Nearly 1,000 kindergartners won’t get a spot at zoned school
The distance that 67 students re-routed from P.S. 169 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, (marked A) to a mix of five other schools will trek.
Kindergartners-to-be jilted by neighborhood elementary schools too crowded to hold them will receive a new school assignment in the mail this weekend, the Department of Education announced today.
Some of the new assignments will send families to less-coveted schools just down the block. Others will send the 5- and 6-year-olds on treks as arduous as a nearly 3-mile hike from Sunset Park to Red Hook, in the case of four unlucky Brooklyn families.
Letters with alternate matches are going out to 980 families, more than double the number that received them last year. But the matches are a better option than what seemed possible in March, when 1,885 families were told they would be on a waiting list. Schools have since found spots for many of those families.
None of the decisions are final, and all families will remain on their wait lists even while they receive their new assignment. The city expects some spots will open up as children are admitted to gifted and talented programs and private schools, schools spokesman Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld said.
The vast bulk of redirected children live in Queens, where 432 families zoned for 16 schools will be re-routed to a group of 18 less-crowded alternatives. (Brooklyn comes next with 220 redirected families, then Manhattan with 179, 101 in the Bronx, and 48 in Staten Island.)
Also:
- 37 children zoned for the Upper West Side’s coveted P.S. 87 will go to nearby P.S. 75 and P.S. 84 instead.
- One giant batch of 200 Queens children will be shipped to a new school opening in September in Elmhurst. They are being sent by schools including A-rated P.S. 143 in the Corona section of Queens.
- Four kindergartners-to-be zoned for P.S. 169 in Sunset Park are being told to report instead to the
Remainders: Klein’s approval rating drops nine points in new poll
- Chancellor Joel Klein’s approval rating dropped nine points since February in a new poll.
- In a reversal, the city will continue to cover the tabs of students who don’t pay their lunch money.
- The USDOE gave New York $20 million to improve the state’s data systems.
- On WNYC, Ed Sec Duncan worried about layoffs, shorter school days and disappearing summer school.
- To be judged well, teachers should forget their anti-cheating strategies, Arthur Goldstein writes.
- A Klein aide’s Bloomberg connections may have doomed his bid to lead the Empire State Pride Agenda.
- A Teach for America member likes the group, but hopes it isn’t around in another 20 years.
- State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery’s challenger is taking aim at her record on charter schools.
- A union columnist breaks down the data on IS 588 and Kings Collegiate Charter School.
- Rising sixth graders will find out their middle school destinations starting Monday.
- Do rising NAEP reading scores mean the city’s promotion policies are working? Paul Peterson wonders.
- And Haiti’s schools are slowly re-opening, though most in temporary buildings.
After test tampering concerns, Regents exams will be scanned
High school Regents exams have long come under criticism for being easy to game: Teachers grade their own students’ work, and checks against cheating are flawed. That could change next year with a new rule voted in by the Board of Regents.
Rather than rely on a group of teachers and state officials to examine tests for grade tampering, the city will begin scanning students’ multiple choice answer sheets next year. State officials said scanning tests will let
Rather than rely on a group of teachers and state officials to examine tests for grade tampering, the city will begin scanning students’ multiple choice answer sheets next year. State officials said scanning tests will let