IPPN

Published: 14 September 2009

The band class at Public School 48 on Staten Island is no more. At Middle School 189 in Queens, the after-school program credited with raising math and reading scores has vanished. And that end-of-the-year steak dinner for high achievers at Public School 273 in Brooklyn? Gone, too.

With Kyra Fleurimond, 5, left, and Wandrea Burrell, 9, Melessa Avery, the principal at Public School 273 in East New York.
New York City's 1,500 public schools officially opened for business last week, and alongside the usual confusion over locker assignments and lunch periods, there were new questions in the air: Why isn't Mrs. Brown teaching here anymore? What happened to the science lab? Where are the boxes of free notebooks and pencils?

Across the city, principals are facing budgets that are 5 percent slimmer, a steep cut for a school system where coffers swelled until the current economic downturn. As a result, principals, who now wield extraordinary authority over budgets, are learning to say "No," and hoping the changes they make will not result in academic ruin.

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/