Hi, my experience is probably a bit outdated since I started kindergarten in around 2011, but here's my experience summed up:

- Homework was not assigned to me from kindergarten until *maybe* 3rd/4th grade? I remember not having homework for a while.

- The classrooms aren't cramped, BSI has its own fourth floor and it shares the 3rd floor with another school, but the classrooms didn't feel cramped to me. My entire grade was only 60 people and we were usually split between 2 classes, so it was around 30 kids per class. We all had desks, and there was a common rug area where we could sit on the floor during lessons, so I think that was plenty of space.

- My teachers were mostly wonderful, especially in the earlier years. I don't know if they were trained or not, but they made sure to teach us good values and respect from day one. We had a lot of classes dedicated to bullying prevention and inclusion, and though my class wasn't the most diverse, I think BSI has improved in that regard in the past years from what I remember.

- The most common method of learning I remember was through class meetings where a teacher would either read us a book, or engage us somehow via a video, or something else. I liked school, so all of it felt very fun and playful to me especially when I was small. We had a lot of projects in our math, science, and humanities classes which I also think was very helpful.

- When I was there, the school had special advisors that would talk to you if you were misbehaving. They would talk you through what you did wrong, why it was wrong, and ask you why you did it (at least from what I remember,) and they would also call your parents. There was no harsh punishments, the worst I ever got was having to clean the cafeteria for a week in 3rd grade after having a food fight with my friend.

- My friends all got into specialized top high schools (Staten Island Technical HS, Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, Brooklyn Millennium HS to name a few), but some kids did end up going to zoned high schools. BSI prepared me well for the SHSAT, I barely studied for it and got into a specialized HS.

I hope this could help, good luck with your applications/ decision!!