The MySchools website, which had been scheduled to reopen Wednesday, is now expected to launch sometime next week, with more information available Oct. 15. The deadline to apply, planned for Dec. 13, will also be adjusted.
“We definitely want to make sure that we’re not robbing families of any time for them to complete their middle school application,” Trevonda Kelly, the school system’s chief enrollment officer, told a citywide advisory council of parents on Thursday. “And so, it’s hard for me to say what the deadline will be, because we’re still working to see when we can get this up and running.”
“We hate the fact that we can’t deliver as promised, so we are really working as quickly as possible.”
There are about 70,000 public school students in the fifth grade, according to local enrollment data.
Kelly said the problem with middle school applications stemmed from an update the Division of Instructional and Information Technology tried to make to the site, compromising other features and slowing down the system. The high school portal remains open, and families may experience “sporadic” technical difficulties.
“And so for that reason, we didn’t want to overwhelm the system with another application process until we got that issue rectified,” Kelly said.
Starting this year, families can apply to any public middle school in the city, including programs just outside their community school districts. Applicants will continue to be prioritized for admissions at schools close to home.
Mayor Adams and outgoing Schools Chancellor David Banks promoted the policy change last month as a win for “educational choice.” Before the announcement, just a couple dozen middle schools were officially open to applicants citywide, though some savvy parents found ways around the rules, advocates said.
Middle school offers will be released in the spring. The high school admissions timeline will continue as planned, with applications due by Dec. 4 and offers released in early March.
The technical issues come less than a year after the public schools struggled to shift online last winter during a snow day — the first major test of the system’s ability to use remote learning as a tool in the wake of the pandemic.
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