Changes to NYC Gifted and Talented qualification process NYC Department of Ed. announced a hybrid lottery / questionnaire/assessment system to replace the Gifted and Talented test that has been given in the past for entry into the NYC Gifted and Talented.   What is known so far Of course, the press articles about this change are contradictory.  Parents are anxiously awaiting for clarification from the DOE on the specifics of how this will work.  Here’s what what is known so far: March 8, 2021 – parents can express interest in the gifted and talented program for your child. Bott ..read more

With the pandemic still ravaging the city it’s difficult to determine if schools will remain open, let alone the future of the NYC Gifted and Talented program. The test publisher, Pearson, has yet to be awarded the contract for testing this school year for the OLSAT and NNAT tests. Since testing takes place in January there’s very little time to let parents know what’s going to happen to testing this year, if at all. The same thing seems to be occurring with selective high school admissions testing with the SSHAT. If there’s a year of no testing what does that mean for next school year? Where ..read more

G&T goodbye? Or not? Many parents are wondering what the heck happens if G&T goes away for good? What about those parents who have one child in the gifted program and have a 2 or 3 year old at home who will now have to go to a separate school. Talk about the ultimate in morning drama trying to schlep two young children to two different schools (and in some cases to two different boroughs)! What happens if it’s a single parent who doesn’t have the resources to hire a nanny, private driver or Uber every day to do the back and forth from school. I’ve been reading about another cluster of ..read more

It ain’t over until the fat lady sings! It’s been a few months since the secret commission wrote the report to completely abolish the NYC G&T program as we know it today if not all together. Desperate and frantic parents are scrambling to find out as much information as possible about the future of the program. The DOE is exploring the option of providing “enrichment” for students in lieu of gifted and talented education. Ask 100 parents their definition of “enrichment” and guess what? You’ll get 100 very different answers. The Gifted and Talented Program consists of only 1% of the entire ..read more

Well, the results are in for Hunter Round 2 and hundreds of parents are ecstatic that their talented tot made it to Round 2 of Hunter College Elementary School! This doesn’t mean it’s over, quite the contrary. This is the first barrier to entry as these parents rev up for Round 2 where the best of the best 4 year-olds in Manhattan head for the group sessions. This can be even more stressful and agonizing for parents since there are many more unknown variables since there will be 25-30 other kids in the same classroom. Approximately 3,000 Manhattan children take the Stanford-Binet for Round 1 o ..read more

Well folks, it looks like the NYC Gifted and Talented Program may be coming to an abrupt end if the current Chancellor of the NYC Dept. of Ed. has his druthers.  The jury came back with a strong and resounding GUILTY verdict as it pertains to alleged unfairness, racist and downright elitist program for the gifted and talented. Everyone, of course, has the right to their own opinion but this so called committee obviously had it in for the G&T program before they even officially met.  They took their marching orders from the Chancellor and got in line with his own personal agenda of doing aw ..read more

Answers to the mystery surrounding Hunter College Elementary School. Hunter College Elementary is a nonpublic school and is not part of the NYC Dept of Ed. Good news! It’s tuition free and if your child is one of the lucky 50 that make it they can attend school there from kindergarten through 12th grade! The program is designed for highly gifted children who are evaluated by a trained psychologist and given an abbreviated version of the Stanford-Binet.  To apply, go to the web site and it opens at the end of August every year through early November.  The test is administered in the fall and th ..read more

Incorporate social emotional learning (SEL) into your child’s first year of school Over the past few weeks there’s been tons of chatter about the G&T test scores that were recently released by the NYC dept of ed. Now that parents are focusing on the first day of G&T kindergarten you want to make sure your child is equipped for the social emotional learning required in the gifted classroom. If you’ve never heard of social-emotional learning (aka SEL) it’s the newest trend in education across the nation. Districts across America are now developing curriculum specifically for SEL. As pare ..read more

All the parents can breath a sigh of relief as the NYC Dept of Ed. release this the Gifted and Talented Test Scores for OLSAT and NNAT. For the pre-K students who took the test there was a slight decrease (25% to 24%) of kids who qualified for the NYC gifted and talented program (both citywide and district wide programs). There was a significant decrease for children applying to 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade with a large drop in the percentage of kids eligible for the test. Here’s what happened this year for talented tots who took the test in January 2019 (from the NYC Dept. of Ed.): January 2019 Te ..read more

Hunter College Elementary School application process begins in August! Hunter College Elementary is not a public school and not part of the NYC DOE (Dept. of Education). That’s what I call fake news. It’s actually closer to being a tuition free private school kindergarten through high school or possibly a charter school since the money comes from New York State.  The teachers at Hunter don’t have to follow common core curriculum, and in many cases the kids don’t have to take the state ELA and math tests. Going into kindergarten, the child needs to be a Manhattan resident to apply at the kinder ..read more