MANHATTAN — As if the process of getting your kid into school wasn't stress inducing enough, some parents had another scare on Friday when the Department of Education's website refused to accept some applications for the city's gifted and talented program on the final day of submission.
Technical glitches shut out some parents trying to beat Friday's deadline to complete the Request for Testing Form by preventing them from selecting their preferred test site location and date/time. The mandatory fields prevented parents from submitting their application as a result.
"We had some issues apparently," a DOE spokesman said.
School officials said that parents should contact the the department's helpdesk or P311 parent service hotline if they were having issues with the website and that they would work with them on Monday on scheduling the exam.
Gifted and talented seats are open to city children born between 2004 and 2007, who are currently in Pre-Kindergarten through second grade. Kids who apply have to take two tests — the OLSAT and BSRA — in January or early February.
Those scoring in the top 90th percent will receive offers to a gifted and talented program in their district, while those who score in the 97th percentile or above will be eligible for more selective citywide programs.
More students applied for and got into gifted and talented programs this fall from Manhattan's District 2 — stretching from lower Manhattan to the Upper East Side — which saw 44 percent of its 1,677 tested students qualify for the programs.
