KINDERGEDDON: What Do You Mean My Four-Year-Old Is Waitlisted?

Holy crap, I can't believe there haven't been riots in the streets of Park Slope already!

Last week, dozens of parents learned that shelling out for overpriced, attractively zoned apartments and brownstones doesn't actually entitle you to guaranteed admission at local top rated public elementary kindergartens like PS 107, 295 and 39.

If there *are* any protests, we're all going to clearly need the latest in protective headgear fashions. Blue Apron, Five Guys, and the Food Coop have all graciously offered to give away stale mini ciabattas and sourdough baguettes free-of-charge to protect the heads of Park Slope's innocent families. Ok, fine..they haven't. But they should.

Because, I'm telling you now, this shit is about to get real!

The realtors alone are in danger of being hung from the flagpoles of every overcrowded schoolyard in a 30 block radius. Woe to befall anybody pulling up curbside in a minivan. And what about the pols and DOE admins who let all these big ass condos get built without adding any schools to put their kids in?

From the South Brooklyn Post, 

For the first time, officials at a handful of popular schools in Carroll Gardens and Park Slope are placing kindergartners on a wait-list because there are not enough seats for all the children who live in the zone. Letters regarding kindergarten placement went out this week.

The situation is grim at PS 107 on 8th Ave. in Park Slope, where 49 families who live in the school zone were notified Wednesday that their rising kindergartners are on a wait list and may not get a seat. The list has sparked outrage in the small and sought-after school zone.

“This should be a wake up call for all parents of young children in the neighborhood to contact their elected officials and work with them to find a way to create more classrooms in the area. If we don’t, we will find ourselves with huge class sizes as well as wait-listed children every year,” said Bess Hauser, who has lived in the PS 107 zone for nine years. She found out Wednesday that her son was wait-listed.

Another Park Slope school, PS 39, also has a wait list, but details are yet to emerge on how many children did not get in.

Let the oustings begin!

Susan Fox of Park Slope Parents says all you address cheaters are going to be in BIG trouble real soon. According to her letter to PSP's listserv, the hatchets are out for you as I type, and the administrators at 107 are calling on people to come forward if they know of any parents who are lying about their address.

Though Fox is a sanctimonious pain in the arse, I'm inclined to agree with her.

As someone with a jackpot address, why should I still be stuffed in my little zoned and overpriced apartment and then not get a spot for my shoe-horned kiddlies at my local school? I mean, how many real estate and rental ads DON'T use the zoned school as a key selling point?

From the Times piece, the coverboy Steve Kreps (an SAT tutor, no less), is one of almost fifty families on the 107 waitlist. And so far, he's hit a dead end in his plans to prepare his four-year old for Ivy League admissions. Fuck college, how about kindergarten?

Mr. Kreps, an SAT tutor, said that he called P.S. 10, six blocks from his home; P.S. 295, a half-mile to the west; and P.S. 154, in neighboring Windsor Terrace, but none of them would take his application.

Miraculously, given the fact that there are at latest count like a billion students enrolled, 321 doesn't have a waitlist. Phew! Because have you seen the traffic pile-ups at drop-off and pickup? I'd like to know what percentage of 321ers DO actually live in zone? In fact, I just dug out an email back and forth I had with Liz Phillips, our principal, in 2007 on this very topic. Me:

Big family-sized developments (all 2-4 bedrooms) within the 321 zone are springing up along the newly rezoned 3rd and 4th Aves, all without the city or Dept of Ed having made any plans for another school to help absorb the added population. A lot of these developments aren’t occupied yet and I worry that the current overcrowding is just the tip of the iceberg.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that many, many students at 321 do not live in the zone. The current documentation and oversight process only requires one relatively easy lie, a Con Ed bill in a parents’ name, and is inadequate to the task of weeding out. At least 30-40% of the 321 families I know got their first kids in and then moved to bigger quarters outside the zone. Some never lived here in the first place. 

And her reply, which is prescient about what all our affluence and expensive real estate is costing Park Slope.

The DOE is actually philosophically moving away from zoned schools (even though I don't see any way that would happen to already zoned schools like 321) because of equity issues and segregation of neighborhoods. They are therefore not that enthusiastic about saying that if a family moves out of an affluent neighborhood because they can't afford to live there, they don't get to stay in the school.

One proposal I've heard that I think it interesting is that all NEW schools being built be non-zoned.  If we had more excellent choices such as the Children's School and the Brooklyn New School, it would probably alleviate some of the potential problems of new development for 321.  

I certainly do have concerns about all the new development, but it is still not clear what the impact will be. I do want you to know that I am monitoring registration closely so that we can be on top of the situation and handle variances based on registration.  Because it is such expensive housing, it is possible that some of these families will send students to private school.  My hunch is that it is going to be several years before we really feel the impact, but I could be wrong.

In some ways what concerns me most about all the new expensive building is that it is reducing the diversity of the neighborhood and school. That really is unfortunate.  In the past, we often did accept variances to maintain diversity, and that is getting harder and harder to do.      

Liz told me today that, ironically, budget cuts have freed up space at 321. For years, 321 received funding for reduced class size in early grades. But, woohoo, no more funding! And so no more pesky 22 kid classes. This means that 240-250 K students will be okay with the ten classes they have. 

And, in grades 1-3, due to the anticipated budget cuts,  we will very likely be raising the class size, again saving some space.  Not the way I would want to do it, but it is the reality right now. 

Every time I see another pregnant belly walking by me on 7th, I'm thinking "how in the hell is this all sustainable?" We need some more schools or we're going to pop. Is that actually true? I need my 2010 census data on the under 18 population growth!!!

This KINDERGEDDON could end property values in Park Slope as we know it. Wait, maybe that's not such a bad thing! 

What do you think?