not sure where you're all at with schools... but here's our news.
we're in a good spot being in District 2- a bunch of solid middle school options available... I think you have to work pretty hard to find a bad one. floppinho ranked his favorite school based on a combo of academics plus extra/intra-curriculars- he loves music and theater, and Baruch middle has it all. mostly because it's HUGE, 1300 or so kids- and accommodates most of them with a really wide range of programs. with all of the good stuff there, because of the size I've also heard a lot of stories of kids behaving badly- fighting, bullying, etc. this is also a school most of his peers ranked second behind a variety of other pretty great smaller, more specialized schools in the district (Salk, Clinton, ESMS, Lab, etc) that required you to rank them first or not get in.... so the people who are going there are kids who couldn't get into their top choices and i've sensed a kind of wah-wah mood to most of them and their parents about going. needless to say boy-wonder got in as well- probably the only kid to rank it first in the district, and happy about going.
while we went through this, he also applied to something called the
Special Music School, which is K-12, public and obviously music-based, even though their academics are supposedly top-notch. only accepts 12 kids at K (I'm told 2k applicants per seat) and then only accepts kids if a spot opens up for which tons more kids apply every year. DOE has a very specific schedule for every school in the city except this one. even though he went through the application and audition process, they only called us in a couple weeks ago for an interview- month+ after DOE lets kids know their middle school seat. and the interview didn't really tell us much- they'd let us know if a seat opened up... which could be any time between now and September, but to basically assume he's going to Baruch.
while I'm happy with his choice at Baruch, the size and bullying/fighting give me pause. we had the parent orientation there yesterday- felt good but also iffy leaving it. we were supposed to buy a t-shirt for gym for next year... decided not to.
an hour ago, SMS called letting us know they'd accepted Floppinho. we are now potentially set until college for him, plus not having to pay for any kind of music instruction again! (lied- he's signed up to play Rolling Stones at the school of rock next fall). mostly, I'm just proud as #### of him- a really good kid who deserves good things... like this.