Nearly 100,000 of New York City\u2019s youngest students were offered seats in pre-K and 3-K programs over the last week \u2014 and Mayor Zohran Mamdani touted statistics showing they\u2019re more likely to get a spot they prefer that\u2019s closer to home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve also reduced the average distance between a family\u2019s home and their child care center by a third of a mile, also known as somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour, or the time it takes a toddler to walk six blocks,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Nearly 100,000 students received placements to pre-K and 3-K sites around the city, and, on average, they’re closer to home than last year
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Still, some students were matched to classes in different boroughs, or at schools they did not list on their applications
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Meanwhile, the city is opening up 700 more seats, some of which may be closer to home for families who can apply via waitlists\u00a0<\/p>\n
Seventy percent of families applying to 3-K received a spot at their top choice, up from 65% last year. And the percentage of kids getting a spot in one of their three top choices was 84%, up from 80%.<\/p>\n
Still, not everyone got what they wanted. While every child was matched to a seat, 12% of 3-K applicants were assigned a spot at a school they had not even listed on their application. That was down from 15% the year before.<\/p>\n
And while they\u2019re better than a year ago, the commutes can be long for some: the average distance between a student\u2019s home and their initial pre-K placement is 0.9 miles, and for 3-K, it\u2019s just over a mile.<\/p>\n
The city is hoping to reduce that distance even further: 700 new pre-K seats were added after the application deadline closed, and families can apply via waitlists. They may be closer to people\u2019s homes.<\/p>\n
That includes 63 pre-K and 3-K seats at a Brooklyn pre-K center where NY1 reported the city spent $12 million on renovations, and more than $5 million in rent since 2022 \u2014 but which was sitting empty.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to be honest, there isn\u2019t a great answer for the hold-up of a lot of these centers,\u201d Mamdani said when asked by NY1 about the delay. \u201cWe are talking about childcare centers that were sitting dormant, sometimes for years, and New Yorkers would walk past them and ask themselves, how can I believe in this program if this center right here is gathering dust after we\u2019ve spent millions of dollars in bringing it up to code?\u201d<\/p>\n
Parents who have been pushing for the city to open that pre-K center on Van Brunt Street said they\u2019re thrilled that it\u2019s finally going to happen and that it should make a big difference for families in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Jessica Setton described the moment she heard from NY1 that the school on Van Brunt Street would open.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy son, who\u2019s, you know, turning three, comes into my bed almost every night. So he\u2019s laying in bed next to me and I started crying like, oh my gosh, I have hope now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Setton had added her son, Wally, to the waitlist for the school. In the meantime, he was offered a seat within her ZIP code \u2014 better than she expected, though it would either be a long walk or a bus ride.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a few blocks away like the Van Brunt Street site would be,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s, you know, much more manageable than some of the placements I heard from people already this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Setton said one parent in her son\u2019s Brooklyn daycare was offered a seat in Manhattan\u2019s Chinatown. City Hall said fewer than 200 students were offered seats outside of their borough, down from 720 a year ago. And this year, any placements in a different borough are less than three miles from a child\u2019s home, the city added.<\/p>\n
The number of parents who applied for pre-K and 3-K seats was about the same as last year, despite increased outreach urging more parents to apply. The mayor pointed to fear among immigrant communities, who he said are less likely to apply for government services, and to disinvestment by the prior administration.<\/p>\n
Mamdani said he hopes parents getting spots closer to home will convince more people to opt-in next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 100,000 of New York City\u2019s youngest students were offered seats in pre-K and 3-K programs over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[203,25,67,5215,9,24,12,63,134,136,135,27,200],"class_list":["post-237148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-app-education","tag-app-top-stories","tag-education","tag-jillian-jorgensen","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}