By the time your kid hits eighth-grade in New York City, you should be a grizzled admissions veteran. You’ve already negotiated finding an elementary school or perhaps chosen to live in a certain neighborhood because of one. You’ve most likely dragged your fifth-grader through countless middle school tours and interviews in search of the right fit. Perhaps you’ve even switched between private and charter and parochial, all in search of the best options.

You’ve done it all with determination to avoid the conformity of suburbia, where you’ve watched so many friends decamp. The verdant lawns of Westchester, Long Island, and New Jersey held the promise of a seamless, if not perfect, system of K-12 schools with playgrounds, pools, and fields. Neighbors and friends could move up together without lists, letters, matches, and the constant distraction of school decisions.

Those who left wondered how so many of us stayed, and even defended the insanity. I personally felt fortunate to have found not just good but truly great New York City public schools for my kids.

The last few months, though, have brought new waves of anxiety for public school parents, who can’t help feeling strained and constrained by the nation’s largest school system. Sharon Otterman of the New York Times noted the litany of vexing issues for parents in a recent column.<!--more-->

It’s not just the budget cuts (you will find them in suburbia and all across the U.S. too), although the cuts do hurt – they’ve already eliminated Advanced Placement, language,art, and music classes in my son’s high school.

It’s not just the lack of planning for the current space crunch (middle schools, including my youngest child’s, are being kicked out of their buildings, while overcrowded elementary schools are turning away children who live next door).

And it’s not just the delayed high school admissions letters, held up last month after a court ruling that the DOE failed to disclose how shutting 19 high schools would affect their communities.

The high school issue resonated most in the current Insideschools angst-poll, with 47 percent of those who have responded so far noting their frustration with delayed admissions letters. Forty percent are  concerned about impending budget cuts, and some 23 percent worry most about kindergarten admissions.

Only five percent felt “the system is in swell shape.”

Parents just beginning, or contemplating the journey through New York City public schools, are right to be concerned. It would be hard to blame them for checking out real estate ads elsewhere and for wondering if it’s really worth navigating a system that slams doors before they even open.