AN AID FOR ANXIOUS TWEEN PARENTS
August 26, 2008
CLARA HEMPHILL DEMYSTIFIES NEW YORK CITY’S PUBLIC MIDDLE SCHOOLS IN A NEWLY UPDATED BOOK
By Sarah Seltzer
Clara Hemphill has always been a major resource for New York City parents who want to send their kids to public school but are daunted by the bureaucracy and ever-changing landscape. The co-founder of wildly popular website insideschools.org, Hemphill has penned a series of books on New York City’s best schools that demystify the ups, downs and in-betweens of schools in all five boroughs, from kindergarten through 12th grade. [Read more]
LEAVING CHINATOWN FOR THE REAL THING
August 26, 2008
JUNIOR YEAR IN PARIS IS SO LAST CENTURY—NOW STUDENTS FLOCK TO CHINA
By Patty Lee
Soft clicking sounds drift through the lounge as a student types rapidly on his laptop. Others, sprawled out on tan armchairs are flipping through thick textbooks-Statistics for Business & Economics and Financial Accounting. But the main event one recent evening at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business, was not chatter about stock prices and stock options, but the buzzwords of another language. [Read more]
METS AT THE MOVIES
August 25, 2008
For baseball fans lucky enough to get into the Ziegfeld Theatre, the New York Mets will literally be larger-than-life as the team takes on the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday, Aug. 27.
“Mets at the Movies” takes place at the historic 54th Street theater, where fans get to view the game on a 50-by-23-foot screen. Traditional Shea Stadium games, including T-shirt launches, sing-alongs and a special appearance by Mr. Met, are also part of the festivities. Tickets are $12. To order, visit http://www.mets.com/movies or call 718-507-TIXX.
DEMOCRACY IN ACTION
August 25, 2008
With the 2008 presidential election only a few months away, the City University of New York has launched a new program, “Vote with the Best,” to promote student interest and voter participation.
CUNY will distribute more than 360,000 voter registration forms in English, Spanish, Chinese and Korean and coordinate various election-related classroom activities.
Efforts include a teach-in by visiting journalists and elected officials at LaGuardia Community College, and a debate at Brooklyn College between New York Post contributor Robert George and liberal author Eric Alterman, who is an English professor at the college. Candidates will also be visiting various CUNY campuses to discuss issues critical to students, such as tuition, student aid and immigration policy
“‘Vote with the Best’ exemplifies the university’s long-standing commitment to promoting voter participation and education about our democratic system of government,” said CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein. “CUNY’s voter registration efforts, coordinated by the Office of University Relations, encompass all 23 CUNY campuses and is the most comprehensive program of its kind of any multi-campus university system in the nation.”
FAMILY-FRIENDLY REP
August 25, 2008
Rep. Carolyn Maloney received recognition from Working Mother Media and Corporate Voices for Working Families for her family-friendly work policies last week.
Maloney was recognized as the best in Congress for authoring a bill that provides federal employees with four weeks of paid parental leave. [Read more]
KINDERGARTEN CONFUSION
August 25, 2008
Was an Upper East Side kindergartener’s late placement a delay or an error? Local elected officials and the Department of Education differ on the answer. On Aug. 13, Assembly Member Micah Kellner and Council Member Jessica Lappin held a press conference criticizing the department when several parents received a letter stating their kindergarteners were placed in P.S. 158 Bayard Taylor, on York Avenue near East 78th Street. When the parents called to confirm, Kellner said they were told the spots were not guaranteed because of a computer error.
“It was an incorrect letter,” Kellner said. “For weeks and weeks, they were told they’d be placed.”
Andrew Jacob, a department spokesperson, said there was no computer used in lottery system that placed the roughly 10 kindergarteners. The students were eventually all given sports at P.S. 158, he said.
“This is simply an issue of high demand and limited number of seats,” Jacob said. “There was no error in the process. It was just a delay.”
Kellner refuted that assertion because the June 2008 letter sent to parents said the child was on school’s roster.
“The DOE didn’t want to admit to a mistake,” Kellner said.
UP A RIVER, WITH A PADDLE
August 25, 2008
NEW YORK WATERWAYS PROVIDE A CHALLENGING ROW, BOATERS SAY
By Adam Bloch
New Yorkers can easily lose sight of how completely their city is shaped by its maritime setting. Whether it is because urban canyons are essentially isolating or the harbor is no longer a major shipping hub, city residents often move around, above and under an extensive system of waterways without thinking about it. We can go days without espying all those miles of rivers and tidal estuaries. [Read more]
YOUNG FISH
August 25, 2008
By Adam Bloch
More than 400 young swimmers between the ages of 6 and 18 participated in the Five-Borough Championship two weeks ago at Hamilton Fish Pool. The meet culminated the summer for the Department of Park and Recreation’s Swim Team program. Brooklyn ultimately won borough bragging rights by a wide margin, but Manhattan finished second with 340 points.
OLYMPICS UPDATE
August 25, 2008
By Adam Bloch
The 2008 Summer Olympics still have a few more days to run, but the competition is essentially over for four of the five Manhattan Olympians, with only table tennis player Wang Chen still waiting to finish. Fencer Emily Cross achieved the best results, netting a silver medal in team foil. The U.S. beat Hungary 35-33 in the semifinal match as Cross went 15-4 against her opponents to carry her team to the final. In the individual draw, she lost in the round of 32. In other results, Sarah Mergenthaler finished 12th in sailing’s 470 class, Sandy Fong was 21st in three-position rifle shooting and Anthony Famiglietti placed 13th in the steeplechase. He previously set a personal best of 8:17.34 in the preliminary round.
LOVING AND LETTING GO
August 25, 2008
A MANHATTAN VETERINARIAN REFLECTS ON LIFE, DEATH AND THE BONDS BETWEEN PEOPLE AND THEIR PETS
By Jane Warshaw
“To love a pet means one bears witness to the full circle of life… but finally, the most important part of loving, the part that completes the circle, is to let go,” Dr. Tom DeVincentis writes in Tails of the City, Confessions of a Manhattan Pet Vet (Glitterati, Inc., $25).
His book is a collection of stories about the intense bond between people and their pets, the cat and dog clients at his 25-year-old Upper East Side practice, The Country Vet, on East 75th Street. [Read more]
