GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

P.S. 47 / The American Sign Language & English Secondary School

Every year before students are packed off to school, hundreds of parents and children pass through the city’s dozen registration centers in hopes of finding new schools.

Often, they are recent arrivals to the city, looking to enroll their children before the new school year begins. Others are long-time residents trying to shift a child from private to public school or from a school many subway transfers away to one closer to home.

In the auditorium of the American Sign Language and English Secondary School — one of the three centers in Manhattan — families waited for hours today as DOE officials examined their documents and searched for open slots. We’ll be following their and others’ efforts to find an empty seat before September 9.

• Maxine Shivers was making her second trip to the center  in two days. Shivers, who is in the Army, has deployment orders that will take her overseas within the month, but before she goes she’s scrambling to transfer her daughter to a high school closer to where they live. Currently, her daughter is slated to begin ninth grade at the Bronx High School for Writing and Communication Arts (she wants to be a reporter), but that’s a long subway ride from their home in lower Manhattan, and one Shivers doesn’t want her daughter making alone. Distance is one of three reasons (along with safety and health) the DOE finds acceptable for requesting a transfer. Tomorrow her daughter has interviews at two high schools. “It’s up to her now,” Shivers said. If neither of those schools has an open seat, she’ll have to return to the registration center and assess what’s left. (more…)