It's grade-grubbing season in city schools but it's not students trying to argue their way up from a C to a B. It's principals.
Public elementary and middle school principals last week received an early look at the letter grades - A to F - that the city plans to publicly brand on each school by the end of the month.
Principals now have a chance to lodge appeals if they think their school's grade is inaccurate.
Or, if they know the test scores, attendance rates and other stats behind their grades are correct, they'll have a chance to break the potentially awkward news to parents before it hits the headlines.
"They're getting time to basically sit down and explain it and roll it out to their faculties and their teams rather than have it happen through the pages of the Daily News," said schools spokesman David Cantor.
Officials estimate that 5% of schools will get F's, 10% will get D's, 30% will get C's, 40% B's and 15% A's.
High schools won't get their preliminary grades until at least next week.
Their final grades are due for public release in November.
While state officials, for years, have published lists of failing schools, the city is using a different method that could explode long-standing reputations - both positively and negatively.
Schools will mainly be graded on how they compare with schools with similar student populations on standardized tests, with 55% of a school's grade going to how much students improve from year to year.
Another 30% of the grade comes from a school's overall exam performance and 15% is for "school environment," including attendance rates and the results of student, teacher and parent surveys.
