Personal experience. How to get kids to school in New York

Фото: Depositphotos

We arrived in New York at the end of the school year. It seemed that enrolling in school would be simple: just find out the boundaries of your neighborhood, determine the best school, and go ahead. We needed 3 different educational institutions - children aged 10, 12 and 14 should go to elementary, middle and high school respectively.

Friends who have been living in the city for a long time have strictly ordered independent ratings to be checked before calling and making an appointment.

These ratings provide not only official information about the success of students relative to the general level - you can also see reviews from parents of students. Comments, good or bad, are not deleted, which means it is possible to learn whether school officials are taking parents' wishes into account. As a rule, it is from the reviews of parents that one can understand how friendly they are to new students with minimal knowledge of English.

Sites where you can see reviews of parents, it turned out a lot. I used Greatschools, Zillow, Schooldigger.

Found options, wrote out phones and sat down to call. And here began the difficulty. Schools that seemed nice, on the telephone, gave a turn away from the gate: they all complained about overcrowded classes and were in no hurry to greet the new students.

It was possible, of course, to go to the directors and persuade, but we decided that we would go to the Department of Education - let them direct them anywhere, and then, if the options turned out to be bad, we would change them.

It was also not possible to get to the Department from the first time. I arrived there with documents, but without children. That was a mistake. The next day we fixed it.

After filling out the first forms, we were taken to the office. Oh God! He was in the basement of the building - there was no connection, which meant he had to forget about checking the ratings.

To call the lady who hosted us a bureaucratic language does not turn. Beautiful age woman showed the highest class of understanding. While she was copying all our documents, the children got bored and of course tried to show it with all of their looks. Parents of three children will understand me.

The lady behaved kindly until the end. She enrolled the younger ones in schools near her home, and began asking the older ones about their talents. “Shouldn’t I pluck up the nerve and ask to send us to that very good school with an artistic bias,” I thought, and I plucked up my courage and asked. “You will have to take entrance tests,” the lady warned. “You could go to the zone school right tomorrow, but it will take extra time.” The child decided to take a risk. We were given directions for the younger ones and told to wait for a call about the older one.

The eldest daughter of Alexander and the youngest Olga. Photo author

When we left the department building, what did I do? Right! Climbed to the Internet, in the ratings. It turned out that the first 2 directions were given to us in very good schools of the microdistrict. Even better than where I called.

Without unnecessary details: a high-cheek interview with the eldest daughter was completed (she took an oral and written test in English). She was accepted into the art class (this was where the portfolio brought from home helped). And Miss Cummings from the management was in touch with us all the time. From her we learned the news that the child had been accepted.

And then everyone lived happily. The children went to their good schools. First, they were assigned bilingual classmates who helped. Then the need for assistants disappeared. It took less than a week to adapt. Younger children did not speak the language, but somehow the teachers managed to captivate them. Homework was done with interest, they tried not to miss classes. A month after they began their studies, they signed up for the library and began to slowly read in English.

Son Alex. Photo author

Another gift from a clerk was the transfer of the youngest child to the school where the middle school was studied. We received a letter stating that the grant for admission to that particular school was approved. It turned out that the middle child had been studying not at the zonal high school all this time, but the youngest was transferred to him so that the children would be together. Do I have to say that we did not apply for any grants and perceived the translation as a gift of fate?

In a word, New York is “sharpened” under fresh immigrants and their foreign-speaking children. In schools, most often there are translators into the languages ​​of those nations that predominate in the nearby area.

We live in Bensonhurst, so we always have simultaneous translation into Chinese, Spanish and Russian at parent-teacher meetings. Yesterday I walked past the first school where my youngest daughter went, and saw this announcement on a pole - parents of students from school 186 are cooperating on Facebook to make socialization easier for their children.

Photo by the author

The middle school (first attended by my son and later by my youngest daughter) has a tireless parent coordinator. Every weekend there are dance classes, cooking classes for the whole family, yoga, and trips to museums with trips to the theater. Almost everything is free or very affordable (for example, the school participates in the Broadway for Children program, so we go to musicals for $10 per ticket).

What is necessary for entering NY school:

• children's documents (we each had separate passports for citizens of Ukraine);
• residence documents (children must be included in the apartment rental agreement);
• translated documents from schools where children went to their homeland. If we are talking about high school students, then not only report cards will be very helpful, but also detailed statements about how many hours in which subjects they studied in their previous schools, and the certificates should also indicate laboratory work in chemistry, physics and biology - this will help score points for further admission to college. If you have not had time to translate documents in your home country, where it is cheaper, do not rush to pay $25 per sheet to translators from Brighton. Most often, schools are satisfied with the “homemade” version - their own translation, which can be certified, for example, in a “Russian” pharmacy for a dollar per leaf. It sounds strange, but most often “our” pharmacies provide this service.
• vaccination certificates. Translated. Most likely, the list of vaccinations made at home will differ from those needed here, but coincidences do occur.

See also:

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