a couple things that are still relevant

By Joyce Szuflita
I just scrolled down to the bottom of this page and found my own blog archive!!
I started blogging around this time, 8 years ago and boy did (do) I need an editor! The nice thing about blogging is that you can write whatever the hell you damn well please. I was tickled by a couple of pieces (cause I think that I am kinda funny, much to my family's chagrin) and I was interested in my own perspective as a parent of 14 year olds, all those many years ago. Here are three of my favorites, that are still relevant and mildly amusing (even my husband said so!). Don't read the other first blogs. They are awful.
A wistful ode to 'rubber pellet season'
a sweet reminiscence (and creepy reference to cancerous recycled tires)

New Urban Team Sport (NUTS)
how I did the parent teacher conference

Sing is sung
a New York high school institution and my review of the 2008 season. If you want to understand the difference between Murrow and Stuy as institutions - it is all here.

ch-ch-ch-changes for public high school admissions

By Joyce Szuflita
The one big thing that is changing in the HS admissions procedure for the fall 2014 admissions season is that 2%ers (students who score in the top 2% state wide on the 7th grade ELA test) will no longer be given a guaranteed entry to an Ed Opt program. In the past if you were a 2%er and you listed an Ed Opt program as your number one choice, it was a GUARANTEED entry. Sorry, no longer.

Now there are NO guarantees of any placement in the entire Doe admissions process from prek to high school. Oh well, that's life in the big city.

public high school choice rant

By Joyce Szuflita
Forgive me for too many CAPS ahead of time.

I have been hearing a lot about the "second round" this year, like you get another shot at the choice you want late in the spring. GUYS! the DOE doesn't work that way!! The "supplemental round" is for students who have NOT RECEIVED ANY CHOICE in the main round. Your placement in the main round is where your child will attend for freshman year, no ifs ands or buts. The students in the supplemental round get to choose from the schools that have seats still available.

But "ah ha!”, you say, "what about the Specialized HS kids who get to choose between a two schools?! Aren't the schools that they don't take from the main round left over in the supplemental round?" NO!!! everyone (who has placed a seriously good number of good fit schools) is placed in the main round and all the schools get "over offers" -many more students than they can hold. The DOE has historical data from years of experience how many kids are going to take their Specialized HS seats (or private school, etc.) and how many are taking their 1-12 list seats. If a few more kids choose the Specialized HS, the classes are a little fuller there, but all the seats at the highly sought after, selective schools are still full, full, full. The process this year is NO DIFFERENT than previous years. The DOE always ran the WHOLE algorithm before the Specialized round placements where announced. They have always known in early Feb. where EVERYONE is placed. They just didn't release the info, because they did that New School Fair, and students had the option to add a new program to their list before they got their results. The problem was that the conspiracy theories abounded AND it pushed the supplemental and appeals process way too late in the year. This is a process that handles upwards of 90,000 kids a year. They will not entertain picking and chosing in a second round and if you are banking on getting no choice so that you can pick off Beacon or another favorite in a "second round" you are taking a bad gamble with your child's future.

Millennium Brooklyn

By Joyce Szuflita
New High Schools are always coming online and are usually announced shortly before the New HS Fair in Jan. but news of Millennium II has leaked so Lisa Gioe made an announcement to her parents at MS 447 Math and Science District 15 last night.

Millennium 2 will be opening in the John Jay HS complex on 7th Ave. and 4th St. in Park Slope in Sept. 2011 with Lisa Gioe as principal. It will be a replication of the popular Millennium HS with the addition of an ASD NEST program like the one that has been instituted at 447. I believe that this may be the first program of its kind in a HS. It will also be an "advanced Exploratory Program supporting internships". It will not be a choice on the Main Round application. If you would like to add the school to your list of HS you can do it during the short period after the New HS Fair in Jan. when you are allowed to resubmit the application and add new programs that will be starting in fall. 

Currently MS 447 has two very experienced Assistant Principals, Sharon Mahabir, who has been with the school since its founding and Dawn Faraj who had also been the Math Coach and a long time asset to the school. One of them will likely be tapped for the 447 principal's job.

It will be interesting to see if the Millennium brand will draw more local families to the John Jay building. I am also concerned for the lovely and focused students from Research that I heard speak recently in support of their school. A co-location is always a rocky process, but it doesn't necessarily have to be one that harms the existing schools. I hope that all the programs will grow in strength with the attention that will be directed to the building.

Don’t shout “algorithm conspiracy!” in crowed middle school

It has been brought to my attention that there is a belief among 8th grade parents that the students who score into the specialized HS get their pick of the high schools and the rest of the students get their left-overs.

To the best of my knowledge this is untrue. I have been chasing the details of this process for years, and here is what I understand from talking to the people who understand the algorithm, the timing of the running of the algorithm and the people at the DOE who work in the secret magic cave where the computers do their work.

First, just to throw a trickle of water on this fire, the DOE can be accused of a lot of things but no one can doubt that they go to crazy lengths to try to be fair and whether they succeed or not (and often they don’t), the conspiracy theorists can calm themselves knowing that this is one of the DOE’s first mandates.

• Central enrollment receives everyone’s application in Dec.

• The schools do not know how you ranked them (and they will never know). The schools look at all the students that have placed them on the app somewhere and they internally rank them. All schools “over offer” on their private wish list of students, because they know (from vast past experience) the percentages of students who will opt out for a specialized hs choice. If there is a discrepancy from year to year, there may be some overcrowding in the specialized hs or the 1in12 list school. It happens.

• The algorithm is run for everyone in the beginning of the year and it is designed to benefit the student and their preferences. Really, I had a guy from Harvard explain it to me. It goes down the student’s list and matches them with their highest choice school that has put them on the school’s internal student wish list (plus the location priorities – that was Millennium’s fatal flaw last year) and places everyone – it doesn’t care or know who took the SHSAT, what score they got or who their favorite Beatle is.

• In January the DOE opens new schools. It is possible for all students to resubmit an application to include a new school or two. It is an opportunity for students who have moved into the city after the app deadline and independent school students who have lost their placements to try for a seat.

• In a totally separate process, the SHSAT is scored and the students are placed into the specialized hs by their test score. Then the DOE sends out a letter with the specialized hs seat and the 1 in 12 hs seat for the student to decide which one they would prefer. Remember, all the other students are already placed, they just don’t hear about their seat early. I know for certain that there are students who are placed in specialized high schools who do not get their first choice. I know for certain that there are occasionally some kids who are offered a seat in a specialized hs who don’t receive a 1in12 placement at all. Bad luck, just like the approx.8% of students who aren’t placed in the main round. Lucky for them that they have a specialized or Laguardia as a safety. Here’s where people feel that the specialized students are getting an advantage, in very rare cases the numbers are tweaked slightly if a 1in12 school’s popularity with specialized students will cause an unusual overcrowding, but this is very, very rare because the DOE is already very good at predicting popularity from past numbers and the schools have already considered this in their "over offer" numbers.

• The algorithm is run again for all remaining students to include these changes, but it is not a giant reshuffle, just fitting in students here and there (do you know anyone who ever resubmitted an app in January?) There would be very little movement if any at the selective school level. It seems that what happened at Bard last year was when the second algorithm was run there was a glitch that said it was full and the previously placed students were dropped. When it became clear, those students where offered seats at Bard even though they had been placed elsewhere.

Note: I asked the guy from Harvard about this scenario about ranking your choices on the app.:

Me: What if a student ranked their 12 choices and put Beacon as #12, and for some reason his 1 to 11 choices didn’t have him on their wish list but Beacon did.

Harvard Guy: He would be placed in Beacon.

The reason that doesn’t happen is only because of the large numbers of eager applicants trying for a small school placement. A small school with many hundreds of qualified applicants placing it as their first choice will likely fill the school before it can reach a lower choice. It is not that the school is being exclusive, it is just that they are lucky to be popular, and we all know that being popular is a big deal in high school.

13 is the new 18

My friend, Beth Harpaz has just written a great new book called, "13 is the new 18, and other things my children taught me while I was having a nervous breakdown being their mother".
She is doing a reading at Barnes and Noble in Park Slope on Feb. 5 at 7:30. It is sure to be very funny, judging from her youtube videos.

Parents and kids at my house gathered around the computer laughing at how funny (and true) her commentary was. It did bring up an issue for us. I friended my kids when they got their Facebook pages. We are not unhappy with the things that we occasionally see, but the unintended complication comes from their looking at OUR pages. Our friends' status shows up on our kids' homepages. Beth, the fact that you are addicted to cheese is the funniest thing that my kids extended network has heard in a long time. Apparently, it is SO "park slope mom" - I am addicted to cheese as well. The fact that Beth - someone we know - could youtube a song about her teen's behavior sent a chill around the neighborhood. Don't push your mom too far or she could go public. Good job Beth!