Extracurriculars
Our Clubs
Animatronics
Students will learn and use STEM skills to create prototypes of inventions that mimic nature.
Baseball Team
The baseball team is designed to teach players not only how to play the game, but how to work together as a productive member of a team. Every team member will be learning valuable life lessons, including but not limited to, work ethic, sportsmanship, success, failure, perseverance, cooperation, and preparation.
Basketball Team (Co-Ed)
The 217 Hawks Basketball Team is a competitive team. Practices and games run from October to April. Student-athletes develop sportsmanship, teamwork, leadership, responsibility, work-ethic, etc., through practice and competition.
Bully Busters
Students will learn how to be effective bully up-standers as they increase awareness for student bullying. Students will also be responsible for creating an anti-bullying video for future assemblies.
Cheerleading
The Cheerleading team will learn the skills to raise the spirits of the basketball players and encourage the crowd to be involved and engaged. Cheerleaders will learn perseverance and teamwork by learning difficult choreography and performing at all Hawk's home basketball games.
Chess Club
Chess club offers students the opportunity to practice strategic thinking, and meet fellow students who share the same passion for chess.
Co-Ed Soccer Club
The purpose of the soccer club is for enjoyment, to help students develop soccer skills and character development. Students will learn skills for the first part of practice and then there will be rotating round robin team play.
Cricket Club
The purpose of this club is to give a voice, a platform and most importantly representation to the students who find "home" in this sport. To spread basic awareness to the whole school of what cricket is and how fun it is. Students will be able to improve their Cricket skills and overall knowledge of the game.
Drama Club
The Drama Club produces full scale musical productions! We act. We sing. We dance. We construct sets. We design costumes. We operate lights. We direct. We choreograph. We write.
To be honest; We evaluate. We critique. We examine. We create. We dream. We imagine. We yearn. We hope. We discover.
Come and join. It may end up being one of the best decisions you make.
Fitness Club
In a CHAMPS Sports and Fitness Program, students participate in fun, safe, and supervised physical activities before and after school. The name CHAMPS stands for Cooperative, Healthy, Active, Motivated and Positive Students.
Gourmet Cooking Club
The Cooking Club comes together to experience preparing and tasting healthy food.
Green Team
The Green Team. School Improvement Projects: Paper Recycling; Energy Audits/Conservation, Cafeteria Recycling Audits, School Beautification-Garden/Clean-Up/Gifts of Nature.
Social Action Humanitarian Projects: Children’s Issues, Climate Change, Recycling, Halal Food, Deforestation. Refugees. Racism. Endangered Species. Students develop projects, based on their own interests.
Contests: NYCDOE Energy Conservation Calendar Artwork; Electric Usage Reduction Contest; Dept. of Sanitation Awards. Gold Sustainability School Pilot Certification Public Relations: Signs for Hallways, Letters to Public Officials, Assemblies, PA Announcements, Photographing
Special Events: Winter Concert, Spring Arts Festival, Earth Day Carnival/Scavenger Hunt
Heart Surgery Program
The Heart Surgery Program is a comprehensive, high interest after-school program that takes students on an in-depth journey through the human circulatory system. The program includes 18 after school sessions where students will learn about the circulatory system and engage in related activities such as using a microscope to observe goldfish circulation, using a sphygmomanometer to measure blood pressure, simulated blood typing and cholesterol testing. In addition to these activities, students will view a live open-heart surgery via our video-conferencing equipment. For the final activity students will dissect a sheep's heart.
Latin Dance Club
Everyone can be a dancer! Fun for all who love latin dance! Students will be given the opportunity to participate in and enjoy one of the most defining and important Latin American cultural traits: dance. Students will move their hips to dances ranging from bachata, cumbia to salsa, and many other Latin rhythms.
Margaret's Place
Students act as ambassadors for the Margaret's Place and work to empower other students.
Math Team
The MS 217 Math Team started during the 2018-2019 School Year, with the goals of bringing students together to build up their collaborative abilities, problem solving skills and all-around enjoyment and appreciation of Mathematics. In the years that it has been run the 217 team has competed with teams from across the District, City, State and even Nationally through online resources! Open to all, Math Team has brought together students from all grade levels and all manner of classes, from ENL to Honors and everything in between.
Men Of Strength Club
Men of Strength Club aims to:
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Provide young men with a safe, supportive space to connect with male peers
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Promote an understanding of the ways in which traditional masculinity contributes to assault and other forms of men's violence against women
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Expose young men to healthier, nonviolent models/visions of manhood
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Build young men's capacity to become peer leaders and allies with women
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Serve as a hub for social justice activism and nonviolence
Mind & Body Mindfulness Club
To help advance student overall mental and physical health as well as personal growth by implementing a sequence of mindfulness and physical asana activities.
Mind & Body Mindfulness Club
The Mighty Milers Club is a running program that helps young people develop the ability, confidence, and desire to be physically active for life. We participate in events that combine fitness activities, short dashes, and races to give kids a fun and rewarding experience designed to build the confidence they need to cross any finish line!
Online Academic Support Program
We are excited to offer students the opportunity to join our Online Academic Support Program at MS 217. Our Online Academic Support Program will include Math and ELA support for grades 6 and 7 and Algebra, ELA and Living Environment for grade 8 students.
Peer-Tutoring Program/ Homework Help
The Peer-Tutoring/Homework Help Club offers a unique opportunity for students at MS 217; one that mirrors the type of program that may exist in some high schools, but certainly not in middle schools.
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The Peer-Tutoring Club is made up of a group of intrinsically motivated eighth-grade students who volunteer their time to tutor/assist other students.
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The benefits of the Peer-Tutoring Program run in both directions, from the students who volunteer to those who attend. The sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students seeking help benefit because they receive one-on-one assistance in a low-stress environment where they have the opportunity to try over and over again. Students seeking help can be tutored in ELA, Math, Science, or Social-Studies.
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The eighth-graders benefit because they go through the arduous task of finding ways to impart knowledge. This forces them to be creative and persistent as they seek the best methods in how to tutor others.
Robotics
Students learn to build and program Lego EV3 robots.
Soccer Club
Our team promotes sportsmanship, integrity, leadership, self-discipline, and character development by stressing the technical, tactical, physical and mental components of the game. We also strive to instill in our students the spirit of sportsmanship and teamwork as they are as important to us as being highly skilled competitive players.
Swim Club
In our program we improve the technique of our students skills. Students learn how to:
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Swim the four competitive strokes, Freestyle, Backstroke, Breaststroke & the Butterfly, in addition learn how to dive and variety of turns.
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Students that tryout must have prior experience swimming and be able to swim 100 yards of at least the front crawl/freestyle stroke. Since inception alumni students have applied to various high schools with varsity swim teams have even become captains of their team. Some of these students have even gone on to become lifeguards for the NYC parks department making thousands of dollars over summer vacation.
The Fitness Club
The purpose of the fitness club is to provide students with resistance exercises that can be performed at home or outside. The club will focus on resistance techniques where students will target multiple body parts with bands. Students will receive handouts each meeting to learn about the body and best practices to have a safe workout.
Volleyball Club
Teach students the fundamentals of the sport volleyball in order to make a school team for CHAMPS.
Wrestling Club
To develop the full human and athletic potential of the participants while learning the essential life lessons of personal responsibility, physical fitness, education, and teamwork.
Yearbook Club
Students will capture the essence of the graduating class by taking pictures, editing pages, and creating a book filled with memories of their time in MS217Q.
Young Debaters Club
Students learn the fundamentals of debating and lawyering skills.
Young Women of Power
Young Women of Power is an all-girls after school program with a variety of 7th and 8th grade students in order to encourage, educate, and empower young female student leaders. The program will aim to expose its members to a variety of issues they may face as young adults pertaining to their gender, as well as facilitate interpersonal and esteem-building activities with the intention of promoting camaraderie and activism. The program will also provide its members with the opportunity to establish themselves as leaders in their communities through service and peer education.