expectations management @ kindergarten

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By Joyce Szuflita

  • If you are zoned for a school that is over capacity and you were sent somewhere other than your zoned school:
    Stay calm. You will be on a wait-list at your school that has been generated by the DoE. The wait-lists will move, as people decide to go to private schools or charter schools and later g&t programs. It is not uncommon for a wait-list of 40 to eventually disappear. There is often quite a bit of movement after school begins when they see who is actually showing up. There are also home visits, and families who think that is is still the 1980's (and they can fake their address), are removed from the rolls. If the worst case scenario occurs and you are not called from the wait-list, you retain your place on the list at first grade, when the classes get a bit bigger and there is some natural attrition.

  • If you listed a bunch of wonderful options with your zoned school last or not even on your list:
    Expect to be placed in your zoned school ("but I didn't even list it!"- that makes no difference). This is the school that you have the highest priority for. Of course you are placed there. You will then automatically be placed on wait-lists for every school that you ranked higher than the school you were placed in. The DoE generates those lists and the schools will work down them. It will not be a numbered wait-list though, and that will lead you to think that there is monkey business going on. There is not. Since that list is geographically specific (in zone families, out of zone sibs, etc.) if a person with a higher priority moves into the zone, it will move you down, if they leave, it will move you up. Because of this movement the DoE doesn't give you a number because it would make your head explode. This is a marathon, not a sprint. As charter schools work down their wait-lists the zoned schools wait-lists will move. When g&t placements are made, there is big movement. In the beginning of the year, when people don't show up at the schools that they have pre-registered in, the wait-lists move.

  • I got more than one offer. What do I do now? Lucky you! You can't be pre-registered for more than one school. Don't be greedy. Your neighbors are waiting on tenterhooks for those wait-lists to move. Pick a school and give the other one up. The good karma you generate will help you in the middle school search.

After you hear where you are placed (the week of April 13), you will have until May 6 to pre-register. If you pre-register, it will NOT affect your chances of getting a seat off a wait-list. You are essentially just "saving a seat" in that school. If you pre-register at a second school later in the spring, your pre-registration at the first school will disappear and that seat will be offered to someone else. You can "trade up" multiple times. There is no limit. If you would not attend at the school that you were placed in, you don't need to register, but that is on you and now you don't have a seat for k, unless you get lucky on the wait-lists or at g&t. Once you make up your mind, you can't go back. As the summer and fall progresses you will have less time to make up your mind, often only a day or two.
Good luck.