“How are we getting the garden to the kids?” This was the question that gardening teacher Kimberly Beazer and garden coordinator Sherri Sandfort-Semon asked themselves during a two-day scramble to pack up and leave school grounds, for distance learning in March. As the two staffers most...
We’ve struggled as a family to balance learning and working from home. There is a pandemic underway, which is something I try to remember when my frustration boils over. Things changed, though, last week when we created a simple tool and ritual. It’s a list. Before you stop reading at the...
With the coronavirus pandemic disrupting the last few months of high school for the Class of 2020, college campuses closed indefinitely, and the possibility of additional outbreaks in the fall, more seniors than ever are considering postponing their college acceptance for a year or choosing a...
New York City has yet to issue guidance or how to handle Spring report card grades –whether it's numerical, letter-based, pass/fail/incomplete or some combination. Here’s your chance to weigh in. Community education councils throughout the city are conducting a survey asking parents what...
Yes, teachers are trying to teach online. Yes, students are using web-based tools to engage with school. But we mustn’t mistake what we are observing for online learning. It’s not. I say this because, if the feedback I am hearing from teachers and families is to be believed, no one is...
A month after students in the city started learning remotely, the DOE is checking in with families to see how it’s been going. They want all parents as well as students in grades 6-12 to take this short, anonymous survey by Friday, May 1st. We encourage you all to do so. It will help the DOE...
NYC public school websites should not be optional because, as the pandemic has shown (and some city schools have already figured out), a website can be much more than a marketing tool. Done well, the website can serve as a central hub for distance learning, providing parents and students with...
In their recent letter to families, the mayor and chancellor committed to a “stronger” September than ever when school re-open. I, like many parents, long for that day when children can return to their schools. My son misses his friends. He’s getting tired of his parents day in and day out. Of...
The New York State Board of Regents recently announced the cancellation of all Regents exams this June in the wake of school shutdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic. As long as a student passes any courses that culminate in Regents exams this June (or subsequently in summer school), or was...
A good school website tells you what you need to know about a school without even stepping inside—a reality we now face until schools can once again open their doors for tours. The Department of Education has a page for every school and, while it includes important information, such as the...
Large high schools with enrollment of at least 1000 continue to be in demand as they comprise more than half of this year’s list of the 20 high schools with the most number of applications, according to Department of Education (DOE) data provided to InsideSchools. The list does not include the...
IntegrateNYC is a student-led nonprofit in New York City that advocates for meaningful education reform. In the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, they launched a hotline for young people to call or text in order to get information and support. It’s a phenomenal achievement. I had the pleasure of...
New York City is the largest school district in the country. While everyone understands that Covid-19 has unleashed havoc on the city and the schools, it is less clear why schools were so unprepared to switch into an emergency learning model. At a recent press conference, Governor Andrew Cuomo...
Today would have been the first day of Spring Break for NYC schools. Instead, we attempt to continue with business as usual. During a global pandemic. As a dad, I’m struggling. When I shared news that all—not just some—of Spring Break was cancelled with my son last week, I found myself trying to...
At InsideSchools we’ve been busy providing support to parents, teachers and students during these hectic and challenging times. In case you missed them, here’s a round-up of posts we published in recent weeks in response to our readers’ requests for help. Admissions September may seem a long...
High school admissions season doesn't kick off until September, but if you’re a current 7th-grader, you should start exploring your options this spring to avoid a last-minute scramble. The big benefit of starting your search early is that you have the time to cast a wide net. There are over 400...
Applying to kindergarten in New York City can be daunting. What’s the difference between a district and a zone? A program and a school? It may surprise many to learn you can apply to up to 12 different kindergarten programs. Now, InsideSchools has a new tool to help parents find an elementary...
As our spaces feel smaller and distance learning begins to lose any sheen of novelty it may have had, it is uplifting to see buds give way to blossoms and blooms in the city. It also occurred to me, as I walked at a proper social distance, in the park, that I knew the name of every flower and...
I was coaching a middle school team of teachers last year when I observed a 7th grade math class. The teacher, whose name for the life of me I can’t locate in my notes, was remarkable. Her approach was relatively simple. She wrote a problem on the board. Students had five minutes to solve it....
On a recent episode of the podcast, Extra Help with InsideSchools I shared some suggestions for managing students’ ELA (English language arts) instruction online and at home. One of my key suggestions is to think about helping your child with reading in four phases: denotation, connotation,...
The Department of Education recently released the results from the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT). Each year, we hear how few Black students get into Stuyvesant (only 10 this year), but little is heard about the other seven schools or whether this has changed over time. To...
Every morning in my public elementary school classroom (many years ago now), I greeted each child by name as they entered the room. And at the end of the day, each student had a job to do, such as feeding the fish, sharpening pencils, dusting the shelves or watering the plants. These rituals...
These days everyone is juggling a lot of new routines and stresses. Over the past couple of weeks parents have had to become online tech experts, master schedulers and entertainment coordinators, while grappling with social isolation and for many, economic hardship. It’s important to manage...
For those of you at home with younger kids, here’s a recommendation for a lovely interlude of drawing, Monday - Friday mornings at 10 a.m. Wendy MacNaughton, who drew the illustrations for the cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, has launched #drawtogether on Instagram Live. Wendy dances onto the...
Earlier this week, we launched Extra Help with InsideSchools, a podcast series devoted to helping families and teachers in New York City navigate the move to citywide online learning and homeschooling. We created it to respond to the tons of questions from readers about the city’s response to...
We love this video by Mark Rober that turns the scary topic of germs into a fun experiment for kids. It will show your kids how quickly glow-in-the-dark “germs” can spread around a classroom—from hands to desks and phones and faces—and teach them why it’s so important to wash their hands for a...
Everywhere you look right now, you see stories of parents trying to figure out how to manage their child’s online learning. I’m one of those parents, too, and can share a glimpse into the reality in our home. My 10-year-old has been getting messages from teachers who are trying to learn how to...
The wait is over for 78,463 8th-graders. High school placements were sent out this week. Students will be able to see them immediately via their MySchools account. Students will also receive their letters in the mail. The percent of students receiving their first choice increased slightly this...
We’re all feeling in a state of flux as schools are closed and the New York City Department of Education (DOE) takes on the herculean task of providing online instruction to roughly one million students. To help you manage all the information and adjust to new routines, we’re keeping track of...
One of the first things we look for when we visit classrooms around the city is the daily schedule. It’s often posted on the wall near the door. In an elementary school classroom, it outlines how much time is given to math, reading, science, play and other subjects. In a middle or high school...
Allow me to take off the InsideSchools editorial hat for a second. I’m just Tom, the father of a 10-year-old who is just as overwhelmed by all the resources and links and free tools as many other parents. Not to mention my son’s frustration with the whole darn situation. Now, carefully putting...
Even amidst COVID-19, today is still St. Patrick’s Day. I taught English for six years. And it didn’t matter what I had originally planned, every year that March 17th fell on a weekday I suspended traditional instruction. On what grounds, you ask? My family is Irish. Like, Irish Irish. All my...
With schools closed until at least April 20, you are surely wondering how your students or children will possibly stay engaged and keep learning for weeks, if not months at home. Anyone who’s had to join video meetings for work knows the pitfalls of such technology...now imagine a Zoom meeting...
As anxious 8th-graders wait to find out where they’ll be going to high school next year, City Limits reports on the reality that many of them will face in September—long commutes. When I advise parents and students on the high school admissions process, I always encourage them to “block out the...
For 18 years, InsideSchools has provided an invaluable public service: free independent reviews of the city’s schools, resources for families navigating the school system, and a trustworthy perspective on the city education scene. As a project of the Center for New York City Affairs, the work of...
The pre-K landscape in NYC is constantly shifting: since last year’s application season, more than 166 programs have closed, merged, or shifted out of the DOE Universal Pre-K system, and 540 new programs have opened or expanded their grade offerings to include pre-K and/or 3-K! We’ve recently...
As I write this from my standing desk at work, it occurs to me that in hundreds of school visits over my nine years at InsideSchools, I’ve seen only two standing desks in classrooms. One was on my recent visit to PS 51, where, in a single classroom, I spotted not only a standing desk, but also...
This interview with InsideSchools Editor in Chief, Tom Liam Lynch was originally published in Urban Matters, a publication by our colleagues at The Center for New York City Affairs at The New School. Urban Matters: The Center’s education work has basically come in two flavors: Looking at...
It seems like a no-brainer: Research says children who feel safe and supported by adults have an easier time learning. Environment and tone matters, and at the core of a school's positive culture are the relationships that develop. We have seen schools foster connections through advisory...
A couple years ago, a poetry question appeared on the ELA test in Texas. The poet’s name was Sara Holbrook. If her name sounds familiar, it is probably not because of her poetry so much as her very public confession: she had no idea how to answer the test questions about her own poems! I often...
In her book, The Essential Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn From Each Other, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot shares her wisdom on what parents and teachers can do to prepare for the (sometimes fraught) parent-teacher conference. Here are four of my favorite insights: "Parents should...
The tech industry in New York City is booming, but is the NYC school system preparing its students to take advantage of the tens of thousands of new jobs coming to the city over the next decade? A new report by the Center for an Urban Future finds that tech companies want to hire locally, but the...
Take a look—it’s LeVar Burton talking about literacy. I’ll disclaim right now: I wanted to be one of those kids on Reading Rainbow doing the book reviews. Like, desperately. It never happened, but that didn’t dampen my adoration for the show or its host. In this interview at SXSW EDU, Burton...
Updated March 15, 2022 If you want to explore options beyond your neighborhood elementary or middle school you may want to enter a lottery for a charter school. There are also some charter high schools open to students applying for 9th or 10th grade. The deadline to enter the lottery for most...
Originally posted February 20, 2019. Recently I spoke to educator Chip Wood, a co-founder of Responsive Classroom, an approach to teaching based on the belief that students do their best learning in a classroom where they also practice cooperation, empathy, responsibility and self-control....
Dear Friends, I’ve worn a lot of hats in the New York City education scene. As a parent, I felt the highs and lows of finding a public school for my child. As a teacher, I did my best to reach each student even with class sizes approaching three dozen. As an official in the city’s education...
Filling out the U.S. Department of Education’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the first step for most students seeking financial support for college. But the form can be complicated and intimidating, particularly for students. Many fill out the form themselves and have...
Tom Liam Lynch, a leading scholar and practitioner working at what he calls “the intersection of education, technology, and policy,” will become the new director of education policy and editor-in-chief of InsideSchools at the Center for New York City Affairs (CNYCA) at The New School. He is...
New York City is in the midst of an intense debate about opportunity and racial and socioeconomic fairness in determining which students get to attend which public schools. Last month, the School Diversity Advisory Group appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio recommended phasing out elementary school...
MARCH 20, 2020 UPDATE: New York State has cancelled the standardized math and ELA exams for grades 3-8 for the 2019-20 school year. Parents of children in grades 3 to 8 who took standardized state reading and math exams this year can find their childrens' test scores at www.mystudent.nyc, the...
This is the second of a two-part interview with InsideSchools founder, Clara Hemphill by Urban Matters, a publication from our colleagues at The Center for New York City Affairs at The New School. Urban Matters: Last week, we talked about the school-by-school reporting you oversee at...
