Only 12 Out of 475 Applicants Got Into PS 321's Pre-K Program This Year
And it wasn’t much better at PS 154 in Windsor Terrace where only 18 out of 215 made the cut. That’s why The Daily News is declaring a Pre-K crisis in Brownstone Brooklyn.
And it wasn’t much better at PS 154 in Windsor Terrace where only 18 out of 215 made the cut. That’s why The Daily News is declaring a Pre-K crisis in Brownstone Brooklyn.
Why is it F’d? What is going to happen?
Or perhaps you mean F’d up?
I disagree with martis.
Look at the societies where public funding for all sorts of things is less contentious and virtually none of them fund public SCHOOL starting at age 4. Instead they have publicly funded or subsidized day care.
this country is FUCKED. America, where Public Education is a privilege. Ridiculous. Pre-K and K should be mandatory in the public schools. WTF are we paying taxes for?
“The other issue is that the city is allowing too many developers to build big condos in already overcrowded school zones without providing any compensation to the schools for the resulting increased population.”
Ringo is so right!
If anyone recalls, all of the latest 4th ave. condo developments were made possible by the “upzoning” of the northern section of 4th ave. in the early ’00s. Then-councilman Bill DeBlasio was a key player in the deal – in spite of his oft-stated stance as a supporter of public schools, he didn’t wrangle any concessions from developers that would help the schools struggling to intake all the kids in these units.
He’s not the only one, of course, but I’ve been watching to see if he’d comment on the issue of overcrowded schools as Public Advocate, since there was so much press about the tribeca schools this spring, and so far, not a peep.
All of the Park Slope schools had crazy numbers for applicants vs. spots in the first round of preK. And PS 132, 9, 29, 8, 20 and 11 (and probably others I don’t know) weren’t much better. I know about six families who won’t know until September 1st if they have a slot, any slot, at any preK anywhere for their kids. It ain’t pretty.
On a related topic, I’m also very glad we moved to Clinton and not Cobble Hill.
I just went to Kindergarten at 4… Why don’t more kids do that? If your kid is so special and gifted, they shouldn’t have any trouble passing the test. If I remember correctly, it involved assembling a paper bear (limbs and head in the right place) and perhaps pegs in holes…
Oh, yeah, and Pre-K didn’t exist… not in *public* school anyway. Silly people.
One of the things these Pre-K admission stats fail to address is that this is a lottery system where you put down multiple schools (up to 10 I believe). Kids who put 321 and other schools on their lottery list may have gotten spots elsewhere, they would still be counted in the ps 321 stats as applicants who didn’t get a spot (at PS 321).
You might ask – given that it is so hard to get a spot why would anyone put down a school that wasn’t their zoned school. Well, if you don’t get a spot in the first round you can submit for second round spots but you can only enter schools that you had on the first round. And all of the “brand name” brooklyn public schools generally have a couple of spots available in second round (and they did this year as well, even ps 321).
Other than that I kind of agree with suburbandude. Most of us didn’t have Pre-K. We are pretty fortunate that NYC DOE offers Pre-K at all, especially in this budget environment.
Biff, most publics will make you skip the grade if you’re too old. So if send your kid to Plymouth kindergarten and then hope to repeat it at PS8, they’ll only let you if your kid’s birthday falls within the correct calendar year. Otherwise, they’ll move you up to 1st.
The other issue is that the city is allowing too many developers to build big condos in already overcrowded school zones without providing any compensation to the schools for the resulting increased population. The Tribeca problem. Developers are asked to do that all over the country and consider it the cost of doing business, but not here. PS8, for example, has had to absorb 1BBP, all of Dumbo, and soon the Witness properties. Together, they would have easily provided a couple million to the school (and helped fund that addition) but they weren’t required to, weren’t asked to, and didn’t.
Also agree with Ringo and Petunia’s points. And I too thought there was no redshirting in NYC Public Schools. However, I have seen a couple of instances where parents had their kids attend places like Plymouth Church School and then start them a year later or repeat kindergarten (sounds so bizarre to me) when transferring to PS8. Admittedly this is done far more frequently in the private school system, which was the basis of my point at 10:58. I’m glad the practice is limited in public schools.