I thought I knew what I was doing. But, apparently I don’t.
This morning was My Kid’s first soccer game of the winter season. She got her uniform and everything. We missed the first game last week because of the FLL tournament.
I thought everything was fine…
Until I started talking to the other soccer moms on the sidelines during the game.
All of a sudden I started second guessing the schools that I had put down on My Kid’s DOE form AND the order in which I had listed them!
One of the other mothers said that if we listed the Brooklyn Gifted and Talented School as our number one and number two choices, (which I was led to believe was the way to go given what the guidance counselor at My Kid’s school had said), if My Kid passed the test and was accepted into that school, that is where she would have to go, even if she didn’t want to.
The Brooklyn Gifted and Talented school was the first school I saw. Of course I signed up for everything. I didn’t know what else was out there and the other parents were all saying; “There is nothing else out there!”
Apparently, two years ago, when the older siblings (with the Alpha Parents) of My Kid’s classmates applied to middle schools, the way it worked was this:
If you put down the Gifted and Talented school as your first choice which of course you may or may not get into you would also be assigned to another Brooklyn Middle School (Because, after all, what are the chances of getting into the gifted and talented school).
However–apparently–the new rule is:
If you get into the Gifted and Talented school, YOU HAVE TO GO to the gifted and talented school.
You don’t get assigned to any other school–such as one that is less than an hour-long commute from your home…
So now, The Husband and My Kid believe that My Kid should NOT TAKE THE TEST to get into the Gifted and Talented School IN CASE SHE GETS IN because SHE MIGHT GET IN and she’d really rather go the school that is only 15 minutes away.
And after all she is only ten-years-old.
I am conflicted.
The Husband says that I should not be. We should not let My Kid take the test.
We really don’t have anything to go on besides the playground gossip because the NYCDOE official boilerplate language does not in any way, shape or form, give us the information that we so desperately need.
Somehow, the friends whose marriage came to an end as part of the fallout of the New York City elementary school admissions process, come to mind on this morning.