Update June 15: Today we received confirmation from the Department of Education that principals have until TODAY to submit appeals on behalf of their students to community school district superintendents, and not the two weeks that a DOE spokesperson originally said.   Superintendents will make their decisions based on the school's recommendations. Also tomorrow, schools will send out letters to all families whose children did not meet the criteria for promotion.  Families can expect to receive those letters by next week, according to the DOE.

Still reeling from last week's shocker that many of their students will have to attend summer school because they failed state exams, principals across the city are scrapping their plans for this week to focus on appeals.

Preliminary results on state standardized tests for students in grades 3-8 showed that21,000 students may be required to attend summer school, as compared to only 10,000 last year. Release of the state test results waspostponed until August, but the city issued what they called "promotional cut scores" last week, which showed a substantially higher cut-off score was needed to pass the tests. (See the cut-off scores after the jump).

Now some schools find they have 10 times more students scoring at Level 1 (the lowest) or barely making it into Level 2 this year than last. One middle school principal said that three students were mandated for summer school in 2009 as opposed to 32 this year. And, of this year's 32 students, only 14 were identified as possible hold-overs back in February when principals were required to send "promotion in doubt" letters fo families of at-risk students.

Teachers and principals who believe students deserve to be promoted despite their low scores may appeal, but doing so takes time and there's very little of it left. Department of Education spokesperson Matt Mittenthal said in an email that schools have two weeks to appeal. Some principals, however, were told they must submit appeals in person to their district superintendents, by Tuesday, June 15, others were told Wednesday, June 16. Now principals are scrambling to craft time-consuming appeals -- in some cases for dozens of students -- that involve compiling portfolios of class work and administering additional reading and math assessments for each student appealing a summer school assignment.

"The turn-around time is short. It's really hard for us to have the kids do these portfolio tasks in such a short amount of time," said Christina Fuentes, principal of PS 24 in Brooklyn. In its weekly letters to principals last month, the DOE encouraged principals to "assemble portfolios for all students whose promotion is in doubt." But, Fuentes said, without knowing the scores, "that was so speculative and to me that's not a good use of our time."

Principals and teachers jointly decide whether to appeal a student's assignment to summer school. The district superintendent has the final say. If your child is at risk of being held over and being sent to summer school, you should contact your principal today or tomorrow to discuss options. For more details on promotion requirements, check out Chancellor's Regulation A-501.

For a chart listing the grade-by-grade breakdown of students identified preliminarily as needing to attend summer school click here.