We (both teachers and students) have been through chaos before school even started. I don’t know if this happened at your school, but at mine, for the first time anyone can remember, students had to come in a day early for programs – only to find out on the first day of school that those programs were invalid, so we had to spend a big part of the morning getting new programs (some spent the whole day chasing people down to get replacement ones). But there’s more.

In my case, my program originally had no lunch in it at all (seriously), so on top of the hassle of getting a new program, I had to go immediately to the guidance counselor room that same day in order to have it changed. However, as it turned out, program mishaps affected nearly all of the students – nearly 3000 – so the guidance counselor room was bursting at the seams with students trying to change programs for three school days straight if not more (the program office, which usually shares the burden of program changes, probably saw this chaos coming and redirected any traffic to the G.C.’s office). Fortunately, I was able to get it changed after about an hour’s wait, before there was another thing waiting for me: I was put in an underclassmen English class by accident.

Sometime in the first two days of school – and this is going to sound confusing because it is – codes for classes were redone, which caused the code on my program and the code the teachers have to not match. I didn’t find this out until the second day of school when the period was half-over, and I had to spend the rest of the period going to the program office, synchronizing my program with new school codes, and showing up at the class 5 minutes before it was over.

Since then, I haven’t had much incident – yet. However, the school is full with program horror stories and stories of general confusion. One person I know was given 3 English periods; another is having to take health again because proof he did the class was lost in the turnaround shuffle; many others were put in classes they don’t need or want; at the very beginning, no lab classes were scheduled for anyone (I don’t know if that’s still the case), and much more I won’t put because this comment is getting long.

Why is all this happening? It all goes back to turnaround and branches off from there (we students are progressively learning more about what’s happening as the days go by). First of all, because of the confusion during turnaround, absolutely no planning was for the next year, so all we’re seeing now probably should have been done over the summer. Two, because again of turnaround, we had a “brain drain” of people key to the school running, and most of the replacements are learning as they go along (while it’s not their fault, this helps no one). Three, because of yet more confusion that stems from turnaround, the school is currently strapped for cash, so we’re not able to do as much.

And on top of all that, we don’t know what Bloomberg will do next.

This is a pitiful state of affairs that seems to be repeating throughout the city and your school, and like you, I’ve lost respect for both Bloomberg and Walcott. You’ve said what most of us are thinking right now, but I guess the best advice for us all is to hang tight, because it’s definitely going to be a bumpy ride.

First you ruin our education, destroy our school and place innocent students and teachers in agony, and then when your senseless plan is crushed by the law; you dare show up at our school as if nothing ever happened?!

THAT’S SICK!! Give those funds to JOHN DEWEY HS! We were the highest performing on that list of 24. Walcott you make me sick! I can’t wait until your leader Bloomberg gets kicked out. How corrupt I can’t stand it ugh!