The Department of Education announced today that 980 rising kindergartners who are waitlisted at their zoned schools are getting alternate placements for kindergarten in September.  

"Every child on a waitlist now has a guaranteed seat for the fall and can also remain on the waitlist of their zoned school. We expect waitlists to continue to shrink, and we’ll make sure that as many kids attend their zoned school as possible,” said DOE spokesman David Cantor.

The  980 students still on waitlists represents a drop of 500 since early April.  Yet that's still double last year's total number of alternate offers, which were sent out in late June after students were offerred spots in G&T programs. "Historically these offers have a significant impact on waitlists and we anticipate that both pre-registered zone students and waitlisted students will receive G&T offers, further reducing the lists," said DOE spokesman Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld.

At a glance, students from 36 schools across the city received alternate offers to one of 60 "receiving" schools.<!--more--> Half of all alternate offers went to wailisted students in Queens, most of whom live in district 24 where several new schools are opening in September to ease overcrowding. Many alternate offers also went to children in other districts plagued by overcrowding, including Manhattan's districts 2 (120 offers) and 3 (59 offers) and Brooklyn's districts 15 (67 offers) and 20 (103 offers). New schools will be opening in these districts as well.   

What's not clear from the data are which schools shrunk or eliminated their waitlists by adding kindergarten classes and whether they are doing so at the expense of arts and science rooms or by reconfiguring the number of their upper grade classes.     

You can read the the breakdown of alternate offers by borough and school at Gothamschools.   

Also check out the DOE's Q&A about kindergarten admissions.