Middle School Muddle: Seeing Rent as Tuition

Posted by inthemiddle at 5:00 PM

by Liz Willen

There's no way of getting around the constant search for schools in New York City -- from getting into pre-kindergarten (far more complicated than necessary this year) to finding a good neighborhood school to choosing a district with enough reasonable middle school choices to mitigate the nagging "what's next?'' anxiety that accompanies raising kids here.

But pluses like diversity, excitement, culture, and the thrill of outdoor movies, music and river-art waterfalls, all within easy commuting distance, become meaningless for parents who do not believe their children can obtain a first-rate education in the New York City public school system. That's why word-of-mouth makes the best schools instantly popular, and why landlords hold enormous power in neighborhoods graced with good schools.

New York City living is a series of trade-offs. You give up on the idea of a backyard in favor of a public park or playground, convince your children that all siblings share their bedrooms (or sleep in rooms that resemble monastery cells), forgo owning a car or move it constantly -- and pay those pesky parking tickets when you forget. It's all a lot easier to take if you feel good about the schools.

All of this became even more sharply apparent to me recently when a West Coast colleague without New York City know-how or connections who was moving here in a big hurry wanted help and advice. She wanted the basics, which can feel impossible: a decent apartment near a good neighborhood public school that would welcome her children as newcomers.

She figured she could accomplish this in one weekend.

I turned her onto to Insideschools.org and gave her a list of some of the most well known and loved schools near hew new job in lower Manhattan -- PS 150, PS 234 and PS 89. A quick look at listings made it clear that a two-bedroom in these areas would cost at least $5,600, so lower Manhattan was quickly ruled out.

Then it was on to Brooklyn, where principals and parent coordinators were warm and welcoming -- and some landlords asked for as many as five months' rent as security, in advance. Prices were still killer -- a fifth-floor walk-up "bargain'' was nearly $3,000 a month. The second 'bedroom' owed its existence to a door on a walk-in closet.

The apartment could not be instantly discounted, though, as it had the huge advantage of being zoned for PS 321, long established as one of the city's best.

Such high prices forced my colleague toward a wider search and scrutiny of other, less-commuting-convenient neighborhoods, with schools that were less well known, but equally loved by hard-working parents and staff.

For a renter in a hurry, it's turning out to be a lot more homework. She's coming back, but convinced she'll have to look at the high cost of renting near the schools she wants as "tuition.''

That's life in New York City.

Middle School Mess: DOE, Fix This Process Now!

Posted by inthemiddle at 8:40 AM

Delays, confusion and misinformation have marked the middle school choice process this year, and it is simply unacceptable. This is a perfect example of the Department of Education putting children last. Principals and guidance counselors in the elementary and middle schools have tried to be patient and reassuring and worked hard to get answers that either keep changing -- or apparently do not exist.

This year was confusing from start to finish. We couldn't schedule tours in the fall, then -- suddenly -- we could! Parents who got the information somehow signed up, others found themselves shut out, only to have tours open again in December in January.

The deadlines for notification kept changing as well, leaving kids and parents on edge for way too long. Last week, in one Brooklyn school where the kids were becoming unbearably antsy, the school just typed up their own letter from the list they got from the DOE and handed them out in class -- not the best strategy for kids who got disappointing news.

Imagine telling your 10 or 11-year-old child, who for months has been waiting to hear from one of the five carefully chosen middle schools they selected after endless touring, that they did not get into ANY of them.

That has happened to several families I know in Manhattan, and it's an issue in Brooklyn as well, with children being assigned to middle schools that they did not apply to -- or left without a middle school altogether, and directed to a second admissions round.

Are these kids with troubled records or academic difficulties? ABSOLUTELY NOT. In the cases I'm aware of, these are great kids, with solid test scores and the kinds of families who organize special events and field trips, volunteer endlessly and make it clear in everything they say and do that they support public education in New York City.

There are no pat answers or explanations either, because no one knows with much certainty how decisions were made, especially for the highly valued ones that are overwhelmed with applications.

It is not okay to simply accept that in any choice-based process, some children will get left out. That is not an outcome that we must simply live with. It's too early to say how the appeals process will work in these cases, but in the meantime kids and families are suffering unecessary anxiety and pain.

It is not okay to promise answers by early May, and deliver them six weeks later with no explanation at all. If Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's idea was to equalize the process, where is he now with the explanation, the apology and a plan to fix the problems?

The fault lies in the idea that the DOE decided at some point to "centralize,'' both pre-k and middle school choice this year, perhaps to make life easier for administrators. That's the only explanation I've seen in the New York Times last week.

The New York Daily News has also tried to get answers: The explanation? First time the DOE had coordinated the processes in different districts.

That's not good enough. And it simply doesn't resonate with kids and families who are spending this month trying to get answers -- and trying to reassure their children that indeed, everything will work out, when they really can't say those words with much confidence.

Two years ago when my older son went through middle school choice and the district was in charge, the tours ran on time, notification came by April and questions asked were answered.

Let's get some answers now.

Middle School Muddle: Clinging to childhood rituals at the end of elementary school

Posted by inthemiddle at 2:07 PM

"Did you get the mail yet?'' my 5th grader asked yesterday, for about the 300th time in the last month.

I did not like the anxious look on his face, but I understand it. For reasons as of yet unexplained and articulated by anyone at the New York City Department of Education, middle school notifications are coming way later this year. As we forge ahead with graduation and birthday plans, end-of-year publishing parties and arts festival performances, a letter from a middle school is on the way.

Hopefully, the envelope will come from one of our top two choices, made after much discussion on our part, after many visits and careful consideration of everything from the commute to the class sizes. We can't be quite sure how that middle school arrived at the decision, as each one seems to do something a bit differently when choosing their 6th graders.

We do know all the top schools have way too many first choice applicants and simply can't take them all.

As the wait stretches on, 5th-grade parents in choice districts throughout the city are all a little anxious. If the news is not what we wanted, we must be nonetheless cheery and optimistic, explaining to our 9- and 10-year-olds that this does not constitute personal rejection and they will be happy wherever they end up. Or, we can choose to appeal the decision and push for one of our top choices nonetheless, prolonging an arduous process even more.

When my older son was going through this process two years ago, he knew by April where he was headed the following year. He was delighted, and promptly forgot about middle school and focused on enjoying the rest of the year with his close friends.

That is what I'm urging my 5th grader to do now. And I am focusing on the rituals of the wonderful elementary school we are about to leave behind, along with moments when my child might still grasp his hand and ask if I'm the one taking him to school or picking him up -- a concept that ends instantly for many parents in middle school.

I'm preparing to bake my last batch of birthday cupcakes to bring to his class on the big day, another ritual that disappears in most middle schools. And when I pick up my 7th grader this week, I'm making sure we meet somewhere not even remotely close to his school but in another neighborhood entirely.