Regular readers of New York School Talk know how important Mayor Bill de Blasio’s approval is to this NYC mom. Hizzoner was most displeased with the high-school choices I made for my two older sons. I have only my daughter left. This is my last chance to get it right! When trying to figure out… Continue reading Choosing My Daughter’s High School To Please Mayor DeBlasio
(This is a guest post by Natasha Cherry-Perez, Senior Associate Director of Community Engagement at Uncommon Schools and super Mom to an outstanding high school student.) In middle school, Ruth Kendall remembered the mathematical expression Pi (3.14) all the way out to 400 digits. She loves numbers so much, the Uncommon Collegiate Charter High School… Continue reading A Brooklyn School Working to Help Students Share Their Own Voices
Waitlists had long been a fact of life for New York City Kindergarten and Gifted & Talented admissions, Hunter College Elementary, and other public charter schools. But Mayor Bill De Blasio only added them to middle and high school admissions in 2019. (Previously, there had been a Second Round for teens who didn’t get any… Continue reading How NYC School Waitlists Work – And How They Don’t
New York City families who applied to private high schools this year were obliged to turn in their enrollment contracts — and put down a deposit on tuition — by noon of last Friday, March 12, 2021. In previous years, NYC Specialized, Screened, Arts, Ed-Opt, P-Tech, and all other public high schools would also notify… Continue reading Why NYC High School Admissions Will Be Very Different This Year: How Families Can Make It Better
As a whopping 40+(!) candidates gear up to run for Mayor of New York City, we thought we’d take a comprehensive look at the education legacy of Gracie Mansion’s current occupant. Bill de Blasio was sworn in as NYC’s 109th Mayor on January 1, 2014. He told a Tale of Two Cities and promised to… Continue reading Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing: NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s Education Legacy
I started homeschooling myself in November, but before I could begin that endeavor, I had to complete two tedious tasks. Firstly, I had to register for AP exams. Secondly, I had to submit an Individualized Home Instruction Plan and Letter of Intent to the NYC Department of Education. Registering for AP exams took the longest… Continue reading So You Want To Homeschool? How To File the Paperwork You Need & Register for AP Exams, Too!
At the beginning of November, I left 11th grade at Stuyvesant High School, and started homeschooling myself. One of the primary benefits of homeschooling is that it freed me to select my courses of study. Had I stayed at Stuyvesant, this year I would have taken American Literature, Spanish 3, US History, Health, Regents Physics,… Continue reading Exceeding Expectations: How I Chose My Homeschooling Classes
On October 29, Brooklyn City Council member Brad Lander reached out to his New York city colleagues: I am writing to request your support for Reso 1397 which would prohibit the use of screens for admission into community school district middle schools for the 2021-2022 school year. To counter, I shared my May 2019 post,… Continue reading An NYC Schools Admissions Plan So Crazy It Just Might Work – For Everyone
Two Mondays ago I began to homeschool myself in lieu of completing my tenure as a Stuyvesant High School student. There are many reasons I did this, including greater educational and temporal freedom, but it is important that I share not only why, but also how I homeschool, so that others may find it easier… Continue reading From Stuyvesant HS to Homeschooling in One Marking Period
Almost a year ago, when announcing changes to New York City middle and high school admissions, Mayor Bill De Blasio promised that getting rid of appeals and putting in waitlists instead would make it “simple to apply to schools for your kids for the first time in a long time.” School Chancellor Richard Carranza echoed,… Continue reading Waitlists Were Going To Make Getting Into NYC Schools Simpler (Spoiler: They Didn’t)
