School Admissions Changes Causing 'Chaos'
This year the Department of Education changed its admissions process for pre-K’ers, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, and the shift means a lot of parents are grappling with the fact that their kids have been placed in schools far from home. About 3,000 parents, “including those in large swaths of Brownstone Brooklyn,” recently found out…
This year the Department of Education changed its admissions process for pre-K’ers, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, and the shift means a lot of parents are grappling with the fact that their kids have been placed in schools far from home. About 3,000 parents, “including those in large swaths of Brownstone Brooklyn,” recently found out their kids didn’t get into any of the schools they’d put down on application forms. Yesterday Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and Councilman Bill de Blasio held a press conference to decry the new pre-K placement system, and Gotbaum said the changes “have had some chaotic consequences for parents.” The new admissions process is apparently affecting older kids, too. Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn has been writing about how her child didn’t get in to any middle schools, apparently because of a DOE computer glitch. The blogger is describing the experience as traumatic: “And then [my daughter] heard me talking on the phone to the New York Times. She doesn’t know who I was talking to but she can tell that I am agitated, annoyed, on edge, shakey, not happy and so on.”
Pre-K Snafu Leads Brooklyn Parents To Protest at Tweed [Brooklyn Eagle]
Middle School SNAFU: My Daughter Isn’t On The List [OTBKB]
Photo by Kit & I.
I understand that 20,000 students applied citywide. 17,000 kids got pre-k seats and of those 15,000 got their first choice.
The DOE claims to have checked the unlucky 3,000 applicants by hand and of those some 200 were wrongly turned down. That works out to about 1% error. Seems like the discontent is being way over hyped and mis-reported.
Pre-k is not mandatory and many schools have cut pre-k seats in order to better manage shrinking budgets.
Right on 9:41. We live in park slope with two working parents on public servant salaries with 3 little kids. I would have been nice to get a public pre-K spot. We applied to 5 schools, got in nowhere. Day car, sitting and, preschool tuition put us well over the $3K mark per month. I accept the there are limited spot. I just want to trust that the system for enrolling children is fair, reasonable, and trustworthy.
I am not trying to turn this into a city v. suburbs debate. But score one for the suburbs.
Wow- I think it HAS been proven how beneficial pre-k is. And if you want the people who are wiping your ass when you’re old to have an ounce of mercy for you it’s best that you invest in them now.
Believe it or not, things are different than they were in the early 1960s. Kids are expected to read in K these days. My 6year old was doing venn diagrams last week. They are trying to improve schools — I thought that’s what we all wanted? This is about a computer screw-up.
And what about middle school? You want to scrap that too?
1-3 – so I have to pay for everyone else’s school with my property taxes, and then I have to pay for private school as well on top of that?
Thats fair I suppose (a la CMU)
Pre-k is glorified baby sitting at taxpayers expense. I’d rather see the money going to maintain and upgrade schools for K-12 students.
Pre-K may not be necessary, but it’s basically a constructive, safe, positive place for kids to be 6-7 hours a day. Hugely underpriced for those who use it, so no wonder people are horrified that it may no longer be so accessible.
i am so sick of the jealous trolls on this site spiting those of us who live in brownstone brooklyn. you all just wish you too could live here. if we are not happy with something, it’s our right to complain and raise the issue just as if you were to complain about the hours at the general store in your lovely hamlet of lodi new jesey.