The Games We Play to Find a School in NYC

Ahh, September.  Back to school.  Back to the madness.  And back to the season of watching people go mad as they try to find their 4 year old a school in the Gotham city.

As friends get Kindergarten applications for their little ones we were reminded of the crazy day two years ago when we took off the day after labor day just to call elementary schools.  We had two phones and two calendars going all morning, getting applications and scheduling tours, etc.  This was a deja-vu from the day three years prior to that where we found ourselves hitting redial over and over just to get nursery school applications for our then-one-year-old.  Once they were out of applications, you had no hope of getting a spot anywhere.  Needless to say the busy signal was echoing in our heads all night after that.  Even the boss was assigned three numbers to call!

The process of finding a school for your child in Manhattan is effed up to say it mildly.  It goes without saying that there are way too many applications than there are spots in most schools.  This is a given and there's not much can be done about that.

But the madness can be managed much better.  Three quarters of the craziness can be alleviated by taking out all the stressful game-playing.

Problem #1: You have to send in an application to most schools before you can even go on a tour and decide whether or not you even like the place.

First off, if one could actually tour the schools in the spring - BEFORE you have to apply, one would probably have to call a lot less schools for the applications and be able to focus more on getting to know a few.

Now, let's say you decide you like some and are even lucky enough to get into one, or get onto a school's waitlist even.


Problem #2:  You never have the information you need to make the decisions you need to make.

The timing of the whole process is flawed.

Fall before Kindergarten - Call for applications, tours, interviews

January/February - Register for zoned public school and have your child take the city gifted &  talented test

February - Independent school letters arrive; must make decision.  If you get in and you accept, DONE.  If denied/waitlisted or you really want to try for public, then go through the following madness:

March - Zoned schools send out confirmations.  If accepted, DONE.  If denied, begin Real Estate Bingo.  Start calling realtors ASAP and begin touring houses in Westchester, Long Island or New Jersey.  Do not tell friends in same boat so as to competitively keep low inventory of affordable houses for yourself.  OR...

May - Time to play Board of Ed Lottery.  Find out alternate school.  Do not have say in alternate school.  Do not get to tour alternate school.  Simply get offer for some school and make decision by end of month.  If you take it, DONE.  If the option is unacceptable, follow steps in Real Estate Bingo above OR play Board of Ed Roulette with Souped Up House Odds by taking chances that your child will not only pass Gifted & Talented exam but there will be a spot in the program you want.

It's a sad day when a sign like this will make you happy, peeps.

June - Find out results of Gifted & Talented exam.   If fail, call Realtor and shell out the extra cash because you are desperate and they know it.  If it's a pass, wait two more weeks to play Who Gets the Short Straw? and see what spots your child is offered. 

Late June - Get Gifted & Talented placement.  If acceptable, DONE.  If not, you'd better start praying to the suburban gods that they either find you a place and the will to live away from concrete or that they suck away enough children from your zoned school to hit your spot on the waitlist.  We call this game Elementary Hail Mary.

We thought people were smoking crack when they told us this, but eventually, one way or another it does work out.  Likely it never works out the way you expect, which is why therapists do so well in this city.  But for your child, eventually, they will find a school so amazing that you'll wonder why you ever considered any other option.

Which brings us to our biggest problem.

Problem #3: Parents still think they have any semblance of control over this process.  Silly parents. 

You're embarking on a process which will have you spend the next year of your life year playing games where you don't know the rules.  Your sanity is going to be tested umpteen times.  Times ten.   Good luck keeping it.  You'll need it, especially because of:

Problem #4:  No free drinks for parents

Poker Chick would like to suggest to schools that they provide some beverages during tours and interviews.  We promise everyone will be much happier.

The good news?  Everyone wins something, even if you have no idea what that is as of now.  Happy calling, peeps.  Meanwhile those of us who made it to the other side are out interviewing fortune tellers.

We know a good business opportunity when we see one is all we're saying.

Poker Chick Ponders...

It's past midnight. The alarm is set for 5am as the family is leaving for summer vacation tomorrow. The packing did not begin until 10pm, when this girl returned from her writing group (a.k.a. reason for not posting, also known as the reason you will be glad to say you read her first one day). And what is Poker Chick doing? Networking online, filling out applications for membership to ultra-exclusive professional networks.

Why does this have to be done now, you ask? Excellent question.

In the meantime, we're pleased to report to loyal readers that after 7-8 weeks and several calls to the organization itself the test scores finally arrived. Now on to the fun work of interpreting the numbers and figures that returned. Not to worry. The application process for the 2010-2011 school year only starts in...August. Plenty of time. You peeps are so smart. You now understand why this girl needs a vacation, pronto!

The mini does not know she's in for her first trip to Disneyworld next week. Will she love it or be overwhelmed? Will there be tantrums? And if so, who will fall apart first - mother, or daughter?
Stay tuned....

Oh test scores - come out, come out, wherever you are!

Results will be sent home 3-4 weeks after the test, they said.

If you recall, Poker Chick has promised to chronicle the craziness of getting your kid into Kindergarten in New York so a first step: an IQ test for FOUR YEAR OLDS otherwise known as the ERB. And we were advised to have mini take it early, in the spring. So she did. 5 weeks ago. And Poker Chick is here to tell you: they lie.

You're smart readers. You've done the math, haven't you? Then you know where this rant is going. It's going to why put a mother through torture! Poker Chick is checking the site every day for those scores while simultaneously berating herself for even thinking about them since she truly believes the thought that one test on a FOUR YEAR OLD can give you any kind of idea of how smart they are is redonculous. And furthermore, while this test is needed for only every single private school in Manhattan, Poker Chick is trying to go the public route.

So here she sits, waiting for some outsider to validate her child's brilliance through a testing process she doesn't believe in and for a school she probably won't go to.

Welcome to Kindergarten in New York. It's not for the faint of heart.

Getting into Kindergarten in Manhattan: a.k.a. Insanity

Loyal readers will be delighted to learn that beginning in September, Poker Chick will begin chronicling what will be a 9-month long journey that represents a unique pleasure of parents living in NYC.

That's right, peeps, she is about to venture into the hell that is figuring out where your 4-year old will go to elementary school.

It is at this point that the naive will simply assume that we are referring to Private school admissions. And the intense process of getting a kindergarten seat at one of Manhattan's elite private schools has certainly been well-documented. So no, Poker Chick is not set out to tell people more of the same. Any Manhattan parent considering private school knows without a doubt the nightmare that they are about to embark on.

No, peeps. We're talking about public school. You see, like many, Poker Chick paid a premium to own a home zoned for an excellent elementary school. She sighed a sigh of relief, knowing this would buy her a few years of free education, and a ticket out of the private school madness should she so choose.

Poor, poor, ignorant Poker Chick. Little did she know that the basic right of an education for your child in your neighborhood does not apply to Manhattan.

According to this article in the NY Times last week, approximately 30% of people who registered for some Upper East Side public schools were put on a wait list. A wait list. As in might not go. Thirty percent, peeps. Consider for a moment the sheer shock of this fact.

So, short of moving to the suburbs, what's a parent to do? See if you can follow the options:

1) Register for your public school and hope. Of course, the deadline for registration changes every year. And it's poorly communicated. And if you miss it you're screwed. But in theory, that is the easy route.

2) Take a state-administered "IQ" test. Relax knowing your child's entire academic destiny rests on how good a mood they are in one afternoon and whether or not they feel like talking to the "tester". If they deem your child "brighter" than 90% of other Manhattan preschoolers, and you are interested, the city has gifted and talented classes within certain schools. Of course, it's only a few. And these schools are nowhere near where you live. And even if you get in you won't necessarily get into your first choice, it might be another, and because there's such a wide range of schools in Manhattan this school may be a hell of a lot worse than the school that's right across the street for you. So there's that.

3) If your child is "brighter" than 96, 97, 98 or 99% of their peers*, one might be lucky enough to be invited to apply to one or more three citywide gifted & talented schools. Three separate programs. Sometimes, they all use one test for cutoffs. Sometimes they use different ones. And - you guessed it - it's different every year. And even after all this more students qualify than they have spots for. So even if you get past all this you have to be lucky enough to be selected at random among these. And who knows which you'll get into. But hey, it's not like they are really different from each other or anything (Note sarcastic tone).

Luckily, you can learn all this on tours of these schools in the fall. That is, if you are lucky enough to call at the exact moment and get one.

3) There is a separate school that is outside of the system but still technically public. This involves a several-hundred dollar psychological assessment, an entirely different screening process including interviews, and of course - entirely different due dates than any of the other options above. Oh, and did we mention several thousand applications for a handful of spots?

4) One can apply for an exception, where you try to get into a public school in your district but not zone. So, afraid of your kid being bussed off to who knows where in September if you don't get into your school, you can try for the one four blocks away that's just as good. This requires a great deal of creativity as you must come up with a reason to justify such an exception. It was a more common practice years ago, but this route is now typically reserved for adrenaline junkies who think they can beat the 1,000,000 to one odds of success and who don't mind the stress of wasting their time in this fashion.

4) There's always private school. Cough up $35,000 or more a year not including books, after school programs and camp, and you can swap all this stress for the different stress of impressing the right people to get your kid in. Then again, at least all those schools have the same dates and all go by one test.

Now, how many think that at the end of this 9 months you can relax? One nightmare of a year and you're done for years, right?

Well that depends. Some schools go through 5th grade and there are far fewer middle schools you might like, not to mention private school has very few spots at that age group. So 5th grade is often the year that sends parents running for the 'burbs. But some of these schools go through 7th grade. One goes through 8th. Another all the way through 12th. But as they say, you never know. You may get lucky! You may win the crap shoot!

And there you have it. The insanely stressful and competitive process for getting your Manhattan 4-year old into PUBLIC school.

As so, Poker Chick is sending out a request to all brilliant math minds out there. If your odds of getting shut out of your school are 30%, and your odds of getting into special school x are 10%, and your odds of getting into special school y are 2%, and your odds of getting into one other amazing school are greater than accidentally finding a frog in your breakfast cereal, what are the odds of getting a desirable kindergarten spot altogether?

This, peeps, is the million dollar question. Welcome to New York.
*Percentage cutoff points are unclear and seems to vary each year. And possibly by school. Of course it does.