Red Letter Day

In Park Slope, as in neighborhoods all over New York City, parents were buzzing all week about which public high schools their kids did—and didn’t—get into.

Talk of high schools was the elephant on the sidewalk. You couldn’t avoid the conversation even if you wanted to.  Running into parents at the Community Bookstore, at a friend’s dinner party, buying bagels at Bagel Market, it was likely to come up even if you wanted to talk about anything but.

After months of waiting, the kids received their letters from the Department of Education on March 31st. That is, the kids, who didn’t already hear from the specialized schools (Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, LaGuardia and all the rest) six weeks before.

For some, the sense of relief was palpable. For others, there was disappointment and anger. More than once I heard parents complain about the labor intensive process that elevates stress levels and can cause friction at home.

One friend told me that she was so nervous she was unable to sleep for days before the letter arrived. Another friend was so agitated she was glad she had to be out of town that week.

When Letter Day arrived, I wondered whose brilliant idea it was to give the letters out at school. Can you imagine? You’re an eighth grader and you find out this highly fraught and important piece of information about your future while you’re at school.  For the kids who don’t get their top choices, it can be very painful — Letter Day is usually a bit of a cry fest. And if you’re one of the 10,000 kids in the city who didn’t get in anywhere it can be downright horrific.

My sister, with whom I have shared every detail of the process, started texting me early on March 31st.

At 11 a.m. she wrote: “Did you hear?” At 12:42 a.m.:  “What time do you hear?” At 2:00 p.m.  she wrote: “Nail biting time, eh?” And at 2:45 p.m. it was: “Fingers and toes crossed.”

While I appreciated my sister’s empathy, her texts were giving me palpitations.

Thankfully, my daughter called as soon as she got out of school to tell me that she’d gotten into the high school she wanted. I was more than relieved. I was ecstatic. I was jumping up and down in the dining room. I sent texts to my sister and five of my friends. Truth be told, I behaved like the most obnoxious parent on earth. But who can blame me? It was such a colossal relief after enduring a process that started in earnest last September with school tours, applications, essays, assessment tests, meetings with the school guidance counselor, fights with my daughter and the filling out of the an all-important high school choice form.

You’re darn right I was relieved.

In the days that followed Letter Day some parents seemed to know the numbers. 

“50 kids from MS 51 got into Beacon,” one parent told me.

“113 kids from Mark Twain got into Stuyvesant and only one got into LaGuardia for drama,” a Seventh Avenue acquaintance shared with me.

A rumor circulated that six kids from Math and Science (MS 447) got into Millennium Manhattan. This after Brooklyn parents were told that that the very popular school would not accept ANY students from Brooklyn.

During the week I spoke with Joyce Szuflita, who runs NYC School Help, a service that helps parents navigate the public school process from pre-K to high school. The mother of twin girls, who are just now graduating from high school, Szuflita is considered something of a guru/expert/go-to gal, who knows the ropes and likes to share her considerable wealth of information.

Szuflita confirmed what I already knew: plenty of parents were upset because their children didn’t get into Beacon or Bard, two schools popular with parents of high achieving students in the neighborhood. She knew that there were a good many kids who didn’t get in anywhere and those families would have to enter the supplemental rounds.

“I think having choice is amazing. That’s why I love New York City. If we lived in the suburbs we’d be given a one-size-fits-all kind of school. Some kids don’t fit that. It’s a very hard process for families. My role is helping people get through it.”

The interesting thing about Szuflita is that she tries to get parents and students to open their minds to schools they may not know about; schools that aren’t necessarily the most popular – yet. Every year she shares a list of undiscovered gems. 

“I fell in love with the Harbor School this year,” she said of the new small school on Governor’s Island. “So cool to take a boat to a school focused on marine science,” she said.

Williamsburg Prep is another school that won her heart.

“It’s a humming hive of a school. A challenging place for college bound kids that people don’t know about,” she said.

Brooklyn Latin, a specialized school in Bushwick, is also one of her favorites.

“It’s really hitting its stride. They have the International. Baccalaureate. They had their first graduating class and did really well. Brooklyn Latin will become a real force to contend with.”

She has high hopes for Millennium Brooklyn, which is located on the John Jay High Campus.

“Principal Lisa Gioe is a terrific leader. She did a great job with Math and Science and I think will do a wonderful job of Millennium Brooklyn.”         

Szuflita is also a booster for the Secondary School for Research, one of the screened schools on the John Jay Campus: “I had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of kids from Research and I was so impressed with them.”

While the high school admissions process is now officially over for most parents of eighth graders in Park Slope, parents of next year’s eighth graders are just starting to worry.

In May, Szuflita will offer her popular workshop, High School Choice Calm and Clear, a comprehensive two-hour talk aimed to prepare parents for the high school tours and tests in the fall.

This year she is adding a new workshop for students. “They can ask me all of their questions and we can talk more specifically about schools. I will attempt to open their minds to other types of schools beyond the regular, most popular ones,” she told me.

 “There are wonderful schools out there that people need to pay attention to.”