NEW YORK, NY May 20, 2003 — Today is the deadline for parents with children in the city's most troubled schools to choose where they'd like to transfer their children next fall. The Department of Education sent every household that applied for the transfers a list of options. But as of last week, less than half of the 18 thousand parents who requested the transfers had sent back their forms. WNYC's Beth Fertig discovered some parents had more trouble making choices than they expected.

SOUND OF SHUFFLING PAPERS

There are piles of envelopes and papers on the table in Eunice Staton's apartment in Harlem. All of them are from the city's Department of Education. But there's only one letter that matters right now.

STATON: This is the list that they gave us.

The list includes 8 schools where Staton can potentially transfer her ten year old son Matthew. She's supposed to rank them by preference and do the same with a similar list for her eight year-old son, Jermaine - whose form had yet to arrive last week. Both boys attend Community School 30. It's on the state's list of failing schools. But letter from the Education Department doesn't provide much information about her transfer options. Only one appears to be in her district.

STATON: I don't know anything about these schools. I looked at the addresses and I'm like wow, they don't look like District 5 addresses. That was my first thing. And then by the zip code I knew that they - my children had to be use public transportation to get there.

Some of the schools are in other parts of Harlem. But the rest are scattered throughout the Lower East Side, Brooklyn and even College Point. And aside from that one in Queens, seven of the eight schools had relatively low test scores. Eunice Staton doesn't know that yet. She hasn't had time to access the Education Department's web site. So she's been calling the schools directly.

STATON: Yes hi my name is Ms. Staton and I'm interested in your school for my children as a transfer student in the September school year.

Last week, Staton tried getting a tour of one school on her list. But she was told to call back later; a line she's heard repeatedly. With so much to look into, she says the city should have given working parents like herself and her husband more time to do their homework.

STATON: It's too late for us to tour the school, we should have did that early part of May because a lot of schools are testing for the kids to graduate, and they're not accepting any tours.

Staton was already frustrated because she wanted to transfer her children in the current school year. She's now a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against school districts across the state led by Charlie King, a Democrat who ran for Lieutenant Governor last year.

The Federal No Child Left Behind law requires districts to offer transfers or supplemental tutoring services to children attending schools in need of improvement. Like other districts around the country, New York was initially slow to implement the sweeping new law, which went into effect last year. The department has since contacted parents of nearly a quarter of a million students who are eligible to transfer next fall. But if they aren't happy with their choices, Chancellor Joel Klein says there's not much he can do.

KLEIN: A lot of our high needs, schools in need of improvement are concentrated in particular parts of city. Parts typically characterized by poverty. And therefore the options close by are limited. And I think a lot of parents for example with very young kids are thinking about alternatives like supplemental services rather than transfer.

At Community School 30 in Harlem, where Eunice Staton and all three of her sons have gone to school, only about 20 percent of the students are reading at grade level. Everyone here knows the school is failing. Crossing guards, neighbors, and former students picking their siblings up after school. They don't want to give their names. But they know what's happening.

WOMAN: You could send your child here September and you know your child know how to read and write. By November they're telling you you child don't know how to read and write. And they making you try to put them in Special Ed. KID? That's what they did with my little brother. And he making good grades. WOMAN: In Special Ed? KID: Yeah, they're trying to make him go to Special Ed

Yet, CS 30 is a neighborhood institution here in the heart of Harlem. It's located just across the street from a housing project on 128th and Lexington Avenue. Gladys Perez runs the parent association. She's keeping her 7 year old son in the school.

PEREZ: My oldest children came to this school. And I have faith in the teachers, the principal and rest of the people the staff members. And it's very near for me to be across the street. Very easy. Everyone knows him in the school. And if something happened they would call me fast, I'd be able to come 1,2,3 here.

Perez believes only a handful of parents have applied for the transfers. Maybe, like her, they see signs of improvement. The new principal, who was hired 2 years ago, sent out a letter recently saying average class sizes have gone down in the lower grades. And the scores are SLOWLY rising. But the question is whether a school system that's cutting its budget will be able to help schools with the greatest needs.

Officials say they sympathize with parents who elect to keep their children in troubled schools. Sandra Case is Supervising Superintendent for the Chancellor's district, which includes the lowest performing schools. She says Klein's new curriculum, along with other reforms to streamline services, should help.

CASE: It is really designed to give the schools a level of support that they've never had before. So even with the budget cuts, with unfortunate layoffs which, you know we're all hoping don't have to happen, the chancellor is really putting into a place a structure that will provide the kind of close supervision, close support for schools that did not have that opportunity before. And this is a first.

However, Case acknowledges there are other obstacles. Low performing schools could lose some federal funding if lots of children do transfer. The No Child Left Behind law is intended to punish schools that don't improve by taking away Title 1 money for every low income child that leaves.

In Harlem, parents at Community School 30 were still debating their options last week. Forty-four year old Deborah Parker said she's ready to move her 10 year old daughter Shynasia ANYWHERE if it will help her get to the fifth grade.

DEBORAH: Cause she's not really learning anything in here. She done got left back. And she been going to after school programs and it didn't seem to be helping her. She's not seem to be picking up in her math and her reading.

SHYNASIA: My teacher keep teaching us the same math over and over and over. She's not teaching us division that much or multiplication.

But Parker also knows she's also taking a risk if she does transfer her daughter.

PARKER: It's all in the teaching. It don't matter what school she go to, if there's not a good principal or good teacher or good tutor to help her it don't make a difference.

For Chancellor Klein, that's the real challenge for any of his reforms to work. With added pressure from the federal government and the city's own budget problems, Klein will have to prove he's serious about not leaving any schools behind.

For WNYC I'm Beth Fertig.