By MODOU NYANG
Parents Alliance for Citywide Education on Thursday held an open house at the Bronx Library to encourage Bronx parents to register their children for the city’s Gifted and Talented placement test.
The deadline to take the test for 2016 is Nov. 9.
The alliance PACE, consisting of parents of children already enrolled in the education program come mainly from Manhattan. Organizers expressed the hope that having more Bronx residents take the test and qualify for the program wold spur the borough to have its own specially designated Gifted and Talented school.
Gifted and Talented programs in the Bronx now exist in about 16 schools, but with only one or two classes designated for the program.
“There is need to have more kids take the test in order to help open a G and T school in the Bronx,” said Joli Golden a member of PACE. “Currently, about 200 kids from the Bronx commute to G and T schools in Manhattan”.
Golden said many Bronx parents are discouraged from registering their children by the lack of inter-borough transportation.
“If more kids in the Bronx qualify, they will open a citywide school in the borough,” said Sasha Russel, a Manhattan resident and member of PACE.
The program aims at capturing highly motivated pupils from age 4 and placing them into more challenging education programs. There are six Gifted and Talented schools in the city, three in Manhattan, two in Queens and another in Brooklyn.
Josephine Ofili of the Bronx Borough President’s office said Bronx residents should take advantage of the program to help the education of their children. “They have to opt for it,” said Ofili, of Community Education Council, District 9. “Our children need more challenge, she added.
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