Please Help - Public Schools?

Take a look at insideschools.org; they have a lot of helpful information.

There definitely are good middle schools in District 15; not sure about 13 but 13 and 15 are part of the same Region and when I was looking at middle schools a few years ago, some schools were open to kids throughout the Region. BUT -- here's the thing -- the school system is still in flux and this could all change. With such a young child, there's no point in making a decision based on middle school choices because it really could ALL change by the time you get there. Schools that are terrible now could be acceptable, even really good, in a few years time. New schools will open. There could be a whole new system in place for middle school assignments. So it doesn't make sense to worry about it now.

For high school, it doesn't matter where you live. All but a very few schools are open to kids from anywhere in the city. Most likely your child will not go to high school in your neighborhood anyway. We live in Park Slope and my daughter's top choices were in Manhattan. Don't worry about high school at all.

Another thing -- kids do go to middle school out of district. I know quite a few kids from Park Slope who went to middle schools in Manhattan.

I do understand the anxiety. But right now the system is in the midst of yet another reorganization. By the time your toddler is ready for middle school, NYC will have a different mayor and (let's hope) a different schools chancellor and will have gone through any number of additional reorganizations. I would bet that the "Region" structure will be long gone and the system may have reverted to the old community school board system. Only time will tell, but there will definitely be changes.