I looked at the scattered notes and index cards covering my dining room table last week, struck by a distant but very real memory of my college freshman self during finals: Sprawled out at 6 a.m. in a study room in my freshman dorm, surrounded by textbooks and index cards after pulling an all-nighter.

Trying to absorb every significant event in the history of Western Civilization in one sitting, I learned, was not such a good idea.

Last week many New York City public high school students faced their first round of high school finals, in some cases digesting large quantities of information at the last minute. This week, many of those same students will also take New York State Regents exams they must pass in order to graduate.

Those who know how to keep up with assigned reading and to carefully organize, outline, and study their notes well in advance probably sailed through their finals. Others found the experience daunting, judging from frantic text messaging and Facebook posts proclaiming imminent failure and pleas for help finding the right notes. (more…)

While New York City’s scores on the National Appraisal of Educational Progress math exams rose steadily between 2003-2006, the NAEP’s 2009 report reveals they have since stalled. Fourth-grade scores increased only slightly between 2007-2009, while eighth-grade scores remained average.

These results stand in contrast to the highly-criticized increase in the state’s math exam scores. Chancellor of the Board of Regents Merryl Tisch explained to GothamSchools that the state test covers fewer fields and is much less accurate in measuring progress than the NAEP.

The scoring gap between ethnic populations also stalled. While the state exam showed a statistical narrowing of the divide, the NAEP reveals a slight widening.

What do you think of the math curriculum at your children’s school? Do the state exams accurately reflect their progress?

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…)

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…)

Dear Judy,

Our son is in 5th grade at a charter school that’s not in the district where we live. What middle schools is he eligible for?

Charter school parent

Dear Charter school parent:

Given the proliferation of charter schools these days, your question is a timely one. We put it to the Department of Education. According to DOE spokesperson Andy Jacob, “students are eligible to apply in the district to which they are zoned and in the district in which their (public, including charter) elementary school is located. ”

However, Jacob cautioned,”not all districts have choice processes. Some have all or mostly zoned middle schools. If the charter is located in one of those districts, the student wouldn’t have any choices in that district, because there’s no choice process.”

All applicants should keep in mind there are other middle school options, even if you live in a district that has limited choice: Some schools are unzoned — open to kids all over the city, borough, or district — and some middle schools require school-based applications, separate from the district middle school application.

Although the middle school admissions timetable is standardized across the city, each district has its own ways, so it is very important to study the online middle school directories  for specifics.

Most citywide schools run their own admissions processes and students need to apply to those schools separately.  A few parents have written to ask about Mark Twain, a popular, selective school in Coney Island which accepts students based on their performance on “talent” entrance exams.  Mark Twain takes applications from all over the city but, unlike other citywide schools, students who submit the “request for testing” form for the school “will see the Twain programs as choices on the application for their district,” according to Jacob. “They’ll rank Mark Twain along with their district choices and will receive an offer to one school - the highest-ranked one to which they receive an offer.” Jacob said the district schools will not see whether the student ranked Mark Twain as a choice.

Middle school applications are due on Dec. 15, but Oct. 28, is the deadline to submit a “request for testing” form for selective schools in Districts 17, 18, 20, 21, and 22 in Brooklyn, and Districts  24, and 30 in Queens.

I would take the time to tour as many schools as you can. The bottom line is to go after the schools that match your kid.  Good luck !

Judy

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

Parents of 5th-graders: Mark your calendars. The Department of Education posted the timeline for middle schools admissions for fall 2010 and the process is starting this month, six weeks earlier than last year.

This month there are middle school fairs in most districts - beginning on Oct. 13 - offering parents the opportunity to meet with school representatives. This is particularly important for districts that do not have zoned middle schools where 5th-graders have to fill out an application, ranking prospective schools. In other districts, students mostly attend their zoned, neighborhood school, although in every district, there are now unzoned or “choice” schools that require an application.

Even Staten Island, which historically has had almost no middle school choice, now has magnet (choice) programs in three middle schools, IS 61, IS 27, and IS 63, as well as a new middle school, the Staten Island School of Civic Leadership, open to students borough-wide.

Also available on the DOE’s website are links to middle school directories and other information which details options for families in all districts. (more…)

On the first day of school this year, I delivered my son to his 5th-grade class (he quickly dismissed me with the words: “I got this”), and my daughter to her kindergarten class in her new school. She joined a group of five-year-olds with similar dazed and confused expressions.

I journeyed from my kids’ elementary school to the Harlem middle and high school campus where I work as a clinical psychologist in a school-based health center. I recognized the same dazed and confused expressions on many of the incoming 6th-graders’ faces. These former kings and queens of elementary school suddenly appeared quite young and uncertain, wandering through hallways also populated with college-bound high school seniors. As anxiety-provoking a transition as this may be for the tweens, my experience has been that it is even more so for parents. Year after year, a couple of loving and protective parents seek supportive therapy for their kids who seem to be having a hard time adjusting to middle school. Year after year, the majority of these students prove their resilience and work through the adjustment phase with minimal clinical support.

Beginning middle school is a significant and stressful transition for nearly all students. An important part of growing up is developing the skills to cope with such stressors. An additional issue for new middle school students is that, not only are they anxious about being in an unfamiliar school (as are the pre-K and kindergarten students), they are now also painfully aware that others may be evaluating them. In fact, adolescence is the time when our kids become convinced that everyone is watching and judging them because the world is their audience! (more…)

The last day of summer should be a day for sleeping in, shopping for supplies, or perhaps seeing friends who have been away. If the households I know (including my own) are any indication, thousands of students are instead scrambling to finish long-ago assigned book lists and assignments. Some of those assignments were given out with report cards in June. And this year, with a late Labor Day and contractual issues, the start of school has come later than ever.

So what gives? I brought the subject up for discussion among friends and families and got a variety of reactions. One came from a parent whose friend handled the last minute mania this way: She offered to pay her children $100 to get the summer assignments done the first week, so she would not have to nag or argue with them. With the homework underway early (the incentive worked perfectly) the entire family relaxed and enjoyed summer.

This same sort of incentive or bribe (because that’s what it is, isn’t it?) could be extended throughout the year, if parents in the midst of this recession really want to be in the business of paying for performance. That brings up other issues entirely. (more…)

Donya Rhett, PhD, aka “Bronx Mom,” is a frequent commenter on The InsideSCOOP. A resident of Morris Heights, she is the parent of a 10-year-old son and an (almost) 5- year-old daughter who both attend Central Park East 1. She also surveys the New York City public school scene as a clinical psychologist working in a school-based health center at a Harlem middle/high school campus. We’re pleased to welcome her contributions to The InsideSCOOP.

“Bronx Mom” is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, I am a mom. Yes, we live in the Bronx. And yet, I often feel very disconnected from my Morris Heights neighborhood because my children have only attended Harlem schools.

I tried to make an “educational home” in the Bronx six years ago when I first began searching for kindergarten for my son. Sadly, there were few choices in my district (10) that were accessible to us and would also be a good fit for my bright, very active child. Given the beliefs of some that families should stick with their zoned school, I thought I might shed some light as to why I, self-titled Bronx Mom, crossed district lines in search of the best fit. (more…)

At a recent middle school event, some of the newly tall eighth-graders looked down at their parents. Many had caught up with the girls who once towered above them. I saw facial hair and giant sneakers.   I glanced over at the incoming fifth-graders attending the event and wondered what these tiny, tiny children were doing in the same building.

By the end of middle school, these children may become unrecognizable in ways large and small. They might begin to tune out the voices of their parents and teachers. They’ll rely heavily on electronic communication — Facebook, text messaging, instant messaging — and, probably, on forms of e-connecting we don’t yet imagine.

I shared an observation about the unpredictable ways of eighth-graders to a teacher that faces three full classes of at least 32 thirteen and fourteen-year-olds every day. “Wait, who am I talking to?’’ I said with a shudder. (more…)

At the start of the harried public middle school search process in New York City, parents take tours and are forced to think a great deal about different academic approaches, settings and styles.  What kind of school best suits your child:  A traditional school with uniforms, a steady diet of homework and lots of exams? An arts-based curriculum that emphasizes creative projects? A collaborative learning approach with lots of group work?  A hybrid approach?  A secondary school, which continues through 12th grade?

There’s lots of variety in the largest school system in the U.S. and even more competition for programs with the best reputations. What I remember most about the middle school search had little to do with making the selection; it was more the anxiety about getting in along with a sense of outrage about how difficult the process was.

Through it all, I had a hard time envisioning the kind of student the 10-year-old accompanying me might become, or even where he would flourish most. It was even harder to imagine that the child I worried so much about putting on the subway alone would develop his own ideas about what kind of student he would – or would not — become.

My now eighth-grader – newly taller, and even more opinionated, than his mom — is getting ready to graduate from middle school. As I look back on some of his adventures and mishaps, I have no choice but to laugh at the many unexpected twists and turns in the transition from the child who held my hand to the teenager who asks that I walk on the other side of the street or at least a block behind.

Some of the transitions were delightful (new talents and friends, a particularly inspiring teacher). Others were merely appalling — the time he almost failed physical education for poor behavior, the unforgettable day where the highly amused school principal led me to his locker and said: “I thought you should see this,”  as a tangled rush of notebooks, sneakers, jackets, overdue library books and assorted gear (and smells) tumbling onto the floor. There was no lock, but a long missing academic planner was discovered – with not one word written inside it.

 So what kind of student is emerging? It’s a complicated answer, but the short answer is, we don’t really know yet.

Ultimately, we were lucky in our choice of middle schools; the staff for the most part knows that the children who enter may be on their way to becoming absurdly awkward, absent-minded Facebooking, text-messaging, self-conscious teenagers.    Hopefully, they will have developed a love of learning and some good study habits to become the students they – not necessarily their parents – want to be.

Last year, the Department of Education’s new middle school choice and matching process left too many special needs children who were in CTT (collaborative team teaching) classes out in the cold, particularly in “choice” districts where there aren’t zoned schools and students take tests or complete auditions and interviews to secure middle-school seats.

This year, the DOE said that they would send special education students middle school notification at the same time as their general education peers. According to a note in the Principals’ Weekly email, however, the letters for special education students were delayed again. They should have been sent by the end of this week, according to the email.

Patricia Connelly, a member of both the Citywide Council on Special Education and the Parent Commission on School Governance and Mayoral Control, is asking parents of CTT kids in “choice” districts to contact her with concerns about their child’s placement. Information shared with her will be held “in the strictest confidence,” Connelly notes. She can be reached at patricia.connelly@gmail.com.

Dear Judy,

We just got the results of my daughter’s middle school choice process and ended up with a school we did not choose. Is there any way to appeal this placement? Could it be a mistake?

5th grade parent

Dear 5th grade parent:

You are not alone, we have heard from many parents with the same problem. Mistakes happen. We know a parent whose daughter was matched with a school she didn’t apply to out of her district, yet she was not “accepted” at any of the district schools she applied to. This was clearly an error. My advice? If you think this could be a mistake, check with your elementary school guidance counselor now; ask her to contact the school that “accepted” your daughter to see if her name is on their list. When in doubt, double check with the local enrollment office and finally, with the middle school enrollment office at Tweed, headed by Sandy Ferguson.

If it is not a mistake, but just bad luck, you have until June 10 to appeal the placement, according to Department of Education spokesperson Andy Jacob. This goes for schools in districts that have middle school choice. Ask your guidance counselor for an appeal form. She can review your daughter’s situation and help fill out the appeal application. You might have a guidance counselor who knows your child well enough to go to bat for her. She may know middle school guidance counselors; she may know which schools are still open to applicants. Jacob said that “Appeals are granted based on seat availability and the selection criteria of the schools listed on the application.” He cautioned that ” Submitting an appeal does not guarantee admittance to a specific school, or even that a new placement will be offered.” You’ll be notified about appeals decisions by the end of June, according to Jacob.

Also consider checking out the few new schools that are opening next fall – they may still have openings.

Be as patient as you can. Late in summer there will be special enrollment offices to deal with unsettled admissions problems, and often the schools do not have an accurate count of who is actually attending until September. If you have applied and been endorsed by the guidance counselor, you might get an open spot.

Meanwhile, another piece of advice: don’t deride the school to which your daughter has been assigned. Do look for bright spots and emphasize them. She might just end up there!

Judy

Correction: Previously we reported, as per Jimmy Bueschen of the Manhattan enrollment office, that children  could only appeal  to schools that they had already applied to. According to parents who have copies of the appeal form, and Andy Jacob of the DOE’s press office,  children can apply to any choice program or school to which they are eligible and whose admissions are handled by the Office of Student Enrollment. That includes schools to which a child may have previously applied and new middle schools opening in September. 

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

Families applying to middle school should have letters by now. Since the middle school admissions process varies widely by district, we are curious how smoothly it has gone across the city. A few of the preliminary reports we have heard have included bureaucratic mess-ups (inaccurate admissions letters, contradictory information from the Department of Education offices and individual schools, special education delays). While the DOE is no stranger to admissions-process-bungles, we are hoping these are isolated cases.

Have you gotten your letter yet?

May is one of those poignant and bittersweet months for 5th-grade parents, who are in the early stages of the difficult and lifelong parenting process called Letting Go.

The changes are small now. Ten and 11-year-olds may be more reluctant to hold hands with their parents, especially in public.  They may covet teen trappings — cell phones, instant messaging, or even video chats.

Parents sense that long-established elementary school relationships and habits are about to change, so naturally there is some anxiety about the future. And once again this year, that anxiety is compounded by the Department of Education’s failure to send out timely middle school notifications.

So while parents and teachers are busy planning yearbooks, end-of year concerts, and elementary school graduation ceremonies, they are still coming home to empty mailboxes. They still cannot tell their children where they will be going to school next year. And that is not okay.

Last year at this time, I had to comfort my now 6th-grader that news would be arriving soon, and that he’d be fine wherever he ended up. Yet like many parents around me, I couldn’t quite calm my own jumpy feelings every time I searched the mail. I hated not knowing.

The DOE vowed to fix the process this year, but without any specific reason, they have pushed back the date for notification again. Parents who are trying to figure out if they have to move – or forfeit deposits to private school – are particularly annoyed, as comments this week on Insideschools  have shown. Given that the supply of top-notch middle schools citywide nowhere near meets the demand for them, it’s understandable that parents want some answers.

The last few weeks of elementary school should be filled with sweet reminders of the beautiful and elusive nature of childhood. After all the bewildering touring, ranking, and interviewing the students did last fall to find a middle school, they deserve timely answers – and so do their parents.

Department of Education spokesman Andy Jacob this evening confirmed that families of students applying to middle school for September 2009 will receive placement offers by mail “during the week of May 26.” 

When asked why the news was delayed — DOE’s middle schools calendar originally stated parents would get news in mid-May — Jacob replied, “We’re mailing the offers next week because they will be ready next week. ” 

The DOE website has been updated to reflect the revised timeline.

For the past couple of years, the NYC Student Union has ended the school year with June workshops at M.S. 51, where many of us went to middle school. In these workshops, we teach 8th-graders, who will start high school in September, about the steps to creating change by constructively addressing problems in their schools and the education system. We also encourage them to join the Student Union when they start high school. We’ve a had a lot of success in the past, and we have some new ideas for improvement.

This year, we’re also hoping to reach out to more middle schools across the city.  If anyone works in, attends, or is a parent in a middle school and you think the school would be interested in hosting a NYC Student Union workshop, please get in touch with me, by commenting on this post, or  by email, at toni [at] taty.org.  Thanks!

The same sixth-graders who were in their first week of middle school, seven years ago today, are in their first month of college.  2001’s first-graders are now eighth-graders; the children who fill their small, primary-school seats weren’t even born on that crystalline September morning. 

One foot in front of the other: Life goes on.  We remember.