Brooklyn Castle

Brooklyn Castle is a documentary centered on I.S. 318, an inner-city school where more than 65 percent of students come from households living below the federal poverty level. Despite those challenges, it is home to the nation’s most accomplished and victorious junior high school chess team. (If Albert Einstein, rated 1800, were to join the team, he would rank only fifth.) Chess has helped transform the school from one identified in 2003 as a "school in need of improvement" into one of New York City’s top schools. However, a wave of public school budget cuts driven by the recession now threatens to erode those hard-earned achievements.