Roxanna Velandria, the parent coordinator at The Children’s School, is a hero.

She spearheaded an email campaign so that parents of special education students at the Children’s School would KNOW, before the fifth grade graduation on Wednesday, where they would be going to school next year.

That letter was posted anonymously on OTBKB by me because I thought Velandria and the other letter writers expressed the issues so well. Here’s an excerpt from that now-famous letter:

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.

Thankfully for the kids at PS 372, Velandria was able to get results: the CTT kids over there did find out where they’d be going to school before graduation. Other parents at other schools weren’t so lucky. Many, including parents at Park Slope’s PS 321, got the much delayed information on Friday morning (PS 321’s fifth grade graduation is next Tuesday).

Clearly, it wasn’t fair to leave the kids in the dark about where they are going to middle school next year.  Especially if all the general education kids were informed two weeks ago.

As reported in Inside Schools: parents and special-ed committee members met with DOE officials on Wednesday night at PS 721, a District  75 school to ask about two-week delays in middle-school admissions for students with special needs.

Parents, including Velandria, spoke about the frustrating delays. Sandy
Ferguson, who has the dubious distinction of being the Education Department’s executive director of middle-school enrollment, had this to say (as reported by Inside Schools) at Wednesday night’s meeting.

"To be frank, we never expected this [process] would run as long as it
did," he said. "We did not communicate with parents. This was a mistake
and we will look to correct this for next year." According to Ellen
Newman, executive director for special ed enrollment, letters went out
to parents and to school guidance counselors today, Wednesday — except
for one set that were hand-delivered to The Children’s School, which held graduation today.