Still, there is room for improvement: They're not really demonstrating a firm grasp of this newfangled Internet thing. There’s no reason for this announcement to be a PNG graphic instead of text. The beauty of web browsers (the software you're using to read this, whether Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera...) is that each end user has the option to set a default text size and style to fit their readability needs and desires. Distributing this information as a graphic unnecessarily limits those options. I'd like to know why APS made this decision.
Another, more important consequence is that the address they give for APS' General Administrative Transfer information page is not a clickable link even though it looks like one. I don't think I'm guilty of overstatement to say this is inexcusable.
(UPDATE: Okay, maybe I'm wrong on this one. It didn't work from the RSS feed, but it did work from a different computer when I went there from APS home page.)
To say nothing of the possibility that the parents who need this information the most probably don’t own a computer. Indeed, they may not even read English. Is there a version of this in Spanish? Are flyers containing this information being distributed at the schools? (I ask only for my own amusement. I already know the answer. No principal will want to tell parents that they can transfer out, especially not when they just closed 7 schools for being under capacity.)
While I'm in the mood to complain, I'm not seeing any mention of this on APS' main site. Clicking on the "Talk Up APS" banner at the top of the page would take you there, but nothing says so.
I'm also not a big fan of making parents come down to the Taj Mahal, er, I mean, 130 Trinity, to apply for this. It was bad enough in previous years, when parents camped out ringing the old Howard High School building on John Wesley Dobbs Ave. as if they were waiting for Black Friday specials or concert tickets. Year after year hundreds of parents spend the night on the sidewalk, and year after year it takes APS by surprise--or they pretend it does. I guess the law requires them to make the transfer available, but it doesn't require them to make it easy.
But now, parents who drive their own cars have to pay to park for the privilege of camping out on the sidewalk. In the heart of downtown Atlanta, across the street from City Hall and the State Capitol.
C'mon, admit it, Transfer Administrators, you really like seeing all these people grovel for your attention, don't you?
PARENTS, here are some important tips:
If you're not on APS' doorstep when the office opens on the very first day they accept applications for administrative transfers, you're too late. There aren't nearly as many openings as there are students whose parents want them, especially not this year with so many schools closing.
Resign yourself to the likelihood that APS will not make the final decisions on these applications until after the fall semester starts. They're in no hurry; it's nothing to them. They want to see how many children actually show up for class before they determine the number of empty seats available.* Your child will probably have to spend a couple of weeks, perhaps a month, in the school you're fighting so hard to get him out of.
Now, if every school were covering the same subjects in each grade, in the same order (which they're supposed to be doing), at the same rate, this might not be an issue. But since they're not, and since the school you're trying to transfer into is doing better than the school you're trying to escape from, your child could enter his new school anywhere from several days to a couple of weeks behind.
Good luck.
* This means that the parents who lie about their mailing addresses, and the ones who have their children "stay with their Aunt" in order to be "zoned" into their desired school, might effectively jump into line ahead of you, because they're gaming the system and you're trying to play by the rules.
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