Appeals Update from DOE
As plenty of parents can attest, talk has been swirling about pre-K and middle-school appeals, and second round applications for pre-K. Here's the latest:
Appeals for pre-K are due to the DOE by next Friday, June 13. These appeals are meant to address clerical/record-keeping issues, like address changes, name misspellings, etc. These are NOT for parents who wish to appeal their child's exclusion from pre-K.
If you feel your child was wrongly placed or simply excluded from your zoned school, write the DOE's OSEPO office at Tweed pronto, if you haven't already. There is no hard deadline for these letters, but their aim is to resolve all open queries before the round-two pre-K apps begin on June 23d.
To participate in the second round of pre-K admissions, get hold of an application from your borough OSEPO office. Parents seeking sibling priority seats should receive them by mail from the DOE. (Be good enough, readers, to let us know if and when the 2nd round applications arrive -- thanks.) The second round begins on June 23d; there is no deadline yet set for that process, although one will be decided soon (says the DOE) and posted here, of course, and on their site.
Caveat emptor, parents: If you elect to participate in round two and are granted a pre-K seat, you are obliged to accept that seat for your child. In other words, you can't hold on to a first-round placement in hopes of another, somehow better second placement. If your bid's in the ring, you have to accept the outcome. Fair's fair.
On middle schools, elementary schools in districts with appeals processes have, apparently, distributed appeals information. (Help us out again, here, readers: What's in your child's backpack?)
If your 5th-grader applied to a middle school in another district, contact the out-of-district school's guidance counselor for appeals particulars. If you're still unable to resolve your concerns, contact your borough OSEPO office -- be patient, be prepared for some phone tag, but be persistent, too. Remember, not all districts have formal appeals processes. (In this case, fair's not exactly fair.)
Parents in Brooklyn and elsewhere say some of their fifth-graders didn't get any place at all in middle school, or got placed at schools they didn't include on their applications. If this is true for your child, let us know -- getting a sense of the scope of the challenge is the first step.
11 comments:
My son is in the g&t class, 5th grade, D15, didn't get into any schools we chose on the list...instead MS422, which is low performing and part of a grade school...we chose MS51, Math and Science, MS88 plus a few others....he is lucky that this is the third time around for us, so we also looked at D21, and he got into his #2 choice for Art. Very disappointed that with all the hard work, there is no way to put a smart kid into a challenging school in our district. Something needs to change....we will appeal just in case we can get into Math and Science or 51, although from the tears up and down the block that doesn't seem likely.
Any news regarding whether the K G&T acceptance letters for city-wide schoolds have gone out?
This ordeal is nerve-racking, to say the least.
We already paid the deposit for his private pre-school. The way this is going we're going to have pay the full tuition just to make sure our son has some place to go to in September.
regards,
Mike - District 2
Do you have any news yet on G&T? We have seen a lot of new news on pre-k and middle schools, but absolutely nothing on G&T. If they want to line next week's deadline (6/13) for lottery school registration up with G&T we need to get letters ASAP or they will likely have people registering and then withdrawing.
thanks!
G+T families, I wish I had a definitive word from the DOE on letters -- anecdotally, some people have had news, others are still waiting. I've asked them (as you can well imagine) and will relay their answer as soon as they send it. Sorry for delay.
MS Brooklyn: Our high-performing etc child was placed in her third choice in district (we will reject the offer) and not offered either of her OOD choices. Question: if we produce a lease and change residency to within (specifically) Mark Twain's zone (ugh), will she gain auto-placement? How about MS 51? She is pre-qualified re: ELA etc. - The BOE let her slip through: a mistake because now the gloves are coming off. Thanks!
MS 51 doesn't have a "zone" - none of the Brooklyn middle schools do, just a district. That's the point of this whole application process. There is no "auto-placement." And having high ELA scores doesn't mean you're "pre-qualified" for 51, because they get two or three times as many qualified applicants as there are spaces.
Just out of curiosity, what was your third choice school that you don't want?
Don't bother moving for Mark Twain. They are a gifted school that you need to test into. The 4th grade tests don't really matter in their admissions process. Good luck!
We are in UPW. still did not receive the mail for Pre-K for my son. What should we do?
No letter. Call the school/s you applied to. If he was in fact accepted you must register by 6/13 or you forgo spot. I, too, never received letter for my son.
We live in Dist. 15 & my 5th grader goes to school in Dist. 20 (we lived there when she started Kinder.)and is a CTT child. She has improved immensely scoring very high on the SS, Science, math tests and although has improved in reading score, still has challenges. Excellent CTT programs are offered at 447,443 &51 which were part of her top choices. She was accepted to a new Dist. 20 all girl's school (opened 9/2007)-which we applied to has it was offered to all girls in Bklyn. An essay was required and selection done by lottery. My child had this school as her personal 2nd choice -447 was 1st -but we placed it last (it does not offer CTT but has SETSS-also didn't think they would even consider her because of CTT). As it is a new school (currently 73), class size is small so perhaps she may do well. Just checking to see if indeed by law the DOE has to provide her services even though the school does not offer it. This school is on top of another middle school that has CTT so will DOE use them to provide for my child? It has been voiced that there is absolutely no interaction between the 2 schools. Will call school to see what they say and considering appealing for a Dist. 15 school but the outcome looks unfavorable as it seems other children are in distinct situations of their own.
As of today we did not receive any placement letter. Parent coordinator only referred us to call local OSEPO office, where prompted to voice mail we left a masssage twice - nobody called us back. So we went to the OSEPO office in person - after taking our data, the clerk informed us that my daughter was placed in our zone school but we insisted that we wanted to know her scores , at least to know how she did on placement exams and then we learn that actually she is placed in one shool of her choice. They said that they were unable to print anything as prove, but promised to prepare such a letter, so we could officially accept the placement. So we need to call and come once again. Hopefully it will be solved but I have mixed fillings ... I wonder if the is more people with such a problem. I am so nervous.
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