In what's become an unfortunate annual occurence for New York City families, more than 2,300 children are waitlisted for kindergarten seats at 105 schools, according to the Education Department. Two of the hardest hit neighborhoods are Sunset Park in District 15 and Corona in District 24 in Queens. In both neighborhoods, the DOE is trying a new strategy to deal with overcrowding: opening “overflow” schools to absorb some of the waitlisted kindergarteners.

One overflow school will open in Sunset Park in the fall with three kindergarten classes. The new school, Sunset Park Avenues, is unzoned and will only accept children who are assigned to the school after landing on waitlists at other area schools.

“A portion of waitlisted students from 15K094 [PS 94] and 15K169 [PS 169] may receive alternate offers” to Sunset Park Avenues,  DOE spokesman Devon Puglia confirmed. The families of kindergartners assigned to the school will get letters from the DOE’s Office of Enrollment, he said.

Sunset Park schools have been overcrowded for years. PS 169 has half of all the waitlisted children in the district this year, with 99. Last year it had the longest waitlist in the city, with 113 zoned children on a waiting list. Nearby PS 94 does not have space for 48 zoned children who registered -- but the list is half as long as it was last year when many overflow children were assigned to PS 38, located miles away in a different neighborhood. PS 94 is so overcrowded that 100 kindergartners and 1st graders spent September 2012 “warehoused” in the cafeteria watching Shrek, according to the Daily News. 

The school will be housed in temporary trailers on IS 136’s playground for the 2013-14 school year, D15 Community Education Council President Jim Devor said via email. It will move into the St. Michael’s Parochial School building the following year.

Another “overflow” school, Elm Tree Elementary, may ease some overcrowding pains in Queens' District 24, which includes Corona. It will open with up to three classes in the PS 330building in Elmhurst. Like the new school in Sunset Park, families will not apply to Elm Tree but will be assigned there by the DOE.

Corona holds the biggest waitlists in the city: PS 19 has 109 waitlisted kids and the Pioneer School PS 307 has the longest list in the city with a whopping 167 names. Ironically, PS 307 was opened in 2008 to relieve overcrowding. Both schools had long lists, last year, too (see the breakdownhere [PDF]). In 2011, one mother told the NYTimes that bathroom lines were so long at PS 19 that her 2nd grade daughter could either relieve herself OR eat during her lunch break. 

Manhattan’s District 2, which includes the Upper East Side and Chinatown, also has large numbers of waitlisted families. PS 41 in Greenwich Village has a waitlist of 100 nieighborhood kids, twice as many as it had last year. And the city isn't building schools fast enough to keep up with the population explosion in Tribeca and the Financial District: PS 234 has 50 kids waitlisted and PS/IS 276, one of the newest schools in the neighborhood, has 41 neighborhood children on the waitlist. 

Waitlists persist on the Upper West Side, too. PS 87 has 36 kids waitlisted, PS 199 has 39 and PS 166 has 27. 

If your child is waitlisted, don't panic. Kindergarten waitlists usually clear up by June, after some families choose to enroll in charter and private schools or accept offers to Gifted and Talented programs. DOE officials sent an email on Friday ensuring that all children will receive placements by the end of the school year. “We know this is an anxious time for families,” DOE spokesman Puglia said.  “We will ensure that schools maximize offers to zoned students, accommodate waitlisted families as soon as empty seats become available, and add additional kindergarten sections wherever possible."

In total, the DOE says it receive 72,289 applications for kindergarten this year. For more waitlist number-crunching, see GothamSchools, which reports that the average waitlist is 25% longer than it was last year.

See the citywide waitlist breakdown, by school, here [PDF].