Can a team of ambitious educators, who create a small, public high school from scratch, solve the problems of urban education? There is no simple answer, rather, our film, the New Public illustrates just how complex the problems are.

With unprecedented access in and out of the classroom over 4 years, the film follows a teacher struggling to connect to his students, a young man with a secret, a mother who won’t back down, and a young woman who needs the school’s fresh start to be her own.

This dynamic community of educators, parents and students goes all out to confront interconnecting issues of race, class, and economic reality, yet the results are bittersweet. Verité footage combined with community-shot material provides an intimate and holistic look inside one urban public school — but their story provides an invaluable guide through the complexities faced by urban public schools and communities everywhere.

The New Public explores issues of class, race and culture in the contemporary battlefield of urban education. It’s a case study and a detailed map for the road ahead.