Kids who grow up in New York City don’t expect suburban amenities like backyards, basement recreation rooms, and their own bedrooms, and they’re used to thinking of shared parks and playgrounds as their own. When it comes to schools, the same mentality of sharing space often rules, although it seems the concept of sharing space is being stretched more than ever.

Today’s New York Times carried a piece highlighting the difficulties existing public schools are having sharing space with a growing number of charter schools, at a time when public schools are also squeezed. Last week Insideschools wrote about parents angry over charter school expansion on the Lower East Side. Gotham Schools highlighted stories in the Downtown Express about overcrowded elementary schools and a principal’s threat to leave for Westchester, while the New York Daily News reported that class sizes have grown.

My younger son’s excellent middle school, the Clinton School for Artists & Writers, has been told it must move out of top few floors it has occupied on top of PS 11 in Chelsea since its inception. Sharing it seems, is no longer an option. (more…)

This past summer I was assigned Henry Jame’s Portrait of a Lady and couldn’t read more than a page without getting a pounding headache and falling asleep. At first I attributed this to the complexity of the language, and assumed that I was having difficulty reading it because it was too challenging and therefore boring. As it turns out, it probably was too challenging, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was my eyes.

Like so many other people, I have vision disorders (in my case, tracking problems and convergence insufficiency) that make reading, computer work and other close-up tasks very difficult. Having convergence insuffieciency means that a person’s eyes do not work well at close distances. They often drift outward, causing that person to see double. The person naturally tries to pull their eyes back in to make the close object clear and single, causing a lot of strain on their eyes.

Fortunately my parents and I discovered the problems when I was in elementary school and I was sent to vision therapy, so I was able to recognize what was going on when the problems came back last summer. Many kids aren’t this lucky. (more…)

“What IS throw-up? Is it yucky like poop?”

Having only had the stomach flu once in his life as a toddler, Brooks managed to get it twice this past month. And as his expressive language skills improve and his thoughts get more organized, he has been “entertaining” my husband and me with his attempts to figure it all out.

Because sensory issues are a component of autism, we never quite know how Brooks experiences being sick. When he was much younger, he was sometimes able to block out pain the same way he blocked out people. His pediatrician was once perplexed at Brooks’ response to getting a shot—not only did he refrain from crying, he showed no sign of any discomfort! Although you could argue that this is a valuable skill, the downside is that he’s sometimes not very in touch with his own body. For instance, he can easily overeat and not stop until he finally gets a bad stomach ache. We suspect that because he doesn’t actually feel full, he doesn’t stop eating sooner. As a result, he complains that his stomach hurts and in the same breath asks for more chocolate ice cream. (more…)

Dear Judy,

Kindly let me know where I could find information about rules or regulations pertaining to the amount of time school children, especially in the lower grades, must spend out of doors.

Sincerely,
Jaime

Dear Jaime,

Two weeks ago my column on a similar subject raised a lot of comment and I started to look more closely into the city and state rules.

Unfortunately, I can’t report anything definitive. New York State standards on physical education and health do not mention the out of doors! And there is no Chancellor’s Regulation on the subject either. Department of Education spokesman Will Havemann pointed to the department’s Wellness policy which, he said, encourages elementary schools to have 20 minutes of recess every day, preferably outdoors. But basically the decision of how much time children spend out of doors is a judgment call made at the school level. (more…)

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

Lower East Side parents are up-in-arms about the proposed expansion of the Girls Preparatory Charter School. The school is requesting more space to house a growing middle school population — 50 5th-graders were turned away last year due to lack of space. Neighborhood parents worry that an expansion will exacerbate overcrowding issues in District 1, where many schools currently share buildings.

Last Wednesday, parents, students, and educators packed into PS 20 to discuss the Department of Education’s plans for expanding Girls Prep, as reported by the new Manhattan local news site, dnainfo.com “You see how crowded and hot it is in here?” Marilyn Roberts, a PS 20 parent asked at the meeting of the district’s Community Education Council. “That’s how our children are going to feel. [Expansion] is a short term solution and a long term disaster.”

Girls Prep shares space with PS 188 and PS 94, a special education school for autistic kids. Expanding the school would affect other schools in the district as well, parents say. (more…)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the middle school fairs. Several open houses and tours later, my family is taking on the seemingly impossible task of ranking schools. Schools that I thought would be among “our” first choices are now somewhat less impressive when viewed up close.

Although my son continues to grumble, he is learning what is important to him in a school and recognizing the signs of a potential “home.”  “J” is mainly concerned with technology and the arts. He prefers a 6-12 school so that he doesn’t have to go through this process again (until college, that is).  I am largely concerned with whether the students’ voices are heard and their input valued. A lack of student voice is the number one complaint amongst the kids that I work with.

Given your thoughtful questions and comments, I thought an update might be useful. Sonia wondered how to find unzoned schools, “Bronx Dad” asked about District 10 schools, and  “District 13 parent” lamented the lack of both true diversity and high quality citywide schools. (more…)

The Child Nutrition Act is up for reauthorization. All of the Untied States Department of Agriculture nutrition programs that fall under this legislation, including School Breakfast and School Lunch Programs, are scheduled to be updated in Congress; the last time was in 2004. This is a chance to make sure no children go hungry, but also the potential to change-and improve-what they are served in their school cafeterias.

Last week, the USDA reported that “food insecurity” rose last year-that is, more families were unable to consistently put food on the table (14.6% of families were food insecure in 2008, up from 11.1% in 2007). As a consequence, more children are going to school undernourished, so their cafeterias are often the best source of a complete meal.

In NYC, recession-related food insecurity may be compounded by the high cost of living. Yet, because of bureaucracy, many kids who should be eligible for free meals are not getting them. At the same time, 1 in 5 kindergarten students in NYC is obese, and Type 2 diabetes is at an all-time high. (more…)

In October, Governor Paterson proposed $686 million in school budget cuts. Democratic Senate Leader John Sampson stated yesterday that these cuts “are not going to happen.” The official decision is still pending, but the vote is in process and may be settled as early as Monday evening.

Paterson’s budget office projects a deficit for the remainder of the current fiscal year of $4.1 billion, with deficits of $7.8 billion and $15.7 billion over the following two. Citing these dire economic straits, his plan calls for major cuts in education, as well as healthcare spending. “I will mortgage my political career on this plan,” he told a joint session of the Legislature on Nov. 9th.

The Alliance for Quality Education (AQE) is urging New Yorkers to ask their representatives to oppose these cuts. AQE’s Executive Director Billy Easton told the New York Times that “school aid has to be off limits because of the constitutional obligations that are going unmet.”

You can contact your representative at OurKidsCantWait.org.

In our last poll, we asked how you felt about the future of our public schools in the wake of  Mayor Bloomberg’s reelection. It turns out that many of you – 32% — are angry: you feel our kids were pawns in a costly campaign and wish the money had gone to schools instead.

Fifteen percent have confidence that the mayor  has done a lot to make the schools better and that he can keep up the momentum. Fifteen percent are determined to get our kids the best education possible regardless of who’s in charge, and 18% are worried things will get worse. Only 10% said they were optimistic that the schools will improve, and just 7% were disappointed that Thompson didn’t win.

This week, we’d like to know how your parent-teacher conferences went. Vote now! You’ll find this week’s poll near the upper left hand side of this page, and you can share your comments here.

A notice went out in the Principal’s Weekly last week inviting schools from all over the city to participate in the Green Cup Challenge, a national student-driven energy challenge. Please talk to your principal or interested teachers if you think they might enjoy having an energy scavenger hunt for four weeks in January with the goal of reducing the school’s electricity use.

The Challenge also encourages students to submit a video. Take a look at last year’s winning video here. Some suggested activities during the Green Cup Challenge month include having a waste-free day in the cafeteria, enforcing a school lights-off-at-night and turn-off-the-computer-after-hours policy, hosting an assembly about climate change, showing a documentary such as The Story of Stuff, or inviting a speaker.

Speaker, book, and film ideas are posted at EducatingTomorrow.org, the UFT’s (Teacher’s Union) green committee site. This is the first year that NYC public schools can participate in the Green Cup Challenge and the more schools that participate, the more fun the competition will be.

Interested schools can register online. An introductory meeting and training for interested schools will be held on Dec. 8 from 9-11 am at the Urban Academy School for Green Careers on West 84th Street in Manhattan. For more information or questions about signing your school up to participate in the green Cup Challenge contact Ozgem Ornektekin.

Last year 120 schools nationwide participated in the Green Cup Challenge and collectively reduced their carbon emissions by 2.5 million pounds, the equivalent of taking 220 cars off the road for a whole year. New York City schools can make a difference!

A new batch of future-kindergartners will be “turning 5″ soon, and the Department of Education is preparing for their arrival. The kindergarten admissions season is set to begin Feb. 1 for children who will turn five in 2010. The pre-K admissions season will open a month later, on March 1 according to the DOE’s timeline. Eligible students are those will turn four by Dec. 31, 2010.

Turning 5 Fairs  for children with special needs will begin on Nov. 30. Taking place across the city, these events acquaint parents with the public school special education admissions process. The 2009-2010 guide for “Preschool to School Age Orientation” will be available soon on the DOE’s Special Education website.

In January, a handful of schools in District 75, which serves only disabled students, will hold open houses and tours.

Many public schools are already scheduling tours and open houses for prospective parents. For dates, it’s best to check the school’s website or call the parent coordinator.

Uncertain of what is your zoned school? Visit the DOE’s School & Zone Finder or call 311. Looking for another option? Search for “unzoned”  or “charter” schools in the Insideschools Find a School section.

Q: How can I possibly make my application special when colleges are getting thousands of them? How can mine be different and get their attention?

A: How can you make your application stand out? It’s a challenge, especially when you are using the Common Application, which makes every application look the same — neat, yes, but also visually uniform and therefore potentially boring for admissions officers facing stacks of identical applications.

Of course, the contents of your application, rather than its appearance, ought to be its most outstanding aspect. Still, adding some visual spice can have the effect of making the people reading your application slow down a bit and really notice the contents.

But be careful. (more…)

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

Dec. 4 is the date when high school applications are due to school guidance counselors. If you’re like the average New York City public middle school parent, you have spent the fall accompanying your 8th grader to school tours and open houses, you’ve perused the thick high school directory and you’ve bookmarked Insideschools’ noteworthy high school profiles and ref+erred to them regularly. And if you’re like the average 8th grader, you’ve been agonizing with your friends about where you’ll end up next year. But now you must sit down and make some decisions.

Our advice: Be very careful drawing up your list of high school choices. You will be assigned to a high school based on how you rank your schools and how the schools rank you. You may list up to 12 choices, but you will receive only one offer. If you have taken the exam for the specialized high schools or auditioned for LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts, you may have a choice between one of those schools, should you be accepted, and your list of 12. There are also a few charter schools to consider which have a separate application and lottery. Apply only to schools you are willing to attend. If you get assigned to a school you hate but have listed it on your application, it will be very hard to get placed in a different school. (more…)

Nearly half — 45% — of all New York City public high schools are “A” schools, according to their grades on progress reports released today by the Department of Education. An additional 30% of the more than 300 high schools graded received a “B.” The high school grades lag behind those of the elementary and middle schools released in September.

High elementary and middle school grades reflected, in large part, the improvement of students’ scores on state standardized exams; high school grades are based on the school’s graduation rates and Regents scores, which did not improve as much.

The high number of elementary and middle schools receiving top grades — 84% received A’s — led some to question the validity of the grading system, while state officials vowed to toughen up its procedures.

Today’s press release, reports that 87% of the schools that received an A last year earned an A again this year; 67% of the schools that earned D’s and F’s last year earned C’s this year. (more…)

Last week, our student blogger Toni wrote about the City Hall protest against the DOE bake sale ban.

Channel 11 and Gotham Schools covered the event. In addition to assertions that this ban takes away a vital fundraising source in this era of steep budget cuts, one student made this simple argument:  “cookies are good for the soul.”

How is your school dealing with the ban?

When someone asked me what high schools I might be thinking about for my 7th-grader recently, my answer came swiftly and might have sounded a bit snippy.

“I’m not thinking about it at all,” I said, which of course, isn’t true, much as I’d like it to be, since it feels like we just got him happily settled in middle school.

It is a fact of life for New York City parents: You are always thinking about schools, from pre-school (which can be a grueling ritual of its own) until high school graduation, when the focus shifts to paying for college. (more…)

On Nov. 12, the Panel for Educational Policy approved changes to the Department of Education’s promotion standards, imposing stricter passing guidelines for students in grades 4 and 6. Changing the retention policies for students in grades 3-8, and ending “social promotion”, has been a hallmark of Mayor Bloomberg’s education agenda.

The panel approved the policy with little comment or dissension, although two members voted against it. This was in stark contrast to the outcry that followed the 2004 passage of the 3rd grade retention policy. Now all students in grades 3-8 (who take the state standardized reading and math tests) will be held back if they fail to score at least a 2 on a 4-point scale.

All other proposed new policies,  previewed earlier this month on Insideschools, were likewise approved. These included new procedures for selecting principals and other supervisors, and the creation of a new Chancellor’s Regulation which lays out the requirements for public review before a school is closed or there are changes in building utilization.

Public comments on the proposed changes and the new regulation are posted on the Department of Education website;  meanwhile education advocate Leonie Haimson writes on the NYC Education News  Yahoo group that the DOE “appears to have taken almost no suggestions for improvement.”

The “Race to the Top” dominated this week’s education headlines, but left a lot of us wondering, “who’s racing and to where?”

Basically, states will “race” to create comprehensive education reform plans, in hopes of earning a chunk of 4.35 billion government dollars to support their efforts. The program was established by the Obama administration under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — an expansive piece of legislation aimed at stimulating the economy, creating new jobs, and supporting industries critical to our nation’s prosperity.

“We will award grants to the states that have led the way in reform and will show the way for the rest of the country to follow,” said U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, in a Nov. 12 press release.To apply for Race to the Top funds, states must submit plans based on four areas of reform: college and career preparation, data analysis for measuring student progress, recruiting skilled teachers, and improving under-achieving schools. (more…)

Urban Word NYC is a spoken word, poetry, and hip-hop group aimed at serving New York City youth. They were “founded on the belief that teenagers can and must speak for themselves” and “provide free, safe and uncensored writing workshops to teens year round.”

I have been attending their Creatively College Bound workshop this year. The program is enormously helpful. In their words, Creatively College Bound “is a program geared towards high school juniors and seniors who want their creative critical voice to soar over the tedium of the college application process. Poetry, spoken word, and hip-hop are used as inspirations and the creative foundation for the college admissions and college preparatory process.”

Participants write four essays in four different general areas that cover all college/scholarship prompts. These essays are then read at workshops so the writer can get feedback from the other members. The leader of the workshop will give his or her own feedback as well.

I brought a draft of my common application essay to a workshop a couple of months ago. The leader made copies, passed one to everyone, and had someone read it out loud. It was a bit nerve racking, but at the end I got back 15 copies of my essay, covered in suggestions from other writers. They also gave me verbal feedback and explained their comments. I spent the next couple weeks incorporating their suggestions and my own new ideas, and ended up with an essay I was really proud of. In fact I was so happy with my essay that I applied to all my colleges two months early!

Creatively College Bound workshops take place on Monday afternoons at the Urban Word space in Midtown Manhattan.

If you think you’re doing okay on your essay, Urban Word provides a number of other workshops on topics ranging from slam poetry to social activism. Check out the website to see what Urban Word has to offer you!

Last week, our student blogger, Toni, urged New York City residents to get out and protest the bake sale ban. Well, tomorrow is your chance!

At 3 p.m., concerned citizens will gather in front of City Hall to let regulators know that axing bake sales means axing an important means of raising funds for student activities. And what better way to support bake sales then to throw one? Baked treats will be traded for petition signatures from 3 to 5:30 p.m.

If you can’t make it out, organizers are urging supporters to gather signatures on their own. Once 10,000 are collected, they plan to enlist the support of city council members. “By then nothing can stop us,” reads the group’s Facebook page.

You can also message Chancellor Joel Klein directly to voice your frustration with the ban, or show your support.

Our recent poll on the ban showed that users are somewhat divided on this issue — some think that parents and students can  come up with healthier ways to raise funds. However, the overwhelming majority of the voters,  72%, opposed the ban.

We’ve heard that some schools (no names or numbers revealed) have ignored the regulation.

What’s happening at your school?

In conjunction with the release of the new movie  “Precious,” NY1  featured the work of Insideschools’ parent organization, Advocates for Children. The film follows a 16-year-old Harlem student through her struggles with illiteracy, obesity, and a  broken home. Although the character is fictional, her problems are only too common among children in New York City schools. Cheryl Wills, a NY1 reporter spoke to several of AFC’s lawyers and advocates about the work the organization does to ensure that children like Precious receive the educational services they need. The reporter also interviewed students, clients of AFC, who were “falling through the cracks” until AFC advocates helped find schools and programs to get them back on track.

View the feature on the NY1 website. Kudos to AFC!

Marriage is hard. I don’t know of any husband or wife who hasn’t, at some point or another, experienced this lifetime commitment as tiresome, uninteresting, and relentless. Even when you love your husband and he loves you and your relationship has already earned the depth of decades. And even without an autistic child thrown into the mix.

Raising an autistic child apparently increases divorce rates to 80%, although I have not been able to find a reliable source for this oft-quoted statistic. I’ve seen some of these marriage breakdowns first-hand, and I find them especially sad.

I am hardly cocky enough to claim that I know the secret to staying married, but since my husband and I both celebrated our birthdays recently, I have been thinking a lot about what keeps us together. And perhaps, more importantly, what fails to drive us apart. (more…)

Dear Judy: 

 My daughter just started kindergarten in a public school with a very big school yard.  Her schedule is robust with no play and all academics, mostly spent in a very warm classroom.  At lunchtime, the kindergartners stay in the cafeteria watching the others play and then are lined up outside in the yard for the last five minutes (again watching the other kids play) until their teachers come to get them so they can begin the next three hours in the warm classroom.

I have spoken to the teachers, the parent  coordinator, and the principal about the “why” behind this physically unhealthy and “mean” policy.  No straight answers yet, I’m still hoping.

Am I allowed to get my child during the lunch hour and bring her back to school after lunch? When I was a kid this was allowed. I want my young child to have some physical activity during the school day.

 Kindergarten parent

Dear Kindergarten parent,

Lunch in or out?  There is no city regulation governing this question; it is the school principal who determines the policy at each school. However a principal can’t keep individual parents from taking their child out to lunch.

For years and years many children went home for lunch, escorted by their mothers. That was in the “olden days” when women did not work and kids walked back and forth from school. Today it is rare, but not unheard of. There are logistics to work out:  You will have to sign your daughter in and out of school every lunchtime.  You and the school will have to decide where you will pick her up, what happens if you are late, who will  be responsible for her until you show up, and how will you inform the staff of exceptions. Besides adding a layer of supervision, these are understandable concerns for the safety of your daughter. You must work out suitable procedures with the principal and stick to them. (more…)

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

Tomorrow, Night Owl’s kindergarten will finally receive the H1N1 vaccine, but for us, it’s too little, too late. My daughters were both ill two weeks ago with what their doctor described as “classic influenza” — most likely H1N1, she said, since that’s what’s making the rounds right now.

The vaccine had been elusive at the pediatrician’s office too — initial doses reserved for high-risk children.

After their days of fever, cough, and upset stomach (and for Night Owl, a side of mild pneumonia), they are back in school. But even if they’re now immune to this one virus, even if we decide to be doubly safe and vaccinate, I know the usual parade of seasonal horrors will still visit us. And believe me, some have been far more hideous than what we endured last week (the intestinal virus Night Owl spread to all 15 guests last Thanksgiving, for one).

In order to fortify my kids, I’ve been collecting information on boosting natural immunity during cold and flu season. Certainly, improving overall health can go a long way in fighting off infections and rebounding more quickly from them.

(more…)

There’s some great news in this week’s poll: a majority — 43 percent — of your schools offer high-quality, after-school programs!

However, 25 percent of you feel your school’s programs need improvement, and 23 percent don’t even have a school-based program. These figures are aligned with the results of Afterschool Alliance’s recent survey, America After 3pm, which found that one-quarter of American students are without much-needed after-school activities.

As we’re all now aware, Mayor Bloomberg will retain his mayoral seat for a third term. Following this week’s elections, we’d love to know how you feel about the future of the New York City educational system. Vote now!

Sustainability is one of those subjects that children and adults can learn about together. Sometimes children make the biggest difference!

At the Division of School Facilities’ Sustainability Committee meeting earlier this fall, Jamie Cloud, the inspiring founder of the Cloud Institute, talked about Jessie-Ruth Corkins, a girl in Vermont who saved her school $90,000 and changed the way the whole state of Vermont heats its school buildings — all before she graduated from high school. Jessie-Ruth was young, in 4th grade, when Vermont instituted its Sustainability Curriculum mandates, Jamie said, it was not that surprising that by the time she entered high school she had taken responsibility for the world she lived in and tried to make it a better place.

That’s what kids do, because they don’t know what’s supposed to be impossible. Some people ask how teachers can find time to teach sustainability concepts among all the other education mandates. “There’s never going to be more time in the day,” said Cloud. “But people have to ask, are we going to educate for sustainability, or for unsustainability?”

Pamela French, a New York parent and the founder of A Greener Apple video series, takes sustainability straight to the streets with the question: “How would you make New York a greener apple?” She asked this question of students, parents, and educators at the Green Schools Alliance’s Green Schools NYC Fair, held last spring at the Collegiate School. Enjoy her piece below and let us know how you would make New York a greener apple in the comments!

A few weeks ago, my 5th-grade son “J” and I attended the first of two middle school fairs. Although we live in District 10 in the Bronx, my children attend elementary school in Manhattan’s District 4, which gives us twice as many middle schools through which to sift.

I entered the lunchroom hosting the District 4 fair with excitement, prepared with a mental list of “must visit” schools. As an admittedly-anxious mom and eyewitness to the things that can go wrong in middle schools, I have been researching schools on this site, and in the book NYC’s Best Public Middle Schools by Clara Hemphill and the Insideschools staff.

J had on his “I’m not talking to anyone” face and refused to ask questions at any of the tables. He asked again why he needed to be present. If it were up to him, he would rather spend the day at his beloved elementary school, Central Park East I. (more…)

The Department of Education is proposing changes in existing policies, called Chancellor’s Regulations, regarding promotion standards, and the way in which principals and assistant principals are chosen. It is also proposing a new regulation governing procedures for locating or closing schools or changing current building usage. The Panel for Educational Policy will vote on these measures at the Nov.12 meeting at PS 128 in Queens; in the meantime the public is invited to review the proposals and weigh in on them.

The revised state law governing NYC schools renewed mayoral control of the city school system, but modified it in an effort to increase parent input. The law explicitly requires announcement of PEP meeting agendas at least 10 days in advance. In this case, the DOE provided the information more than a month in advance. However, it is not clear how public comments (which are not actually being made public) will make a difference in the proposals or the outcome of the PEP vote. (more…)

Q:  My son is a junior at a high school in Queens.  He is an excellent student and would like to go to a prestigious college.  But his high school is huge and the college counselors don’t have much time for each student.  On the other hand, my cousin’s son goes to a prep school near Washington DC, and my cousin says their college counselors are known for getting kids into the best colleges.  What chance does my son have competing against applicants like that?

A:  I went to a very large high school myself, in Queens, many years ago.  There were about 1500 students in my graduating class.  Now I work at a private school, and yes, there is a vast difference in the amount of individual attention teachers and counselors are able to give to students.  But statistics confirm that students in each setting are successful in the college admissions process.

Going to a private school in itself does not guarantee acceptance to any college; nor does attending a large urban public school in itself, assure rejection.  Applicants are looked at in the context of their school environment, so your son will not be competing against his cousin.

I recently attended an admissions information session at an Ivy league university.  The admissions rep pointed out that if they accepted students who were all exactly the same in background and qualifications, the freshman class would be pretty boring.  To keep their school vigorous and stimulating, they admit students who come from a wide variety of schools, communities, and ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds who bring an array of interests and talents to campus.  To do this, they recruit widely at both public and private schools.  Colleges really do reach out, some more effectively than others. (more…)

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

Nov. 3 is election day, and some of our visitors may have noticed campaign ads appearing on Insideschools.org today. These ads are being delivered automatically via Google’s ad network, and the revenue we receive from these Google ads helps defray the costs of producing Insideschools.org. We neither endorse political candidates nor do we solicit campaign advertising. But we do encourage you to vote!

Both Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his Democratic opponent Bill Thompson have been touting their education experience: Bloomberg running on his record of eight years as mayor controlling the schools; Thompson, on his years as head of the Board of Education.

We’re wondering what the parents of NYC public school students are thinking. Who are you going to vote for?

Polling places, most of which are located inside schools, are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. If you’re not sure of your assigned polling location, you can search here, call 1.866.VOTE.NYC, or e-mail your complete home address to vote@boe.nyc.ny.us with the borough in which you reside in the subject line.

If you want to attend a post-mortem on the day after election day, consider attending a panel discussion, “What’s Next for our Public Schools?” sponsored by a group called Democratic Leadership for the 21st Century and moderated by New York Times reporter Jennifer Medina. On the panel: Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents; Michael Mulgrew, president of the UFT; Eva Moskowitz, CEO of the Harlem Success Academy; and Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform. For details, see our Insideschools calendar.

Every time I arrive at an overcrowded school corridor to sign up for a three-minute parent teacher conference, I have the same thought: There must be a better way.

There are too many names on the sign-up list. The parents are anxious and antsy. It’s always too hot and crowded, and I immediately start feeling sorry for the teachers, besieged by questions.

With one child in middle school and another in high school, I am officially a veteran of New York City public school parent teacher conferences. I’ve developed a few survival strategies.

If possible, I take a personal or vacation day and attend the afternoon session in an effort to avoid ridiculous evening lines.Even so, I can’t beat the system.

(more…)