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State Education Commissioner John King and City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott talk to a P.S. 47 administrator.

At M.S. 53 on the Rockaway Peninsula, one student told Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch he was worried about taking the state tests after all the time he missed in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Up a flight of stairs at Village Academy, Chancellor Dennis Walcott heard from a seventh-grader named Kimberly who lost everything in the storm. In a few weeks, she’s relocating permanently to Rochester, said her principal, Doris Lee.

And at a third visit at P.S. 47 in Broad Channel, an island that helps connect the Far Rockaway peninsula to the Queens mainland, Walcott asked about 20 fourth-graders if they knew what ”FEMA” meant.

Every hand went up.

Another 12 schools damaged by Sandy reopened on Monday, bringing 5,400 more students back to their original classrooms from temporary relocations in other school buildings. During a visit to another Far Rockaway school, P.S. 43, Mayor Bloomberg celebrated the news and noted that of 65 schools originally rendered “non-operational” because of power outages, damaged boilers, and flooded basements, all but 18 are back up and running. (more…)

Keoni Wright, an East New York parent, speaks on Saturday at a StudentsFirstNY backing new teacher evaluations.

The scene was familiar, but the rallying cries and signs were a departure.

More than 100 parents and organizers from StudentsFirstNY filled the steps of City Hall on Saturday to demand that the teachers union cooperate with the city on an evaluation deal before a deadline that could cost the city $300 million in state aid.

“What do we want?” shouted Darlene Boston, who has been working to organize parents in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn to support StudentsFirstNY’s policy agenda. “Great teachers!” they replied.

“When do we want them?” Boston shouted back. “Now!” they said.

When education advocates protest outside City Hall, it is usually with an ensemble of union leaders, City Council members, and other elected officials. And more often than not, they are criticizing policies favored by Mayor Bloomberg, the man who governs the city from the building behind them.

But no elected officials showed up at Saturday’s rally — and organizers said none was invited. Parents came mostly from neighborhoods in Central Brooklyn and Harlem, areas where StudentsFirstNY is trying to build a base. And while the mayor’s name was not uttered, it was clear that he was not the target of their protest.

The target was the continuing lack of new teacher evaluations in New York City, which StudentsFirstNY and Bloomberg have blamed on the United Federation of Teachers. (more…)

• A Columbia professor and a Wu-Tang Clan member are the latest to use hip-hop in city schools. (Times)
• Students throughout the region, not just in New York City, have had their lives upturned by Sandy. (WSJ)
• Last week, four of six children in one Far Rockaway family were still out of school after the storm. (NY1)
• PS 333 in Queens has been relocated twice, more than any other Sandy-damaged school. (SchoolBook)
• Many students were suspended last year, but fewer than in 2010-2011. (GothamSchools, SchoolBook)
• For the second straight year, dozens of the suspended students were just 4 and 5 years old. (Daily News)
• Salary and benefits are holding up some districts’ teacher evaluation deals. (Democrat & Chronicle)
• A Stuyvesant High School graduate is one of this year’s newest Rhodes Scholarship recipients. (Post)
• A Bronx high school’s debate team won a national award and will visit the White House. (Daily News)
• The recent suspension of Tottenville HS football players might be tied to a student’s suicide. (Daily News)
• An investigation found that a substitute teacher chided students for interrupting his phone calls. (Post)
• At Avenues, a for-profit private school that opened this year, technology is crucial to the curriculum. (WSJ)
• The Daily News says the UFT should learn from Newark’s contract and accept bonuses for top teachers.