The Definitive Guide to New York Education & Parenting

Gary The Creator Sep 18, 2026

What Families Should Know: Your Child Can Leave a New York High School With 216 Hours and a Signed Profile. It Is Not a Diploma, and It Does Not End Their Right to One.

New York's CDOS Commencement Credential takes 216 hours, 54 of them supervised work-based learning, a career plan started in ninth grade and a signed employability profile. Here is how it works, how it turns into a diploma, and the question September's Regents vote left unanswered.

Parent Support

Gary The Creator Sep 17, 2026

Your School's Report Card Still Shows Chronic Absenteeism But Albany Stopped Grading Schools On It

New York swapped its Chronic Absenteeism Indicator for an Attendance Indicator that scores every student on the days they showed up. The familiar eighteen-day number is still published, and it no longer decides anything.

News & Updates

Gary The Creator Sep 16, 2026

New Yorkers Asked for a Personal Finance Class: The State Said No to Funding One

Commenters asked the Board of Regents to require a semester of personal finance before graduation. The department declined, citing local control, and wrote that it cannot attach funding to a rule. Only 3.8 percent of New York high schoolers get the class anyway.

Gary The Creator Sep 15, 2026

New York Cut School Pension Rates Twice This Year

DiNapoli set the 2027-28 NYSLRS rates at 17.3 percent for ERS and 37.4 percent for police and fire. For school districts, the relief lands on one payroll column only.

The Playbook

Gary The Creator Sep 15, 2026

Incidental Teaching Ceiling Rises Again in New York

The Board of Regents is expected to adopt an emergency rule extending the ten-hour incidental teaching allowance through 2026-27. Here is what the regulation requires, what your district owes you on renewal, and the deadlines that follow.

Business & Operations

Gary The Creator Sep 14, 2026

New York Electric Buses: The Cost Beyond the Deadline

Albany pushed the electric school bus mandate from 2027 to 2032 inside the state budget. The fleet size, the price of a bus and the $700 million behind the transition did not move with it.

Rural school building in upstate New York

Business & Operations

Gary The Creator Sep 14, 2026

New York Set Aside $191 Million for the Teacher Shortage: It Spent $118.9 Million

A new State Comptroller audit found $72.4 million in teacher-shortage grant money never spent, and 190 districts that had never heard the programs existed.

News & Updates

Gary The Creator Sep 14, 2026

New York Decides Whether a Diploma Still Runs Through a Regents Exam

The Board of Regents takes up item BR (A) 4 on Monday at nine, asking whether to sunset diploma assessment requirements and move every New York student to a single diploma beginning in 2027-28.

The Standard Guides

Gary The Creator Sep 12, 2026

New York Working Papers Go Digital in 2027: What Changes

Every New York student picking up working papers this fall is the last cohort to do it on paper, with a physical exam and a parent's trip to the district office. Here is how the system works while it lasts.

The Playbook

Gary The Creator Sep 11, 2026

The Playbook: How to Talk to Your Kids About a Day You Remember and They Can't

Every child in school today was born after 9/11, and so are a growing number of their teachers. A father on what to say, what to skip, and why the hardest part of the conversation is managing your own face.

New York State Education Building, Albany NY

News & Updates

Gary The Creator Sep 10, 2026

Eight Things Changed in New York Schools This Year: Albany Left the Details to Your District

A personal finance mandate with no class attached, the last cohort that has to pass the Regents, and a bus deadline that just moved five years. Here is what actually changed for 2026-27.

Community Voices

Gary The Creator Sep 9, 2026

New York's Constitution Has Said No Since 1938 But The Program Albany Is Weighing Never Has to Ask

New York bars public money from religious schools. The federal Education Freedom Tax Credit routes around that bar entirely, and the decision to join it rests with one office, on a form, before October.

New York Working Papers Go Digital in 2027: What Changes

New York's Constitution Has Said No Since 1938 But The Program Albany Is Weighing Never Has to Ask

New York's Reading Score Fell Five Points: Teachers From Copenhagen to Queens Say They Stopped Assigning Whole Books

What Families Should Know: Your Child Can Leave a New York High School With 216 Hours and a Signed Profile. It Is Not a Diploma, and It Does Not End Their Right to One.

Your School's Report Card Still Shows Chronic Absenteeism But Albany Stopped Grading Schools On It

New Yorkers Asked for a Personal Finance Class: The State Said No to Funding One

New York Cut School Pension Rates Twice This Year

Incidental Teaching Ceiling Rises Again in New York

New York Electric Buses: The Cost Beyond the Deadline

New York Set Aside $191 Million for the Teacher Shortage: It Spent $118.9 Million

New York Decides Whether a Diploma Still Runs Through a Regents Exam

New York Working Papers Go Digital in 2027: What Changes

The Playbook: How to Talk to Your Kids About a Day You Remember and They Can't

Eight Things Changed in New York Schools This Year: Albany Left the Details to Your District

New York's Constitution Has Said No Since 1938 But The Program Albany Is Weighing Never Has to Ask

The Standard NY Resource Center