The Latest on Pre-K Registration

Jenny Medina’s article in the NY Times today spelled out the basics of the Pre-K registration situation. Insideschools.blogspot.com had details about the registration discrepancies from Andy Jacob at the DOE. “What happened, Jacob told me, was that the DOE's computers compared data for the older sibling claimed on the application with the data parents entered on the application. If the address in the attendance system for the older child didn't match the address as it was entered from the application, the system treated the applicant as a non-sibling. But in some cases, Jacob said, the address-matching excluded children erroneously, sometimes because of a minor difference in the way the addresses were formulated (with a typo in the DOE's attendance system, for example) and sometimes because families have moved since entering the school system.”

Another thing that was mentioned was that the sibling preference only applied to a first choice school.

Since acceptance letters are starting to come out, it appears that occasional discrepancies are still showing up on the neighborhood groups. Zoned children without a sib in the school that receives a rejection letter from a school that you believe has an acceptance for an unzoned child without a sib should contact the people below.

The June 23 application is for families that have not received any placement, but don't be surprised if this process goes through changes as the DOE deals with the problem at hand.