(This is a guest post by Vitória Lunardi de Castro, the founder of LaG Portfolio Mentors, a nonprofit program that provides free art portfolio preparation to aspiring students who want to attend New York City art high schools. Originally from Brazil, Vitoria immigrated to the United States at a young age and has since made her mark as an artist and advocate for accessible arts education. She is currently a student at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.)  When I was in middle school, I fell In love with art. Perhaps it was the messiness of watercolor ..read more

(This is a guest post by Chad Alderman, NYC dad and the creator of ReadNotGuess.com, a program that sends short email lessons to help parents support and monitor their child’s early reading progress.) My 3rd grade son was reading to me recently when he came to the word “gargoyle.” Except he didn’t read it correctly. He read it as “ghost” and kept going. I stopped him and made him go back until he got it right.  Sometimes he’ll skip words entirely or add or subtract letters in ways that change the word’s meaning. Later on the same page, for example, he changed “county” to “country,” and it ..read more

(This is a guest post by Irina B., an NYC mom just starting on her public school journey.) My daughter, Ava, was offered a public pre-K spot at PS 347. We accepted our offer in May, got a call from the school, toured it and confirmed our acceptance with the below email From: noreply@myschools.nyc Subject: Confirmed: Offer Accepted Date: May 19, 2022 at 9:50:29 AM EDT Dear Family, Thank you for responding to your child’s Pre-K for All offer at THE 47 AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE & ENGLISH LOWER SCHOOL (02M347) Pre-K – Full Day (02M347PK).  This email confirms that you have accepted your chil ..read more

According to Chalkbeat: Overall, K-12 enrollment has dropped by 9.5% since the pandemic began. Officials are expecting 30,000 fewer K-12 students to be on the rolls this fall compared to last year.  In this most recent school year, three-quarters of schools saw fewer students, a Chalkbeat analysis previously found. Enrollment of Black and white students dropped by 7.5% each, while it dropped by 5% for Asian American students and 4.5% for Latino students…. In the 2020-21 school year, most grades in the city’s traditional public schools saw enrollment declines, except for eighth, 10th, 11th ..read more

It’s been a long, arduous, and stressful New York City public school admissions season. And, unfortunately, it’s not over yet. The Department of Education (DOE) has now pushed admissions to public Gifted & Talented programs for grades Kindergarten through 3rd to “late July.” Meanwhile, families of rising 9th graders are still hoping for a seat at the high-school of their dreams off the waitlist. But, as one mother found out, the process for receiving such an offer was quietly changed – after applications had already gone in! Below is her correspondence with the DOE, which forced them to ad ..read more

From Alina Adams: When my son, Gregory Wickham, convinced me to let him drop out of Stuyvesant High School and homeschool himself, one of my major conditions was that he do all of the work himself. Since then, due to both changes in the NYC public gifted, middle, and high school admissions system, and families’ general distrust of the education their children were getting thanks to so many of its failings going uncovered by the pandemic and remote/hybrid learning, parents have come to me asking for help with withdrawing their own kids and developing an alternative educational plan. I have to a ..read more

(This is a guest post by Jennifer Tuttle, currently the PTA President of PS166Q, Henry Gradstein School, where her first grade son attends school in Astoria, Queens. She is also the Chair of the Department of Theatre and Speech at The City College of New York.) As part of his agenda to reshape the DOE, Chancellor David Banks announced that he would seek to strengthen the role of the District Superintendents, placing more responsibility on the local level. “One thing DOE officials have made clear: they plan to give lots of credence to the views of parents, elected officials, and community membe ..read more

(This is a guest post by David Gorvitz, who previously wrote NYC Drops Popular Gifted & Talented Program: A Parent’s Take.) I recently wrote this to the Superintendent of NYC DOE District 3 (Upper West Side/Morningside Heights/part of Harlem), which is considering allocating some of the 100 Kindergarten and 1,000 3rd-Grade seats being added to the Gifted and Talented program citywide. Complicating its task is the continued hostility of some principals to accelerated or selective education models like G&T. A case in point is P.S. 163, located near Harlem, a priority area for G&T exp ..read more

(Excerpted and adapted from Parenting with An Accent: How Immigrants Honor Their Heritage, Navigate Setbacks, and Chart New Paths for Their Children by Masha Rumer (Beacon Press, 2021). Reprinted with permission from Beacon Press. Masha Rumer is the author of a nonfiction book about immigrant families, Parenting with an Accent: How Immigrants Honor Their Heritage, Navigate Setbacks, and Chart New Paths for Their Children, published by Beacon press in November 2021. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Parents, Scary Mommy, Los Angeles Re ..read more

(This is a guest post by Moira Du. She is a Filipino student studying in Ateneo de Manila Senior High School and is a blog writer for Connect Me. She is also a volunteer tutor and a freelance writer.) In this world where money is everything, most, if not all, things are business deals. Every party must always stand to gain something whether that be money, fame, or prestige. As the saying goes, nothing in life is ever free. And why should it be? Shouldn’t everything be fair and equal? Shouldn’t everyone start in the exact same place without being given any free help? The fact of the matter is ..read more