In late August, on a sunny upper floor of an artsy office building in Fort Greene, a three-person crew laid the foundation for a schoolhouse. With tool belts strapped to their waists, they hammered donated planks into the floor of what will soon become Miss Major Middle, a tuition-free middle school geared towards queer, trans, and ally students, opening next year.
The school's kind-eyed cofounder and co-principal, Joji Florence, excitedly showed Hell Gate around the 1,100-square-foot space, pointing out newly built bins for students' portfolios and the enclosed outdoor space where the first class of sixth graders can have lunch, as well as a studio where they can take classes in dance, movement, and theater. Florence said students will also learn in nearby parks and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where the school has studio space and site-specific units planned.
"The way we're thinking about our kiddos and the school is that we have this space, and the extension of our space is the community. It sounds pretty basic, but when you're in schools for a long time, it is...not basic," Florence explained. "Schools get rooted. They get insular out of safety issues, out of a lot of things. But we have an opportunity to not do that."
Florence, a former math teacher, began dreaming up Miss Major Middle a decade ago, enrolling in graduate school, shadowing other principals, and meeting with parents for brainstorming sessions to figure out how to do it. Named for the pioneering Black trans author and activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, who gave the project her blessing and was involved until her death in 2025, the school will accept its first class of sixth graders in 2027, with seventh and eighth grades added in 2028 and 2029. Florence wanted to apply their experience working in transformative schools—a model that lets the way students learn guide the curriculum—to create a haven that would support marginalized students, who can be ignored or bullied in more traditional school settings.
Miss Major Middle was always meant to be tuition-free. In 2024, it attempted—and failed—to obtain one of the state's "zombie" charters. Instead, it will function as a "public micro middle school" in partnership with Community School District 13 under New York City Public Schools' homeschooling designation. This means that parents register with the City under its homeschooling rules and, with Miss Major Middle's assistance, must submit quarterly reports to the City's Department of Education showing they are keeping up with its requirements. (The DOE did not respond to Hell Gate's questions by publication time, including about how many schools currently operate under this system.)
