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Assistant teacher Miguelina Valeria takes attendance as students exit the bus at Manhattan’s P721 Wednesday.

Five weeks ago, what happened at P721 in Manhattan on Wednesday would not have seemed extraordinary: Yellow buses pulled up by the main entrance and assistant teacher Miguelina Valerio took attendance and greeted students as they headed into school.

But after a bus drivers’ strike that lasted over a month, the yellow buses marked the end of nightmarish commutes for many parents and, for many students with special needs, a long-awaited return to class.

P721 is a District 75 school that provides occupational training to high school students. During the strike, Valerio said, only 70 or 80 students came to school each day out of a student body of 200. “More than half the students were missing,” she said. “Little by little they’re coming back.” (more…)

Council members Christine Quinn and Domenic Recchia hand out school supplies to students at I.S. 281 in Bensonhurst (Credit: William Alatriste)

If today’s attendance figures were a test of how well the city’s schools are rebounding from Hurricane Sandy, as Chancellor Dennis Walcott said they would be last week, then the city scored a 91 percent overall.

Even as 34 city schools remain unmoored from their damaged buildings, thousands more students showed up for classes today for the first time since the schools closed in October. At the same time, charitable efforts are shifting their focus toward replenishing those schools with basic supplies—most recently through a million dollar campaign, launched today, to supply students with backpacks and other supplies.

The city’s overall attendance rate is climbing, but schools in the areas that the hurricane hit the hardest are still struggling to fill their rosters. Of the fifteen schools that returned to their original buildings today, after relocating a week ago, Department of Education officials said about 77 percent showed up on average. And among the 37 relocated schools, two-thirds of students showed up—double the percentage from last week. (more…)

After another day with abysmal attendance figures at dozens of schools relocated because of Hurricane Sandy, the Department of Education has its sights set on next week.

“I think Tuesday [will be] the best barometer of how well we’re doing,” Chancellor Dennis Walcott said Thursday night as he fielded questions about the department’s steady but logistically complicated progress in getting students in storm-battered areas back in school.

More than 40 schools will still be housed in temporary relocations when classes resume after the Veteran’s Day holiday — the seventh day the city’s schools will have been closed since Sandy struck Oct. 28. But for the first time, the department will be able to provide bus service to elementary and middle school students in all of them, and new generators mean that some schools will reopen in their own buildings.

The seven schools that received generators are all on the Rockaway Peninsula, which is served by a power company that has drawn fire for not restoring power quickly enough. Another Rockaways school that is reopening did have its power restored this week, but the Long Island Power Authority now says some customers on the peninsula will not see their power come back on until after Thanksgiving, or more than two weeks from now.

Attendance in relocated schools has been very low — 36.9 percent today, up from 30 percent on Thursday — and schools on the Rockaway peninsula have had the fewest students show up, with attendance remaining around 4 percent at some schools today. (more…)

Students and teachers arrived at Brooklyn Prospect Charter School in Windsor Terrace early this morning for their first day back since Hurricane Sandy.

Not all city schools lost a full week of classes because of Hurricane Sandy.

Because of storm damage to hundreds of city school buildings, students who attend school in one of the Department of Education’s buildings were told to stay home this week and not return until Monday at the earliest. But in privately owned buildings, some charter schools were up and running today with regularly scheduled classes, tutoring, and college prep courses.

At Brooklyn Prospect Charter School in Windsor Terrace, which was relatively unscathed by Hurricane Sandy, school resumed Friday and settled back into an almost regular schedule.

Classes started later than normal and teachers planned to assign students classwork related to the ongoing crisis that hundreds of thousands of residents are dealing with in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. But Executive Director Daniel Rubenstein said he wanted to open the school as soon as possible to restore a sense of normalcy.

“After a time of trauma, what students need is to get back to routines,” Rubenstein said.

Many students at the District 15 school live in Red Hook, the riverfront neighborhood where some residents are still without electricity and some residents are still bailing water out of their basements. But Rubenstein said none of his students or their families experienced severe upheaval. (more…)

What does a school do when the first day back is a Wednesday, but students have the rest of the week off?

While some parents and students are threatening to boycott the first day of school, one school has found a different way to use the day, though not for instruction.

The Beacon School, a selective high school on the Upper West Side, is using tomorrow as a purely administrative day. According to the school schedule posted online, most students will report to an advisory session for a little over an hour. Freshmen will get their photo IDs and all students can stay for an activities fair and lunch, but it’s not required, making the day more of an official check-in than a school day.

Students and the mayor showed up at PS 111 in Long Island City, Queens last year for the first day of school.

The first day of school is chaotic, stressful, and exciting — all ingredients for an excellent photo opportunity. Amid the tumult of tomorrow, please take a few seconds to capture your students and children at their finest. They and their schools won’t look so polished until next year the next quality review, so send us your photos!  Email your back-to-school photos to tips@gothamschools.org

Think what you want about Mayor Bloomberg’s education policies, but no one can say he isn’t trying when it comes to transportation. Last week’s inaugural Summer Streets was a hit, with thousands of bikers and pedestrians swarming seven safe, car-free miles of roads in Manhattan. Check out coverage of the event on Streetsblog, which like GothamSchools is an initiative of the Open Planning Project.

The celebration reprises this weekend (and next) from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. tomorrow. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., continue along Park Avenue to 98th Street and enter Central Park’s East Meadow to attend a back-to-school kickoff hosted by the Department of Education’s Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy.