Pre-kindergartners at coveted Lower East Side elementary schools could be tossed out on their little keisters thanks to enforcement of an admissions policy that parents say had previously been ignored.
Now parents of kids at Shuang Wen Academy in Chinatown and other top schools in District 1 are scrambling to find openings elsewhere – and holding their breath that their little ones can stay put.
At issue is the sincerity of spoken assurances parents say they were given by their schools that children enrolled in pre-kindergarten would be guaranteed a slot in kindergarten this fall regardless of the district’s application process.
But parents say they’ve learned their pre-K children would have to enter a lottery system to keep their spot and that admission was far from secure.
“A lot of parents are just overwhelmed and horrified,” said Jeanne Tung, whose 5-year-old daughter, Raina, is in jeopardy of losing her place at Shuang Wen. “It was always assumed that if you’re in pre-K, then you’re in until the eighth grade.”
Parents at Shuang Wen and elsewhere concede that principals never promised orally or in writing that their children would have a spot in kindergarten.
But they say an arrangement was “understood” and that when questions arose about applying to kindergarten – a policy in District 1 – administrators and parents of older children who had been through the process dismissed their concerns.
“It was understood that once your kid got in, that was it,” said Harvey Epstein, a parent leader at the Neighborhood School, where parents of pre-kindergartners are also facing a lottery.
“Parents are really scared and freaking out about what to do.”
Germana Biagi, whose daughter is in pre-K at Shuang Wen, said she was led to believe that it was “a tradition” to waive pre-kindergartners into kindergarten.
“We knew that we had to register for kindergarten, but the school had a history of moving pre-K kids up,” Biagi said.
Department of Education spokesman Andrew Jacob said District 1, which has no zoned schools, has required that children apply to kindergarten since at least the 2005-06 school year.
Schools give preference to children from the district, but youngsters could face a lottery if there is a glut of applicants.
That is exactly what’s happened at good schools like Shuang Wen, which offers Mandarin-language instruction. Reading and math scores there are among the highest in the city. Shuang Wen received 127 applications for 80 slots for fall 2007.
The principal at Shuang Wen did not return phone calls, but Jacob said neither the Education Department nor the district had ever indicated to parents that entry from pre-K to kindergarten was a sure thing.