It's that time of year for Buffalo parents, as the admission process for criteria-based schools unwinds.
City Honors is a landmark in the city, with the restored lawn sweeping down from the classic building with its extensive additions to Michigan Avenue. It's also a fixture on those national lists of great schools. Principal William Kresse says the entering classes are getting better and better academically and the school is getting more students in the rehabbed building.
Kresse says he's constantly asked how the admissions process works and he cites state and federal law setting the ground rules.
"You have to have set criteria and then determine whether the children meet that criteria," Kresse said.
"So, really with our admissions process, it's not who you know or a committee of people subjectively determining who comes in. It's really all about the numbers."
City Honors looks at grades, attendance, teacher recommendations and I-Q tests.
He says the students are changing, reflecting changes in the city with a significant population of students of Arab background although counted as white by state rules.
The principal says there are also homeless kids who get in and perhaps 40-percent of the students are from families below the poverty line.
