STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Parents of some of Staten Island's brightest elementary grade students are petitioning city Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina and the Department of Education to expand the popular program for gifted and talented kids to one or more of the borough's intermediate schools. Currently there are nine Island elementary schools (PS 3, Pleasant Plains; PS 8, Great...
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Parents of some of Staten Island's brightest elementary grade students are petitioning city Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina and the Department of Education to expand the popular program for gifted and talented kids to one or more of the borough's intermediate schools.
Currently there are nine Island elementary schools (PS 3, Pleasant Plains; PS 8, Great Kills; PS 29, Castleton Corners; PS 36, Annadale; PS 42, Eltingville; PS 50, Oakwood; PS 53, Bay Terrace; PS 60, Graniteville, and PS 69, New Springville) offering programs for the gifted and talented (G&T), that enroll more than 1,000 students from kindergarten through fifth-grade.
When students complete fifth grade, however, they need to apply for admission to Brooklyn's Mark Twain Intermediate School for the Gifted and Talented, in Coney Island, which is the nearest middle school, if they want to remain in the program.
Alana Miller, a New Springville mother of two, started an online petition last week, which already has more than 700 signatures.
"There are other school districts in other boroughs that have middle school programs for the gifted and talented. It is unfair for the more than 1,000 students in Staten Island to have to scramble for a way to travel to other boroughs for these schools. They should not be denied this opportunity to succeed," Mrs. Miller said.
Her sons, Ryan, 8, and Mason, 6, attend PS 60, where they are flourishing; Mason, a G&T first-grader, is reading at a fourth-grade level, she said. "I just hope there is a G&T program in the intermediate schools here when the time comes," she said.
The middle-school expansion of G&T has the support of Community Education Council President Michael Reilly, who said he would bring parents' concerns to Chancellor Farina and District 31 Superintendent Anthony Lodico.
"It's an issue of fairness for Staten Island, and opportunity for these students," Reilly said.
Mrs. Miller said parents have also been working with the office of City Councilman Steve Matteo (R-Mid-Island), who campaigned on the issue.
"We need to give parents and kids a local option," Matteo said. "People shouldn't have to trek to Coney Island."