NeST School

Public School in Manhattan (Educating Kids In Nyc)

http://insideschools.org/index12.php?fs=27&all=y

http://www.nestmk12.net

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEST_M

2006: NEST+m founder Celenia Chevere studied at the progressive Bank Street College of Education. However, she had also come to appreciate the benefits of a classical education, and at NEST, the focus is on achievement... Current NEST+m Principal Dr. Olga Livanis came to the school from Stuyvesant High School where she was an Assistant Principal in charge of Chemistry and Physics. wow, read on for lots of controversy

2006: Officials say an examination of the school’s most recent kindergarten admissions documents shows that school officials were looking not only at students’ performance, but also at how involved their parents were likely to be... “In my view, public schools do not interview family members for admission to public schools, period,” Mr. Ezra Klein said in an interview yesterday. “It turns out they were doing it.”... A core group of parents active in NEST’s PTA say the school has often been singled out for scrutiny because of its high standards, its tendency to buck the system and, most recently, their own success last year in scuttling a plan by Mr. Klein for the school to share its Lower East Side building with a charter school... After the parents filed a lawsuit and held news conferences and rallies, Mr. Klein relented on the charter school. He installed a new principal at the same time, though, and the school’s founding principal, Celenia Chevere, retired under pressure... The officials said the focus on parents was only part of what was wrong with the process. They also said the school improperly screened out some kindergarten applicants instantly based on preschool reports, without allowing them through the normal testing and interview process. They also found that in some cases, the applications of rejected children noted that they had special needs.

Sept'2007 - met a woman who said her son's kindergarten class has 28 kids with 1 teacher, no assistant.

2012: more than 500 parents and faculty members signed an online petition that chides the principal, Olga Livanis, as being overly punitive in this year’s rating of several well-liked teachers, for having not shared important budgetary information with parents, and for the tone she set at the school... This is not the first time parents at NEST+m have had issues with the principal. The previous principal, Celenia Chevere, resigned after a dispute with the Department of Education over the city's plans to put a charter school in the building.

2015: Olga Livanis, who became principal of the New Explorations Into Science, Technology and Math (NEST+m) in 2006, will retire at the end of the summer, she announced in an email to parents Monday, which was shared with DNAinfo.