Thanks to our readers for your many generous donations and thoughtful suggestions on how to keep Insideschools.org alive and thriving. Please know that we are exploring your ideas and many, many others.

The good news is that Insideschools will not go dark. The sad news is that we have had to let go some of our gifted and committed staff members. And given our severely constrained financial circumstances, we will be curtailing some of our features.

During the coming months we will explore many strategies to determine how to continue providing a high service to you, our loyal readers, while we focus on finding alternate, sustainable sources of revenue.

At the same time, we’ll keep sending regular e-mail alerts to bring you the latest schools news. We’ll keep you apprised on The InsideSCOOP about what’s happening with school admissions and other Department of Education news. And, with your help, we’ll update individual school information as often as we can.

But, we cannot continue to provide this service without you!

How can you help?

• Post a comment. Tell us — and others – what’s going on in your school. It just takes a minute.
• Know of an event of interest to parents? Post it on our calendar
• Start a conversation – or join a conversation – on our forum.
• Share your contacts: Do you have contacts in business, philanthropy, or government that may be interested in Insideschools.org? Let us know!
• Donate! We’re more than halfway to our goal of $10,000 in individual donations by July 31. That is a small fraction of our total operating costs, but we know that generous support from people like you will help us to secure significant funding from other sources. (A special thanks to those who have already donated!)

Thanks for your support. We’ll keep you posted.

In early June, Insideschools and GothamSchools, among other outlets, reported the nomination of Garth Harries as Assistant Superintendent of New Haven, CT, schools. Harries built a tough reputation as a “systems guy,” according to Department of Education spokesperson David Cantor, as portfolio chief at the DOE, when he oversaw the closure of dozens of city schools. Earlier this year, he was given the task of reviewing special education services despite a lack of personal experience in special education.

When the New Haven announcement was made, Harries was expected to serve in New York through the end of the month — that would be today — and to release recommendations of his special education review before he left Tweed.

It’s the end of June. We’ve asked Tweed for Harries’ recommendations, and whether today is his last day at work. So far, no one’s saying. Any wonder that the special education community feels marginalized and overlooked?

This morning at 11 am, a coalition of students, civic leaders and advocacy groups plan to release a ‘white paper’ and report card on the incidence of bullying and bias-based harassment in the city’s schools. Student leaders from the Sikh Coalition and other organizations will speak, as will representatives of the New York Civil Liberties Union and the New York City Bar Association’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Committee, which collaborated on the project, and City Council members Robert Jackson and John Liu.

The report card asks whether the Department of Education has made sufficient progress implementing the anti-bullying Chancellor’s Regulation (number A-832), announced by the Mayor and the Chancellor in September 2008. More than 1,100 students and teachers contributed to the report-card assessment. Notably, three of every four New York City middle- and high-school students report bullying in their schools.

This afternoon at 4:30, vocal opponents of mayoral control plan to celebrate its demise, also at Tweed. Event organizers say they’ll serve eviction papers at midnight to oust Chancellor Klein and his staffers; DOE spokesman David Cantor denounced the proposed gathering as “tribal” in an email response. Of course, everything depends on whether Albany legislators actually manage to meet – forced to do so by a judge’s order — and hinges on new Democratic leader John Sampson’s desire to spend more time evaluating mayoral control.

Dear Judy,

My son is entering 7th grade this fall. Should I be thinking about high school admissions already? What can I do to get prepared?

- Thinking Ahead Mom

Judy answers:

Dear Thinking Mom,

It’s never too soon for a middle school family to start thinking about high school. There are new choices every year as well as the popular tried-and-true schools to consider.

A smart move is to attend the high school admission process workshops that the Department of Education is holding for middle school families over the summer.The workshops are held Tuesday evenings at either Brooklyn Tech High School or Stuyvesant High School. The first session, an overview of options, is being held at Brooklyn Tech on June 30. The other sessions at Brooklyn Tech, on July 7 and 14, cover how to prepare for the specialized high school exam and how to prepare for auditions and portfolios for arts high schools. The sessions at Stuyvesant, starting on July 21 and going through August 11, will discuss large high schools, career and technical schools, new small schools, and charter schools.

You can also pick up a copy of the Directory of Public High Schools that the DOE publishes every year. It should be available at most middle schools and at the borough enrollment offices. The directory is getting fatter and fatter each year, and just browsing through the listings of more than 500 schools can be daunting. To help you narrow your search, check the Insideschools’ reviews in the Find a School section and purchase NYC’s Best Public High Schools by Clara Hemphill and the Insideschools staff.

Consider attending the citywide high school fair next October 3 and 4. At the fair, you and your son will have the opportunity to meet with representatives and often students from many high schools. It’s a hectic and crowded event, but it will help you to jumpstart your school search. Typically around February there are fairs to introduce new schools that will open the following September.

Whether or not you attend the DOE workshops, if your son plans to take the test or audition for one of the city’s nine specialized high schools you should get a copy of the Department of Education’s Specialized High Schools Student Handbook. The handbook should be available at one of the borough enrollment offices or from your guidance counselor in the fall (although most school copies will be reserved for 8th graders.) The handbooks have a sample Specialized High School Achievement Test (SHSAT) so your 7th grader can find out what he’s up against. You can get reasonably inexpensive prep books at our bookstore. I’ve also heard about students getting together in study groups to use these prep books instead of investing in expensive tutoring courses; some middle schools hold free prep courses for 7th graders.

Bottom line: The high school application, although filed in 8th grade, shows 7th grade scores, making 7th grade a very important school year. So while you and your son take some time to attend high school fairs and open houses, don’t forget about homework and attendance! With some advance knowledge, and good grades, you’ll be ready to go through the process for real next year!

You’ve got the whole summer to enjoy. Try not to let admissions anxiety get in the way!

Judy

 Have a school question for Judy?  Search archives | Contact Judy

Q: My son is finishing his junior year, and so far he has not done that well in high school — his average is not quite an 80. He wants to study pharmacy. I don’t want him to go to a community college — I prefer that he attend a college with dorms so that he has the full campus experience. Where do we start?

A: Your question actually has many parts. You are concerned because going into his senior year, your son does not have a strong academic record, yet he is expressing interest in a field that is very difficult to enter. While it might be relatively easy for him to start at a community college, where he could build up his academic profile, you want him to have a residential college experience.

I can understand this — part of the excitement of college is living away from home, learning how to get along with a roommate, and enjoying those philosophical discussions at 2 a.m. Yet — without knowing anything about your home situation — I am concerned that if your son is struggling academically now, while living at home, how is he going to handle his studies while surrounded by all the distractions of campus life?

My suggestion for him, and you, is to take small steps. First, he has to make academics his #1 priority if he is going to have a successful senior year. Senior year grades do count! Let’s see if he can get that GPA above 80. You do not mention his other credentials, but he needs solid SAT or ACT scores, and Regents scores. He should be involved in some extra-curricular activities, too, so that he is a well-rounded college applicant. And that’s the next step, gaining admission to a school where he can develop his academic skills and explore various choices of majors.

As for pharmacy, it is a graduate program. Students work for six years, going beyond the regular time span for a BA or BS degree, until they earn a PharmD degree. Admission to pharmacy school is extremely competitive. Students need high grades, particularly in science and math, and also have to score well on a national exam. Does this mean that I think your son can never become a pharmacist? No, it could happen — but I think that aiming for it right now is premature.

Your son may well be one of those students who is “a late bloomer” — he will be successful, but it hasn’t quite happened yet. He ought to apply to schools where he has a good chance of acceptance and where he can build up his academic skills. Do you know that dorms are available at two CUNY schools? CCNY has a dorm, and a dorm is scheduled to open this coming fall at Queens College. Your son might also consider one of the smaller SUNY branches, such as New Paltz or Old Westbury. Of course, I cannot predict that he will be admitted to any of these schools, but they are suggestions of where to apply if he can get his GPA to a B average. If he adjusts well to college and proves that he can take on a challenging program, he might apply to transfer to a school offering pharmacy.

Ask him to think about why he is interested in pharmacy. Perhaps his desire to help people achieve better health — if that is what inspires him — will make him look at other fields, including social work, psychology, nursing, and health education. I would encourage him to keep his options open. Good luck!

 Have a question for Jane?  Search archives | Contact the College Counselor

The New York State Senate may be scheduled to reconvene at 3 pm today, but if recent experience is any guide, there’s no certainty that actual work will get done on behalf of the State’s citizens. Most pressing for many New York City residents, of course, is the law that maintains mayoral control of the schools, set to expire at midnight tomorrow, June 30.

Covered extensively in the Times, Post, News and at Gotham Schools, Gotham Gazette, and other local media, the mayoral control fight has taken on the tinge of French farce: How long can the public bickering and back-room wheeling-dealing continue? How many leaders and activists can line up for, and against, the mayor’s control of the schools? Can New York City go “Soviet,” to quote the Mayor, if the law’s not renewed? And — we hesitate to ask aloud — what about the kids?

Pro- and anti-control factions rallied and vented yesterday in Harlem. Will all the politics and posturing make a difference? Will Albany legislators wake up today and decide their duties outweigh their power struggles? Will New York’s statehouse denizens cease to be a laughing-stock and step up to their responsibilities?

With less than two days to go, the answers are anyone’s guess. The conflict is red meat for the local press, local pols, and pundits and activists on all sides. We still want to know, what about the city’s kids?

Principal Brian Culot of the Anderson School, one of Manhattan’s three citywide gifted and talented schools, has announced his resignation as principal, effective this August. In a letter to the Anderson community, Culot explained that he’s taken a position closer to his home, to permit him to spend more time with his family. He acknowledges that his departure, at a time of Anderson’s transition, relocation, and growth, comes at a challenging moment in the life of the school.

Additionally, Principal Jacqui Getz of PS 87 on the Upper West Side announced her resignation. Rumors are that Getz will assume leadership of a Manhattan charter school this fall; as of this morning, Getz would not respond to specific questions about her next position. An interim acting principal has yet to be announced.

In last week’s poll we learned that people use both electronic and human resources to get insights into their schools and community. About a third of respondents to last week’s poll turn to the Department of Education’s website;  the same number  rely on friends, neighbors, teachers, and other school personnel. Internet resources like parent listservs and education-media sites serve about 10 percent and 16 percent of responders, respectively.

Today is report-card day at schools citywide — and it’s your turn to grade your child’s school experience this year. Better yet, ask your child!