GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Thousands of students are preparing for their first day of school tomorrow with placements so freshly in hand that they may not yet have worked out their commutes.

Rising ninth-grader Shomari Sutton, 13, left the enrollment registration center at Brooklyn Technical High School with an assignment at a school so new that he and his mother Anisa barely knew where it was located.

“It’s still supposed to be a good school, though,” Shomari said.

The Department of Education’s twelve enrollment centers have seen just shy of 11,300 visitors since they opened this year on August 31, said department spokesman Andrew Jacob. That’s about 300 fewer families than had used the centers at this time last year.

Families rushing to find a last-minute spot in a school at the city’s enrollment registration centers might have expected to be harried by long lines and complicated bureaucracy. But although frustrations with the complex system haven’t disappeared, lines seemed to have gone more smoothly this year than in years past. (more…)