Your independent guide to NYC public schools

It is hard to imagine Stuy without Mr. Stanley Teitel at the helm. Though my son is just entering his second year at the school, it was impossible not to notice how much Mr. Teitel's often playful ways were part of the school's culture. The suddenness of his departure cannot help but affect morale, especially as it has been unfortunately and repeatedly linked by news agencies with the cheating scandal.

As for the new interim principal taking charge, with new leadership there must also come change. The question of whether Ms. Jie Zhang will change the school in a significant way is hard to answer, as being interim principal does not guarantee a permanent position and with that the opportunity to make long term decisions.

According to the Wall Street Journal article on the hiring of the interim principal, Ms. Zhang intends to expand offerings in math, science and research, as she states she did at her previous post at Queens High School for the Sciences. That sounds great, but I wonder what that will mean for the students at the school who find themselves drawn to the humanities.  A yearlong Freshman English course at Stuy was introduced a few years ago which seemed to signal that more emphasis on the humanities was on the way. Hopefully, there will be no cuts made to humanities programs to accommodate proposed new science, technology and math courses.