UNION SQUARE — Students applying to the new District 2 middle school that opens next year don't have to rank the school first to be accepted, its principal told a gymnasium full of relieved parents at a public meeting Tuesday night.
Principal Jacqui Getz, currently at P.S. 126 Manhattan Academy of Technology (MAT) in Two Bridges, was tapped to lead the school known as 75 Morton earlier this year, and was tasked with coming up with the school's admissions rubric.
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The ranking system is a source of stress for many parents.
"Every single other school that is within walking distance or easy subway distance says, 'You must rank us first,'" said Lower Manhattan resident Milda Devoe, who has a daughter in fifth grade at Spruce and a son in high school with whom she already went through the middle school application process. "It's so much more stressful."
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Getz answered questions from fifth graders and their parents at the Clinton School for Writers and Artists near Union Square.
Contractors building the school ran into structural problems earlier this fall, causing its opening to be delayed by a year.
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But the Department of Education still wants to start 75 Morton — also known as M.S. 297 — in September 2017, so the first class of sixth-graders is expected to be housed for their first year at the Clinton School for Writers and Artists at 10 East 15th St., where Getz spoke Tuesday night.
Unlike some other District 2 middle schools, 75 Morton will not have a gifted program, Getz said.
"This school really does believe, as other schools do, that all the children can be together, and a diversity of thinkers and abilities leads to strength," Getz said.
Structuring the school that way "is dependent on a curriculum that has many avenues," and can "adapt when there are kids that are excelling in an area" or when some students are struggling, she said.
"It is dependent on strong teachers, strong curriculum, and, yes, strong leadership," she said.
It also won't specialize in any particular topics or subjects.
"It's middle school. Those kids really need similar things across the board. They need to be listened to and taken care of," she said.
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Some parents asked about how not having the mentorship and influence of seventh and eighth graders will affect the sixth grade students.
"That will be a missing part of it," Getz agreed.
But she insisted that being the first class in a new school will afford the students "an intimate experience."
"There'll be benefits to it and missing pieces, but I think more benefits," she said.
They are aiming for 30 to 32 students per classroom, with every student in a homeroom with the same teacher over the course of the year.
Eventually, they could have as many as 10 classes per grade — about 300 students for each year. But Getz expects the school will start smaller.
"New schools just don't start the full load right away," she said.
Some things are still up in the air.
For example, they are still recruiting teachers, determining the admissions rubric, deciding what sports the school will offer, and figuring out what time the school day will start and the length of class time, with a particular eye to managing the flow of traffic into and around the school with the Clinton students.
Kids asked questions about sports, requesting basketball and fencing, and and whether there will be field trips — which Getz said there will.
"Because we're in the best city ever, right? And it's a kind of silly thing to sit in our classrooms all day," she said.
