Your independent guide to NYC public schools

Dear Judy

Can you advise as to how a public school (MS 51 in Brooklyn) can decide to have a French Dual Language program for two 6th grade classes at the expense of the rest of the district kids? What is the approval process? How does this happen? What is FLAM and how did it get involved.

District 15 parent

Dear District 15 parent

Establishing a dual language program takes lots of hard work and commitment by principals, teachers and parents. First, you have to develop a constituency for the program. This is where a group like FLAM comes in. FLAM, which stands for Français Langue Maternelle, is an association to promote the teaching of French in city public schools. It sponsors after school French programs in some districts, and a few elementary school programs. The group includes current parents of public school kids. Like other not-for-profit groups, it cooperates with the school and the district to create and support programs.

Did you know a Brooklyn public middle school is home to the country's championship chess team? IS 318, a large 6-8 school in Williamsburg, boasts so many chess wins that the school's chess coach lost count. In April, it became the first middle school to win the National Chess Federation's high school championship. 

Now the award-winning chess team is the subject of an award-winning movie, too.

Documentary filmmaker Katie Dellamaggiore's new film about the school, Brooklyn Castle, follows five charismatic members of the IS 318 chess team as they tackle chess tournaments, navigate personal struggles (including choosing a high school) and deal with budget cuts to their after-school program. The documentary premeired at South By Southwest in March to rave reviews, winning the 2012 SXSW Audience Award. 

While Brooklyn Castle toured the festival circuit, the filmmakers did double-duty as activists promoting afterschool programs. (Check out their Vimeo channel for a behind-the-scenes video of their outreach, including a Marty Markowitz cameo and a speech from one of the very articulate and talented chess champs featured in the film.)

This week, New Yorkers finally have the chance to see the film. Lincoln Center has a sneak preview on Thursday night before it's officially released Friday, Oct. 19. Pick up tickets for the sneak preview here. Or, on Sunday, GothamSchools is hosting a special matinee screening with discounted tickets for teachers followed by a Q & A with IS 318's charismatic chess coaches.

If you go, we suggest you bring tissues. It looks like a tear-jerker, especially since the school's beloved principal Eric Rubino passed away soon after the film opened at Sundance. 

UPDATE: Public school teachers with a valid teacher ID or union card can see the move for free between Friday, Oct. 26th and Thursday, Nov. 1. Details here. 

Top-scoring, low-income 6th graders may be eligible for the Education Department's DREAM - Specialized High School Institute (SHSI), a nearly two-year-long course which prepares middle school students to take the specialized high school exam in 8th grade. The application process begins this month.

Eligible students should hear now from their principals about whether they qualify for the course beginning in January 2013. To be considered for the SHSI, students must meet income guidelines based on free lunch status, have scored at a Level 3 or 4 on 5th grade state reading and math exams and have at least 90 percent attendance in the 5th grade. The 22-month-long course includes after-school and Saturday classes which begin in the second semester of 6th grade and last until the date of the test, in October of 8th grade. There are summer sessions as well.

The Education Department sent a list of qualified students to public schools enrolled in the Universal School Meals (pdf) last week.  Principals must distribute income verification forms to eligible students, along with a letter to parents introducing the program. Other public schools will get a list of eligible 6th-graders in November.

The program takes place in 18 districts around the city and is free. All participants get a metrocard for travel to classes, meals and course materials. In areas where there are more applicants than spaces available, a lottery will be held.

The specialized high school exam has come under increasing scrutiny this fall, after the NAACP filed a complaint last month with the federal government charging that the test effectively discriminated against black and Hispanic students who are under-represented at the schools. A Times editorial today pointed out that many middle schools fail to prepare students adequately for material covered on the exam and that students who gain admission to specialized schools come from families who provide them with prep courses and tutors. Last spring, the DOE said it newly expanded the DREAM program to help bridge that gap.

See the DOE's DREAM webpage for details. For questions, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

(updated with new information, Oct. 17)

Wednesday, Oct. 10 Friday, Oct. 12 is the deadline for 8th and 9th graders to request a "ticket" to take the Specialized High School Admissions Test or audition for LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.  If you haven't done so yet, tell your guidance counselor that you want to take the exam for entrance to one of the eight exam high schools or to the ninth specialized high school, LaGuardia.

This weekend, Oct. 13-14, there will be a high school fair in every borough offering a chance to meet with students and staff from most high schools in each borough. The fairs run from 11 a.m to 3 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.

Bronx: Theodore Roosevelt High School

Brooklyn: Edward R. Murrow High School

Manhattan: Martin Luther King, Jr. High School

Queens: Francis Lewis High School

Staten Island: New Dorp High School

Before you go, check out our video, "Making the most of the high school fairs." And for more information, there are resources online from the information sessions at the September citywide fair.

(updated 10/11/2012 with new due date)

Dear Judy,

My daughter is currently attending a private elementary school in District 2 in Manhattan. We live in Brooklyn, but we want her to go to a public middle school in District 2. And we are also interested in gifted programs. How do I find out about the schools, and the gifted programs, and how do I apply to them?

Puzzled parent.

Dear Puzzled parent,

You have a three pronged problem: applying to middle school from a private school, applying to middle school from outside the district and applying to middle school gifted programs.

Nearly a quarter of the elementary and middle schools marked failing on the 2011-12 Progress Reports were top schools last year.

The Education Department released those Progress Reports today and, in a statement, touted stable grades: “86 percent of schools did not change more than one grade from 2011” the DOE said.

But our analysis of the 102 schools that earned D’s or F’s on their Progress Report this year shows that severe instability persists. Of those failing schools, 24 earned A’s and B’s on their 2010-11 Progress Reports. PS 241 in Harlem, for example, went from a C in 2009-10, to a B in 2010-11 to an F this year. 

Even though a school’s progress report scores may wildly fluctuate, the stakes are high -- low grades on Progress Reports can lead the DOE to close a school. Schools that earn D or F on their progress report or schools that earn no better than a C for three years in a row are flagged for possible closure.

Center for New York City Affairs Education Project Director Kim Nauer says elementary and middle schools’ Progress Report grades are more likely to fluctuate than high schools' grades (to be released later this month) because the lower schools are graded on fewer factors. "When you have more indicators it gives you a better picture of the school," says Nauer, who co-authored a report on the DOE's data and accountability methods with Insideschools' Clara Hemphill. 

The new 2012-2013 middle school directories are online just in time for the district fairs which begin this week for 5th graders and their families. District fairs run from 5:30-7:30 p.m. beginning on Wednesday. All schools are supposed to send representatives.

There will be copies of the guides at the fair, but it's a good idea to go through them before you arrive and make a list of the schools that your child is eligible for and any questions you may have. The fairs can be crowded and a little overwhelming, so arrive prepared. Our video on how to apply to a middle school is here.

The latest middle school Progress Reports are also available online now. These are report cards, complete with grades, that the Education Department gives to each school every year. They are supposed to give a sense of how the school is doing. They are useful to look at, but take the "grades" with a grain of salt. They are mostly based on how much progress kids have made on state exams. So for example, three popular, progressive Manhattan middle schools, Institute for Collaborative Education, School of the Future and IS 289, all received Cs this year, even though on average about 80% of their kids are reading and doing math at grade level. Meanwhile, the Middle School of Marketing and Legal Studies in East Flatbush, Brooklyn got an A, even though less than 40% of the students at the school are reading at grade level.

This weekend, Sept. 29 and 30, is the Department of Education's gigantic high school fair from 10 am to 3 pm at Brooklyn Technical High School. Prepare for a hectic day, where you will meet teachers, students and administrators and find out about their schools.

You can attend information sessions several times during the day, led by staff from the Education Department's enrollment office. This will be helpful especially if you're a newbie to the process (and it will give you a place to sit down and take a breather.)

The NAACP on Thursday will file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, charging that the exam-only admissions policy for New York City's eight specialized high schools is discriminatory against Black and Hispanic students, is not "educationally sound" and has not been proven to be a reliable predictor of student success at the elite schools. They call for "multiple measures" to be considered for entrance to specialized high schools.

Joined by the LatinoJustice PRLDEF and The Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College and other community organizations, the NAACP is challenging the long-standing New York state law which specifies that students are to be admitted to specialized schools on the basis of a single exam. The law gives the city's Department of Education the latitude to create more exam schools and, in the past decade the city added five smaller schools to its roster of specialized schools.

According to the NAACP, the city's Education Department has "never conducted a study to determine whether the test is a valid tool" and whether "there is any relationship between students' test results and learning standards" in those schools. Furthermore, the complaint says that other elite high schools and colleges around the country use "multiple measures" when considering applicants, such as grades, teacher recommendations and the demographics of the schools they attend.

The number of overcrowded special education classes has more than doubled in the last year, according to a new United Federation of Teacher's survey of the city's public schools. As of mid-September, there were 270 overcrowded special education classes -- that's up from 118 last year, the UFT announced Tuesday in a press release.  But in some schools, classes for special needs kids are severely under-enrolled, advocates say.

UFT president Michael Mulgrew linked the drastic spike in overcrowded special education classes to a new policy, which demands that schools accept and accomodate most students with special needs.

The reform has had the opposite effect in some schools, according to Maggie Moroff, special education coordinator at Advocates for Children, with neighborhood schools creating self-contained special education classes for just a few students. "Those classes aren't fully populated," says Moroff, and since children must stay in their zones, there is no one else to fill those seats. 

While a city contract with the UFT sets class size limits for general education classes at 25 students in kindergarten, 32 in grades 1-6 and 30 to 34 in middle and high school, special education class size depends on the student's Individual Education Program, or IEP. Those class size limits are regulated by the state. Kids with special needs may be in classes of 8, 12 or 15 students in a self-contained (non-mainstream) class. Or they may be placed in a co-taught class with general and special education students and two teachers.

Moroff says the city needs a waiver from the state to have overcrowded special education classes. She encourages families with children in over- or under-enrolled special education classes to contact AFC - it is possible to challenge a child's placement or file a complaint with the state, depending on the issue. 

(Ed note: article updated 12:00 pm, 9/27/12)