School Admissions Changes Causing 'Chaos'
This year the Department of Education changed its admissions process for pre-K’ers, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, and the shift means a lot of parents are grappling with the fact that their kids have been placed in schools far from home. About 3,000 parents, “including those in large swaths of Brownstone Brooklyn,” recently found out…
This year the Department of Education changed its admissions process for pre-K’ers, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, and the shift means a lot of parents are grappling with the fact that their kids have been placed in schools far from home. About 3,000 parents, “including those in large swaths of Brownstone Brooklyn,” recently found out their kids didn’t get into any of the schools they’d put down on application forms. Yesterday Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and Councilman Bill de Blasio held a press conference to decry the new pre-K placement system, and Gotbaum said the changes “have had some chaotic consequences for parents.” The new admissions process is apparently affecting older kids, too. Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn has been writing about how her child didn’t get in to any middle schools, apparently because of a DOE computer glitch. The blogger is describing the experience as traumatic: “And then [my daughter] heard me talking on the phone to the New York Times. She doesn’t know who I was talking to but she can tell that I am agitated, annoyed, on edge, shakey, not happy and so on.”
Pre-K Snafu Leads Brooklyn Parents To Protest at Tweed [Brooklyn Eagle]
Middle School SNAFU: My Daughter Isn’t On The List [OTBKB]
Photo by Kit & I.
Score one for the city…
Every kid I know who grew up in the suburbs and is coming of age now, HATED IT! Nothing to do, had to have parents drive you everywhere and way too much tv time and not enough exercise or intellectual or social stimulation.
But who cares what’s best for the kids as long as you have your 4000 sf McMansion….right?
1:47 you really have a chip on your shoulder. No one feels entitled but you — apparently you feel entitled to resent anyone that has more than you. First, it was because you thought their parents bought them their lifestyle, but now that you learned they earned it themselves, you’ve found another reason to resent it.
Believe it or not, lots of middle class families move to fringe areas, where the rent is cheap, improve the schools, and suddenly find themselves living in desirable, expensive areas because of the work they’ve done. Why you should feel so angry about that is incomprehensible. You can do it yourself — there are plenty of inexpensive, safe areas in Brooklyn, Queens, etc. Do it, instead of being mean to people who have done it and in no way feel entitled about it.
As opposed to you, 1:47, a clearly bitter person with obvious agression and self esteem issues…?
“Score one for the suburbs? Do the additional 10K+ in propertay taxes get counted in the score?”
Absolutely, and so does the NYC income tax.
anyone purchasing property with young children needs to find a neighborhood with a decent school that is way under crowded and has some potential, but is probably not there yet. check the DOE info, insideschools, and also, any local parents groups (usually found on yahoo).
i sold out of 321 because i could tell that it was going to be a nightmare once my daughter reached school age.
all of the “good” schools are being pushed to the edge, and no, private school, is not a back up for many. yes, i own a million + condo, but i do not have $35K per year of after tax money to give to a private school.
The median income for Park Slope is approximately $56,000.
So no, not everyone there owns a 2 million dollar brownstone.
daveinbedstuy, shut the hell up. You live in the ghetto and cannot compare yourself to North Sleeper here. I could afford to live in the ghetto too but I like to feel safe. Whereas, North Sleeper is just your usual pompous a-hole that you meet in brownstone brooklyn. The type of person that is so proud they bought in the UWS during the 90’s, sold their apartment, moved to Brooklyn and now feels entitled and better than everyone else in their community. Dick.
Well, as a renter, childless and who attended public school, my sister and my brother-in-law are both teachers, and I have no issue with my taxes paying for public schools. I feel that even though I have no kids, I benefited from the public school system and I am more than happy to pay back into it. I am as much a part of and contributor to the community as any homeowner so I do object to those who imply only those with children or who own are the only people who contribute.
I really thought Bloomberg was going to make serious improvements to the school system, and there have been changes, but I’m not in a position to know if they have been for better or worse. But the recent threatened budget cuts show that his commitment is not a real one. There are plenty of places to cut back- the City is a master of wasted money and poor prioritization- if anything education should be the one area where you don’t cut.
Not sure what I think of pre-K in general. How many years has it been that the public schools offer pre-K? And do people think it’s of real benefit or does it take money from the limited funding available that would be better spent on kindergarden and up? If it does come down to sacrificing something, my own opinion would be to put pre-k back onto the parents as it was traditionally. My sister took my niece and nephew to local pre-k classes which she also participated in, rather than dropping them off. I’m also going to claim some ignorance here about how pre-k is run these days but I’d like to know more.
Do people on this site truly believe that everyone in the Slope owns a $2 million brownstone? That no mothers work? Take a walk around the ‘hood sometime. Surprisingly, you may encounter some apartment buildings! Sometimes, these are even somewhat reasonably-priced rentals where people have been living a long time! Go figure.
You also might see babysitters. Do a little chatting and you’ll find that most daycares are full too. Could it be that parents are working?
As for the comments (9:58) about the number of families affected by the preK debacle , the poster either works for the DOE or at the least is directly quoting same. Even if the numbers cited are correct (big “if”), they refer to sibling issues only and there are many reports of out-of-zone acceptances before in-zone, etc.–which would certainly boost that 1% problem rate.
These non-sibling grievances have not been publicly addressed by a DOE which somehow does not see itself as needing to be accountable to parents, though it spends millions on ensuring that schools are “accountable” according to its own narrow criteria. (Which is why using SAT scores etc to confirm the relative merits of preK vs. non-preK, or private vs. public is also meaningless.)
As for the necessity of preK in general, I too am beginning to think the solution to apportioning the too-few seats should be by income. However, the point remains that THIS YEAR’S application did not list that as a criteria at all and seats should have allotted as per stated criteria.
–parent who never received preK letter…