MS war to keep ‘honors math’

Irate parents are fighting to maintain advanced math classes at a top-rated New York City MS, the third battle to keep accelerated offerings at a Manhattan school in recent months.

The Robert Wagner MS on the Upper East Side announced it was permanently scrapping the honors math program for seventh-graders, after cutting it during the pandemic.

The reason given by the principal, according to one parent, was that too many students wanted to enroll.

“The honors program is awesome,” said Nikos Papageorgiou, whose younger son will be in seventh grade in September and whose older son graduated from the school. “We said, ‘Why didn’t you extend it instead of getting rid of it?’”

Papageorgiou said many of the school’s students apply to the city’s specialized high schools, and the advanced math program was key to their preparation.

More than 500 people have signed a petition to keep the program, he said.

The Department of Education contends that all Wagner seventh-graders will have an honors curriculum to prepare for Regents math, which Papageorgiou and others dispute.

In June, the principal of the Lab MS for Collaborative Studies in Manhattan, another top school, faced a backlash after she said honors math would be scrapped.

The principal changed course after the outcry and said the program would be maintained.

Parents were also in an uproar at LaGuardia HS, the “Fame” school on the Upper West Side that focuses on both performing arts and academics, over potential changes to Advanced Placement classes.

The school wanted to scale back the offerings. The outcry led the principal to largely scrap the plan.