School selection is a drag

8th-graders left in dark

Frustrated parents are blasting Mayor de Blasio and the city Department of Education as jittery eighth-graders agonize over this year’s up-in-the-air high school selection process — while the administration drags its feet, for the second year in a row, on announcing admission rules for soonto-be freshmen.

“Negligent isn’t the right word. Cruel is the right word,” said Alina Adams, a mom of three who runs the Web site NYC School Secrets. “These are 13- and 14-year-old kids, and they’re absolutely torturing them.”

Morgan LaBella, an eighthgrader at IS 187 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, confirmed as much.

“I’m very anxious about it,” she confessed.

In the past, in June of seventh grade, students received a thick, telephone-book-sized directory as a guide to the city’s 400-plus public high schools and 700 separate special-interest programs. In September and October, eighthgraders could attend multiple high school fairs and open houses to choose up to 12 schools to list on their applications.

Screening requirements — which might include grades, auditions, essays or special tests — were made public months before the December application deadline.

But the coronavirus pandemic upended all that in 2020 — and despite the end of remote learning and students’ return to the classroom, the application system remains in turmoil.

“De Blasio is a lame duck who now can make all the changes he never dared to make when he ran for election,” Adams charged.

High school fairs never occurred this fall, schools have not hosted in-person tours, and the high school directory has been replaced by a difficult-to-navigate online portal that forces families to review each school’s Web site for information on programs and admission requirements.

“It’s incompetence bordering on malice,” said Maud Maron, a Manhattan City Council candidate whose eighth-grade daughter attends MS 255.

Most importantly, the city has not yet said whether high schools can use their old screening methods to choose students.

Adding to the confusion, the DOE has eliminated geographic-based high school admissions policies this year in the name of equity.

That will make admission to top-ranked schools formerly limited to district or borough residents harder than ever — and will apparently put an end to zoned high schools that guarantee a seat to kids who live nearby.

“They’re being quite vague about getting rid of zoned high schools,” said Maurice Frumkin, a former DOE official.

The DOE announced Wednesday — five months later than usual — that the SHSAT, the entry test for eight specialized high schools, will be given to eighthgraders in DOE middle schools on Dec. 2 and to private and charter school students on Dec. 5.

Apprehensive parents are taking no chances.

“We’re taking the Catholic high school tests,” said Vito LaBella, Morgan’s dad (together, inset). “We just need to have all options open.”