligations, and which man is right, she waffles about returning.

Nosy, negative Miss Kelly goes back into action, her insidious verbiage a thinly veiled threat and the catalyst for Eilis’s breaking out of a self-centered state of inertia. It makes the choice between small-town vulnerability and urban anonymity prudent but also easier. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, and this is not The Magdalene Sisters , but her unexpected reaction is a willful act of anti-authoritarianism, a rejection of abusive power for its own sake. I won’t give away the ending, but it jerks the tears. I’ll bet stone-hearted Oscar Wilde would cry.

Eilis has completed the passage to maturity. Experience of others and her own efforts have reconstructed her into an appealingly groomed woman who has claimed ownership of her life. She becomes what the supportive blonde floozy had been for her on the initial crossing, a Good Samaritan for another girl otherwise destined for outsider status, confidently passing on the same tips she got, as if some of the more frequent passengers formed a human chain letter.

Tóibín , in the book, and screenwriter Nick Hornby and Crowley in the movie, embed the narrative in a historical context. The huge diaspora — successes and casualties — and the emptiness felt by the loved ones left behind are constant backdrops to this story of a young innocent’s departure almost solely for economic opportunities. They build scenes honoring the Irish presence in America, a showcase for the working-class experience.

The most touching is a Thanksgiving dinner for homeless Irishmen at a church, where Father Flood surveys the multitudes in a makeshift mess hall, pans courtesy of DP Yves B é langer, and proudly tells Eilis, “These are the men who built the tunnels and the bridges.” (In the same way, Bélanger shoots the lower-class family members gathered at the Irish port to wave off their family members.)

Their time is up: They are too old to go home or to find other work in the US. The cinematographer begins to shoot them at close range. These are the faces of hard times and hard labor. A soloist sings a sad Celtic ballad, one of the many reminders that keep them tethered to their Irish heritage. Crowley refuses to whitewash. At the end of the dinner, several drunk men are asleep at tables littered with empty liquor bottles.

For the record, other chunks of history not specific to the Irish pop up. Tony takes Eilis out to a vast, vacant, and flat meadow to ask if she would live with him there once the place is built up. He describes an embellished version of a Long Island soon to be developed. “It doesn’t look like much now,” he admits. Does the viewer cackle or bawl?

Crowley is an unobtrusive filmmaker. A few scenes in slo-mo heighten significant moments. Where appropriate, especially when Eilis leads two more and more separate lives, he accelerates the crosscutting between America and Ireland. A brief pan over black indicates a major change in setting, from Brooklyn back to Ireland. He loads the soundtrack with Michael Brook’s evocative score — lots of violin — much of it with Irish folk roots. (One jitterbug scene with an early rock song is a hoot.)

Overall, however, he shoots the movie almost as if it were being made at the time it depicts. No fancy footwork, just gorgeous, richly saturated images, whether outdoor on the unspoiled Irish coast or indoor, peeks inside working-class homes of the period, where even the browns and grays of poor man’s décor and couture do not mar the intended effect. A shout-out to production designer François Séguin and costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux. Call it stylized verite, but however you label it, it honors these simple people just as it does the old-timers who got lost along the way.

Ronan, whose performance is flawless, has a strong, pronounced face that can shift gear quickly and credibly. Eilis is in almost every shot. She is the film’s emotional and narrative center, yet the actress’s interpretation includes at times presenting a blank, passive expression of waiting, rather than doing. She would exist in a dramatic vacuum, though, without the exceptional supporting cast, who play unforgettable characters with faces as telling as those of the homeless, and facility with gesture and timing not unrelated to Crowley’s background as a theater director.

Ever-watchable veteran Julie Walters nearly steals the show as Mrs. Kehoe, owner of the boarding house, who renders hilarious logorrhea and tactlessness as she tells Eilis over dinner than she has oily skin and admonishes the girls for mentioning the Lord and nylons in the same sentence. The sad visage of Jane Brennan’s Mrs. Lacey could sink a ship, and her self-pitying remarks to Eilis have just the right pathetic tone. Broadbent is in his engaging effervescent mode as Father Flood. (The clergy get a lot of slack in the film, nothing but warmth and kindness. Sternness is left to the women.)

Jessica Par é plays Eilis’s boss, Miss Fortini, at the department store, Bartocci’s, with the haughtiness of a woman fully aware of her beauty who subtly reveals a tender core. Eileen O’Higgins is perfectly perky as bff Nancy. The couple who play Farrell’s comically eccentric folks are brilliant in their brief appearance. Both Cohen, who does a perfect ‘50s Brooklyn prole accent, and Gleeson are perfectly cast. (Cohen is headed toward the A-list.) All in all, Crowley and Tóibín create females much more complex and interesting than the males. Their expedition bears similarities to those taken by such admirable predecessors as Bergman, Cukor, and Fassbinder.

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We arrange Health Home Care Management and HCBS for children with chronic medical conditions or serious emotional disorders.

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Voyage Resources arranges Care Management and HCBS services that support children along their journey. This is accomplished by a collaborative effort between the parent, care manager, and any other individual involved in the child's care. We work together to understand where your child's challenges lie, and develop the most comprehensive and proficient intervention plan. We act as your child's compass, guiding them on their smooth journey forward.

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Sergei Pavlovich Korolev – the Father of Practical Astronautics

Sergei Korolev (1907 – 1966), Soviet Union 1969 CPA 3731 stamp

On January 12, 1907, lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer during the Space Race Sergei Korolev was born. Korolev is regarded by many as the “father of practical astronautics “. He was involved in the development of the R-7 Rocket , Sputnik 1 ,[ 1 ] launching Laika , Belka and Strelka  and the first human being, Yuri Gagarin ,[ 2 ] into space.

“Today we are witnesses to the fulfillment of the dream that occupied some outstanding people, among them Tsiolkovsky. He had prophesied that mankind will not stay on Earth forever. Sputnik is the first confirmation of his predictions. The opening up of space has begun.” – Sergei Korolev, on the night of October 5, 1957, after the successful launch of Sputnik 1.[8]

Sergei Korolev – Youth and Education

Korolev was born in Zhytomyr , the capital of Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire. His parents, Russian teachers Maria Nikolaevna Balanina (née Moskalenko),  from a wealthy merchant family with Greek and Cossack roots, and Pavel Yakovlevich Korolev, who was  of Belarusian origin, separated just three years after his birth. Korolev grew up with his grandparents in Neshin . When he was ten years old, the family moved to Odessa . There he completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer and roofer. Korolev showed an early interest in aviation and, in addition to his job, worked at the local glider club, constructing his first glider K-5 at the age of 17. In 1925, Korolev began studying at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute . When the Kiev faculty was closed, he transferred to Moscow Technical University (MWTU) in 1926 and graduated. Before that, he completed an internship at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (ZAGI), where he came into contact with the design of powered aircraft. In 1929, together with S. N. Lyushin, Korolev developed and built the Koktebel glider. In the same year, under the guidance of Andrei Tupolev, Korolev created his first powered aircraft SK-4 as his diploma thesis.

First Experiments with Rockets

In the 1930s, Korolev began building rockets as part of MosGIRD, a group founded in 1931 to research recoil propulsion systems. There he received essential impulses for his later work from Friedrich Zander . Together with Zander, whom he considered a mentor, he was involved in the design and construction of the first Soviet hybrid rockets GIRD-09 and GIRD-X , among others. In 1933, he moved to the Rocket Research Institute (RNII) and became head of the Rocket Missile Department in 1934. In the same year, his scientific treatise The Rocket Flight into the Stratosphere was published.

The Great Terror

While working on the RP-318-I rocket-powered glider, Korolyev was arrested by the NKVD’s secret political police during the Great Terror on June 27, 1938. After two days of torture and threats against his family, he signed a confession in which he was forced to identify himself as a member of a counterrevolutionary Trotskyist conspiracy and a participant in acts of sabotage to obstruct development work. He had been denounced under duress by Valentin Glushko ,[ 3 ] who had been arrested three months earlier and who himself spent the period until 1944 in prison. Although innocent, Korolev was sentenced without formal trial on to ten years of hard labor in the gulag and five years of loss of civil rights. After spending time in several prisons and prolonged transportation, he arrived at the notorious Maldyak labor camp in 1939, where he nearly starved to death and became so ill with scurvy that his lower jaw was severely damaged and he lost many teeth.

In the First Circle of Hell

Through interventions of his mother with the support of the well-known pilots Mikhail Gromov and Valentina Grisodubova, the USSR Supreme Court overturned the previous sentence and Korolev was recalled from Maldyak only in November 1939. After renewed interventions by his mother and Gromov with NKVD People’s Commissar Lavrenti Beria , he was sent to the special design office of aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev , who had already supervised Korolyov’s thesis and was also imprisoned. The ZKB-29 special camp for scientists and engineers was under the control of the NKVD and was described from personal experience by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the novel The First Circle of Hell . The ZKB-29 developed the Tupolev Tu-2 dive bomber in Omsk in September 1942.

Petlyakov Pe-2, co-developed by Sergei Korolev

Korolev applied for a job at an aircraft engine plant in Kazan , where Glushko headed the OKB-16 special design bureau for rocket engines under Sharashka conditions. Korolev participated in the development of the Petlyakov Pe-2 multirole aircraft to improve takeoff performance and climb performance with a switchable rocket engine. In 1944, Korolyov and Glushko were paroled from prison early and continued their work on rocket developments as employed engineers of OKB-16. However, Korolev was not officially rehabilitated until April 18, 1957. Korolev’s six-year imprisonment in the Gulag was erased from Communist accounts of the history of technology.

Becoming Chief Designer

After World War II, Korolev rose to become the chief designer of the initially military-only Soviet missile program within the NII (Scientific Research Institute). Korolev’s identity was kept secret during his lifetime, and in public he was referred to only anonymously as the “chief designer.” Korolev’s goal was to develop a civilian rocket program. In 1945, now holding the rank of colonel in the Red Army, he was ordered to Soviet headquarters in Berlin with other engineers and technicians. He was given the task of studying the German rocket program and locating associates of rocket engineer Wernher von Braun who remained in Germany.

The first A4 rocket (from German stocks) is transported to the launch site on a truck trailer. It was launched on 18 October 1947 from the Kapustin Yar test site, Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, CC-BY-4.0

The Soviets placed a priority on reproducing lost documentation on the A4 rocket, and studying the various parts and captured manufacturing facilities. That work continued in East Germany until late 1946, when 2,000+ German scientists and engineers were sent to the USSR through Operation Osoaviakhim . Most of the German experts, Helmut Gröttrup being an exception, were engineers and technicians involved in wartime mass-production of A4, and they had not worked directly with Wernher von Braun. Korolev returned to the Soviet Union in 1946 with plans of German designs and German rocket designers. Among others, Wernher von Braun’s assistant Helmut Gröttrup and aerodynamicist Werner Albring worked on rocket technology development under Korolev’s direction in Kaliningrad (in Moscow oblast) and on Gorodomlya Island (now Solnetchny settlement) in Lake Seliger during this period. The first design resulting from this cooperation was the R-1 rocket of 1948, a copy of the German A4 based on materials available in the Soviet Union. Unlike the U.S., which brought German scientists to the U.S. with its Operation Overcast and ensured their naturalization and retention in the U.S. as early as 1946 with Operation Paperclip, the Soviet Union merely siphoned off their knowledge and used it in the crucial steps for spaceflight.

The Soviet Space Programme

Among Korolyov’s greatest achievements were the construction of the R-7 – the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile – and the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957,[ 1 ] but most importantly, the first space flight by a human, Yuri Gagarin , in 1961.[ 2 ] The R-7  was a two-stage rocket with a maximum payload of 5.4 tons, sufficient to carry the Soviets’ bulky  nuclear bomb  an impressive distance of 7,000 kilometres. However, despite the Soviet R-7 initial success, it experienced later failures as it was not intended to be a practical weapon. Sputnik 1 was designed and constructed in less than a month with Korolev personally managing the assembly at a hectic pace. The satellite was a simple polished metal sphere no bigger than a beach ball, containing batteries that powered a transmitter using 4 external communication antennas. Sputnik 1 was successfully completed and launched into space on 4 October 1957 using a rocket that had successfully launched only once before. After gaining approval from the government, a modified version of Korolev’s R-7 was used to launch Yuri Gagarin into orbit on 12 April 1961, which was before the United States was able to put Alan Shepard into space.

Variants of the R-7 Rocket, (NASA)

Korolev’s group was also working on ambitious programs for missions to Mars and Venus , putting a man in orbit, launching communication, spy and weather satellites, and making a soft-landing on the Moon.

Health Problems and Early Death

In December 1960, Korolev suffered a heart attack, which was followed by others. His cardiac arrhythmias were joined by internal bleeding and intestinal problems. Korolyev was admitted to a Moscow hospital. Doctors were going to remove painful hemorrhoids in a routine operation in January 1966, but in the meantime they discovered a large tumor in his colon and put him under general anesthesia. Tracheal intubation, necessary due to circulatory weakness, failed due to scurvy-related jaw abnormality as a late consequence of Gulag imprisonment; this caused his death on January 14, 1966. The Soviet government honored him by burying his urn in the Kremlin wall. In 1996, the city of Kaliningrad in Moscow Oblast, where he headed the experimental design bureau OKB-1 as chief designer from 1950, was renamed after him.

Losing the Race to the Moon

With Korolev’s death, the Soviet space and lunar programs suffered a bitter loss. Although work on the N1 lunar rocket was continued by his collaborator Vasily Mishin , it was discontinued in 1974 after several launch failures.[ 4 ] The identity of the chief designer remained a state secret in the Soviet Union during his lifetime. While in the U.S. his adversary Wernher von Braun made a high-profile appearance in the press and on television, Korolev was not known even in his own country. When, after the successful launch of Sputnik 1, the Nobel Prize Committee asked Nikita Khrushchev for the name of the chief designer, he replied that it had been the work of the entire Soviet people and that they had thus deserved the award. Only on the occasion of the state funeral in Moscow was this secret revealed.

References and Further Reading:

• [1]  The Sputnik Shock and the Start of the Space Race , SciHi Blog
• [2]  Yuri Gagarin – the first Man in Space , SciHi Blog
• [3]  Valentin Glushko and the Space Race , SciHi Blog
• [4]  The Russian Dream to Land a Man on the Moon , SciHi Blog
• [5]  “Sergei Korolev: Father of the Soviet Union’s success in space” .  www.esa.int .
• [6]  West, John B. (1 October 2001).  “Historical aspects of the early Soviet/ Russian crewed space program” .  Journal of Applied Physiology .  91  (4): 1501–1511.
• [7]    “Sputnik Biographies–Sergei P. Korolev (1906-1966)” .   history.nasa.gov .
• [8]  Joachim Kutzner, Kurt Kobler:  Der Sputnikschock.  4. April 2004
• [9]  The 2021 John J. Rhodes Lecture: Expanded Space Exploration , A Discussion with NASA Astronaut, Dr. Shannon Walker & Ambassador Barbara Barrett, Barrett Honors College @ youtube
• [10] Sergei Korolev at Wikidata
• [11] Timeline for Sergei Korolev , via Wikidata

Harald Sack

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News Obituaries | Bonnie A. Brobst, career educator and literacy…

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News obituaries | bonnie a. brobst, career educator and literacy advocate, dies.

Bonnie A. Brobst, a career educator whose specialty was teaching reading and English as a second language to immigrants, died of cancer April 2 at Royal Assisted Living in Odenton, Anne Arundel County. The longtime Canton resident was 70.

“Bonnie brought an incredible dedication and commitment to teaching people how to read,” said Ivan Leshinsky, former director of the old Chesapeake Alternative School in Brooklyn, which closed in 2018. “We had 16 and 17-year-olds who couldn’t read and within months, she had them reading.”

Marianne Yannarell was another colleague at Chesapeake. “We worked together for 12 years and Bonnie was just a fantastic dyed-in-the-wool teacher who knew that reading was especially important,” Ms. Yannarell said. “The students loved her once they trusted her, and when they did, they trusted her implicitly.”

Bonnie Ann Brobst, daughter of Charles Jacob Brobst, a carpet mill worker, and Eva Pearl Mausteller Brobst, was born in Danville, Pennsylvania, and raised in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.

After graduating from what was then Bloomsburg Senior High School, she earned a bachelor’s degree in 1970 in secondary education with a major in English from Bloomsburg State College, now Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. She later obtained a master’s degree in special education from what is now Loyola University Maryland.

In 1969, she married Larry Drumm, and while he was serving as a pastoral intern at Augustana Lutheran Church, she worked in Washington at the National Education Association.

She returned to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and began teaching English in nearby Harrisburg public schools, where she discovered her passion for working with urban, at-risk teenagers.

After her marriage ended in divorce, she moved to Canton in the early 1970s, and joined Volunteers in Service to America and developed a program for juvenile offenders.

Mr. Leshinsky went to work at Chesapeake Alternative School in 1974 as a teacher-counselor, and eventually became education director, and finally in 1980, director of the school.

“We had been a band of roving gypsies and used church classrooms during the week from Annapolis to Baltimore City for the school,” Mr. Leshinsky said. “We then moved into an old historic former Presbyterian church on Patapsco Avenue.

“Bonnie had been a volunteer and the first thing I did when I was named director was hire her as education director and she became a partner in this operation.”

Beside working with students, her duties included hiring teachers, designing curriculum and interacting with social services and probation officers.

“She had a tremendous relationship with our teachers who idolized her,” Mr. Leshinsky said.

“She taught her students one-on-one which allowed her to get to know them individually,” Ms. Yannarell said. “She had a kind heart and was very much their advocate. She tried to give them enriching experiences like taking them on tours of the city and its monuments.

One project Ms. Brobst brought to fruition was a special activities class which took place after the last period.

“Teachers had to come up with ideas and mine was a cooking class,” said Ms. Yannarell, who left after teaching for 12 years, in 1994.

“We had a store in a classroom where students were able to purchase items, and learn about unit pricing, and then cook them and sell them to the other kids at lunchtime.”

Ms. Brobst left Chesapeake in 1989, when she was hired as a coordinator of a life skills program and a cognitive rehabilitation therapist at MedStar Sinai Hospital.

The program worked with people who had brain injuries and was designed to help them live independently.

Also during this time, she was a GED tutor for inmates in the Baltimore City Jail, an instructor at the Community College of Baltimore, and a trainer for Baltimore Reads, the adult literacy nonprofit founded by then-Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke that closed in 2014 .

She was a longtime member of Zion Lutheran Church across from City Hall Plaza, where she helped established Zion Literacy House, an all-volunteer organization that helped more than 500 adults “improve their literary capabilities,” according to her autobiography.

“She was a beloved teacher who motivated her students to reach higher,” she wrote about herself. “She touched students’ lives and maintained relationships with many of her former students for years.”

In 1998, she returned to Chesapeake where worked until retiring in 2014. The school closed its doors four years later.

She was married in 1995 to the Rev. Eric Gritsch, a native of Vienna, Austria, who was a scholar, author, theologian and ordained Lutheran minister.

The Rev. Gritsch, who had been a professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, and a visiting pastor at Zion, died in 2012.

After his death, Ms. Brobst established and served as secretary of the Eric W. Gritsch Memorial Fund that offered fellowships and held public lectures.

Recently, Ms. Brobst launched a free English as a second language program for immigrants living in Baltimore.

Her church was a focus of her life. She was a council member, adult Sunday School and Bible study teacher and a member of the Forum for German Culture.

She volunteered at a variety of church functions and outreach events including social ministry and leading tours of the church.

She had been a docent at the Walters Art Museum and volunteered at Center Stage, Chesapeake Shakespeare Theater and Friends of Patterson Park.

Ms. Brobst enjoyed gardening, cooking and entertaining at her Eastern Avenue residence and taking long walks in nearby Patterson Park.

She was a member of the Zion Bibliophiles Book Club, a pianist and enjoyed attending the theater, concerts and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

A celebration of life service will be held at 3 p.m. June 8 at her church at 400 E. Lexington St.

She is survived by her foster daughter, Patricia Bouthner, of Severn; a brother, William C. Brobst, of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania; and a grandson, Tracy Allen Bouthner, of Severn.

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