Surrounded by stacks of brochures, parent Macrina Lord recently began the daunting process of researching high schools for her eighth grade daughter. With the opening of new small schools in the Bronx, and an application that requires more selections than ever, that process has only made her more overwhelmed.

"I don’t know where to start," said Lord, a Montefiore employee, as she sat at the Norwood-based Educational Counseling Center. "My fear is making the wrong choice."

But choice — and hopefully, an informed choice — is the new buzzword around the Department of Education (DOE) when it comes to high schools. The city is looking to end the trend of students ending up in a "last resort" school, and instead is pushing for teens to select a school they actually want to attend. 

More than ever, teens need to give that prospect some thought. "We want [students] to make informed choices," said Michelle Cahill, DOE’s Senior Counselor on Education Policy and one of the chief architects of the city’s new approach.

Beginning in 2002, many of the city’s largest, low-performing high schools, including Evander, Kennedy and Walton, stopped taking new classes of students. All three now house "mini-schools," thematic high schools capped at 500 students. The city hopes this formula will help improve graduation rates, especially in the Bronx, by providing more individual attention and a thematic hook. 

The Bronx is now home to 44 mini-schools, most of which are in their first or second year of operation. The majority have their own special education and English-as-a-Second-Language offerings, but students mix with the larger host schools for supplemental programs.

From the onset, the mini-schools have been embroiled in controversy, especially in their relationship with the larger schools that house them. But DOE shows no sign of deviating from this approach. "There is no last resort [school] anymore," said Cahill, referring to schools zoned geographically.

The city is also moving away from the Education Option system. Commonly known as ed-op, this is a computerized method where student grades are the determining factor in whether they’re selected. Ed-op puts lower-performing students at a disadvantage. 

Students now choose 12, instead of five, schools, which in turn rank their applicants. The school where the highest rankings "match" is where the student goes, according to Cahill. Once that selection is made, there are no other options to pick from or waiting lists to hope for.

The new system debuted last year with mixed results. Some local students didn’t get into their third or fourth pick, and wound up at one of their lower-ranking selections (often their zoned school). "They weren’t happy," said Tanya Dale of the Center, a project of the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, which counsels students in school choice. 

But the system does provide a glimmer of hope for satisfying students, especially for teens with more mediocre grades. But that’s only true if students know something about the schools they select. "You’ve got to put down 12 choices you can live with," Dale said.

That process was so overwhelming for parent Linda Collins that she and her son, Michael, started researching schools when he was still in seventh grade. "It’s a very short period of time between September and November," said Collins, a Parkchester resident whose friends wondered why she started so early. "This year [they] are running around frantically." 

One family’s approach
The Collinses started their high school hunt at the Center, a calm, orderly office located in a Norwood apartment building. While the city suggests that parents go to their local learning support center for help, Dale discourages that route. "Many parents sent there came back confused," said Dale, a five-year Center veteran.
Dale starts by assessing the student’s past performance, academic and extracurricular interests, and how far they are willing to travel. Based on these factors, she makes some suggestions from the official high school directory (which is available at the region office, 1 Fordham Plaza). She also prints out possible matches from insideschools.org, an excellent Web site with extensive reviews of all city high schools.

Michael also did research, perusing the schools’ pages on the DOE Web site (nycenet.edu). "The main thing I looked at was graduation rates," said Collins, 13, who also scanned their after-school and sports offerings. 

The Collinses then hit the high school fair circuit. They talked to four schools at the 
Center’s annual event, which is coming up again soon (see p. 11). "Michael liked it 
because the high school students talked to him," the elder Collins said. 

Next, the Collinses visited the schools they were interested in, which Michael found especially insightful. "First I wanted to see if [the students] were really learning, or were they just sitting around talking?" he said. But the perceptive teen also looked for subtleties like teacher-student ratio and variety in library books.

The Collinses made several visits to the Center, which also coached them on filling out the application correctly. (The Center hosts an application workshop on Wednesday, Nov. 3.)

While the Collinses certainly benefited by starting early, other eighth graders shouldn’t lose hope, but they should start hunting immediately. 

After making another appointment, Lord left the Center, arms full of brochures. "This is where the real homework comes in," she said.