Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented a $69.8 billion budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 that contains about $800 million in one-time revenue and calls for reduced spending on education. Proposed cuts include $135 million for after-school and early childhood education programs and a reduction of 1,800 teaching positions through attrition over the next two years as a result of the city’s failure to reach a deal with the unions on a teacher evaluation plan.

“For this year, for this team, second place would not be acceptable,” said Eliot Weiss, a calculus teacher at Edward R. Murrow High School. “We feel like we’re number one.”

With no deal on teacher evaluations, Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented a new budget that eliminates 2500 teaching positions, after school programs, books and other classroom supplies.

The top high school chess teams meet this weekend in a hotel ballroom for the citywide chess tournament. “It’s just so quick with tension in there,” said Matheu Jefferson, a senior at Bronx Center for Science and Math. “There’s nothing like being in that room. It is the loudest quiet I’ve ever heard in my life.”

A proponent of the longer school day argues extended hours are as effective as the energy and thought put into them. New York should learn from other states and implement only those extended school programs that really work.

“Brooklyn Castle,” which tells the story of I.S. 318′s winning chess team, opens Friday in theaters and has excitement rippling through the Williamsburg school’s community.

Schools Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott wants to open 20 health and mental health centers in middle and high schools throughout the city, he told the City Council at a budget hearing. This comes after more than 70 school-based mental health centers were closed over the last two years.

The shortened week brings lots of school events and news, from budget cuts threatening critical after-school programs to borough-wide meetings on how to use the summer to better prepare students for kindergarten. Check out First Bell for the latest.

Educators know many kids lose interest in school in the middle years when the work gets tougher and distractions increase. WNYC’s Beth Fertig reports on how one group is trying to keep middle school students’ attention with business mentors.

Parents, City Council members and Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, gathered in front of City Hall on Monday to protest proposed cuts to child care and after-school programs. One parent said, “I can’t be there when that bell rings at 2:45.”