By Lydie Raschka

Fifth-grade teacher Tracy Nemiroff breaks the math nerd mold.

“She’s not what you’d expect,” said parent Claudine May-Gomez. “Tiny, beautiful, little, pretty—and she loves math!”

Tracy Nemiroff is an advocate for gifted students, arguing that the challenges they face are often overlooked.

But this math lover also has a reputation for being tough.

“I demand a lot. I give them really hard problems,” Nemiroff said.

“A lot of parents complain,” May-Gomez said. “‘She’s too hard,’ ‘There’s too much homework,’ but she doesn’t care. She does what’s best for the kids.”

This does not mean letting her students fend for themselves, however. Nemiroff answers emails after school if kids need help, has them practice for state and national math tests until test taking feels like a walk in the park and defuses math anxiety with singing, dancing and rapping—like the introductory rap she performs on the first day of school:

I’m from Miami, so I’m used to the heat,

When the snow comes down, I get frozen feet.

On parents’ night, Nemiroff hands out a questionnaire. Parent Min Miller took notice. Never before had a teacher asked, “Is your child afraid of math?” Miller’s daughter, Maeve, was indeed a little afraid. She had been surprised to get 60 percent on her first math test of the year. Many gifted kids enjoy good test scores and so had Maeve, but Nemiroff is interested in chipping away at the gifted child’s tendency toward perfectionism.

“I want them to take risks, to know it’s OK to make mistakes,” she said. “It is what students do with their mistakes and struggles that defines them as learners and makes them most successful.”

Emphasis is placed on problem solving that draws on all of a child’s accumulated math knowledge. For Maeve, this teaching strategy has worked, and she’s back in the 90 percent range.

“Maeve has such confidence in math,” Miller said.

Maeve adds, “Ms. Nemiroff makes it fun, like there’s nothing to it, so you’re not scared.”

Math inventions are one way of keeping it fun. Student projects have included designs for a mathematical keyboard, an electric protractor, a digital ruler and a baseball mitt that measures speed upon impact. As a gifted child herself, Nemiroff felt “pushed to make sure I got everything right.” She wants her students to take chances.

“That’s when I see them coming alive,” she said. “That’s when I see the most progress.”

Upon graduation from Emory University, in Atlanta, Nemiroff moved to New York City with her fiancé. She taught at NEST+m for two years before a slot opened up at the Anderson School, where she’s been for three years. She is a member of MENSA, the organization for people with high IQs, and uses puzzles and problems from MENSA’s newsletters in her classroom. She is an advocate for gifted kids.

“Often gifted kids get overlooked for the challenges they go through,” she said.

“People think they have anything and everything given to them, but they have problems and pressures just like everyone else.”

In spite of the rigor of her approach, Nemiroff tries to keep math light and relevant with questions like, “Why would Derek Jeter and David Wright use the Pythagorean theorem in their work?”

This summer, her math skills will be particularly relevant and handy as she, and her fiancé, plan their wedding.

–
Tracy Nemiroff
5th grade, The Anderson School

Forty kids from several upper West Side schools know how to eat right—and write about it too.

Ten students from each participating school—I.S. 44, the Computer School, the Anderson School and West Prep Academy—were selected to be honored for their essays on healthy eating and living. The students were all in 6th, 7th and 8th grade.

The group will be awarded for their insightful take on one of education’s big topics—health in the cafeteria—on the morning of May 21 in an event hosted by the American Museum of Natural History. As part of the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District’s 2010 culinary fundraising series, New Taste of the Upper West Side, proceeds will go to Wellness in the Schools, a non-profit organization founded in 2005 to improve school lunches.

The award-winning students in front of the Museum of Natural History.

Jerry Butler
Center School Parent

Letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.

To the Editor:
Oft overlooked and central to the Community Education Council draft resolution is that most families in the P.S. 199 catchment choose to send their children to P.S. 199, an elementary school offering only a general education program. Might I offer that up as a feather in the cap of public education? Too many families, not enough room. See the problem?

The idea to use space at P.S. 9 as a new elementary school was proposed and considered. Is anyone at all curious as to the Department of Education manpower and resources needed to implement this idea? In these economic times? Seriously?
Further, even if P.S. 199 families were given every seat available in this overflow idea, it would still not accommodate every kindergartener in our catchment for next year. Sending the excess 199 kindergarteners to P.S. 191 and P.S. 87 could hamper or eliminate their choice programs.
Center School is a district-wide middle school. Their passionate argument against relocation infers their program’s collapse. Have faith, wonderful and vital Center School. “Yes You Can” survive a move!

The very best we can do is advocate equitable and age-appropriate choices for our children. And to continue to offer those same choices to the children who come after our children.

The only issue is space. The only solution lies in absolute district-wide fairness.

Becky Neustadt
P.S. 199 and M.S. 54 parent

Letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.

To the Editor:
As with most parents, I would go to the ends of the earth to do what is best for my child. If that included putting him on a bus or taking him on a subway every morning to school, I would do it. But I will not do that when there is one of the best elementary schools in the city one block away—where my neighbors can watch over my child, where I have neighbors who can pick up my child if I cannot (I am a single parent.)

Many of us made sacrifices to move to this area or to stay in this area—myself and several parents (both potential and current) I know are in studios and one-bedroom apartments with one or more children so that we can stay here and send our kids to this school and, more importantly, to stay where we have created a wonderful community.

Two things could change our community: 1) Not allowing any new children into P.S. 199 for at least the next three years, which is what would happen if we don’t gain The Center School space, and 2) if the parents and connected parties to the Center School continue their vitriolic attacks on anyone who disagrees with them.

If this is the legacy The Center School wants to leave, then so be it; but I would hope as an educational institution and as our neighbors they can move beyond that, and we can begin to repair the harm done. We have been called racist and elitist. That is not the community I know and not the one I am fighting for. The community I know includes musicians and teachers and those working hard in the private and public sector as advocates for any number of social causes. And yes, we have a large number of wealthy individuals as well. AND so does Center School. This is not a bad thing to have at a public school—it means our teachers can teach and take home their hard-earned paycheck and not have to pay for crayons and paper towels in their classrooms.

Why doesn’t Center School want a bigger space with more rooms and more resources, where their children don’t have to learn in hallways? I still haven’t heard a compelling argument.

Karen Dinitz
Prospective P.S. 199 Parent

Letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.

The plan, approved by a 7-1 margin at a Nov. 19 meeting, is intended to alleviate crowding in the district, particularly at P.S. 199 on West 70th Street. The Center School middle school will move from P.S. 199’s building to the P.S. 9 building on West 84th Street. And The Anderson School will move from P.S. 9 into the building on West 77th Street shared by M.S. 44 and The Computer School. The exact timeframe for the schools moving over the summer remains unclear, the department says.

During the public comment section of the Nov. 19 meeting, P.S. 199 parents praised the proposal, while Center School parents continued their staunch opposition. Meanwhile, a few parents from The Computer School expressed concern that The Anderson School, a gifted school, would take precedence in their building. These parents, along with Center School parents and other diversity advocates, had staged a rally before the meeting. According to the group’s press release, they were protesting “a proposal that primarily benefits the district’s wealthiest school at the expense of several other schools with much greater racial, social and economic diversity.”

State Sen. Tom Duane made an emotional speech at the meeting as well, saying the conflict had been “wrenching” and that he hoped the various parties could come together.

Another group of parents upset by the changes were residents of three buildings at the bottom of Riverside Boulevard, which were zoned out of P.S. 199 and into the P.S. 191 building in the final draft of the proposal. Many residents of those buildings spoke at the meeting. Jennifer Freeman, the point person for the rezoning issue on the Community Education Council, said it was technically impossible to amend the proposal at the meeting, but urged these parents to appeal the specific zoning lines within 10 days of the vote, in accordance with the Chancellor’s regulations.

As for whether P.S. 199’s building will be ready to for the influx of students, “We’re confident the school will be able to accommodate all the students without any facilities work being done,” said Will Havemann, a department spokesperson.