essential prek information

/

By Joyce Szuflita
Here is what you need to know about placement:
You will be ranking up to 12 choices on your MY SCHOOLS application through March 16, 2020. Don’t wait until the last minute, the website often gets glitchy. Take screen shots of any trouble you have and of your final list, just in case you have difficulty. You can always fix it at the Family Welcome Center if you tell them of your troubles in a timely way.

  • The biggest misunderstanding about prek is the idea that you will be attending at your zoned school. There are about 75,000 kids on a grade in NYC. There are around 30,000 prek seats in public schools. Those seats will go first to siblings of zoned students and then occasionally to some zoned students. After that, if there are still seats available, they sift to in-district students and then out-of-district students. Depending on the neighborhood, there may be very few public school prek seats to go around. The other 40,000 seats will be in a variety of places; NYCEEC’s, Prek Centers, a few Un-zoned schools and a few Charter Schools.

  • What happens to you at prek is NO indication of how your Kindergarten placement will go, because there are plenty of Kindergarten seats at zoned schools.

  • You don’t need to rank 12 programs, but this is your only chance to express your preference and the more thoughtful choices you list, the more the DoE knows what you want. Use your words. You are not “guaranteed” a placement in your zoned school.

  • If your zoned school doesn’t have Prek classes, there will not be a ‘default’ school that you will be sent to instead. You need to find and rank the programs you prefer.

  • This is a free program. Embrace this gift, but it may not be convenient and it may only be a single year placement.

  • You are absolutely NOT guaranteed a placement from your list of 12. You need to make a list of large thoughtful, realistic choices. The list is your only chance to express your full preference to the DoE.

  • No one sees the ranking. The schools NEVER know how you have ranked them, especially not your current NYCEEC.

  • Schools may tell you that you need to rank them first to retain your priority for them. This has never been the case. It unfortunately remains a huge misunderstanding at many public and NYCEEC programs. RANK SCHOOLS IN TRUE PREFERENCE ORDER.

  • The way you rank schools doesn’t affect your priority for a school. RANK IN TRUE PREFERENCE ORDER. You are not disadvantaged in any way by doing this. It is your ONLY means of expressing your desires. Don’t waste it. Should I say this again? RANK IN TRUE PREFERENCE ORDER.

  • After the initial placement is made, likely in April, you will automatically be placed on a wait list at every school that you have ranked higher than the school you were placed in. You don’t need to do anything to activate your wait list choices.

  • The way you rank your application doesn’t affect your placement on the wait list. You will be placed randomly within your your geographic priority on the wait lists.

  • In my region, I am passionate in my belief that there is no secret ‘nodge, nodge, wink, wink’ whisper aspect to getting off the wait list. Stop spreading these ugly and stupid rumors about worthy professionals, AND if you have proof, I will happily help you walk the proof to Central Enrollment AND the NY Times. Not kidding. What may work in getting off wait lists? Wait. Stay in touch. Follow through until after school begins. That is the way you may possibly get in.

  • If you are going crazy with waiting in the spring, you can keep in contact with the school (NOT the principal) - usually the school Secretary or the Parent Coordinator - in the way that they prefer. Your message will be, “We are active on the wait list and we will take the seat if offered.”

  • There is occasionally movement on the wait lists, but unlike at K (when there are lots of seats in play and many alternate placements like G&T and charter options) almost everyone only gets one placement. If you have made a good wide and deep list of schools you could possibly get to - your placement won’t be that far away.

  • Placement at Prek can have a slight strategic advantage for K depending on the school and your geographic priority. Getting a seat at your zoned school doesn’t give you any special priority over other zoned families at K. All zoned families have the same priority for K whether they attended at prek or not. If you are lucky enough to get a prek seat at a public school other than your zoned school, it bumps you up to a slightly higher priority, but absolutely doesn’t guarantee your placement at that school at K. If you are wildly luck to get a prek seat at an Un-zoned school, you may have a more significant advantage at K.

    Good luck!!