And then I had my first play date with a parent from Julia’s
daycare who happened to be a mother of three and clearly much more experienced
in this parenting business than me. She
questioned about PreK and brought up the hook, line and sinker…. Public School PreK
is free! But it was June and she was
pretty certain that I had missed the deadline for it anyway and I accepted
that. But the thought kept bugging me….
And when thoughts keep bugging me, I go to the Almighty
Inter-web to settle my mind and seek answers. And yes, I did miss the deadline.
As it turns out, NYC begins their PreK
application process sometime in March and provides their acceptance letters in
June. But because there are so many parents looking for placement for PreK who
didn’t get in, NYC offers a round 2 which occurs around July. The Almighty Inter-Web hath spoken! I was apparently meant to apply!
The NYC PreK process is a lottery system with a priority
hierarchy in place. Your child is more
likely to be accepted if your child has a sibling in the school. There are several other priorities but the
lowest one would be not having a sibling and applying to a school that’s out of
your borough. You can choose up to 12
schools anywhere in NYC and based on that priority system and random selection,
if the seat is available in the school, then you’re in.
The man and I reviewed every school available for full time
PreK in our district and neighboring district.
I mean we REVIEWED. We looked up
their current progress reports from the DOE website and looked up personal
reviews from around the web. We strategically choose 12 schools in order of
preference and digitally sent our application on its way. Although our zoned school and my alma mater
had available seats, we purposefully left it off. Very few of the schools we listed were in our
district since their progress reports were not the greatest. We were also concerned about her ability to be
accepted by the large proportion of Flushing kids likely
to be enrolled in the school since we’ve already had a taste of her being ousted
on a local playground by Chinese immigrant families and their children because
of Julia’s Chinese mom and Caucasian dad.
Instead our first choice was a) a school that was extremely
well rated, had great progress reports, had recently won awards and was the
most sought after school in Queens and b) had just
opened up a PreK program in the 2nd round – so the likelihood of
people applying would be slim. I
prepared Carl for the possibility of not getting into any school or getting
into one of our less preferred choices.
A large part of me secretly hoped that would be the case as I really was
not ready for her to go to school.
School started for all NYC public school children on September 8th. We were not informed of her acceptance and
placement until August 31st at 10
p.m. via email.
It was like receiving a letter from Harvard or Yale (or Queens
College – teehee!). I was nervous and wanted the placement to be
a good school and at the same time wanted it to say she was not accepted. As it turns out, we were accepted into our
first choice school. Once again, fate
decided for me. How could I turn down
the first choice and most sought after school in Queens? I believe I did some serious crying at that
moment. Julia, who had been saying she
wanted to go to her old school to see her best friend, saw me bawling my eyes
out and said, “Mommy, it’s ok. Don’t
cry, Julia’s here. I’m going to have so much fun at my new school! I want to go
to my new school! I’m so excited!”.
Either my Beastly Beast was intent on making me cry some more or she’s
the sweetest little girl in the world! Once again, fate decided for me… Pre-K,
here we come, ready or not!
Things I learned for my pals who are NYC parents:
1 - Sign up for email notification from NYC DOE so you know when to apply
2- You also need to apply for Kindergarten even if your child attends a NYCDOE Pre-K program - but you apply at the school of your choice
3 - Be ready to cry and feel unprepared but for your child not to.
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