A mother and child psychologist says the system for middle school admissions reveals the challenges that set some children on a different track from others, and wishes for a better alternatives for everyone.

One parent struggling to handle the bus strike wrote a letter to the mayor, asking him to intervene. She said the inconvenience parents face is not just about transportation. It’s also about disrupted routines, and stress. Lots of stress.

A parent argues against the city’s proposal to re-draw the lines for elementary schools in Park Slope, Brooklyn. She says it causes more problems than it solves.

A parent coordinator advises parents to temper their expectations for the upcoming parent-teacher conferences. Read her top six tips to make the most of the meetings.

A parent coordinator, from the South Bronx Preparatory School, said email and texts finally are taking off in her community and she hopes they’ll help her connect with more parents than ever before.

In an opinion article in response to a recent New York Times essay, a parent writes: “Before dropping algebra in favor of more ‘useful’ mathematics, we would do well to first examine how we deliver and assess the most fundamental aspects of math education.”

A parent and professor of education writes: “Whatever the argument for school choice elsewhere, in New York City public schools it plays out very differently. Instead of providing better education for all children, choice in New York City ensures a two-tiered system powered by demographics and ZIP codes more than anything else.”

A parent writes that he believes there is no good educational reason to keep parents and others from seeing the state exams produced for the state by Pearson, and so has filed a request under the state’s Freedom of Information Law for the release of copies of the exam and the answer sheets.

A parent describes the experience of having his third-grade son “opt out” of the state exams.

On the day of the fifth grade musical, Helene Stapinski is picking up balloons, putting final touches on the set, opening windows — and running around the building trying to find her mother-in-law a pillow to cushion her healing hip. But soon the curtain opens, and …. Find out what happens in this final installment of “The Munchkins Are a Problem: One Mom’s Struggle to Direct the Fifth-Grade School Play.”