Students are graduating this week and next but as of June 16, the children on the Collaborative Team Teaching (CTT) track HAVE NOT been placed in a middle school. Here’s a letter by parents and others at a local elementary school that was sent to the Education Department.

CTT (Collaborative Team Teaching) helps bright children who have different learning styles be successful. This can be seen in report cards, test scores and other school activities. Two teachers, working together, teach and instill in their general education students and special education students that everyone can achieve and contribute as much as the brightest students to the whole. This is what is happening at the Children’s School (PS372).

Unfortunately, everything we’ve worked for is in jeopardy because our CTT students do not have their middle school placements. We’re seeing the consequences right now. These students are missing the transitional steps, such as orientations and auditions, that make the move to middle school successful. Their peers on the general education track are participating and making plans for activities in September. But we can’t plan the next academic year because we don’t know where our kids will attend middle school.

We have missed the June 12 deadline to respond to and appeal, if necessary, our kids’ placement. We don’t know who is making the final decision on placement or what criteria are being used to get into a middle school. Is it report cards, IEPs, test scores, a combination of these or none of these?

Please tell us what factors lead to this situation? How we can explain to our children when we pick them up from after-school programs, music lessons, sports practice and take them home after their June 18 graduation why they were left behind?

With the support of parents whose kids are on the general education track, we ask for your immediate response and help in solving this crisis.