Ah Prek, where for art thou?
/by Joyce Szuflita
If you are looking for Prek information now and not finding it, your problem is that you are being too proactive.
Touring season for public school doesn't usually start until late Oct. The application for prek may not open until Feb. and application deadline may be in March. We don't know yet because the DoE only works in the present tense and that is too far away.
Touring the public school options will likely go through March.
Touring the NYCEEC's (preschools, Head Starts, daycares that have done the paperwork to run a UPK location) are something that will probably end in Dec/Jan.
The DoE is also moving away for their very thorough printed directories (saving trees is a good thing) to their glitchy on-line search functions (which is not such a good thing). I find the search parameters very confusing and unsatisfying. Search on a laptop if you can, use Google Chrome.
To get on the DoE’s email blasts, go here.
To scan the information currently available go here.
To browse the glitchy search function go here. Scan down to the very bottom of the page and follow the prompts.
I searched a random address and it gives me a narrow grouping around a mile radius, but I can't expand the radius. It doesn't make distinction by district, where there is priority for public schools and prek centers according to zone and/or district. When I screened for the subway line, it left off very important options. The fact is that I know the schools exist and had to click many different parameters to actively find schools that I knew I was looking for. If you are not in this position, you would miss important options. If I didn't know they existed I might never have found them
When you click on the program (by the star at the bottom of the listing). It doesn't give you any information about admissions priorities - which I know the different kinds of schools have. You have to dig into the Quality Snapshot to see how many seats are available, to give you an idea about whether you have a chance of getting in or not. Enrollment, if you are reading, these are some of my concerns.
I am hoping that when we get closer to application time, that more information will be available.
