Other Shoe to Drop - Schools

Depends on how old your kids are. We have a "beach head" established in our oldest kid, as she's already enrolled. All younger sibs should get priority. The parents who should be very nervous are those who are in the '10, '11 class. OTOH, lots of families are leaving the city. The question is, will that be enough?

I've now heard from two different places about the sibling thing being overruled in some cases (splitting the siblings). Have you seen otherwise by you? I'll cross my fingers for you.

In terms of the bigger point, I figure either way its not great for prices. Enough have to leave, not good for prices. Or enough don't, you still have overcrowding, and the "sell" becomes harder for families in these neighborhoods, so not good for prices.

Will be great it kids don't suffer, yes, but I'm thinking about the market implication.

10022: What I meant was if you already have one child enrolled AND you are still zoned for the school. All bets are off now if you have one child enrolled and zone lines have shifted/you have moved. Also, if you are zoned for the school and you don't have a child already enrolled you "lose out" to a family who is zoned and has one child in the school.

10023, I did know what you mean... I was actually thinking of something else. It was PRIVATE schools that dropped keeping silbings together.. thats what I was thinking of.

Want to hear something insane? I know of a family who sends 3 children to 3 diff. private schools. 3 nannies needed to drop-off/pickup.

I don't know when the policy of keeping sibs together started being considered a privilege. It's a matter of practicality. In the juggling act of dealing with school and work, what parent should be expected to somehow get his kids to two or three different schools in the morning, and then go to the plant, and then find the kids foraging for food near their two or three respective elementary schools at 6pm?

nyc10023, eventually the three nannies will band together and revolt, rather than just permanently stop showing up for work without even a phone call, as is the norm.

spence has almost totally dropped the sibling thing, from what i've heard. at my daughter's (private)school i don't see why you'd want sibling preference since they move a number of them out anyway.

i've been ranting about this issue for years. when the city had money they spent it on new baseball stadiums. they always intended to take care of bpc/tribeca, it was part of their golden plan. lovely environment, no poverty, great schools (of course the need to move some kids from east to west for 89 diminished the lustre a bit). the rest of the city seems to have been fair game.

Ah yes nyc10022, the expert on raising children and all the issues that this entails because (this was the best line I ever read here on SE) he was a child once!

"since they move a number of them out anyway." ... ???

Do they drive them upstate and leave them by the side of a farm road, and tell their parents that they ran away?

divvie, I don't have children, and never was one myself, but when I was growing up we had a cook who was a child, and she was practically a member of the family. So yes, I'm eminently qualified to pipe in here and don't tell me I don't know anything about children. Even though you didn't.

no, they suggest they should attend gracechurch.

divvie, i missed that line. brilliant.

"Anybody not think this is going to have parents thinking at least a little bit more about the suburbs?"

Say hello to white flight.

ATTENTION SUBURBAN REALTORS: Raise your asking prices on the count of three, ok? ONE, TWO...

aboutready:

i've been ranting about this issue for years. when the city had money they spent it on new baseball stadiums. they always intended to take care of bpc/tribeca, it was part of their golden plan. lovely environment, no poverty, great schools (of course the need to move some kids from east to west for 89 diminished the lustre a bit). the rest of the city seems to have been fair game.

____________________

I can not even begin to describe how upsetting this is. So many ways the city could spend money and the best use of the tax dollars is to subsidize / fund new stadiums? I am not sure if I should laugh or cry when my kids have to join the overflow kids and sit in the hallway of the school when they are of age.

....Maybe I will have lost my job by then and can home school them: win-win!

I have an older child in a great public school in the Tribeca, but I won't count on sibling preference until my younger one walks through the door to Kindergarten.

there has been new changes on the sibling policy. check out DOE's website. As of this year, kids are placed in different priorities: (1) zoned and sibling present, (2) zoned but no sibling, (3) not zoned but has siblings, (4) not zoned no sibling. So considering how overcrowded district 2 is, and this year most schools couldn't even accomodate their zoned kids (i.e. categories 1 and 2), so chances to are slim if you are category 3 (i.e. you moved out of zone or you got rezone between your old and younger kids).

and in response to familyguy: I'm in a similar situation. I'm in the ps151 uppereastside "ghost" zone, my older one was lotteried into a great public school last year. I've been hoping that my younger one (only 2.5 yrs old now) will get sibling prefernce to attend the same school in 2 years. News is that PS151 just got "re-opened", so my younger one is now considered category 3, which means he probably won't be accepted, since the school doesn't even have room to accomodate all categories 1&2 kids who are in the zone. Unfortunately, this so-called new PS151 school will be make-shift at best. DOE initially proposed a 3 class room rental in a middle school basement, with a shared boy-girl coed toilet! After fierce oppositions from parents, DOE now say they will rent some classrooms instead in a nearby church. I'm NOT WILLING to send my son to such a make-shift school. Within the next 2 yrs, i'm actullay going to sell my current coop and move into a different school district.

I am generally a fan of Bloomberg but that articles certainly paints them to be a bunch of bumbling fools on this issue. What did they actually pay the consulting firm (not mentioned in the article) for after all?

It will be interesting to see whether in the end this issue will be solved by the same forces that created it -- jobs and wealth (with short term pain for those with kids 2-5). I.e., many of the people who have stayed here to raise kids over the last 10 years may have no reason to do if their jobs selling mortgage-backed securities are gone and not coming back.

As a sideliner looking to buy in the next couple of years with one on the way, I can tell you that it has certainly affected the value that I place on apartments in Tribeca (and more recently the Village).

They closed a lot of schools in the 70s. This has come back to bite the city in a huge way.

JM: exactly right on the priority assigned to a child for his/her zoned school. I'm in category #1, so from
my selfish perspective, we're probably okay. I'm still pestering local pols about building more schools, though.
I also think "rich" PTAs should share some bounty on a voluntary basis with poorer PTAs.

Great idea nyc10023.
I recently got the financials from our PTA and was astounded not just by the numbers and how much extra the PTA brings to the school in terms of programs, staff etc. but also was struck by how much behind the 8 ball families in schools in less advantaged areas are.

I wonder how the sharing of funds with other schools would go down with our PTA.

Would parents contribute as much if they knew their child's school was recieving only a fraction of their contribution?

Question - my son got into a pre-k program starting in the fall for our public zoned school. Does he get any preference for kindergarten the following year?
I don't think he gets any preference over siblings or other zoned kids, despite being in pre-k. I think an additional application process will be required for kindergarten. Can anyone confirm?

"I also think "rich" PTAs should share some bounty on a voluntary basis with poorer PTAs."

Amen!

"I also think "rich" PTAs should share some bounty on a voluntary basis with poorer PTAs."
Nice idea, but I doubt it will happen. UMC parents are happy to contribute some money to get an extra adult in the classes or more enrichment for the kids. They view this as much cheaper than going to private school but giving the kids a little bit of the private advantages. They are unlikely to be so generous if asked to contribure significantly more for another school, or to contribute the same $ but have fewer extras at their school.

There's nothing stopping any one of us from googling for a local underperforming schools PTA, finding a contact, and offering to make a donation.

"I also think "rich" PTAs should share some bounty on a voluntary basis with poorer PTAs."

Huh? You mean more than those same families already do on an involuntary basis through income and property taxes that are supposed to pay for schools in the first place? Where does this notion of "should" come from?

"There's nothing stopping any one of us from googling for a local underperforming schools PTA, finding a contact, and offering to make a donation."

Exactly. Voluntary. Just like any other voluntary donation to a social service, medical, arts, educational or other charity. People make decisions every day what causes to support. No one can save the whole world, so it isn't "should" for the neighboring PTA vs. the Red Cross or United Way or whatever else.

the cause to the overcrowding is the economy. there was an article a few months back in NYT that spoke about this. many people who were planning to send their kids to private schools, can't afford it. these kids are now overflowing the public schools.

bring back the MBS and CDOs please.......

ab_11218, it's not just that. with the MBS and CDOs there still wouldn't have been enough spots, both private and public. the Bloomberg administration was well aware of the demographic trends in terms of the number of under-5s in the city. and they did almost nothing to address the issue. the population report (prepared years ago, btw) predicts that the numbers of school-aged children will begin declining. i wonder why they felt that would be the case? maybe because they were well aware they wouldn't be providing the educational infrastructure necessary to support the school-aged population?

I don't agree that the problem is the economy. Most of the privates have plenty of applicants. Kids get shut out of private options every year. If one family can't afford to pay there are others waiting in the wings who will pay. The net result is the same number of kids at private and public, just different kids. A couple lower teir privates might close if the recession continues too long but it won't impact overall numbers much.
When Bloomberg et al thought the "rich" parents would opt for private they didn't do the simple math of counting the number of private school seats available. More kids being born to well off parents doesn't magically create new or bigger private schools. The kids all have to go somewhere and since privates can just say no to overcrowding the publics overflow.

MeMe, i think they did the math and ignored the results.

nyc10023: I think it is a shitty idea. Reminds of all the bad aspects of unions, not the good aspects. Donating dollars for narrowly defined cause and then letting some leader of that group to arbitrarily decide to regift the dough to another district. That is a guaranteed way to have reduced donations to work with.

nyc10023, alanhart et..al.. why not try to get your local PTA a tax id number a register as a 501(c)(3). That might prove an uptick in donations.

The playbround talk -- so I can't confirm its true -- around PS 199 is that when Trump start building on Riverside Blvd they set aside a parcel for a new school but were told by the board of ed that it wasn't needed because "we expect the kids in those buildings will go to private school". Now the number of kids from those buildings, are "blamed" for the overcrowding. Not that its really those kids fault. The parents in these buildings liked the fact that the local public was good. Its just shocking how the government missed this. We all see all the strollers on the streets these days, Bloomberg must even see some on his daily subway ride.

MeMe, they don't want to pay for it, that's the bottom line. they basically told the parents if they didn't like their options they should send their kids to private school, but they were well aware that that market was already saturated.

the government didn't miss this. it CHOSE not to do anything about it.

AR, if that's true (not that I'm doubting you) it may be the dumbest thing the city could have done. Alienating a big tax base and forcing those people out to suburbia will clearly drive down tax revenues and lessen QOL in the city. And then we'll be in a circle of more people move out when they have a kid so the city gets less $'s and can't improve the schools, so more people move out ....

MeMe, families are really expensive for the city, both financially and politically. they would like all those condos to be filled with single wage earners, paying both their income taxes and real estate taxes. not saying that will happen, particularly now, but the city isn't that invested in promoting family like if it is politically difficult or costly.

If 'rich' PTAs need to share their bounty with their less endowed counterparts, shouldn't 'rich' SE potential buyers share their bounty with their less endowed counterparts? Donate a percentage of your down payment to some in need.

Patient09, do you think these PTAs arent' 501(c)(3)s? Of course they are.

sjbh, I'm hardly alone in having made a nice donation to Habitats for Humanity upon buying, and again upon selling, my condo.

But there's no such structure in place for rich/poor PTA's -- not even a "teach to fish" structure ... but really, how helpful would it be for PS 6 to teach PS Zero how to throw $1000 pp dinners? And how would it be if PS 6's dinners were $1100 pp and kicked 10% out to a sister school ... PS Zero, for example?

alanhart: cudos to you your for you HfH donations---a great charity.

Don't assume 'teach to fish' hasn't been offered.

I had 3 children in NYC public schools from 1990 until 2008 and I am unaware of $1000 pp dinners.

Are you serious?

Perhaps I should be grateful for living on the other side of the park.

Calm down sideline sitter. Idea's develop.

I like MeMe's idea about donating to other PTAs and I had simply not thought of that when nyc10023 posted her idea.

Sorry no apostrophe required.

alan...sorry didn't know....so people get to donate to their childrens education for their own benefit and have it tax deductible, sweet!

btw don't ever teach teach a man to fish....give him a fish and he eats for a day.....teach him to fish and he buys a boat and drinks beer all day.

Actualy it helps a lot of other chidlren also and if you do donate to other PTAs then you get to help even more children.

p09, quit disparaging w67th's way of life.

No, teach him to fish and he gets a huge trawler and destroys the aquatic ecosystem so that there are no more fish ever.

What's $1000 a plate compared with $30K/kid annual tuition savings? But a lot of that isn't tax-deductible, because it goes to the restaurant/caterer/etc.

sjbh, "teach to fish" is a pretty ridiculous proposal for the most needy schools, because their communities just don't have the resources to contribute ... at least not money, anyway.

Hey alanhart, looking through the pta financial statement, the annual appeal (direct donations) brings in more money than the "dinner"/auction event which is actually held in the gym and cafeteria of the school.
I have recently discovered that our school has the reputation (at least on urbanbaby) of having the pta that raises the most money out of all public schools and we still don't get to indulge in $1000 a plate soirees.

Our private preschool had far more lavish affairs - perhaps you are thinking of private.

BTW alan, you're one of the good guys here so not trying to pick a fight.

are you kidding the rich PTA in our school (87) is supported by a few who so it all. All the kids (50% out of catchment) benefit form what the few do...so we are sharing already

Sorry, thats 50% out of catchment in the upper grades

To all who disagree with me on donating to less-well-off PTAs: I think we probably have fundamentally different views on things like progressive taxation, etc. Suffice it to say that I believe that my relative wealth is mostly due to circumstances beyond my control and I believe in sharing my good fortune.

It doesn't sit well with me that other public schools aren't as fortunate and I would like to help. You are right in thinking that most of other public school parents zoned for good schools don't think this way.

It's not a rumor that the Hudson Rail Yards dev. set aside land (and funds) for a new school - with a time limit for the DOE accepting this offer. The DOE, convinced that there was no "district" wide need for a school let this time limit expire. Extell is now bound by some similar clause to build a new school in the lower part of Rail Yards. I am doing all I can in my small way to make sure the DOE doesn't drop the ball on this. A little part of me doesn't wish Extell ill because of the benefits a new school in the lower 60s would bring to the greater UWS.

i have some similar thoughts for the frequently unpleasant solow. his south of UN development included a school. the need is not quite as great in mid-town far east, to my limited knowledge, but it would be nice to have another neighborhood that was capable of providing high-quality public education.

We lost too many school buildings (mostly north of 96th, I think) in the last 30 years to really turn down the offer of new school buildings. Families with children are not exactly the best profit centers, tax-wise for the city. Children need services - for example, hundreds of millions are spent annually on autistic children in the city. Wealthy retirees & singles & DINKs are great.

AR: you are the sweet spot, tax-wise for the city. You pay lots of city taxes, and don't consume much education-wise.

wow, i'm doing my part!!

You really are.

Thanks, divvie. I'm talking about public, and probably your school eco-center, and it's a good thing. I'm just saying that overall pocket depth differs between schools with the wealthiest families and those.

I went on UrbanBaby to find the reference, and failed ... but man, those people are nasty on that board!!!

school's

Alan: don't start with ub and ybm addiction, now. I've been weaned off both as SE is more interesting to me.

Services for child (be they autistic, learning disabled, phyisically or emotionally delayed) were set in place because it was realized that for every tax dollar invested in helping children overcome their disability, taxpayers were saved 3 dollars in expenses when these same individuals reached adulthood. The city is reimbursed federal dollars for the services provided to the children.

Don't underestimate the number of local jobs and businesses that have been generated to supply these services to children. There is a give and take. Monies are spent on local salaries for special education teachers, OTs, PTs, Speech Therapists, bus drivers, paras, etc... many benefit as a result of the services provided to children.

"To all who disagree with me on donating to less-well-off PTAs: I think we probably have fundamentally different views on things like progressive taxation, etc. " - speaking for myself, probably not. When I heard Obama speak during the campaign about Bush having given a massive, wildy imprudent (in terms of long-term fiscal balance) tax cut to well off people who didn't need it and weren't even asking for it, I said to myself, "That's me." No issues with marginal rates going back up to fairer levels.

"Suffice it to say that I believe that my relative wealth is mostly due to circumstances beyond my control and I believe in sharing my good fortune." - Agreed. I just don't care for holier-than-thou people presuming to prescribe how anyone "should" share that good fortune. Thus the preference for MeMe's approach. There are a lot of ills in the world, and for me the neighboring PTA just isn't close to the top of the priority list

cgf - but does anyone think it will be Mikey's undoing?

"Agreed. I just don't care for holier-than-thou people presuming to prescribe how anyone "should" share that good fortune".

And that's why I said calm down.
Based on her postings nyc10023 is obviously not like that.
MiMi's response was much more considered and we all obviously agree with her idea.

NYCer: the city would benefit MORE if fewer kids lived here, and families were supplanted by wealthy singles, wealthy DINKs and primary-home retirees (before they get sick and need services).

divvie-

"It doesn't sit well with me that other public schools aren't as fortunate and I would like to help. You are right in thinking that most of other public school parents zoned for good schools don't think this way."

And the part of this that isn't holier-than-thou is...what?

Ssitter: your point is appreciated. However, the local PTA is a democracy (or some semblance of one). I can't say I'm dissuaded from bringing up the idea, regardless of how few people will be on my side. I mean, I pay taxes for all kinds of things I don't believe in.

It's just a fact, ssitter. No more or less overall holiness can be attributed to me because I feel this way. To parse what I said - most people know that other public schools aren't as fortunate and would not like to help by contributing any of the funds they raised for their specific school (I think). What did I say that ascribed any better morals to me for feeling the opposite way? If perchance, they should not feel this way, then what is wrong with any PTA choosing to do what I said?

Like I said, calm down

alan
http://www.urbanbaby.com/talk/posts/50841311

That's impressive, divvie. It is mostly due to the auction?

And can you share ballpark what has been raised in previous years?

Thanks, divvie. I guessed wrong -- I was referring to a special-purpose fundraiser for PS 6. But still, I think you get my point about deep pockets, whether checks or bad dinners. I prefer checks, so more of the money does what it's supposed to, although I appreciate the value of "stewardship" and affinity-building also.

Yes I do Alan and it goes back to the imbalance that we're all talking about.
Don't forget though that before IPN was bought by Larry Gluck it was a ML with many longstanding residents whose kids went and go to ps234 so it's not all wealthy families.

Auction event does bring in a lot of money but not as much as direct donations via annual appeal.

email me at SEdivvie at gmail

Lest anyone think that this is all about money, of course parental involvement is key and again, in the poorer districts it is likely that the children are from families where both parents are working long hours for low pay or have a single parent - in both cases affording little time to do homework with their child, read with them, interact with them about the school day etc.

No idea about this parent obviously but this is an interesting exchange
http://itsnotallflowersandsausages.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-think-pot-just-called-me-black.html

So, I take this as a yes...