The School Debate

Nothing gets people more riled up than talking about NYC schools. (OK, maybe politics, but the school debate pretty much is politics writ small).

For those buyers who are sending their children to private school, the choice of where to live can be liberating: it doesn't really matter. Why live in the PS 87 school district when you can find the same apartment for less money nearby and your kid is going to Trinity anyway?

For most people, private school is not an option. Now more than ever, people are giving a hard look at what the public schools have to offer. It may be apocryphal, but I've been hearing that applications for financial aid at private schools is way up, and that new applications at private schools are way down. It wouldn't surprise me.


For full disclosure, my kids are at a private school, so I haven't had to navigate the Soviet-like bureaucracy of public schools. However, my partner at Rand Realty, Marty Krasnoff, has his child at Manhattan School for Children, and he had applied to all kinds of programs, including gifted and talented programs, the Anderson Program, and the Hunter program.

• Here's the thing: You have to apply for those programs no matter where you live in Manhattan. They are not catchment programs, so it DOESN'T MATTER. (You do have to live in the district where you're applying for a standard G and T, but not the catchment). OK, but those programs are very selective and they are basically like winning the lottery you may say. You can't count on it. True, you can't count on it. But there are a lot of gifted and talented programs out there, not just those.

• The "hot" school of today may evolve, and not only for the better. The "up and coming" school may be tomorrow's hot school. Just ask those parents at PS 199, which is bursting at the seams. There are all kinds of fights going on at that school, most recently because the parents of the Riverside BLVD condos have been re-routed to another public school. Those parents are furious, but I bet that the new school will improve in a hurry.

• PS 166 for example, is an under the radar school with an excellent G and T program, and some other accomplishments. When looking for an apartment, do your research before you rule out a specific catchment.

• If you have a newborn, and you are planning where to buy based on kindergarten in 5 years, you could be making a mistake. Everything changes. Buy the best apartment you can buy that will hold its re-sale value and that will make your family happy. Make it close to a pre-school or two where you can walk your kid to school in a couple of years. Beyond that, everything will change.

• Having said that, PS 87 has been a great elementary school for a generation, as has PS 6. (But even PS 6 is getting re-zoned.) If you can afford those districts, it's like winning a mini-lottery.

By the way, once your child is enrolled at a school, there is often a sibling policy (which they are debating changing). In addition, I'm fairly certain that if your kid goes to PS 87 and you move, your kid can stay at the school. So now's the time to think about leaving that one bedroom for Morningside Heights!

Here's a helpful nyc school website: http://maps.nycboe.net/

Here's an article which touches on some of the school madness:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/education/05rezone.html?pagewanted=print

and one other:

http://nymag.com/news/features/41277/