BROOKLYN, N.Y – As Searsport District High School students crowded into an English class at the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, the Brooklyn students got a taste of something they don’t usually experience.

“This is what it would be like if you guys went to a regular classroom: 36 students, not enough desks,” SLJ teacher Emilie Amundson told her students Friday. “Luckily, you guys don’t have to.”

The Urban Assembly movement began in 1997, when the nonprofit organization launched its first small college-prep high school in the Bronx. The “themed” school – the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice – was one of the stops Searsport and SLJ students made on their way to a Yankees game Friday evening.

David Banks, who was principal when the school began, said there are now nine such Urban Assembly schools, and there will be 15 in September.

The Bronx school is the poster child for the concept. The $75 million facility was built when the neighborhood complained about three large courts being built and a fourth in the planning stages. “Enough courts,” neighbors said, and the city acquiesced, Banks said. It built a school instead.

There are some advantages to having courts within a stone’s throw from the school.

“You can get a mentor for every kid in the school just from this building,” Banks said, gesturing to the newest court across the street.

The Bronx school has a mock courtroom and up-to-date forensics labs where students learn to analyze evidence, preparing them for possible careers in the criminal justice system. Principal Meisha Ross-Porter told the Searsport students that New York City police envy the lab.

The Brooklyn Urban Assembly school is not so blessed. It now shares a wing of an older elementary school. Though Winston McKoy, an engaging, charismatic man of about 30, teaches forensics for the school’s science curriculum, there is no lab yet.

The theme provides a possible career track and also allows for integrated learning, with English, history and science classes overlapping. Essays posted on a hallway wall argue for and against the innocence of O.J. Simpson, citing evidence and court pleadings.

Hopes are high for the Urban Assembly schools. Graduation rates are higher than the city average, test scores are climbing above city averages, and more graduates are attending colleges.