As Their School System Changes, Frenzied Families Try to Adapt
By ELISSA GOOTMAN and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, NY TIMES. July 6, 2004

For Soledad Franco of the Bronx and her two teenagers, the 2003-4 school year brought stunning highs - a principal personally called to say that her daughter had been accepted to one of the city's new small high schools - and hair-pulling lows, like the day she opened a letter and discovered that the school would move next year.

For the Romanos, who bought their house in Flushing, Queens, for its excellent school district, the year was shaped most by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's announcement that third graders would be held back based on standardized test scores, a decision that would prompt hours of frenzied preparation for their 8-year-old daughter.

In Brooklyn, Heidi Alvia took advantage of a magnet school and the freedom, under a federal law, to transfer her daughter out of a failing neighborhood middle school. But she paid a price in the logistical woes of having her daughter bused to a better school more than an hour away, only to be greeted by administrators who were less than welcoming.

These three families were among tens of thousands on the front lines of Mayor Bloomberg's overhaul of the school system this year, a transformation that reached into virtually every aspect of public education, from how children were taught to read, to how parents interacted with their children's schools, to how the entire system of more than 1,200 schools and 1.1 million students was organized and managed.

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein declared the year a critical turning point, saying that while there had been painful transitions and even some missteps, the city schools were on a course that would set the pace for urban education reform nationwide.

"I think this school year will go down as a year in which we put the school system on the road to success," he said.

As vast as the changes were, parents saw them through the narrow lens of their children's experience. A look at how the year went for Ms. Franco's family, who live in a fifth-floor rent-controlled apartment; the Romanos, whose house has a gas grill and aboveground swimming pool in the backyard; and Ms. Alvia and her husband, who are raising six children in a basement apartment in impoverished East New York, Brooklyn, illustrates how it felt to be on the receiving end of such an ambitious drive to remake the New York City public schools.

For the three families, it was a year marked by painful adjustments, happy surprises, small signs of progress and bureaucratic obstacles. In the end, the Romanos described it as a success but refused to credit Mr. Bloomberg or the chancellor, saying teachers had excelled in spite of their efforts.

Ms. Franco, attached to her daughter's new small school but fed up with education officials' decision to move it next year, has pinned her hopes for its future on the Bronx borough president.

When she was not fretting about her sixth-grade daughter's grueling commute, Ms. Alvia did notice an added emphasis on reading in some of her children's classes. She remains hopeful that soon, the schools in East New York will improve enough that her younger children will be able to stay in the neighborhood.

Franco-Santos Family

Small and Large

When the principal of the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music called to welcome her daughter, Stephanie Santos, into the inaugural 90-member class of his new small school, Ms. Franco was as astonished as she was grateful.

"This was the first time in my life that I heard of somebody calling," she said.

For Ms. Franco, the first half of the year was a study in the benefits of a small school's intimacy. For months, she marveled at the city's efforts to create dozens of new small high schools, even if it meant housing them in large schools.

Someone called nearly every time Stephanie fell behind in her homework or missed class, and parents grew so close with the school's parent coordinator that when she gave birth, some of them came to the hospital with tiny outfits and offers to baby-sit.

It was not so when it came to her son, Alberto Santos Jr., who was also a freshman but at one of the city's largest high schools, John F. Kennedy, also in the Bronx.

At Kennedy, parents learned of their children's progress only from report cards in the mail or at parent-teacher nights.. She said she was surprised to learn that Alberto, 16, was falling behind in two classes, and that he was taking a guitar class - and was good at it. At the end of the year, she did not know the Kennedy parent coordinator's name.

At Celia Cruz, Stephanie, 15, learned the basics of piano playing. In science class, she examined onion cells under a microscope and observed how they changed when placed in saltwater. With the help of private money behind the small schools initiative, the school got new furniture, keyboards for piano class and laptop computers.

"I never knew about laptops until I had one myself," Stephanie said.

In December, the school had its first concert. The students wore white shirts and red scarves, and sang songs including "Every Time I Feel the Spirit."

The audience members felt it, leaping from their seats and chanting: "Celia Cruz! Celia Cruz!"

"I cried," Ms. Franco said. "It was like the kids had the talent, this school just opened it up."

Then in March, Ms. Franco, 42, came home from work to find an envelope from the school. She expected yet another invitation to a concert or awards ceremony. Instead, there was a letter saying that next year the school would move from the large but successful DeWitt Clinton High School into the troubled, crowded Walton High, recently named one of the city's most dangerous schools.

"I opened this, I said, 'What the hell is going on?' '' Ms. Franco recalled.

The powerful Clinton alumni association, it turned out, had successfully lobbied to move Celia Cruz out of Clinton. Like many large schools that are now playing host to new small schools, Clinton felt pressed and overwhelmed by the need to share.

Since then, Ms. Franco's life has been a blur of meetings, petitions and strategy sessions, a throwback to her days as a crusading student at Hostos Community College, before she left school to raise her niece and nephew.

The Celia Cruz Parents Association mobilized, meeting nearly every week. The group bombarded the chancellor with telephone calls and e-mail messages and collected petitions that it sent him and other city officials by fax.

Irma Zardoya, the regional superintendent in charge of the school, said in a statement that her office had met with the Celia Cruz parents several times "to listen to and alleviate their concerns" and plan for next year. "We believe that this has been productive and that working together we will have a positive year," she said.

But Ms. Franco said the meetings were hardly satisfying, as the move to Walton was presented as a done deal.

"It was very frustrating," she said.

Even at the prized concerts, the mood was strained.

"We enjoyed the moment when the moment was in front of us," Ms. Franco said. "The moment it was finished it was like, back to reality."

Now, the parents are hoping that the Bronx borough president, Adolfo Carrión Jr., will find them a different building.

Ms. Franco said Alberto had a good experience at Kennedy, despite the lack of personal connections. Thanks to an excellent English teacher and new double periods of literacy - part of the chancellor's curriculum reform - he now reads newspapers instead of just glancing at the photographs and sports scores. He played football on a field so huge that, as he said, "my eyes popped out of my head." While other Kennedy students and teachers have complained about the small schools inside their building, Alberto said that this year at least, he did not mind their presence.

Celia Cruz gave Ms. Franco much more to cherish. But her gratitude toward the chancellor for creating the school has been subsumed by resentment at how the move was handled, despite the chancellor's public calls for parental involvement.

"Don't you think the parents should know or should be aware or should have a voice in what's going on?" she said.

ELISSA GOOTMAN


Romano Family

The Pressure's On

In Queens, the Romano family has just finished one harrowing school year and is worrying about another.

This past year, Philip and Lorraine Romano's daughter Leanne, an 8-year-old third grader, took the citywide tests to determine whether she would be promoted. She wound up passing, but only after extensive test preparation, parent conferences and bouts of anxiety.

"The pressure it put on my 8-year-old was mind-boggling," Ms. Romano said.

And apprehension is already settling in about next year. The Romanos' older daughter, Jessica, 13, will be an eighth grader at Junior High School 185 next year, and is facing the high school admission process. Jessica, who is in a gifted program, hopes to study drama at the Fiorello La Guardia School for the Performing Arts in Manhattan.

Ms. Romano is already shopping around for drama schools to help Jessica prepare a monologue for the La Guardia audition.

The Romanos bought their two-story home in Flushing five years ago because the homes were reasonably priced and the school district, 25 (now Region 3) was good. Their knowledge of the school system - she is the P.T.A. president at Public School 21 and he is a teacher at Public School 154 in Queens - gave them an inside track to guiding their daughters into honors programs.

But Ms. Romano said the parent coordinator at P.S. 21, newly appointed this year, performed a similar service for other parents in their ethnically diverse neighborhood, where language and cultural differences can pose problems.

"The parent coordinator has been a real help," Ms. Romano said. "It's made it a lot easier to talk to other parents and ask them, 'What's your child doing now?' or last year or whatever. It helps you compare."

But the Romanos are less pleased with the new core curriculum, which requires Jessica to take double periods of math and reading. Jessica said she was disappointed that this precluded students from taking electives. And the long classes, she said, can be boring, with students often told to read to themselves in the reading class.

"It's a little hard to sit and concentrate on a book for a whole period when you're surrounded by your friends," Jessica said.

The math class works out better, she said, since the teacher devises trivia games and witty problems to keep it interesting. But it's still an hour-and-a-half of math.

The Romanos both grew up in Italian sections of Queens. He is from Whitestone and she grew up in Ozone Park. Mr. Romano went to the Bronx High School of Science and then Baruch College. Ms. Romano never finished high school, and she says she is devoting her life to obtaining the best public school education she can for her daughters.

"My husband says to me, 'You officially have no life,' '' she said. "But like my mother said, 'You get out what you put in to it.' "

The Romanos live on a leafy block that looks more like suburbia than New York City. On a Wednesday evening, the children ate hot dogs off the outdoor gas grill and splashed with friends in a small above-ground pool. Leanne got out, grabbed a towel and settled onto her father's lap to relate the test saga.

Her school year began with a schedule of calm mornings, afternoon play dates and leisurely Saturdays. But then came word that third graders would have to pass the citywide exams in April to be promoted.

"It was all thrown at us in the middle of the school year, and we were all nervous," Ms. Romano recalled. "The teachers had to redo the curriculum to teach for the test, and no one felt like they had time to prepare. It was a bad situation to put a child in."

As for Leanne, Ms. Romano said, "All she knew was, 'This is a big test, my mother's freaking out, and if I fail I'm going to get left back.' ''

School officials assessed Leanne and identified certain areas of study where she needed help, so Ms. Romano began taking her into school for tutoring an hour early twice a week, and also on Saturday mornings. It was hard for Ms. Romano, who works the overnight shift at a Y.M.C.A. as a desk attendant. The day before the test, she kept Leanne home from school, for rest.

"I gave her a heavy breakfast the morning of the test because I believe in carbs, and she went in fresh and well rested," Ms. Romano said.

It worked. Leanne had a 4, a top score, in reading, and a high 3 (of 4) in math. "The practice tests were really hard, so it was a little scary," she said. "But the real one was like a kindergarten test."

As for Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein, Ms. Romano said: "They created the new education program to bring themselves recognition, but any success it has is not because of them. They just put us in a situation that we had to think our way out of. All the applause should go to the teachers, the principals and the parents for stepping it up."

COREY KILGANNON

Alvia-Delgado Family

Treated 'Like Yo-Yos'

On many mornings this year, the sun had yet to come up when Leeann Romero, Heidi Alvia's 12-year-old daughter, boarded a yellow bus outside her home in East New York, bound for school on the other side of Brooklyn.

And on many days, the bus would not get to Intermediate School 228 until well into the second or third period. This meant that Leeann, a sixth-grade honors student, would usually miss homeroom, where attendance is taken, and some or all of her first two classes: English and social studies.

One morning in October, the bus did not arrive at school until 10:40 a.m., five minutes before the start of the sixth-grade lunch period. Ms. Alvia bought a cellphone for her daughter as a way to keep track of her, an expense her family could have done without.

But Ms. Alvia was taking advantage of the law allowing students in poorly performing schools to leave for something better. She remains convinced that her daughter did get a better school. Even as administrators seemed to turn a deaf ear, Ms. Alvia said that teachers were very understanding, excusing the lateness and providing make-up tests when necessary. And she was thrilled with the school's academics and music program.

But the experience has left her bitter.

The students were treated "like yo-yos," Ms. Alvia said. "Nobody even cared if these kids were getting into school or not."

Ms. Alvia, started complaining almost immediately: to the principal, to the school's newly appointed parent coordinator, to the bus company, Atlantic Express. But as the year wore on, nothing was done.

The bus driver would change from day to day, with each new driver likely to get lost somewhere along what amounted, under the best of circumstances, to a nearly 90-minute route. Some drivers would stop for a bathroom break, leaving children on the bus.

One driver, infuriated at his rowdy passengers, stopped one evening at the corner of McDonald Avenue and Kings Highway and refused to budge.

And it was also no secret that many schools like the one Leeann went to were not thrilled to be on the receiving end of transfer students. Ms. Alvia said she could not help but suspect a racist undercurrent to the administration's unwillingness to help address problems with the bus carrying black and Hispanic children from the other side of Brooklyn.

At one point this spring, Ms. Alvia said the school's acting principal, Marion Lish, dismissed her complaints, saying: "You really have to look into another district. Maybe there will be more people of your kind there."

Ms. Lish, through an education department spokeswoman, said "she did not and would not say that" and had done everything possible to resolve the bus problems.

The school's P.T.A. president, Valerie Kizon, said she reached a similar conclusion. The administration's attitude, she said, was "if the parents weren't happy with the transportation, they could stay in their own neighborhood."

Ms. Alvia, 30, and her husband, John Delgado, 39, are both graduates of the New York City school system. Together, they have six children living with them, all attending the city schools.

At P.S. 345, they had a niece in kindergarten, a son in second grade and a son and a daughter in fourth grade. Their oldest daughter, Andrea Delgado, 15, was in eighth grade at Intermediate School 302.

At I.S. 302 this year, Ms. Alvia said there were intense efforts to prepare students for the standardized reading tests. And Andrea seemed to benefit, she said, raising her score to a high Level 3 from a low Level 2.

At P.S. 345, Ms. Alvia said she fought to get her son, Adrien, removed from a bilingual class where he struggled in second and third grade. This year, he excelled in a regular fourth-grade class and will be in a gifted class next year, she said.

And Ms. Alvia said that she sensed an added emphasis on reading at both P.S. 345 and I.S. 302.

Throughout a long conversation about the school system, Mr. Delgado repeatedly said that the music program at Leeann's school made the long trip worthwhile. But he did not hide his annoyance at the notion that his daughter had to leave the neighborhood for a decent education.

Ms. Alvia said that city education officials finally responded to the bus problem in May, after the bus was rear-ended by a drunken driver in an accident that required several children to be treated for minor injuries at Coney Island Hospital.

But further transportation headaches loom ahead. This fall, Leeann will be in seventh grade, meaning she will be on her own to take subways and city buses to get to school. And Andrea, who graduated from I.S. 302, will be attending Lafayette High School, also in South Brooklyn; that will require a nearly two-hour commute each way, also on public transportation.

Mr. Delgado said such long trips seemed like a roundabout way of fixing the school system. "They should have gotten other ways to better the schools," he said.

DAVID M. HERSZENHORN



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