Only 100 parents attended the District 3 kindergarten lottery last week after the Department of Education announced that many popular schools did not have available seats.

“Parents were disappointed that they didn’t have a full range of options as they have had in the past four years since the lottery has been in operation,” said Robin Aronow, founder of School Search NYC, who attended the lottery.

The announcement, made on the Friday before the April 21 lottery, dealt a blow to the roughly 760 hopeful families seeking an alternative to their neighborhood school. A few of the most desirable schools, such as PS 87 and PS 166, had no seats available. And of the 251 openings, parents were informed that several schools, such as PS 9, would only be able to accept students with older siblings enrolled at the school.<!--more-->

Overcrowding in the district contributed to the lack of options, Aronow said. “It was a major statement that certain desirable schools are no longer options to families who don't live in the zone [which is] compounded by the fact that they are not even a guarantee to those in the zone,” she said.

Interested parents filled out kindergarten applications in January, well before schools could determine if they would have lottery seats for out-of-zone children. Susan Gargiulo, a parent who attended the lottery, toured 13 district schools before filling out her application.

Gargiulo picked schools that she anticipated would be less sought-after, but only two of her five choices had openings. Her child did not win a kindergarten seat through the district lottery, but scored a space at the Manhattan School for Children, which held its lottery after the district-wide drawing ended. MSC is not a zoned school; it has a separate application, and all kindergarten seats are awarded through their lottery.

Gargiulo said she would have preferred to keep her child in her neighborhood school but noted that "not all schools are created equal."

Jessica Genick, another District 3 parent, did not attend the MSC lottery because she did not think her twins had any chance of winning one of the 37 seats. Instead, she asked a friend to listen for her lottery number. It was called second to last.

“I’m thrilled,” said Genick, who always planned to send her children to public school. “We’ve wanted MSC since my children were born.”

District 3 lottery sheet Interpreting the chart

Each District 3 school that does not expect to fill its kindergarten seats with zoned students may enter the lottery to offer its available “seats declared.”

Priority for these seats is first given to District 3 children with older siblings already enrolled at a particular school. Then, out-of-district children “with sibs” in the school have preference.

Once younger siblings of enrolled students are awarded seats, any left over spaces are first offered to District 3 residents and then to families citywide, or those “without sibs.”

There is no waitlist for District 3 schools after the lottery; all seats return to the schools to fill with families who may move into the zone.

Editor’s Note: After the lottery was held, it was determined that PS 185 had available seats. In an e-mail to Insideschools, Marty Barr, executive director of elementary school enrollment at the Department of Education, said that of the 25 students who wished to attend PS 185, the DOE made offers to 20 of those students. Five students had already received a preferred assignment.