Abacus Mom

Special Needs Families in New York: Finally an Advocate You Can Trust

Special Needs issues—whether speech, language, physical or social—are  not easy.  At Abacus Guide, here’s what I've heard from families:

*  Their nursery school director, teacher, or others say their preschool-aged child may have special needs.  Families sometimes also suspect a problem, but other times they believe their school is "overdiagnosing";

*  Clinicians rush to label children but do little to help them;

*  Children receive assistance, but the therapy's benefit is unclear;

*  ...and more.

Having a special needs child or special needs-suspected child can be hard for parents.  You may feel lonely, angry, inadequately knowledgeable, worried, the list goes on.  I’ve met so many affected families.  They’ve almost all been seeking a trusted friend and advisor, someone to whom they can confide and rely.

That’s why I'm so excited about a new service, ParentConfidante Special Needs Consulting.  Run by Toby Glick MS, an experienced school psychologist and former CPSE Chairperson, as well as a long-time advocate for special needs children and their parents, Parent Confidante is the only service of its kind.  Toby helps children reach their maximum potential, and she supports parents at every step. Toby is an expert at evaluating students, making sure they receive the services that matter from the best providers, recommending the right schools, and being there for you for every question that comes up along the way. Toby is your unbiased behind-the-scenes advocate, the expert you can talk to with full confidentiality in the privacy of your home or office.

To reach Toby, call her at her New York office: 646-300-1881, or email her at Toby<at sign>parentconfidante.com to learn about her program's structure and fees.

They Say No First Choice Letter, But Do NYC Private Schools Really Mean It?

Considering all the lip service private schools pay to "no first choice", it is amazing what is going on behind the scenes.  I have never seen so much brokering going on as I am seeing this year, the top tier schools going at it as much as any of the others.  With the financial crisis, private schools are trying to get a sense of how many accepted kids will actually enroll.  As a result, many families are hearing from their preschool directors now, several weeks before the official reply date, about schools' interest in them. 

Even when it's good news, families are not necessarily happy.  A number of my clients, told of multiple schools' interest in their child, don't feel ready to commit.  Sometimes people have not even finished visiting schools.  How can they tell their preschool director that they will definitely send their child to one school?  They feel rushed, adding stress to an already stressful process.

Is It True that Preschool Directors Get "Feedback" from Private School Admissions Directors?

Yes, well-connected preschool directors are getting feedback this week.  Many of my client families are finding out which private schools are preliminarily interested in their children.

Unfortunately, not everybody has this advantage.  The good news is, even coming from public school or non-exmissions savvy preschools, kids still get into good ongoing schools.  It just may be a little bit harder since no one is brokering on your child's behalf.

Time to Rethink the Hunter Test

The New York Times had an illuminating article  by Javier C. Hernandez yesterday about the "Big Cram" to get into Hunter College High School.  Hunter, an elite specialized public high school, has only one requirement for admission: a one-time entrance exam.  Naturally, the 6th graders who take the Hunter Test are under tremendous pressure, and since it is 2009, naturally, kids don't take this test cold.  Their parents put their noses to the grindstone, often enrolling their children in cram schools.  Hernandez details how many eleven-year-olds spend evenings, weekends, and vacations in cram school. 

I was in Queens the other day, and it felt like every other storefront was a cram school with large signs advertising "Hunter Exam".  Over in Manhattan, it's the same drill: many families hire expensive tutors.  As an educational consultant, I recommend top Hunter tutors to my clients.

But I feel sorry for today's students.  I graduated from Hunter in 1986, and in those days, almost nobody studied for the test.  You just took it.  You had one day of stress, and then you were finished.  Looking back, now I know how good we Generation X'ers had it compared to today's kids.

Given today's overly competitive environment and the toll it takes on kids and families,  I think the Hunter folks should rethink their admissions formula.  The Hunter Test has been given for many decades, but it is only the last ten years or so that the preparation has gotten out of control.  It's not fair to kids.  Understandably, parents want their children to experience Hunter's superb free education, so they will do whatever they can to help their children get in, even as the bar keeps getting raised. 

Hunter needs to look at the current environment and make a responsible choice, perhaps looking at grades and extracurriculars, widening the criteria beyond a single day and a single test.  Otherwise, too many young children will lose their childhoods, spending it memorizing vocab or doing drills in drab test prep centers, rather than running in playgrounds and parks, reading classic books in libraries, exploring interests, and being with friends and family.