The first day of school for students next fall will be Thursday, Sept. 6, according to the Department of Education calendar now online. Classroom teachers begin two days early, on Tuesday, Sept....

Students who are lucky enough to have actual high school choices can attend open houses this week, where they’ll have a chance to weigh commutes, clubs, classes, homework and social life. Students...

I transferred from a public high school to a rigorous college prep school in my sophomore year. At my new school, I took Advanced Placement Calculus AB, AP World History, and Honors English. But I...

At the March 3-4 Round 2 high school fair we collected information about open houses and auditions for some schools that still have space.  This is an incomplete list. Best to contact the schools'...

Our friends and colleagues at Advocates for Children are putting out a call to action to protect early intervention programs for young children. Early Intervention provides evaluations and services...

Anyone who regularly reads Department of Education documents knows better than to expect fine literature. Many DOE memos and letters are so full of the bureaucratic nonsense known as “eduspeak”...

Nearly half of the 77,137 8th-graders who applied to high school last fall were matched with their first choice school, but 10 percent got no match at all, the Department of Education announced...

If you're one of the 7,391 8th graders who didn't get assigned to a high school--or who was assigned to a school you don't want to attend--there are still some good schools with space available....

Vasilios Biniarls is a math teacher at a Queens middle school program for gifted students, The Academy at PS 122. He wrote to Insideschools after his name was published in the press as a "Below...

Parents applying to kindergarten for fall 2012 still have questions as the pre-registration period draws to a close on March 2. Here are a few more questions that parents asked at our kindergarten...

The latest serving of data-driven mania from the city Education Department will likely produce screaming headlines about the city's "worst teachers." This virtual wall of shame (and fame) will live...

"Special needs children need not apply." There was no sign hanging on the main office at PS 289 in Bedford-Stuyvesant last week, but there may as well have been. Essence Louis says she was told...

Dear Judy, My son has been physically attacked several times in elementary school – I call it bullying—but the classroom teacher is no help when it happens and the rest of the staff has not been...

If you saw my recent post on the arts, it won't surprise you that my husband and I felt strongly about getting Brooks piano lessons from an early age. Of course, we had to immediately rule out the...

I attended two presentations last week at my daughter’s Upper West Side elementary school. The first featured the chancellor in charge of New York City schools, who was on hand to absorb parents’...

Kindergarten applications are due March 2, and any child born in 2007 may enroll in public school kindergarten. That means that some kids will still be only four years old when school starts. That...

It's not just elite high schools that are being told to increase the number of special education students. The Education Department is also directing selective middle schools to take more students...

Q: My niece is a US citizen by birth, but grew up and attended school outside the country. Now she is graduating from high school and wants to go to college in the U.S. I need to know how to fill...

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn says kindergarten should be mandatory for all 5-year-olds. In her State of the City address Quinn, who co-sponsored the Insideschools' event on applying to...

Ed Note : Parents of prospective pre-K and kindergarten students had lots of questions at the Feb. 8 Insideschools forum at the New School. There wasn’t time to answer each one individually, so we...

Two schools targeted for closure by the Education Department have gotten a reprieve. City officials Tuesday afternoon withdrew their proposal to get rid of the 6th-8th grades of the Wadleigh...

If you missed our forum on "How to apply to public elementary school," you can watch it below. (Please bear with us for the 30 second ad before the video starts). If you'd like to see more events...

The nominating committee for Helicopter Parent of the Year should take note: I recently sent a letter to a 1st grade teacher asking whether my daughter’s homework was too perfect. Let me explain....

We’ve heard a lot of scary stories about kindergarten waitlists at very popular schools, but what about good schools that aren’t hopelessly oversubscribed? Insideschools has compiled a list of...

For some parents, applying to kindergarten has become a second job. They are zoned for schools that are failing, overcrowded or unsafe. They make phone calls, search websites and seek advice in...