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Do you 'enjoy' spending time with your kids?
- Yes, most of the time we really have fun together
- Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's really dull and aggravating
- Honestly most of the time it's not fun at all, but it's not supposed to be fun
- I really don't enjoy it at all, and wish I could spend less time with them
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Posted September 13, 2007(191 replies)
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Snowy Valentine by David
Meet Jasper, he’s a little bunny on a mission to surprise his wife for Valentine’s Day. He wants the perfect present, so trudges out in the snow looking for inspiration from his neighbors. When no gif ...
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A modest proposal: Since the MS44 building seems to have a bit of room, Anderson should take non-"gifted" students in one or two additional classrooms on a lottery basis or as 87 overflow. It would become a school with a heralded gifted program, but not an exclusively "gifted" school. That would relieve some of D3 overcrowding, but still allow the programs geared to its students to continue, while also creating opportunities for other students in the region. Doesn't it make sense to use the space for D3 kids? What harm could there be to the school or to present students to have a few classes each grade that are not in the gifted program? (signed, an unaffected parent with child in another school - not 87 or Anderson)
41 replies [ Reply | Watch | MoreNot a public mom I think the whole premise of the g&t is for the parents to feel their dcs are special or smarter and to gear their entire learning experience to that premise. To put them in normal classes or put normal kids in their classes would create a lot of hullaballoo from those competitive parents.
[ Reply | More ]Do you think the same way about parents who have their children in private schools, esp the ones in "TT" schools?
[ Reply | More ]Think what, that they are all overly competitive? Yes. All parents are about whatever they can find that they feel is better or best for their children.
[ Reply | More ]Think that they need to feel their dcs are special or smarter and to gear their entire learning experience to that premise.
[ Reply | More ]Yes,I do. If you took parents from Spence and told them Hewitt would be joining three days a week they would demand a refund from the school
[ Reply | More ]So then what exactly are you saying? Only parents who send their child to zoned schools all their educational lives (only suburban parents, I guess) are normal?
[ Reply | More ]It was obvious from the moment I posted, perhaps because I send my dc to private I don't know, that you have been trying to start a fight which I don't understand because I am not making a judgment about public or private I am commenting on the social behavior of parents when it comes to their children.
[ Reply | More ]Right and my question is - how far does that judgment go? If it extends to every parent in NYC, what's the point?
[ Reply | More ]Question to me or in general, because I have already stated I am not making a judgment about schools but about social behavior of every parents across the globe. if it isn't school its dance class or piano lessons or baseball teams. Ever parents wants to believe their dc is getting the best or is in a group that is labeled 'best' whether that is a school, a county's best baseball team, lessons with the best dance coach etc.
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LOL. But the Hewitt moms, who would have LOVED for their dds to have been accepted to Spence, would be thrilled and would pay extra.
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How would you know if your dcs don't go to G&Ts? It's like public school parents on UB saying that private school A is full of snobby, entitled kids - how would they know?
[ Reply | More ]I am making a comment on parents and their capacity to compete when it comes to their children and always wanting their child to be in the group that is positively singled out. Not the school or the program. If you think parents who send their dcs to public want that any less than parents who send dcs to B, S, and C you are kidding yourself.
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They need to put another MS in there. D3 overcrowding is reaching MS very very soon and there aren't enough spaces by a long shot to place all the kids that won't make it to Delta. Or maybe they can expand Computer School.
[ Reply | More ]There is: West Prep MS started this year. It's going to grow as MS 44 is being phased out. Not sure about it's target enrollment though once all the grades are in place.
[ Reply | More ]West Prep is very small school, and I don't think they are planning to grow it other than adding higher grades, so there is still net loss of MS seats as IS44 is being phased out. Where are the kids that were to go there going to go for MS?
[ Reply | More ]MS 44 itself is pretty small at this point in terms of number of children per grade. There have been several newer D3 MS options created in the past few years. The problem is that aside from Center (yes, I know it starts in 5th), Computer, Delta, Mott Hall and the Columbia Secondary School, few feel that the other options offer an acceptable education. Also, relatively few of the options are in the southern end of the District.
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Conservatively, over half of the kids at Anderson are from D3 anyway (so maybe they could just all leave and add to the crowding at their home schools). This meme you people are floating, that Anderson is not a D3 school and should just keep moving like some hobo circus train is going to come back and bite you in the ass. And why does 87 need to bleed across the street? maybe because half the kids in that building are not zoned for it? How about this? no more out-of-catchment kids at PS87 and the Trump buildings go to PS191, like they were supposed to in the first place.
[ Reply | More ]While I understand your premise on a local level, once you look at it on a citywide or even borough-wide level it doesn't make sense, given that many, many more children qualify for G&T than there are seats available. The bottom line is that there needs to be more elementary school seats across the board than there are at present.
[ Reply | More ]I think the premise is to add seats where possible as priority, with g & t (which was created initially to bring local families back to public schools) as less of a priority. Look at the hysteria created unnecessarily (NY Times today on test prep). If Anderson were not a citywide school on 77th street, there would be that many more K spots for D3 kids available. The proposal retains the integrity of what Anderson has created for its kids over the decades, but allows the process of allocating school space for local kids.
[ Reply | More ]I find it amusing but not surprising that no one was looking at OShea last year before Anderson was forced to move. And, again with the "local kids"--if you're talking catchment, half of 87 shouldn't be there either.
[ Reply | More ]I am so sick of the out of catchement 87 BS. they have so many out of catchment kids because the DOE handed them to 87 without a choice. The current 2nd grade had 65 OOC spots via D3 lottery. The current 1st grade had 36. The current K had none but the principal decided to let in OOC siblings because she believed it was the right thing to do that late in the year. It made one K class. They could've done 8 K classes with 25-26 kids in a class but instead have 9 with 21 kids per class. Some kids get in OOC through the CTT classes or no child left behind and the school has no say in that.
[ Reply | More ]They happily accepted OOC kids for years, in order to "build" the school. I understand, and sympathize. It's a bit misleading to say the DOE forced them in through the lottery the last couple of years. The lottery was simply to replace the "apply to individual schools and get in because the admin gets to decide which families they are going to give a spot to" method that was in place all over D3 for many many years.
[ Reply | More ]True. But actually in 2007 the K classes expanded to 7 because the DOE gave PS 87 65 lottery seats rather than the 40 the school thought they could fit. The DOE has grossly underestimated the in catchment surge across lower D3. They also have done no accurate population prediction because they lump the district as a whole. PS 145 is half empty but no one from the W. 80s, 70s or 60s wants to go up there. What they should do is zone the trump buildings for 191 and then see what happens.
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If I may - to redirect conversation to subject-at-hand - True, MS44 space, if it exists, should be considered toward the imminent danger of middleschool chaos once the 2007 K kids reach 6th grade. But also -- the growing hysteria about gifted is just so out-of-whack with reality. And prevents other schools like 191, 84, 9, from really blossoming into the kind of sought-after institution like 199 and 87 (where they don't believe in the idea of "gifted")
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