Public school children in New York City have the day off today for what used to be known as Brooklyn-Queens Day.
Parents, what are you doing to keep your kids busy at home? Is it a problem because it’s a midweek day? Tell SchoolBook in the comment section below.
One thing you can do is organize your summer reading list. And while you’re at it, you can share your thoughts on summer reading on Twitter. The Learning Network, The New York Times’s teaching and learning blog, invites you to share what you’re reading this summer using the hashtag #summerreading. Look for book recommendations, or thoughts on why summer seems to be the season for reading.
On Wednesday, students at Stuyvesant High School staged a protest by stripping down to their . . . spaghetti-strap shirts and short shorts? They were taking a stand against the school’s dress code, implemented in the fall, that many students clearly do not like. All school year, school officials have been reviewing student garb to see whose hems do not fall below their fingertips, or checking to make sure any writing on T-shirts is tasteful. Those students whose outfits are deemed inappropriate are given a big gray T-shirt to wear the rest of the school day, writes The Times’ new schools reporter, Al Baker (welcome to the beat, Al!).
“We’re going to overpower the gray T-shirts,” Madeline Rivera, 18, a senior, said before walking into the school. “We’re outnumbering them now.”
On Wednesday, charter school operators and supporters gathered at City Hall to remind politicians that they are a force to be reckoned with after the next mayoral election, when their biggest supporter, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, is no longer in office.
Gotham Schools said there were thousands in the crowd.
“We will vote, and we will be heard,” said Tara Brown Arnell, a parent in the Success Academy network, according to Gotham.
For a fuller round-up of the news, go to Gotham Schools’s Rise and Shine.
Thursday morning, parents and others opposed to what they say is an excessive emphasis on testing plan to march toward the headquarters of Pearson, the company that wrote the state’s current tests, which included the much-maligned question about the pineapple and the hare. The group is meeting at the corner of 53rd Street and Avenue of the Americas at 11 a.m. The protesters are calling their action a “Field Trip Against Field Tests.”
The title refers to the field tests that are being administered this week throughout the state to try out future test questions. Pearson is rolling out new questions to align with the new Common Core standards, and many parents in New York City and elsewhere say they will have their children sit this one out. Parents in Nyack and Westchester have organized boycotts too.
St. Gregory the Great, a private school in Manhattan, is hosting an all-day book fair at the Barnes and Nobles book store on Broadway and 82nd Street to benefit the school. Sheryl and Carrie Berk, the authors of the recently released children’s book “Peace, Love and Cupcakes,” will read from their book during the event. Sheryl and Carrie, who is 9, are a mother-daughter writing team.
The state education commissioner, John King, will participate in a wide-ranging discussion of schools issues hosted by Educators 4 Excellence, a teacher-led education reform organization. Titled “Where Do We Stand,” the event will begin at 7 p.m. at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue.