#NYC DOE baffles parents, bungles middle school admission offers

The Department of Education launched city parents into yet another tailspin Thursday after mistakenly posting some middle school admission offers online, before abruptly removing them.

Recipients said they were surprised to see the information appear in their parent portals — and were doubly taken aback when it vanished.

As word of the notifications spread, parents who didn’t receive offers worried that they had been dumped from the DOE admissions system entirely.

“You had one group of parents who got the offer and were then confused if it was valid after it disappeared,” said one mom. “Then you had people freaking out because they didn’t get anything at all. Another mess.”

The DOE acknowledged the error in a note to school staffers who were forced to field queries from frantic families.

“For a brief period this morning, middle school offers were displayed in Myschools,” the message read. “We understand that some families from your school community were able to log in and download an offer letter.”

The guidance said those offers were valid — but added that parents who didn’t get a notification would have to wait until May to learn their middle school fate.

Community Education Council 3, a parent advisory board, ripped the DOE’s handling of the debacle in a letter to schools Chancellor Meisha Ross-Porter.

“Some families were left wondering if the letters were accurate while other families who did not receive a letter were left wondering why,” the letter stated.

The missive also noted technical problems with specialized high school offer emails Thursday after some parents were unable to open them for several hours.

“Yesterday’s actions were irresponsible at best and incompetent at worst,” the missive said fo the double-barreled bungle. “Put simply, the DOE should be embarrassed and take responsibility for their oversights.”

The panel demanded that all middle school offers be released now that some had leaked prematurely.

“The DOE needs to stop sitting on information parents desperately want and release all placements and results across the city,” the CEC argued. “The failure to do so would be negligence on the part of the DOE.”

The DOE said offers would be released shortly but did not offer a date.

“We know it has been a challenging year, and we apologize for the technical glitch that occurred yesterday with a small number of families,” said DOE spokesperson Danielle Filson. “We reached out directly to anyone who accessed their middle school offers prematurely and we will be releasing all official offers to families soon.”