It's been a bumpy ride this spring for kindergarten enrollment in tiny District 1, New York City's only full choice district, located on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Parents claim that kindergarten applications were lost, or processed inaccurately, causing potential overcrowding at some programs, under-enrollment at others, and frustration among affected families.

Adding to the confusion for a few families, was the question of whether students who live in District 2 but are zoned for District 1 should be entitled to admissions preference at District 1 charter schools.

With roughly 12,000 students, District 1 is one of the smallest districts in the city. It is also the only one with no zoned schools. It adopted a choice model of admissions in 1991.

"The old district under the school board created all choice to decrease racial and economic isolation as the neighborhood gentrified and new, small experimental schools were born," said Lisa Donlan,District 1 community education council (CEC)president.

Families of young children must research and apply to schools, ranking their choices on an application that is specific to the district.<!--more-->

This year, an error occurred in the processing of applications which is handled centrally by the Department of Education through an an outside vendor. As a result, current pre-K students atPS 110weren't given priority for kindergarten assignment to the school. (According to the admissions guidelines, enrolled  students get first priority). Instead, the majority of seats were filled by students with lower priority.

The DOE agreed to enroll all the affected students -- roughly 27 -- at PS 110 as well as to honor all the offers extended in error. Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld, a Department of Education spokesperson, said that the DOE will fund classroom teaching assistants in the kindergarten classrooms. He said some attrition is expected once families choose other options, such as enrolling in Gifted and Talented programs.

PS 110 hosts the district's G&T program and typically has four  three kindergarten classes: one G&T, one Collaborative Teaming Teaching (including students in special education) and one general education. It's unclear whether the school will add more kindergarten classes next fall.

While PS 110 has a surplus of incoming kindergartners, The Neighborhood School still has openings for next year even though there are families who said they ranked it first on their application but were not offered a spot.

According to District 1 CEC president Donlan, more transparency and greater safeguards are needed to prevent such problems.

"The DOE needs to verify any lists with principals before notifying parents, by building in ten days to two weeks of adjustments for the principals to trouble shoot," said Donlan. She also suggests that schools  keep copies of applications for all families who ranked them first or second to allow for quick follow-up. "It would be better to design a system that had checks and balances and [quality assurance] built in."

In fact, some families report not having received any kindergarten placement at all yet, although letters to District 1 families were supposed to be sent on April 16. According to Zarin-Rosenfeld, all letters are out now. "There were a small handful that were delayed due to postage issues," he said.

Charter school confusion

Confusion extends to charter school admissions as well. Some residents of Stuyvesant Town who thought they would get preference at District 1 charter schools because they are zoned for that district's elementary schools found out otherwise. (While Stuyvesant Town is physically located in District 2, for years a strip of buildings lining 14th street have been zoned to attend District 1 elementary schools.)

Manhattan Charter School, relying on Department of Education zoning records, gave admissions preference to Stuyvesant Town families zoned for District 1. In fact, according to Zarin-Rosenfeld, Manhattan Charter School should only have given preference to those families that physically reside within the district. "The Charter School Office will work with MCS and its Board to rectify the error," he said.

The other charter school located in the district, Girl's Preparatory Charter School didn't give admissions preference to any applicant from Stuyvesant Town.  Girls Prep relied on the  New York City Department of City Planning records, which  recognizes only geographic school district boundaries.

Are you a District 1 resident applying to school? We'd like to hear your thoughts. Comment below.