Introducing a compelling book that celebrates 25 years of the pioneering The Young Women’s Leadership Schools (TYWLS), featuring a collection of essays, photos, and milestones: It’s All About the Girls.
As Malala Yousafzai said a decade ago, “One child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world.”
In 1996, former NBC News Correspondent Ann Rubenstein Tisch partnered with the New York City Board of Education to open The Young Women’s Leadership School of East Harlem (TYWLS), a public middle school and high school with a pioneer class of 56 seventh-grade girls. What started as a single trailblazing all-girls school has since grown into a network reaching 48 public schools nationwide, including 26 all-girls schools. Today, Student Leadership Network impacts 20,000 students each year, supporting them with access to educational opportunities that help them fulfill their potential and their dreams.
With a model emphasizing academic accomplishment, sisterhood, individual attention, and the all-important goal of college, the TYWLS schools have shown the power of education to change the lives of young girls everywhere. And with supporters including Malala, Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and many other powerful women and men in media, business, the arts and higher education, the success of these schools has been extraordinary.
To celebrate this milestone, SL Network has published It’s All About the Girls, a collection of personal essays highlighting the schools’ history, leadership, teachers, and most importantly, the students with compelling stories of struggles, success, and the irrefutable impact of a TYWLS education.
Each story, each picture, each ‘girl,’ shares a narrative of the astonishing power of the right school at the right time for the young women of New York City and beyond.
It’s All About the Girls is available for purchase on Amazon.
Guests of Student Leadership Network’s 25th Anniversary Celebration left the (Em)Power Breakfast with a copy of “It’s All About the Girls.” This showcase film goes behind the book.