If you’re still looking for a pre-Kindergarten program for your 4-year-old, the Department of Education wants you! According to the Daily News there are some 5400 open seats, so many that the DOE is advertising them on Craigslist.

What’s the catch? Many of the programs are half-day sessions, either morning or afternoon,which are inconvenient for working parents. But there are more than 900 full-day options as well, many of them in desirable schools. Be aware that some schools have just one open seat, whereas others have a few dozen.

If your child is turning four by Dec. 31, 2009, he or she is eligible. The DOE is asking parents to register by Oct. 30 because the city risks losing millions of dollars in state funding if they don’t fill the seats by Oct. 31. Openings will be filled on a “first-come, first-serve” basis,” according to the DOE.

Bear in mind, even if your child is accepted into a pre-K program this year, there is no guarantee that he or she will be able to attend the same school in kindergarten. You’ll have to apply again; priority is given to students living in the zone, and those with siblings already attending the school.

For a list of registration requirements, and schools and community organizations with available seats, check the DOE’s page on pre-kindergarten admissions.

For time immemorial, elementary school students have been pulled out of class for mandatory hearing tests — often administered by school aides in noisy hallways, or school closets. No more. The Department of Education announced this month that it has done away with hearing screening in elementary schools, following recommendations made by the United States Preventive Services Task Force, a group that advises the federal government on screening and preventive health services.

The reason for the reversal? Apparently there is no solid evidence that hearing screening at this age leads to better educational or social outcomes. In addition, many times the screenings showed a false positive - when actually the hearing loss was due to a temporary medical condition such as the build up of ear wax!

According to health officials, most severe hearing deficiencies are now detected in infancy, thanks to universal neonatal hearing screening.

While one screening in schools has been done away with, another has been added. Tuesday the Daily News reported that all students who attend publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs must undergo a mandatory screening for developmental delays. Last year some 56,000 kids attended public pre-K programs — this year there are even more enrolled, according to the DOE, although there is no final count as yet. (more…)

Claiborne Williams Milde is the parent of a kindergartner at PS 29 and a three-year-old preschooler. She lives in Brooklyn and is a freelance writer and cook. We’re pleased to welcome her regular contributions to The InsideSCOOP.

On a gray day this June, my daughter—I’ll call her Night Owl—stood on a blue riser and “stepped up” to kindergarten. The teacher spoke of what an amazing group of preschoolers this had been, and I realized how much I would miss the faces I saw each day at pick-up, at lunch duty, and on field trips. Another week of school followed Stepping Up, but it barely counted; as each day passed, paintings and projects disappeared from the walls, and with them, the room’s personality.

I flash back to Night Owl’s first day at PS 29. Climbing the huge stairway, she looked comically tiny, as if trying on a grownup’s clothes. I wondered how she, newly four, would tackle life in the big school. But pre-K turned out to be a safe bubble. Sure, there was structure and discipline, ABCs and 1,2,3s. But these little kids also rested on mats, tinkered in the play kitchen to their hearts’ content, and got plenty of hugs from the assistant teacher. In the final weeks, there was an aura of excitement as they practiced for fall by visiting kindergarten classrooms and lunching in the cafeteria. (more…)

Looking for a slot in a public pre-Kindergarten program for September? The second round of admissions will begin on Monday, July 13, according to the Department of Education. To be eligible, children must turn four years old by Dec. 31, 2009.

A directory of schools with open seats will be available online on Monday; paper copies will be ready on Friday, July 17 at enrollment offices, according to the DOE. Some programs with open seats  are full day; others are only half-day, offering  morning or afternoon sessions.

Applications can be submitted online or by mail; the deadline is July 31. Letters notifying  families of placement will be sent on Aug. 28 - rather late for those who are trying to figure where their four-year-olds will be attending school in the fall!

Pre-K should be part of local, zoned schools citywide, said two-thirds of readers who responded to our poll last week, with full-day pre-K strongly favored over half-day options. Universal pre-K is now offered at schools and community-based organizations; while some full-day programs exist, many are half-day, which means that working parents often place their kids in full-day, private programs (with the steep tuition to match) — or pay for child-care to cover the gaps half-day programs leave unfilled.

While we’re on the subject of tuition, and in this season of college-acceptance letters, FAFSA financial aid packets, and big debates about education and funding, we’re wondering what our readers think about planning for higher education. Whether it’s 15 years down the parenting turnpike or around the proverbial corner, for parents of high-schoolers, college costs loom large in the wee-hours worry department.  Let us know what you think on this week’s poll.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has joined the search for new pre-K locations in Greenwich Village, after news leaked last week that the pre-K classes would be bumped from overcrowded PS 3 and PS 41. An emergency task force has been assembled and, according to an email from Quinn sent this morning, they have been busy scouting locations for the Department of Education. Last Wednesday, Quinn showed up briefly at the protest on the steps of City Hall and spoke with a little boy and several parents. Two days later she met with Chancellor Klein and formed the task force.

The full text of the Speaker’s email, and a second email from task force member Rebecca Daniels, after the jump:

(more…)

Last week, we asked what you thought the Department of Education should do if the swine flu continued to spread. Most voters agreed that the system should keep running, with 36 percent of voters advising that only children and teachers with symptoms should stay out of school and 30 percent of voters suggesting that individual schools with confirmed cases should be closed. Twenty-two percent of voters, however, thought that the whole school system should be shuttered until the threat passed. See the full poll results here.

This week we are wondering about pre-K. After the news leaked that the Department of Education might close pre-K programs at some overcrowded elementary schools, parents began debating whether pre-K in elementary schools is a right, privilege, or drain on elementary school resources. What do you think? Add your comments here.

It’s admissions season at the Department of Education — another week, another deadline.

This week, parents of 2009 pre-Kindergarten students must submit applications for the coming year; links here to the online application and school directory. You can also pick up a paper copy of the application at your local elementary schools.

Take a look at the directory for particulars on enrollment priority — siblings first, followed by children who live in the school’s zone. If you don’t know your zone, call 311, or use the DOE’s map finder. Only children born in 2005 may apply for pre-K.

The pre-K and kindergarten process have gone through some dramatic changes in recent years: Families should understand that enrollment in a pre-K does not guarantee enrollment in the same school’s kindergarten. There is no “automatic articulation” — DOE-speak for moving up from one class to the next — and all students must apply again for kindergarten, even if the family would like their child to continue at the same school.

The DOE offers half- and full-day programs in all five boroughs. If you’re still school-shopping, check here for tips – but make your choices quickly, as the deadline is fast approaching. According to the DOE, families will get placement news the week of May 18.

Parents have been asking how the kindergarten placement process works; we asked the DOE for details — and why they advised families to “wait until September” for possible placements at local schools.

Zoned schools fill their seats drawing from the applications they receive before the March 6 deadline, says Andy Jacob of the Department of Education. (This is a change from years past, when schools accepted students on a first-come, first-served basis, or based on pre-K enrollment.) If more children apply than the school has seats, a lottery should be held; some students will receive placement offers, and others will be wait-listed. There is no ‘rank’ or priority of any kind on wait lists, Jacob says. As seats open over the spring and summer, as families move, opt for other schools or opt out of public schools — families are notified. “We simply don’t have a really solid grasp on seats that are available until September,” Jacob said, which is why he advises watchful waiting. (The DOE also doesn’t know the total number of kindergarten applications citywide. It’s up to individual schools to count the applications they receive.)

All zoned schools reserve some seats for the inevitable September arrivals. The number of seats they save depends on past years’ enrollment and prior experience with latecomers. But not every family who moves into a zone can get a seat at their zoned school of choice. Jacob says, “we guarantee a kindergarten seat, but we don’t guarantee a seat at your top school.”

Some families have received offers from two schools while others have received no offers. Because each school administers its own admissions process, it’s possible for a single child to receive more than one offer. Families can ask to be placed on their zoned school’s wait list even if they’ve been offered a seat at another school. According to Jacob, they do not forfeit the wait-list spot if they accept placement at another school.

In a zoned school that has more applications than available seats, capping the number of kindergarten classes the school will have is a last resort, says Jacob, and isn’t undertaken casually. The DOE will first ask a zoned school if another class can be opened, or if classes are already filled to the UFT contractual maximum. “There are lots of steps before capping,” says Jacob, and a school can’t elect to cap its classes independently. “The school has to accept zoned students unless a capping plan is worked out by the DOE,” says Jacob. Timing-wise, decisions are made right up to the start of the new school year, which is why the waiting game takes so long. Families whose children applied to but aren’t placed at their zoned school are “offered different options nearby,” says Jacob. Accepting a seat doesn’t mean giving up access; “they have the right to return,” he says, if and when seats open up at their zoned school.

“This is nothing new,” Jacob said. “It’s something we’re used to dealing with every year.” What’s “routine” to the DOE is vitally new to plenty of local families who report frustration and disappointment with the kindergarten admissions process. We’ll continue to ask questions, and we look forward to bringing you answers.

Update: Andy Jacob asked that we clarify two points above: First, regarding wait lists at zoned schools, enrollment priority goes in the order established by DOE on the initial application — siblings of current students who live in the zone (who are rarely, if ever, wait-listed), students who live in the zone , siblings who live outside of the zone, and, finally, out-of-zone kids. Within those subgroups, applications are not ranked in any particular order. That means that all zoned kids on the wait list are in the same pool, and that, as seats open, applications are randomly selected from that pool (once siblings have been accommodated). So you can’t be first, or last, on the wait list, but rather you are part of a group of wait-listed students.

Second, Jacob would like to emphasize that DOE will place all students in kindergarten classes — although there’s no guarantee of a placement at every family’s zoned school. He says that in some cases, families may be offered more than one alternative to their zoned school, in an effort to find a good fit between the child, the family, and the school.

Elissa Gootman writes today about families whose kids didn’t get kindergarten seats in their local schools, a block and a half from home. We’re also hearing from parents whose children haven’t been offered seats in nearby schools — and, in District 28 in Queens, of students offered kindergarten seats at two elementary schools (which is a byproduct of the new system, since parents are able to apply to any number of schools and each school handles its own admissions offers).

DOE spokesman Andy Jacob says that families should wait until September — a comment that seems a little cavalier on the surface, as families who’ve been in the kindergarten search mode for many months will take little comfort in waiting another two seasons. But, Jacob adds, “the bottom line is schools have to accommodate all of their zoned students, unless they work out a capping plan with us, and that happens in September.” So far, Gootman reports, 34 schools outside Manhattan have capped their kindergarten enrollment. It’s not known how many more will say “enough” — or if the capping trend will extend to Manhattan, where schools have never, according to Jacob, previously capped their kindergarten registers.

The landscape is additionally complicated by zoning questions — some areas that once had zoned elementaries no longer do, other neigh borhoods have seen a new school open without rezoning the surrounding blocks. The basic question — whether the DOE’s standardized kindergarten enrollment process makes sense — remains open. Let’s hope that city families won’t have to wait until September for that answer, too.

The deadline for kindergarten registration has been extended by the DOE to April 20, to accomodate the school vacation in mid-April.

Thanks to our commenters for the calendar check, and watch the blog for more kindergarten news in the coming days.

Dear Judy,*

We tried to register my son for kindergarten last week but were denied because of insufficient documentation. We were given a “tentative” registration but told to return with more documents ASAP.

We live in the school’s zone (we’re not trying to “game” the system) but we’re stumped as to how to meet the tough standards for documentation. We live in a co-op (thus utility bills are in the co-ops’ name, not ours) and also do all of our personal banking and bill paying electronically. In addition, my office is paperless as well, with all payroll on line. Because the schools do not accept computer print outs of documents, we are having trouble.

- Cyberdad

Dear Cyberdad,

According to Marty Barr, the director of elementary school enrollment, there are ways to get around proving residence despite the problems caused by living in a co-op and in a totally paperless universe.

You say the school accepted the documents that you submitted re the co-op, namely a mortgage statement. Another acceptable document is a proprietary lease with your name and address on it. But that is only one category. You need proof from another.

Here are some suggestions from the Department of Education for the second proof:

Request a letter from the human resources department in your office (there must be some official letterhead stationery around.) The letter should attest to the fact that your company submits payroll deductions, W2’s and 1099’s to the IRS using your address. The letter should be dated and mailed to you and you should submit the letter in the envelope, showing that you received it at your address. He also said that you can request a letter from your bank attesting to your address, and mailed to your address.

There are other possibilities including a letter from any other official agency on letterhead such as a tax refund from the state or federal government, a jury notice, an overdue parking ticket, or a letter from the social security administration re your status. You can request this if you have not received it but timing can’t be predicted.

You may find the list of documents required for registration on the Department’s website. You can find more information about enrolling in kindergarten in our Basics section.

Good luck,

Judy

*This question was not sent to Insideschools.org but was posted on a Brooklyn parent listserv.

 Have a school question for Judy?  Search archives | Contact Judy

Parents of children born in 2005 — who will turn four in calendar year 2009 — can find pre-kindergarten applications, information and school directories online. (A curious disclaimer appears when you click on the ‘applications’ link, which says “The site you are about to visit may not be under the jurisdiction of the New York City Department of Education and thus the Department of Education may not be responsible for its content.” Doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence; clarification is anticipated later today from DOE.)

The DOE’s cautionary note deserves a mention, too: since the applications are NOT processed on a first-come, first-serve basis, parents should take time and care to make good choices for their kids and not feel pressed to submit the application pronto. The deadline for applications is April 3.

Some local listservs have been buzzing with concerns about pre-K siblings displacing children who do not have older siblings in elementary school. It’s easy to get caught up in this, but know that last year, siblings represented a distinct minority of pre-K students who were offered seats. Also important to note: families who wish to enroll younger sibs in their older child’s school must list that school first; the preference doesn’t hold without the primary ranking.

Update: According to Andy Jacob of the DOE’s press office, the application resides on a different server but is fully under DOE direction. The disclaimer, which he says “might be confusing for some people,” will be removed from the site.

Pre-K information sessions got underway this week, for parents of children who will turn 4 in 2009. As noted in prior posts, the application will be online this year, and both the application and school directory will be available starting this Friday, March 6. There’s another session tonight at Brooklyn Tech, and tomorrow evening at John Adams High School in Queens (see the full schedule here).

Brooklyn blogger and schools consultant Joyce Szuflita posted a detailed report on a pre-K session she attended. Notably, this year families may apply to more schools than they could last year, and they can see the number of applications each school received in the first application round last year and the total number of seats available. Even though it’s not detailed enough to know how families ranked the schools — which were the most popular and which were the most reliable fall-backs — any information that gives parents some context for their child’s application (and the odds of admission) is more than welcome.

Another change to gladden the hearts of parents citywide: This year, applications will not be mailed to Pennsylvania for processing. DOE representatives repeated “we’ll be processing them at Central” — although the exact destination can’t be known until the applications are published.

On Friday, we’ll take some time to walk through the application. Stay tuned.

Since city students and teachers enjoyed their first snow day in five years, the Department of Education pushed back the first day of the state math test for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students, from Tuesday to Wednesday. Middle school students will remain on schedule, taking the test on March 10 and 11.

Today was supposed to be the final day for kindergarten applications, but because of the inclement weather, the deadline for parents to visit elementary schools and fill out an application has been extended to Friday, March 6. We can only hope that this extension won’t be a sign of delays to come.

The mayor offered some advice to students who are hoping for a second day off tomorrow: “things can always change,” he said, “but my suggestion is to do your homework.”

DOE officials announced yesterday that applications for pre-K will be available on March 6th, online as well as on paper, for New York City parents. Children who will celebrate their fourth birthday in 2009 are eligible to apply, and directories will be on hand (also starting the 6th) at local elementary schools, borough enrollment offices, and community-based organizations. (See more here.)

The deadline for submission is April 3d, and the DOE says that they’ll notify families of placement offers on May 18. As was the case last year, siblings of current elementary-school students have priority enrollment at their sibling’s school, provided that school is ranked first on the pre-K application. New this year, though, is the online application process, which will include a confirmation email sent by DOE to assure parents their application has been received.

Starting March 3rd, DOE representatives from the office of enrollment and early-childhood education will host a series of 11 evening information sessions citywide. And eager parents, take a note: the DOE says each session will cover the same basic info, so there’s no need to attend multiple meetings.

Earlier this week, the DOE released calendar guidelines for pre-kindergarten admissions. (Funny how these announcements often coincide with vacation season, when parents are more likely to miss the news… but never mind.) Children who will celebrate their fourth birthdays in 2009 are eligible for universal pre-K, either at a public elementary school or through a DOE-approved community-based organization.

Starting March 6, directories and applications are available at public elementary schools and CBOs. (CBOs set their own admissions calendar; learn more about 2008-09 CBO programs here.) Applications will be accepted starting March 6 and can be submitted electronically or on paper.

The application period closes on Friday, April 3.

About six weeks later, during the week of May 18, school-placement offers will be sent to families by US mail; those who apply by email can get placement news electronically, if they wish.

Registration follows, through May 29.

Information sessions are planned across the city from March 3 through March 12, to help parents understand their pre-K options and the ins and outs of the admissions process. For extra information, have a look at our resources, at the DOE’s site, or sign up here for DOE’s pre-K email newsletter.

Good luck to all, with sincere hopes for a smoother process this year than last.

Four weeks into the new kindergarten application process, parents and officials at some of the city’s 800 elementary schools report a bumpy start. Parents say they are being turned away from schools that are not in their zone, and some schools aren’t following Department of Education guidelines.

The DOE standardized the timeline and admissions rules for the 2009 kindergarten class, granting parents a six-week period to apply to all schools they are interested in, regardless of their school zone. Parents may apply in person to schools by March 2, and schools will extend offers of admissions in mid-March according to a set list of priorities.

“We decided that the best way we could improve the kindergarten process was to set a clear timeline that all schools would use and eliminate some of the stress that came with first-come first-served admissions,” said Andy Jacob, a spokesperson for the DOE.

However, the transition to the new system hasn’t been entirely smooth. “Everyone has a different story,” said one parent from Forest Hills, who, like all other parents Insideschools.org spoke to, did not want to be identified by name. “No one person knows exactly the rules… I have had close to five arguments with different [employees] of the DOE before my little guy is even in the system!”

Getting the word out

The application process officially began on Jan. 12, according to the centralized timetable, but some schools were not ready for applicants. One parent said her zoned school was unaware of the process until she arrived to apply and informed them of the policy change. She waited an hour while they scrambled to come up with a system to deal with applicants.

According to the DOE, parents need to bring only two proofs of residence to apply before March 2, but some schools maintain their own requirements. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, staff at P.S. 199 told a parent to come after March 2 and to bring three proofs of residence. Parent Coordinator Carmen Russo said that PS 199 was using the information gathered from the monthly school tours to fulfill the application requirement and signing parents up for meetings with documentation afterward. A sign posted outside P.S. 234 in Tribeca states that the school will accept bank and credit card statements as proof of residence but not leases, which is a departure from the DOE’s regulation.

“One person told me that principals have the right to say what they want,” said the mother from Forest Hills. “They rule their own schools without any concern to the DOE.”

Marty Barr, the executive director of elementary school enrollment, said that principals were sent a detailed memo outlining the change in November and given specific direction through web-casts in December. Parents of pre-kindergarten students were sent postcards, and the process is prominently posted on the DOE’s website.

“We expect schools to follow the guidelines that we set,” said DOE Spokesperson Jacob. “To the extent that we can monitor it, we will, but if parents or anyone else brings something to our attention of a school not following the guidelines we set, then we will follow up with the school.”

Apply to as many schools as you want - but will you get in?

The DOE’s memo advises families to apply to “every school they are interested in having their child attend, including their zoned school,” but in reality, administrators at popular schools are dissuading families who don’t live in the zone from applying. “We are a catchment school and only accept students from our catchment,” said the parent coordinator at PS 199, although she added that the school was keeping a record of out-of-zone families who apply.

On the Insideschools.org forum, a mom posted a letter she wrote to Chancellor Joel Klein describing how an elementary school out of her zone initially refused to allow her to apply. When she returned to the school with the DOE’s memo, she said the principal responded, “Oh, yeah, I know about that, but I can tell you now, you will not be going to this school.” Only after insisting was she allowed to submit her son’s information.

The parent of a child with special needs said she thought she had misunderstood the policy after every school she called out of her zone told her that her child had no chance of being accepted.

A Brooklyn mother in District 21 asked the administrative assistant at her zoned school if her child would be accepted. “She told me there is no guarantees,” the parent wrote in an e-mail to Insideschools.org. “If I were to play it safe, I should go to another school and apply there, as well.” She followed the advice and went to a second school. “The office worker at the second school told me that most likely we will get accepted to our zone school and didn’t understand why they were sending people to other schools,” she said. “I don’t know if I should submit the application to the second school because I don’t want to [weigh] them down with paperwork that isn’t necessary.”

Extra work for the schools?

Parents and administrators question whether asking families to apply this early and encouraging them to apply to multiple schools creates unnecessary work for the schools. A mother who lives on the Upper West Side admits that her family is not sure of their plans, and although they applied at their zoned school, they are waiting for admissions decisions from private schools and scores on the gifted and talented test.

At PS 234, the lines of parents trying to apply have stretched down the block each morning, one father reported to Insideschools.org in an e-mail. Since the school has hired extra staff to help with the process through Feb. 6, the school is encouraging parents to apply by the end of this week.

Christina Fuentes, principal of PS 24 in Brooklyn, reports that her staff has established “a nice, orderly process” for parents. She anticipates having room for 120 kindergarteners, and as of Feb. 2, had accepted applications from 86 families, seven of whom don’t live in the school’s zone. But she expects a lot of movement before school opens in September.

“We have a lot of mobility in our community,” she said, especially as the economy has faltered. “This process feels like it is potentially a lot of paperwork for us and a lot of contact with families that may be a moot point because then they are gone by September.”

Parents who are experiencing difficulties in applying for kindergarten can call the central elementary school enrollment office at 212-374-4948.

How do you think the kindergarten process is working? Join the conversation on our forum.

Parents of prospective kindergarteners, take note: The admissions process will begin in January 2009. For details, read the whole story here.

Parents new to the process might also want to have a look at our guide to elementary school enrollment ; there’s a lot to learn, and not just for the tots.

In response to swirling confusion on this blog and other local parenting sites, here is the official, on the record, DOE sibling enrollment policy for prospective kindergarten students. Enrollment priority, in descending order:

“Zoned students with siblings,

Zoned students without siblings,

Non-zoned students with siblings - first in district, then out,

Non-zoned students without siblings - first in district, then out.”

Chancellor Joel Klein, visiting the Hudson Guild Children’s Center, announced today that “thousands” of seats remain open in the city’s universal pre-K program.

Worth asking: How did the seat surplus occur at all, given the high demand for pre-K seats? And, given this surplus, how did the seats go unfilled for this first month of the academic year?

The DOE has posted a pre-K page that lists schools and community-based organizations with current openings. Most are half-day, which limit their use for kids of working parents.

See this article for more information on the 6000 seats Chancellor Klein said are waiting for young pupils.

The DOE has updated its pre-K registers and says there are half- and full-day spots open at some city schools. Have a look at their updated directory (PDF) to see what’s available; registration begins next Thursday, the 28th, and wraps up on the first day of school.

Some parents have written in to say their kids didn’t get placements or were offered pre-K seats far from their homes. The frustrations are real (and the time before school is short). Here’s hoping that the Pre-K Borough Enrollment staff help resolve open questions (PDF) and that the DOE responds to the outspoken demand for seats in good schools by expanding pre-K opportunities.

Families who applied for pre-K seats in the second application round should have news by the end of this week; letters went out by mail yesterday afternoon, according to an email from the DOE’s Andy Jacob.

A number of parents have been wondering whether others in the city have heard any placement news on their child’s round II pre-K application.

DOE said they’d let folks know by now (mid-August), but many don’t have news yet. To connect with other pre-K parents, visit our forums, click on the pre-K thread, and join the conversation. And let us know, please, where the news has arrived — and where it hasn’t.

Last week, Insideschools spoke with Anna Commitante (head of DOE G+T), Elizabeth Sciabarra (OSEPO head) and Marty Barr (OSEPO’s elementary-schools head) about gifted and talented programs, enrollment, and admissions policies. Here are highlights from our conversation; a longer article in the next alert will answer some new questions, too.

Centralized admissions will still be the mode for grade-school gifted and talented programs in 2009-2010. The two exams currently used to evaluate youngsters, the OLSAT and the Bracken School Readiness Test, will continue in use; there is no plan whatsoever to add a human, subjective eye to assess the effects of, say, a suddenly tongue-tied, shy, or stubborn four-year-old. The OLSAT carries triple the weight of the Bracken, because the former looks at aptitude and the latter, at actual knowledge (letters, numbers, colors, etc.).

Sibling priority enrollment meant, this year, that applicants with older sibs in the program or in the school building (a subject of significant confusion at PS 9, which also houses the Anderson School) were eligible for citywide g+t classes at lower test scores than kids who don’t have sibs in the first-choice school. The three citywide g+t schools, Anderson, NEST+m, and TAG, accepted siblings with scores from the 99th to the 96th percentile. Non-sib applicants were admitted at the 99th percentile at NEST and Anderson, with a few exceptions at TAG.

We asked how many of the newest crop of citywide g+t Kindergarten students were younger siblings vs. non-sibs; DOE rep Andy Jacob said he would get us the numbers, and we hope he will.

The question of opening a new citywide g+t school in an outer borough is under discussion, but has not yet been resolved. (We’ll know more in a few weeks, promises Liz Sciabarra.) Ditto, for whether gen-ed Kindergarten applications will be centralized or school-based. Pre-K applications will, however, continue to be centralized again this year — but the timeframe will be earlier, and communication, everyone promises, will be better, clearer, and more consistent.

As parents learned this year, some districts start g+t programming in Kindergarten, and others in first grade. While there’s no citywide mandate to regulate when g+t ’should’ start (or, for that matter, an official, citywide g+t curriculum, above and beyond grade standards), DOE planners now recognize that their guarantee to seat every qualified student was understood by many parents to mean, starting in Kindergarten, with new classes created where none existed before.

But new K classes were never part of the plan, said Marty Barr. The decision to hold over scores — the ‘exemptions’ parents got letters about — came about in the wake of parent protest. Most kids who qualify for g+t seats will receive them, but in first grade. (Qualifying students in Districts 7 and 14, however, were offered seats in alternate districts, because no g+t programs were offered within 7 and 14, forcing parents to consider commuting challenges and other daunting logistics.)

“It’s a communication issue,” said Sciabarra, who cited ‘lessons learned’ and a desire to “take the angst out” of admissions. “We have to do better at that.”

We couldn’t agree more.

(Readers seeking nitty-gritty answers to fine-tooth questions, watch for an expanded story in the upcoming alert — too much here to bog down the blog.)

by Liz Willen

There’s no way of getting around the constant search for schools in New York City — from getting into pre-kindergarten (far more complicated than necessary this year) to finding a good neighborhood school to choosing a district with enough reasonable middle school choices to mitigate the nagging “what’s next?” anxiety that accompanies raising kids here.

But pluses like diversity, excitement, culture, and the thrill of outdoor movies, music and river-art waterfalls, all within easy commuting distance, become meaningless for parents who do not believe their children can obtain a first-rate education in the New York City public school system. That’s why word-of-mouth makes the best schools instantly popular, and why landlords hold enormous power in neighborhoods graced with good schools.

New York City living is a series of trade-offs. You give up on the idea of a backyard in favor of a public park or playground, convince your children that all siblings share their bedrooms (or sleep in rooms that resemble monastery cells), forgo owning a car or move it constantly — and pay those pesky parking tickets when you forget. It’s all a lot easier to take if you feel good about the schools.

All of this became even more sharply apparent to me recently when a West Coast colleague without New York City know-how or connections who was moving here in a big hurry wanted help and advice. She wanted the basics, which can feel impossible: a decent apartment near a good neighborhood public school that would welcome her children as newcomers.

She figured she could accomplish this in one weekend.

I turned her onto to Insideschools.org and gave her a list of some of the most well known and loved schools near hew new job in lower Manhattan — PS 150, PS 234 and PS 89. A quick look at listings made it clear that a two-bedroom in these areas would cost at least $5,600, so lower Manhattan was quickly ruled out.

Then it was on to Brooklyn, where principals and parent coordinators were warm and welcoming — and some landlords asked for as many as five months’ rent as security, in advance. Prices were still killer — a fifth-floor walk-up “bargain” was nearly $3,000 a month. The second ‘bedroom’ owed its existence to a door on a walk-in closet.

The apartment could not be instantly discounted, though, as it had the huge advantage of being zoned for PS 321, long established as one of the city’s best.

Such high prices forced my colleague toward a wider search and scrutiny of other, less-commuting-convenient neighborhoods, with schools that were less well known, but equally loved by hard-working parents and staff.

For a renter in a hurry, it’s turning out to be a lot more homework. She’s coming back, but convinced she’ll have to look at the high cost of renting near the schools she wants as “tuition.”

That’s life in New York City.

Looks like the DOE has made room for pre-K siblings of elementary school students. Extra paraprofessionals now treading water in the DOE ‘excessed’ pool will ease the class-size expansion to 20 from the legally mandated cap of 18.

What’s great news for families may be a mixed bag for those who submitted second-round pre-K applications. The deadline for that process was last Friday; families can expect to hear placement news by mid-August.

More money woes this week: city funding for pre-K programs run by community groups was cut in half, leading to the overnight evaporation of about 300 seats. Yet Obama accepted the endorsement of the national teachers union (AFT) union, vowing his commitment to “quality, affordable early childhood education for all our children,” and McCain announced his intention to fully fund No Child Left Behind, offer private school vouchers and put tutoring funds directly in the hands of parents. Ambitious plans on all sides, given the current economic climate.

Meanwhile, NYC education bigwigs are going national: Joel Klein is hoping to advise the next president and UFT President Randy Weingarten was elected head of the AFT. She says she’s staying in New York for now (and announcing fresh lawsuits on behalf of city teachers) but just might be grooming a successor. Klein, who claims accountability as his hallmark reform, might want to explain why it apparently took a newspaper article to stop the city school bus system from “losing” parent complaints.

Children’s health came under fresh scrutiny: A new report confirms what parents have known for eons — that America’s active kids morph into sedentary teenagers – and documents health risks that have led others to recommend cholesterol meds for kids. And each successive scandal that the Administration for Childrens Services (ACS) faces tragically impacts the city’s most vulnerable citizens.

Too many teens are stuck in middle school , according to a report released by Advocates for Children. While some kids in the Bronx are apathetic about keeping their neighborhood clean, juvenile offenders are helping restore and reopen classic American diners. And the Times celebrated high school theater geekdom at its best, which seems a lot more wholesome than the current crop of product-infused teen novels. But for now, ditch the screen, shut the book, and get out! It’s summer.

A second round of pre-K applications is underway for September 2008 placements. Any family may apply, according to the DOE, including those who’ve not applied before, those who applied earlier but weren’t offered seats, and those who chose to decline the first-round offer.

Here’s a directory of schools with pre-K openings; more than 450 schools have space in their full- or half-day programs, although the number of actual seats isn’t clear. Siblings have first preference provided the older sibling’s school is listed first (the cause of much frustration and confusion on the first round, when it wasn’t spelled out on the application). After siblings, priority goes to zoned, in-district kids, and then to out-of-district applicants.

The application is here. Mail it to the address in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania (at the bottom of the application) or, if you’re of the “better safe than sorry” persuasion, walk it into your local borough placement center by Friday, July 18. Placements will be completed by mid-August.

Good luck!

We’re hoping to take advantage of summer to ask the DOE questions about some things that confused many readers this year, both to understand what happened and explore what’s on deck for 2008-09.

We want to know about middle-school admissions – the calendar, the process, and how special-needs students can better be included. We want to know about gifted + talented programs — admissions, lotteries, citywide schools, and qualifying tests. And we want to know how the DOE aims to prevent the pre-K admissions confusion that characterized this year’s experience. We also have questions about centralization and how much decision-making power rests with the districts, for both K and middle school.

What do you want to know? Now’s the time to write our wish list; with weeks to go before the pre-September ramp-up, we can try to get some answers. Let us hear from you.

Rally today at 1pm at City Hall, organized by Council Member David Weprin of Queens and joined by Council colleagues and parents citywide to protest pre-K admissions — and omissions.

Bring kids, signs, and lots of water — and plan on extra travel time, especially if you’re coming from uptown, as the Puerto Rican Day Parade celebrates on Fifth.

Eyes and ears on the ground, let us know what you see and hear.

As plenty of parents can attest, talk has been swirling about pre-K and middle-school appeals, and second round applications for pre-K. Here’s the latest:

Appeals for pre-K are due to the DOE by next Friday, June 13. These appeals are meant to address clerical/record-keeping issues, like address changes, name misspellings, etc. These are NOT for parents who wish to appeal their child’s exclusion from pre-K.

If you feel your child was wrongly placed or simply excluded from your zoned school, write the DOE’s OSEPO office at Tweed pronto, if you haven’t already. There is no hard deadline for these letters, but their aim is to resolve all open queries before the round-two pre-K apps begin on June 23d.

To participate in the second round of pre-K admissions, get hold of an application from your borough OSEPO office. Parents seeking sibling priority seats should receive them by mail from the DOE. (Be good enough, readers, to let us know if and when the 2nd round applications arrive — thanks.) The second round begins on June 23d; there is no deadline yet set for that process, although one will be decided soon (says the DOE) and posted here, of course, and on their site.

Caveat emptor, parents: If you elect to participate in round two and are granted a pre-K seat, you are obliged to accept that seat for your child. In other words, you can’t hold on to a first-round placement in hopes of another, somehow better second placement. If your bid’s in the ring, you have to accept the outcome. Fair’s fair.

On middle schools, elementary schools in districts with appeals processes have, apparently, distributed appeals information. (Help us out again, here, readers: What’s in your child’s backpack?)

If your 5th-grader applied to a middle school in another district, contact the out-of-district school’s guidance counselor for appeals particulars. If you’re still unable to resolve your concerns, contact your borough OSEPO office — be patient, be prepared for some phone tag, but be persistent, too. Remember, not all districts have formal appeals processes. (In this case, fair’s not exactly fair.)

Parents in Brooklyn and elsewhere say some of their fifth-graders didn’t get any place at all in middle school, or got placed at schools they didn’t include on their applications. If this is true for your child, let us know — getting a sense of the scope of the challenge is the first step.

The Pre-K coverage in today’s Times brings familiar tales of woe — siblings bounced, in-zone kids displaced by out-of-zone applicants — but some semi-encouraging news: it seems that OSEPO might reconsider its plan to standardize next year’s kindergarten admissions. Other reports (and our own communication with the DOE) suggest that the DOE will be moving the middle school process earlier in the calendar year next year, to prevent bottlenecks and delays. While it’s little salve for this year’s slings and arrows, at least there’s hope that a) they’re listening and b) the process just may improve in its next iteration.

For readers waiting for answers to specific questions, we’re still waiting, too. With luck, we’ll have responses soon.

Lots of questions waiting for answers from the DOE, but in the meanwhile, here’s some feedback on specifics that have come in via comments. (Thanks as ever for posting, and for voicing questions shared by scores of city parents.)

One parent asked about out-of-zone kids getting pre-K seats while her child wasn’t seated at their zoned school. You can try to appeal the decision, but chances are, no one will officially tell you how the decision to exclude your child and include another was made. The party line is that no out-of-zone kids were offered seats unless in-zone kids were all covered; this may give you some basis for an appeal, but unfortunately, nothing’s certain.

Bronx shrink, I checked the pre-K application again, and checked in with the DOE. The application does stipulate that the older sibling be continuing in elementary school — but it doesn’t say ‘boo’ about ranking the big-sib’s school as a first choice. Waiting for official word back on this, and will report more when it’s known.

Dr Monty asked about appealing middle school placement. Last year, a few districts offered appeals (details here); D 15 does, but D 21 and 22 do not. Brutal, I know. Insult to injury, the deadline last year for appeals was May 25th, well ahead of first-round news for most parents this year. Try contacting parent coordinators at the school/s in question to see if any informal process exists. Sometimes a bit of relationship-building can go a long way.

Keep the questions flowing.

Local papers largely skip over the pre-K situation today; there’s Sam Freedman’s valedictory at the Times — on to other endeavors — and a cursory nod at the Post. The Sun previews possible zoning changes, sure to cast fear into the hearts of homeowners and high-rent tenants citywide, while the News fans latent MRSA fears. We’ve still got pre-K questions, though, and we’re still waiting for answers.

Incredible as it seems, we’ve had some follow-up from the DOE on pre-K sibling applications.

The DOE has reviewed “about 9,000 sibling applications by hand, ” according to Andy Jacob, and found “issues we might need to address” in about 200, some of which are still under review. Some scenarios are clear, as when one twin was sent to one school and another twin to another school. “That’s a mistake on our end, and we will address it,” says Jacob. Address matching issues persist, as do some questions about sibling verification (when sibling ID numbers were incomplete on the application, for example). And he says some parents thought the sibling preference pertained even when the older sib was graduating, or when the big-sib’s school wasn’t listed first — no dice.

Jacobs’ bottom line: “In any of these cases, where we are able to verify a sibling that meets the criteria we set, we will contact the parents directly to work out a suitable placement.” Read those tea leaves for a mixed message: A younger sibling will get a pre-K seat, but ’suitable placement’ doesn’t really guarantee that seat will be at the same school.

It’s worth noting that of 20,000 pre-K applications submitted, 17,000 children were offered seats, 15,000 at their first-choice schools. The DOE’s count of 200 possible sibling errors works out to 1%, which doesn’t sound so extreme in the abstract — unless and until it’s your kid. And it’s cold comfort to the 3,000 families whose applications were denied altogether.

Waiting for deadline info on second-round applications; a slight bit of good news is that parents will receive application materials by mail, if they don’t want to trek to the OSEPO offices — but after the ongoing postal misadventures, a little snail-mail wariness is fully understandable.

good night -

It’s hard to imagine how much more time the DOE will require to review the pre-K applications that have caused so much turmoil. But as there’s no official word there beyond ‘we’re working on it and will let parents know,’ I don’t have news of substance to report.

For those seeking political recourse, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum will hold a press conference at Tweed tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12:45pm; Council Member Bill DeBlasio of Brooklyn will speak around 1p. (We’ll be there, too.)

Questions abound in regard to potentially unclaimed seats — those offered to families who, for reasons of distance, convenience or sheer frustration with the DOE morass, will make other pre-K choices. Because the process was a citywide effort this year, schools don’t have official wait lists, and there is no “trading up,” as one poster had hoped, from a spot at a second- or third-choice school if a place at the first-choice school opens. If your child was offered a seat, you can accept or decline — no wheeling-dealing.

Families of children who have not been offered a seat can participate in a second round of pre-K admissions, which opens (no typo) June 23d, just three days before school lets out for summer. Not all schools will have empty seats, but this is how the seats that aren’t spoken for will be filled.

As of this writing, you have to go to an OSEPO borough office to get the paperwork and a directory of schools. Amazingly, the powers that be haven’t yet published a deadline for second-round applications — I’m working on it.

Despite widely-voiced hopes of a formal response from the DOE on the preK imbroglio, there’s no real news on that front today, and not much consolation for worried parents.

Representatives say that parents who received offers for their children should go ahead with registration, and say that the application review that’s been underway these past many days is ongoing. Discouraging non-news, to say the least.

Time for the afternoon mail? Keep us posted.

Last week’s budget arguments continue to expand; this afternoon, the Alliance for Quality Education will protest the proposed $428 million cut, starting at 4 pm, at Stuyvesant High School. If you’re stuck at work, write your City Council representative. If you attend, let us know what you see and hear.

Meanwhile, public hearings will start later this week on 2008-09 Council For Excellence funds, the direction of which seem very much in question, given Klein’s desire to redirect C4E dollars to equalize budget cuts across the city’s schools. (See preliminary budget information here.) C4E moneys are legally mandated to target specific, high-need schools and high-need students, in six program areas — “class size reduction, time on task, teacher and principal quality initiatives, middle school and high school restructuring, full-day pre-Kindergarten, and model programs for English Language Learners” — a mandate that would be altered if Klein’s plan goes forward.

Public hearings will take place in Staten Island at New Dorp High School on June 5th; at IS 230 in Queens on the 10th; in the Bronx on the 11th, at DeWitt Clinton High School; in Brooklyn on the 12th, at Boys and Girls High School; and finally, Monday the 16th, in Manhattan, at Fashion Industries High School. The DOE also invites public comment at ContractsForExcellence@schools.nyc.gov. Let the powers that be hear from you.

Pre-K and middle-school parents’ conversations and chat rooms continue to buzz with worry, concern, and rising anger, with ample cause. We’re hoping for clarification from the DOE on the preK admissions snafu — having heard that some schools are rescinding acceptances, while others are not — and anticipate an announcement on Monday afternoon, timing uncertain.

Whether and when families will learn about middle school placement for their rising sixth graders remains mysterious. Various district offices have said that letters were mailed, that they will go out on Monday, or that they will be sent ‘later in the week.’ If your mail comes early, or if you got news over the weekend, let us know.

Some of the soon-to-be pre-K parents commenting on this blog are working through their anger and frustration about the admissions problems by generating possible solutions for them. If the DOE aims to make things right for the families it shortchanged — and I believe that is the DOE’s intention — officials will likely need to think creatively. Perhaps they can use Bronx_Shrink’s proposal for inspiration:

I think there may be one way in which a fraction of the wrongfully rejected parents can be appeased. The city offers child care vouchers to low income families. If they are unable to correct this and place kids properly, according to priority, perhaps some families can be offered vouchers to be used in private day cares. Before the tomatoes start flying, I know this will not be the answer for most parents as they carefully chose schools that match their educational values. However, it might be good compensation for some other families to get them through another year of childcare costs.

Do you have a better plan? Post yours. Pie-in-the-sky ideas are welcome, but practical solutions are even more welcome.

I just heard from Andy Jacob at the DOE, who said he had explained many details about the nature of the pre-K admissions problems to reporters at the Times and the Post but that those details hadn’t made it into print. The Daily News had a hint of the details, but I didn’t see that article earlier this morning — there, Jacob described problems with sibling verification that may have led some parents not to have received acceptance letters when they should have.

What happened, Jacob told me, was that the DOE’s computers compared data for the older sibling claimed on the application with the data parents entered on the application. If the address in the attendance system for the older child didn’t match the address as it was entered from the application, the system treated the applicant as a non-sibling. But in some cases, Jacob said, the address-matching excluded children erroneously, sometimes because of a minor difference in the way the addresses were formulated (with a typo in the DOE’s attendance system, for example) and sometimes because families have moved since entering the school system.

Currently, OSEPO staff are finishing up looking at every single one of the applications of families who indicated they had a sibling already enrolled, Jacob said. He told me he anticipates that the number of families affected will be a “small minority” of the 9,000 families who indicated that they had a sibling in their school of choice, though the number will be “more than 4 or 5.” After the scope of the problem is clear, the DOE will decide how to handle the cases, he said, and families will be notified then if there was a mistake in the way their application was treated. “There are some cases where the problem was on our end. … When we hear about problems, we solve them,” he told me.

Jacob said there may also be families who believe they were erroneously denied a seat who actually completed the application incorrectly, perhaps by listing the school in which the sibling is already enrolled as something other than their first choice. (Sibling priority only works for your first-choice school.)

Jacob advised me that the very best thing parents who believe the address-matching issue may be the root of their rejection should hold tight while the DOE decides how to solve the problem. I know that will be hard to do, but I have faith that the DOE is committed to addressing the issues, even though it might not know yet exactly how to. If you just can’t wait, Jacob said the best number to call at OSEPO is 212-374-4948. That’s also the number you should call if you have other issues or if you still haven’t received a letter — though we have heard from one father who just received a letter this morning.

As always, we’ll keep you posted as we learn more, and please let us know what’s happening on your end.

Finally, today, the pre-K debacle has made it into the papers — where we learn that the DOE believes all the problems are parents’ fault. DOE spokesman Andy Jacob told the Times that the problems appear to have affected only families with siblings already enrolled in a school with a pre-K program. That means, of course, that the problems may be widespread, because those families make up 45 percent of the 20,000 families who applied for pre-K seats.

Jacob told the Times that DOE officials believe the data entry done in Pennsylvania is not the culprit, but that blame more likely rests with parents who made a “simple mistake” when filling out the form. To the Post, he said that “most complaints involved parents who wrongly believed they qualified for priority placement or whose application data contained errors.”

Some good news: Jacob told the Times, “We will find a way to solve the problems that do exist.” How magnanimous: They may not respect you or believe you’re capable of filling out a form, but at least they’ll make right when you screw up.

Please let us know when you start getting resolution to your problems — we hope it’s soon!

Sometime today the DOE put up new information about pre-K on the pre-K enrollment page. It contains a sprinkling of new information but no admission at all of widespread problems with the admissions process. And of course there’s no phone number at all for parents who have questions. (If we happen to find out a number that leads to a helpful, or at least friendly, person, we’ll post it right away — but we’re having about as much luck as you are getting through to OSEPO right now.)

Here’s how to appeal:

Is there an appeals process for pre-K?
There is an appeals process for a child whose address changes or for extenuating circumstances. Families who wish to submit an appeal must do so in writing to ES_Enrollment@schools.nyc.gov no later than June 13, 2008.

If you think your application was hopelessly botched (whether by the data entry dude in Pennsylvania or by OSEPO’s computer matching system), does this satisfy you? I didn’t think so.

The DOE hasn’t commented on the scope of problems with pre-K admissions letters — no matter that one Insideschools blog reader hypothesized that the problems are “HUGE” — but officials are saying they are investigating every complaint they receive. So if you believe your child was mistakenly denied a seat in a pre-K program, contact OSEPO, the central enrollment office, at 212-374-2363.

What’s not clear to me is whether any families have been offered seats at the Brooklyn schools that seem to have been affected. If they have, will the DOE be able to reverse erroneous rejections? Or will all of the seats that should have gone to in-zone siblings already be filled?

In keeping with its grand tradition of finding a long weekend during which to mail important letters to parents, the DOE let loose Pre-K admissions decisions at the end of last week. Already, the Insideschools forum is abuzz with discussion of the process. A couple of disappointed parents lament not getting into their top-choice programs or into any program at all.

Other parents describe what we can only hope are problems with the admissions process, the management of which was outsourced to an out-of-state provider. A couple of parents describe receiving rejection letters even though they live in the zone of a school with a large Pre-K program — and who have older children already enrolled in that school! (This year’s new rules, finalized midway through the application process, give siblings preference for admission over all other applicants.) Either there are far, far more zoned siblings applying for Pre-K than anyone could ever have imagined, or else the DOE has some cleaning up to do.

If you applied for Pre-K for the fall, we welcome more information about your letter — and we hope your news was good!

Update: A DOE spokesman wrote to me to clarify concerns about the admissions process being outsourced. Parents mailed their applications to Pennsylvania for data entry, he wrote, but the actual applicant-to-program matches were made in-house at OSEPO.

Robin Aronow, a consultant who advises parents on school choice, wrote with additional information from last week’s Manhattan pre-K proposal hearing. It sounds like most of the issues raised there are similar to those raised in Brooklyn, which I reported on last week. Parents want more preference for siblings, and they don’t want their kids to be forced to switch schools after pre-K because there will be no automatic admission to kindergarten in the same school; they are especially concerned about kids having to leave dual-language programs, where enrollment shifts are disruptive for both students and the school. (There has never been automatic admission, but many principals have used their discretion to admit out-of-zone pre-K children to their kindergarten.)

One thing Robin heard was very different from what I understood to be the plan. She writes, “As for the uniform kindergarten policy for next year, [DOE officials] are still working out many factors, including whether zoned schools will be part of the uniform application process or remain a separate option.” At the Brooklyn hearing, DOE officials made it crystal clear that zoned schools would be part of the same application process. Has the DOE realized that requiring parents to apply to zoned schools will greatly limit school choice, or did someone misspeak in Manhattan?

Other new information:

• In order to be on the same timeline as other school choice processes, the District 3 kindergarten lottery has been pushed back for this year. Applications will now be available at the beginning of March and notifications of placements will happen in May, around the same time as the Gifted & Talented notifications arrive.

• The DOE has said that community-based organizations will use the same admissions timeline as the DOE, but parents noted that many of the CBO pre-K programs are already filled for next year.

• Above kindergarten, applicants will have to go through the OSEPO and request a Placement Exception Request, the new name for a variance, to attend a school other than their zoned school.

Finally, Robin notes that in some overcrowded zones, being zoned for a particular school is not always a guarantee that you can attend it — so getting into those schools from out of the zone will be almost impossible. She writes, “For anyone planning to move to a new school zone, I strongly encourage you to do this sooner [rather] than later, and no later than the close of school in June prior to the year your child will attend.”

For more on the anxiety parents are starting to feel over the proposed changes, check out Neil deMause’s report in the Village Voice. The pre-K hearing in Queens is tonight; hearings in Staten Island and the Bronx will be next week. Let us know what you hear in your borough.

Last night I went to the first of five public hearings held by the DOE about the proposed new system for handling pre-K and kindergarten admission. I was surprised that there were no more than about three dozen parents there but the DOE did just announce the policy at the end of last week.

Read Insideschools’ overview for background on the proposal. I learned many more details last night:

• If the proposal goes through (and the “if” here really means “when”), all pre-K registration activities thus far this year will have been rendered moot. Keep going to open houses, but if principals promise you a slot or ask for your commitment to their school, remember that it probably won’t matter. And you’ll have to pick up and return a pre-K application, even if you think you’ve already done that.

• A large part of completing the application will be trying to figure out your likelihood of admission to the schools you list. If your zoned school has a popular pre-K program, you’ll probably want to list it first, because if you list it second, all the seats could be taken by other zoned children before you’re even considered. As Marty Barr of OSEPO said last night, it would make sense to try to get into a program outside of your zone only when the program you want is large and doesn’t usually have that many people applying which does not describe the most desirable programs, of course.

• Kids with IEPs will continue to be placed by the Committee on Preschool Special Education their parents won’t have to fill out an application.

• Within each priority level, siblings will receive preference for admission. So after all the zoned children who rank a pre-K program first are admitted, the sibling of a child enrolled in that school from outside the zone would get priority over other out-of-zone students for admission.

• The DOE says that pre-K programs at community-based organizations will follow the same calendar, so if you want a back-up plan should you not get into any public school pre-K program, you will want to apply to your top-choice CBO programs in March as well.

• Everyone in pre-K this fall and afterward will have to reapply for kindergarten, including families in their zoned school who want to stay there. A child who gets into an out-of-zone or unzoned school for pre-K will have no assurance or even priority to be allowed to stay there for kindergarten.

• The DOE has no idea how it will deal with seats that open up due to children leaving the city, enrolling in CBO-run pre-K programs, or choosing private schools. Barr said OSEPO has considered a second round of applications (at this, parents last night booed) or assigning children on an “over-the-counter” basis.

• The proposal has no built-in appeals process, but OSEPO Director Liz Sciabarra seemed open to adding one. In 2009, if you are assigned to a school for kindergarten that doesn’t work for your family, you can apply to transfer. Barr and Sciabarra said the transfer process will remain the same.

The new process may wind up being simpler and fairer, as the DOE says it will be, but it certainly does change the game this year for many families entering the system. What should be the major takeaways for parents? First, schools that have accepted kids on an individual basis will not be able to do so any more; principals will no longer have any discretion to issue variances. In addition, the process is heavily weighted toward keeping kids in their zoned schools. The way to give yourself the best chance of getting into your first-choice pre-K program and kindergarten in 2009 is to move into that school’s zone.

What’s your take on this proposal? Let Insideschools know in the comments, and then let the DOE know by emailing ES_Enrollment@schools.nyc.gov. You can also attend one of the three remaining public hearings; see our calendar for details on dates and locations.

Do you want to make sure that additional funds for New York City schools are being well spent? You can send a letter to the State Board of Regents telling them to require that the upcoming historic increase in education funding be used for the purposes it was intended, including small class size and full-day universal pre-kindergarten.

Two advocacy organizations have created an open letter to the Regents, which must be submitted by this Friday, June 22, before the Regents meet in Albany next week. The letter asks the Regents to put specific accountability requirements into state regulations.

Read more…