Camp Counsel
Seven questions to ask before sending your child to camp
By Renee Flax
So many factors go into choosing a summer camp that it’s often difficult even to know where to begin. Here, the seven most crucial camp questions parents should ask.
How do I prepare my child for overnight camp?
If you can, take your child to the camp ahead of time so that he or she can meet the people there and become familiar with the surroundings. Once you take away that feeling of it being a foreign experience, it makes the child feel a whole lot better. Read more
Parents, Schools Tackle West 90s Traffic Hazards
West 96th Street, a major four-lane thoroughfare, has long been a problem for parents of young children, seniors or anyone else who can’t react quickly enough. Aggressive drivers barrel out of nearby exits from the West Side Highway, and cross-town traffic streams in and out of the Central Park traverse. Many complain that drivers regularly make turns with pedestrians still in the cross walk. The problem is prevalent on West 95th and 97th streets, too, in the area between Central Park and Riverside Drive. Read more
Numbers Don’t Lie
• Kindergarteners denied gym time.
• Kids getting speech therapy in a former closet.
• Gym locker and shower rooms now used for administration.
• Some kids getting lunch at 10:30 a.m., some at 1 p.m., because 1,000 students must share common space built for 700.
• Indoor recess held in the auditorium, at the same time as music or science classes in the same auditorium. Read more
Parents in Public Schools
It is the middle of July, and few New Yorkers are thinking about school these days—except, perhaps, up in Albany.
That’s where the recently un-deadlocked Senate is slated to take up the Assembly’s school governance bill, which passed June 17, leaving mayoral control of schools fairly intact.
Senate Dems have a few amendments they’re rumored to add, including a provision that would create some sort of parent training academy. At press time, though, it sounded like those tweaks would remain ideas only, as the Assembly is unlikely to reconvene and approve additional changes. Read more
