Life imitates Gossip Girl tonight as the teens from six of the city's most elite private schools join together for a prom in the Waldorf's Starlight Roof (the Waldorf ballroom is where public high school Stuyvesant's prom will be this Friday -- ground floor for the plebes!). The NY Sun reports on the gala event, which will bring together a privileged pack from Collegiate, Browning, Brearley, Hewitt, Spence, and Nightingale-Bamford schools. Dinner, dancing and silver-plated......

There's a lesson that parents should learn before signing contracts for a private school: always read the fine print. The NY Times tells the story of a Soho couple (David and Michele Bender) whose daughter won a coveted, if pricey--$26,000/year--spot in the kindergarten program at the West Village's Little Red School House (pictured). The Benders put down a $2,500 deposit and another $7,500 towards the tuition, but then three months later, their daughter was accepted......

The scandal around the memoir-turned- fake-recalled- from-bookstores memoir Love and Consequences continues to embarrass the book publishing industry. Writer Margaret Jones, who told her publisher she was a half-white, half-Native American raised by a black foster family in South Central L.A. and former Bloods gang member, was exposed as Margaret Seltzer, white private school graduate from Sherman Oaks, California. Her real (white) sister called the publisher Riverhead Books after reading a lengthy NY Times feature......

A mother is upset that last week her five-year-old son was allegedly handcuffed to a chair after throwing a temper tantrum in his Queens kindergarten class. The incident occurred last week at PS 81 and Jasmina Vasquez said her son Dennis Rivera was terrified. Rivera, who is quite large for a five-year-old at 68 pounds, reportedly was having a fit and knocking things off desks, when a school safety agent cuffed his hands behind him......

Cathedral High School has a top reputation as an all-girls high school of the Archdiocese of New York. However, this past week has been rough: Teachers from Cathedral, as well as from nine other Catholic high schools, had a sickout. Plus, a former teacher admitted to assaulting students. The sickout occurred because non-clergy teachers have been in a contract dispute with the Archdiocese. The Lay Faculty Association's Anthony Cusimano told NY1 they wanted to negotiate......

Norman Siegel, former NYCLU director, is taking the city to court today on behalf of Harlem residents opposed to the city’s plan for sports fields on Randall's Island. The city is building 63 new fields on the island in addition to the 36 fields already there; the construction is being partially financed by a consortium of private schools who will be given exclusive access to most of the fields between 3pm and 6pm on weekdays.......

Gross! A former assistant principal at I.S. 72 in Staten Island is accused of asking a 12-year-old student for massages - and then trying to buy her and her mother's silence with promises of private school payment! Lawrence Siegel was put in a district office job - not his usual gig at Rocco Laurie Intermediate School - while the Department of Education investigated him after a DOE parent support coordinator, per the Staten Island Advance,......

The Trinity School, a private school on the Upper West Side that charges annual tuition of $30,000 a year, is prepared to cash in on the rise in property values by opting out of the Mitchell-Lama housing program. That program was designed to reserve housing for middle-class tenants in New York through government subsidized loans and tax breaks. The disparity in below-market rents required by Mitchell-Lama and the value of the building that houses the......

The Supreme Court essentially upheld an Appeals Court ruling that said New York City must pay the private education of disabled students. The twist is that the students and their parents don't even need to try to see if the public school programs are adequate for them. Actually, there's another twist: The lawsuit against the city was filed by former Viacom CEO and co-founder of MTV, multimillionaire Tom Freston. Freston's son Gilbert has learning disabilities,......

Six years ago, the prospects for downtown Manhattan seemed uniformly bleak. A persistent fire that burned for months amidst the wreckage of the World Trade Center filled the air with an acrid smell that was a constant reminder of 9/11. Restaurants and shops shuttered for lack of business. And many firms considered moving across the river, fearing that every tower in the financial district had a virtual target painted on its facade. The New York......

This is a crazy story. Two Harlem teens were detained as truants because two cops didn't believe that they were going to their private school on the Upper West Side. The Post reports that Latrice Jenkins and a classmate were taken to a truancy center in Riverdale because cops thought they should be going to Alfred Smith High School, a public school in the Bronx. And what's worse, the kids were on their way to......

Last year around this time, the Observer pitted Williamsburg hipsters and Park Slope yuppies against each other. This year, the Observer tackles the yearning some native New Yorkers have for when NYC was bad (sorta like Michael Jackson video Bad!). Summer of Sam, Needle Park, Ford telling the city to drop dead, all of it seems better than it is now. Here's what some people told the Observer:- “I was flashed all the time—that’s......

The city's Franchise and Concession Review Committee is scheduled to vote this coming week on whether or not to approve a proposal to have twenty Manhattan private schools pay for part of the renovation of Randall's Island athletic fields in return for exclusive use of a majority of the fields. The plan, which is separate from the controversial water park, calls for schools such as Dalton and Spence to pay the city $52 million dollars......

We thought of one thing after reading the NY Times article about 92nd Street Y nursery school students' drivers clogging up the streets outside the school: Home schooling. Actually, we also thought "congestion tax," but reading about chauffeured SUVs for tiny children would drive most anyone crazy. The competitive (which also means prestigious) 92nd Street Y Nursery School sent out a letter to parents warning them that if their cars still caused gridlock, then their......

EVENT: Housing works is opening their new store in Brooklyn today. With great events and thrifty finds and a way to support the HIV-positive homeless community, it's nice to see the store is expanding. 11am to 7pm // Housing Works Thrift Store [122 Montague St, Brooklyn Heights] ART: Photographer Haik Kocharian’s solo show at Robin Rice Gallery is “Isild Le Besco: the Early Years”. Fans of French cinema know Le Besco for her mercurial screen......

A horrifying tragedy in Brooklyn: Sadier Jean Noel, who had jumped in front of a train on Monday as her 9 year old son's dead body was found in her apartment, admitted that "demons overtook her" and that she killed her son. Sadier Jean Noel said that son Knil was brooding about his birthday celebration from the day before - the family went to Junior's but Knil was upset an invited friend wasn't able to......

This week, New York focuses on moolah in a number of ways: The difficulties when friends make different amounts of money, five spending diaries of different New Yorkers, a story on a security guard who earns $10/hour, and more. But the real time-sucking feature is the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Cost-of-Living Calculator. You pick certain items (housing, lifestyle expenses, getaways) and a total is tallied for you. Then you get the most likely distressing news about what you......

The NY Times examines the growing trend of holding back children a year before kindergarten. Some parents feel an extra year of pre-school has many benefits, as their kids are more confident and have more skills under their belt - not to mention their kids won't be the littlest or youngest in the class anymore. The practice helps with getting children into private schools (implication: private schools rather deal with more mature kindergarteners) and with......

-- "I loved my baby!" cried the young mother of the 4-month-old who drowned in a bucket of her mother's vomit to the Judge. -- A 33-year-old man was stabbed on a 2 train between Union Square and 23rd Street around 3 AM this morning. He is currently in stable condition, police are still looking for his attacker. -- The city is asking reservists to return their Iraq pay. -- Over $29 million for......

Last month, a young woman was killed by thieves in her boyfriend's Flatbush apartment, and it turned out her boyfriend was a pot dealer, making police wonder if the boyfriend had been the true target. The victim, Tiesha Sargeant, had grown up in Flatbush, went to a Manhattan private school on scholarship, graduated from Wesleyan, and worked at Conde Nast and most recently at CSFB, making her the pride of her family. Her father, Henry,......

- Eliot Spitzer's ex-girlfriends - now we can better imagine the TV movie of his life - Tar caused the crazy fire at the FDNY/NYPD building in Brooklyn yesterday (in all tarnation?) - When it's getting tough to pay private school bills, who ya gonna call? Grammy and Grampaw! - Ooh, Penn & Teller will take on Ground Zero in tonight's episode of Bulls*&^! on Showtime tonight - Giuliani hits Iowa, Pataki just went to......

As usual, Thursday morning finds us trolling the Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association bulletin boards, looking for tasty morsels of real estate gossip. Today's find was a doozy-- one of the tenants posted a note asking for people to anonymously post their rents, and a frenzy of revelation ensued: I'm paying nearly $2600 for a renovated one-bedroom on a high floor. I am paying $3,200 for a 2br and wondering what I......

Mos Def, the rapper-turned-actor, is having child support problems. His estranged wife, Maria Yepes-Smith (Mos Def's real name is Dante Smith), says that he's failed the pay the full $10,000-a-month for their two daughters that he's owed for the first two months of the year, only paying $8,000 each time. Mos Def's lawyer claims that his business obligations, plus supporting three other children, are making it difficult. Def even spoke up during the hearing, much......

- Ooh, here's the list of other GOP seats the Mayor may look to knock into the Democrat's ring - The Staten Island case of a 14 year old who was stabbed by a group of kids involves the SI borough president's grandson - Two Harlem restaurants were busted in a $20 million drug ring - The NY Sun speaks to the woman who wants the city to pay for her kids to go to......

Forget Henrietta Hudson-- the new lesbian hotspot is the second floor of Stuyvesant High School during 10th period (after 3pm.) Of course, that's only if you believe the slightly tittilating cover article in this week's New York Magazine: Alair is headed for the section of the second-floor hallway where her friends gather every day during their free tenth period for the “cuddle puddle,” as she calls it. There are girls petting girls and girls......

This is awesome: A Queens woman is asking a judge to make the state pay for her five children to get a private school education. The basis for Dianne Payne's claim is that since the state owes the city about $5.6 billion to give public school students a basic education, the city is currently failing her kids and therefore, the $12,500 the city reportedly spends per student should just be given directly to her! Payne,......

If you ever want to figure out how to get the construction noise in your neighborhood reduced, look around to see if there's a school in the vicinity with a motived PTA. Parents at P.S. 234 in Tribeca are the subject of a NY Times article that highlights how parents were able to convince developers to meet their demands to make sure their kids' reading, writing and 'rithmetic wouldn't be unduly disturbed. They got the......

Shonali Bhowmik, Leader of indie band Tigers and Monkeys, member, Variety Shac...

A woman passed out not once but twice during the Mayor's press conference about Summer Success Academy. During the woman's second collapse, Mayor Bloomberg actually "rushed to her side," perhaps concerned how it would look if a constituent, though a government employee in the Department of Education, fainted twice during his speech. And luckily the woman woke up a few seconds later - no need for CPR or anything! No word on whether or not......

With a day to think about Tuesday night's Democratic debate, people are wondering what will happen at the next debate. Will the candidates be able to emerge as distinct candidates? The NY Times has the optimistic outlook, with pundits thinking that things can only get more exciting. Well, we can always hope the candidates will wander off message - our bet's on C. Virginia Fields to do that first. But Fields did sound the......