Public middle school and kindergarten parents are still waiting to hear where their kids will be going to school next year.
Stressful?
You bet.
Schools have been told that the letters are going out this week. Why does this remind me of last year? They kept saying, the letters went out, the letters went out. And we waited and waited.
One theory: the DOE is trying to send out the special needs and general ed placements at the same time. Last year special needs letters didn't arrive until mid-June aggravating parents of special needs kids who said they felt like second class citizens in the school system.
Advice from Joyce Szuflita of New York School Help:
As long as we are all waiting on pins and needles, I suggest that
parents present a calm and confident attitude to their children that
the placements will come and when things settle down it will all be
fine. Away from their children they can express their outrage to any
DOE and public official who will listen, that this process is too
extended, too opaque and too stressful on children and their families.
yes
Great – so now we all get to be second class citizens! Last year’s excuse was that the new centralized process was working out its first-time kinks. This time it’s if somebody has to wait, then everybody has to wait.
The rationale for centralizing the process should be that it boosts the timeline for the previously disadvantaged (e.g. speeding up the special ed letters to coordinate with gen ed.). Instead it’s still status quo for them and a big disadvantage to the majority. Is leveling the field in a purely negative way what they had in mind?