“Sort of,” she added.

At school, things seemed to be getting better this year, Sandra said. Many children thought she was Latina when they met her without the head scarf, because of her dark hair and dark, almond-shaped eyes. She had found an eclectic group of friends who accepted her, she said, “and now that I’ve found my place to blend in, I’m trying to break the habit of just trying to blend in with everyone.”

Other girls she knows from Islamic weekend school have had an easier time.

Salma Serour, 13, attends the Women’s Leadership School of Astoria, an all-girls public school popular with the parents of Islamic girls. “There was some teasing, but it was friendly,” she said of the reaction when she started covering her hair. “They called me Humpty Dumpty, but I thought it was pretty funny too.” She has a round face and smiles often.

But Nayerra Zahran, 14, said some students had tried to pull off her head scarf at her middle school, Our World Neighborhood Charter School, where she was the only girl wearing one. “They said, ‘Muslims, you stink,’ ” she said. “They sprayed Axe, perfume and everything. They used to say, ‘Oh, are you Bin Laden’s daughter?’ And it really didn’t make any sense.”

At Louis Armstrong, Sandra found comfort with her new friends, who were Jewish, Catholic, Spanish, black and Muslim. She was making progress at picturing getting back at people who bothered her without actually doing it. “I just imagine their reaction, satisfy myself off of it, and then attempt to control my temper by walking back and forth and holding my hands at my side,” she said.

But it was not to be. On Monday, Sandra’s parents pulled her out of Louis Armstrong; she started at a new middle school, Intermediate School 10 in Astoria, on Tuesday. The last straw came the previous week when, Sandra said, a group of four boys lit a cigarette in the back of one of her classes. They spotted her staring at them, and her mother became worried that they would retaliate if the incident were reported.

“Her safety is my main concern at this point,” Ms. Hussein said.

The new school is just 10 minutes’ walk from her apartment and has many more Muslim students. Sandra had a good first day. “Everybody’s been so friendly to me, and so nice,” she said. “I guess it’s just because I’m new.”

She doesn’t plan to put the veil back on yet, but she thinks she will know when she is ready.

Being a Muslim teenager in New York, she said in the weeks before her transfer, “can be hard sometimes.”

“But you have to remember, you have to fight through it,” she said, “and you have to live your own life, not other people’s lives. You have to live what you want yourself to be.”