Abacus Mom

The Top 5 New York City Private Schools Blogs

These blogs will keep you up to speed with latest NYC private schools news.  In alphabetical order.

1.  Abacus Mom

News and views about NYC private schools and parenting, from a long-time admissions consultant and school advisor.

2.  Gotham Schools

A running conversation about what works and doesn't in schools.  Gotham Schools is an independent project of OpenPlans, a Manhattan-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering civil society through technology.

3.  New York City Private Schools Blog

A public guide to NYC private schools, with contributions from numerous professionals in the field.

4.  Schoolbook

News, data and conversation about schools, from the folks at the New York Times.

5.  Urban Baby Schools Board

Not a blog, but still indispensable information and gossip about Manhattan, Brooklyn, Riverdale and Westchester private schools.  Read with a hefty grain of salt.

Have we missed your blog?  Email us at best NYC schools blogs.

This Tip Will Help Your Child Get Into NYC Private School Kindergarten

For better or worse, NYC private schools want to admit mature students.  From their perspective, who better to admit to kindergarten than students who are already performing at kindergarten level?

So the time to push your three or four year old ahead is now--spring and summer--before he will be under examination when he applies this fall.

In my almost fourteen years as an educational consultant, I notice again and again how much young Manhattan children mature after a summer at suburban day camp.  Something about getting on the bus, running around on a big country campus, playing new sports, making new friends, swimming and being in a completely new environment allows kids to take great developmental leaps.  Children return to school in the fall more mature physically and mentally and most importantly, almost every child I've worked with has loved day camp.

At suburban day camp, NYC children learn to socialize with a new group of kids outside of nursery school, and adapt to following the directions of a new group of teachers and counselors.  By the end of their four, six or eight week day camp session, campers have stronger skills and have gained great confidence in themselves and their abilities.  This can translate to an easier time separating from parents at private school interviews and ERB testing.

Over the years, I have looked at a number of day camps and discussed them with many of my kindergarten educational consulting clients.  For the summer of 2012 I am delighted to have partnered with the one that impresses me most.

This Westchester day camp

• is close to Manhattan
• offers a special mini-day option, allowing nursery schoolers to go home at 2:30pm rather than the more typical 4pm
• has a long history and puts safety first
• has many trained teachers as counselors
• stretches kids physically, intellectually, and creatively
• offers ice skating (!) as well as many other incredible activities

To learn more, email me, and I will connect you to the camp’s lovely director for more information and if you’d like, a special tour of camp.  Note nursery school and lower school grades at this Westchester day camp fill quickly, so secure your child's spot ASAP.

Public School Drop Outs? Top Zoned New Yorkers Considering Other Options

A lot of public school parents have been calling me lately because they're considering applying to private high school or middle school, or switching to private.  Surprisingly often these parents are from places like Bronxville, Scarsdale, and PS 6.  This is what's typically on their minds: 

1. Too many budget cuts.  They're talking about firing the teachers' aids, or combining the elementary school with the high school in the next town, shutting down the chess program or eliminating third grade... it's too much. 
2. Too many students in the class.  How can my child learn if there are 30 other kids in the class, half of whom are delinquents, and of course my child is gifted?  Naturally, the teacher can't teach to my child's level, and with all the professional development days, she's absent half the time anyway.
3. Too much state testing.  My child is 9.  She has spent so much time mastering filling in a bubble with a #2 pencil, that she cannot yet ride a bike.
4. Too much prep for state testing.  Analogies, reading comp, vocab--4th grade is the new 11th grade.
5. Not enough high level courses and enrichment.  I want my child to be able to take Mandarin Chinese or fencing and the budget cuts make this impossible.

I am being flip here but the truth is it is a serious loss for New York State and New Yorkers that the public school educational experience is being damaged by an overreliance on testing and data collection and that even the best public schools are seeing their programs cut back due to the negative economic situation.  

These New York City Private Schools are Just for Boys

I get this question all the time.  Here's a list of the all-boys independent schools, ranked, in alphabetical order:

Allen-Stevenson School

Browning School

Buckley School

Collegiate School

Saint David's School

St. Bernard's School

For a directory, look at: NYC Private Boys Schools Contact Info  Note that Saint David's is a Catholic independent school.

Only Collegiate and Browning go all the way from kindergarten to 12th grade. 

NYC Private School Trend Spotter: You're Not the Only One Who Hates Drop Off

Dropping off your child at an elite Manhattan private school every morning may sound like a dream come true, but in actuality may leave something to be desired.  Three possibilities:

1. There could be ear-splitting noise.  Last year, students and parents at Horace Mann Nursery School on East 90th between Park and Madison were the victims of the next door neighbor's need to drill a massive swimming pool in the basement of his mega-townhouse. 
2. You could be underdressed.  Veronique Hyland's New York Times article explains the problem: Curbside at School, a Red Carpet
3. There could be people picketing, getting in the way of your son greeting the headmaster.  According to Peter Lattman of the New York Times, Expansion Plans Divide School and Son of Its Former Headmaster

Each weekday morning, the headmaster of St. David’s School stands at the front door of the all-boys school on East 89th Street, heartily welcoming his students with a smile and firm handshake.

In recent months, he has been joined outside the stately brick building by a husky man with a bushy beard, who greets the boys by chanting a Native American song and banging on a drum; sometimes, he shakes maracas.

To read a fictional account of unpleasant dropping off (and picking up) at a NYC private school that sounds suspiciously like Ethical Culture Fieldston School, try This Beautiful Life, by Helen Schulman.  You can also read about dropping off in the satirical admissions novel Where Does Caitlin Go To School?

Is Your Child Spending Too Much Time on the Computer?

How much Angry Birds or Club Penguin can a child take?  A lot, but you can probably take less.

If your child is going to be on the computer come hell or high water, perhaps you want to wean him from consuming and onto creating.  Your new Macbook Pro, loaded with iMovie and Garageband, may help.  For a cheaper solution, you can encourage your child to start a blog.  Wordpress and other services offer free, simple, anonymous and safe blogging services.  One young friend of mine just started a blog about girl role models as well a a girls' contest blog. Her mother no longer minds when she's on the computer.

Nursery University Film Gets NYC Private School Admissions Process

 I just caught Nursery University on Netflix last night.  I was invited to participate in the film but didn't, fearing it would be another exploitative show about those crazy New Yorkers.  Interestingly, Nursery University is a film about those crazy New Yorkers, but its portrayal of the bizarre process to get into Manhattan private nursery school is insightful and not in the least bit manipulative.  Nursery University correctly makes you think about why institutions that supposedly care about kids' welfare evaluate and rank two and three year olds, and introduces you to many of the players on the New York City private schooling scene.

Parent Thanks Toby Glick for Helping Special Needs Child Find the Perfect School

My colleague Toby Glick helps students who are underperforming (because or not because of a special need) do better in school.  Toby just received this email today from a recent client (with identifying details removed):

Dear Toby,

Last Spring you met my son and recommended <prestigious special needs school>. I wanted to tell you that my son was accepted at the school and we moved in July so that we could be closer to the school. The second week of 6th grade at his new school, <son> told his psychologist that out of a scale of 1-10, he rated his new school "between 10 and 11." This past fall, he was awarded "Student of the Month" and was showcased in the school's newsletter. He just got on Honor Roll for the first time.

I can't thank you enough for recommending <school> for my son. If it wasn't for you, I never would have heard of it. Thank you a million times, Toby!

Sincerely, <mom's name>

To help your underperforming child find the right school and special support, call Toby now at 646-300-1881 or contact her at toby(at)parentconfidante.com  Toby's 2012 schedule is filling now.

NYC Private School Kindergarten: Blocks are Back

In the New York Times, Kyle Spencer writes With Blocks, Educators Go Back to Basics:

As in fashion, old things often come back in style in education. The Parents League workshop reflects a renewed faith in unit blocks — those basic, indestructible wooden toys created in the early 1900s — sweeping through some elite swaths of New York’s education universe. While many progressive private and public schools have long sworn by blocks, more traditional institutions are now refocusing on block centers amid worries that academic pressure and technology are squeezing play out of young children’s lives.

As I told Spencer when she called me for research for this article, nowadays Manhattan and Brooklyn parents strongly prefer that private schools teach hard math skills.  At the same time, with the rise in technology, parents feel nostalgic for retro pleasures.  Blocks, whether in school or in new Imagination Playgrounds, appeal to parents on both levels.

Another recent Times article by Matt Richtel, A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute, also chronicles the rise in hands-on, learning-by-doing education.  The California Waldorf school chronicled in the article subscribes to a no-screen policy--way too radical at this point for most New York City families.

To introduce unit blocks to your child at home, try Classroom Unit Blocks.

Manhattan Families Applying to Westchester and New Jersey Private Schools

For many years, some Westchester, Long Island, and New Jersey families have opted for New York City private schools.  Now Winnie Hu of The New York Times breaks the news that the phenomena goes both ways: Private Schools in Suburbs Tap Manhattan Market.  Suburban private schools like Hackley, Dwight-Englewood, and the newly expanding Mohawk are offering school buses to ferry despairing Manhattan students to fairer suburban climes.

I said,

“It has always been difficult getting into kindergarten, but what’s changed is the amount of hassle,” said Emily Glickman, the president of Abacus Guide Educational Consulting. “Now test prep is de rigueur, and you’re applying to more schools.

“You don’t even have your neighborhood school as a backup because of waiting lists.”

Hu explains some of the perceived advantages of suburban private schools, like more space and less tension.  Mohawk's deluxe playhouse set and Dwight-Englewood's wild turkeys are added attractions.

Expect more Manhattan families to be adding these three schools to their application lists.