Pre-K for all? Not for my family

It is now two years since Mayor de Blasio’s universal prekindergarten program began. With just under two weeks left in this year’s first round of applications, enrollment has hit a record high; the administration is declaring the initiative a success.

But while the mayor will tell you that a spot in a full-day class is now available to every 4-year-old, I am almost certain my soon-tobe-4-year-old daughter will not be able to access the program in the fall. The reason: We live on the Upper East Side.

Just after the universal pre-K program began, when my older daughter was turning 4, the Upper East Side and Yorkville had fewer than five free public pre-K seats for every 100 4-year-olds.

We applied to the four public schools between E. 59th and E. 96th Sts. We were waitlisted at all of them, and, ultimately, not accepted at any of them.

My family’s middle-class income also priced us out of three of the four communitybased organizations in the neighborhood, and the fourth organization gamed the system by charging unaffordable rates for the morning hours.

We were thus forced to place my daughter in a more affordable private school program. She is now excelling in kindergarten at our zoned public elementary school.

I understood that it was the first year of an ambitious program and was hopeful that when the pre-K application process began for my younger child, things would have been improved. They have not.

While hundreds of pre-K sites have apparently been added around the city, a review of the Education Department’s pre-K finder shows that not one program has been added to any of the elementary schools on the Upper East Side from two years ago.

Nor have any pre-K centers or community-based organizations been added. In fact, the Education Department’s pre-K finder map reveals a tremendous gap in program availability on the East Side. Because the four area schools offer only 198 pre-K seats for thousands of applicants, we are still left with a lottery system for acceptance to those schools.

The mayor nevertheless says, “Any child, anywhere in this city, any 4-year-old can have full-day pre-K for free.”

That is simply not my family’s experience, or that of many of my neighbors. Although the city has been adding programs throughout the five boroughs, my children cannot access them. While there may technically be seats left open in the Bronx or Queens that could accommodate my child, I reject that as an option.

In the first place, according to the Education Department website, transportation is not provided by the city for pre-K students. I should not have to bear the burden of shlepping a young child across the city for school.

But more basic: Children, particularly very young ones, should be able to attend schools near their home. That is why my eldest daughter was considered a priority when applying to our zoned elementary school for kindergarten, and why her sister will be considered a priority for that school. Why should pre-K be different?

It is my understanding from speaking to my local elected officials that Education Department administrators do not believe there is a need or demand for additional pre-K programs on the Upper East Side. They are wrong.

Perhaps some of that assumption is rooted in a misunderstanding of my part of the city. Though Michael Bloomberg and a few others of the city’s wealthiest people live here, on the whole it is not a cloistered community for the wealthy and privileged. It’s a largely middle-class neighborhood of 200,000 people.

I know many families who live in the neighborhood would welcome the opportunity to enroll their children in a free public pre-K, especially given the impact on household budgets.

Instead, we are forced to beg and borrow to send our children to a private pre-K, our only feasible option. Our children’s education should not depend on the luck of the draw.

Help the Upper East Side