The public kindergarten application
/By Joyce Szuflita
People get goofy when they hear the word, “application”. They assign all kinds of importance to it. They wonder if there are essay questions or tests. There are not.
Here is the deal. The public kindergarten application is really just number crunching for the DoE. Kindergarten is the first true Citywide schooling. It is not a mandated grade (you MUST go to school at 6 years old-first grade), but it is the first academic year and it is when virtually everyone who wants to go to public school begins attending.
The application is the first time the City really gets to count you. It is how they know how many 5 year olds are really out there, and where. The sorting process, which I will explain, is how they make sure that people are moderately evenly distributed and tries to give you a program you prefer. The schools are not choosing you. You are choosing them and the DoE is trying to accommodate you.
Everyone has a zoned elementary school (K-5th grade). It is very, very unusual to have two, but in very, very rare cases it may happen. You can find your zoned school by reading this.
You apply using MY SCHOOLS, the electronic admissions platform. It is easy to make an account. The DoE works on a “need to know basis”. When the application period is open (this year Dec. 7 - Jan. 20), information is available. When it is not open, information is not available. This makes it hard for people who like to do research early. In fact, it can be extremely frustrating. Don’t fight it. If you swim against the rip tide, you exhaust yourself and drown. Chill. Swim along with the tide, parallel to the shore and you will come home safely. That is the only way to deal with the DoE in normal circumstances.
The application is your side of what is commonly referred to as, “the Medical School Matching algorithm”. This matching process won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2012. I am not joking. People call it, “the lottery” and there is a lottery factor, but really it is much more than that, and thinking of it as only a lottery will not really help you in the days and years to come. This same matching algorithm is used for middle and high school as well.
A match has two factors; your list of schools in TRUE PREFERENCE ORDER, and the variety of ways different programs rank you. The algorithm just sorts the choices from your list and how the schools have listed you. You will be put in the school that you like the best that has room according to their parameters. Easy peasy. The “lottery” or “random number” that will be assigned to you (for this application only - it does not follow you to middle school or high school) as the DoE prefers to say, is always the tie breaker.
For example, if you are applying to a zoned school. The priority for admission is:
1. in zone siblings
2. in zone students without siblings
3. out of zone siblings
4. kids who attended prek there, who aren’t in a higher group
5. other kids out of zone but within district
6. other kids out of zone but within the borough
etc.
You can apply to any zoned school in the City, but you will only be matched to it if they still have seats available when they get to down to your priority. Of course there are many people with the same priority, and then the random number is how you are lined up.
From your application of up to 12 choices, you get 1, count them, 1 placement. You can also be on wait lists so if spots open at schools you like better, you can snag them that way as well.
Along with zone schools (remember you only have one zoned school assigned to you, but you can apply to other people’s zoned schools), there are also non-zoned schools, dual language programs, and gifted and talented programs. You can find out about all of these by going to one of Dana Szarf’s wonderful Public Schools demystified webinars.
