NYC Public School Parents: Kindergarten wait list crisis continues: what we know and don't know

NYC Public School Parents: Kindergarten wait list crisis continues: what we know and don't know:

Kindergarten wait list crisis continues: what we know and don't know

by Leonie Haimson

The Kindergarten waiting lists were released, and they are nearly as long as last year.  See map below and chart to the right. (You can also compare to last year's maps, though they are not directly comparable; more on this below.)

According to DOE, there are  2406 zoned Kindergarten children wait-listed for their zoned neighborhood school this year, compared to 2588 last year.  (The reason last year's figure differs slightly from the one reported in the media is because I removed the double-counting of PS 3 and PS 41 wait lists,which they share; the DOE double-counted them last year but not this.)

Here is a brief summary: 21 districts have wait lists for Kindergarten.   The districts with the longest waiting lists are D24 in Queens (454); D2 in Manhattan (330); D15 in Brooklyn (270); and D25 (175); D30 (152); and D28 (151), all in Queens.

As usual,  Queens is the most overcrowded borough , with the total number of wait-listed zoned children larger than last year, as in Brooklyn and the Bronx.  The schools with the longest wait lists are in Brooklyn and Queens, and these schools are all more overcrowded than last year as well.

Now for what we don't know:

• This year, the DOE refused to tell us how many siblings were on wait lists, though they did this the last two