A number of charter schools have moved to block the youngest students from enrolling in kindergarten even though they’re eligible to attend under city rules — a policy that’s backed by the city’s Department of Education.
Despite city rules that say any child who turns 5 by Dec. 31 of a given year is eligible to enroll in public school, charter authorizers — including the DOE — have allowed some schools to quietly push up their cutoff entry date to as early as Aug. 31.
The move leaves the youngest batch of 5-year-olds — who education experts say often struggle the most academically — to either sit out a year or attend traditional district schools, even though charter schools are fully taxpayer-funded.
The SUNY-authorized Amber Charter School in Harlem sets its cutoff date at Sept. 1 — just like most city private schools — and the DOE has approved a similar cutoff at the Voice Charter School in Queens.
It was only after district parents like Valarie Lamour complained that Voice Charter recently tabled the new admissions preference until next year.
“It feels like exclusion to me,” said Lamour, a member of the District 30 Community Education Council in Queens, whose son’s birthday is in December. “If the DOE is going to offer kindergarten to all 5-year-olds who are residents, then charter schools that operate within our district also need to adhere to the same rule.”
DOE officials said they believe charter schools are allowed to determine their own admissions deadlines because they’re technically considered to be independent districts.
State law sets the compulsory age for schooling at 6 but lets districts determine their own guidelines for kindergarten enrollment.
While the city stood by its support of the early cutoff dates, SUNY’s Charter Schools Institute made the Amber Charter School change its admissions deadline after questions were raised about it by The Post.
“We have amended our application and Admissions Policy to reflect a birth date cutoff of Dec. 1st to comply,” Principal Vasthi Acosta wrote in an e-mail yesterday. “All applications received that have this new cutoff date are now eligible for the lottery.”
SUNY said that Amber had included the early cutoff date in its 2010 charter renewal but that officials had approved the application without noticing the amended date.
A handful of city charter schools already set their entry cutoff date at Dec. 1 — something SUNY says it’s allowing new charter schools to continue doing because it’s an option allowed by the state.