By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — Kindergarten enrollment opens Downtown Monday, and school overcrowding advocates are already warning that there may not be enough seats for everyone to get their top choice.
"It’s definitely going to be tight," said Eric Greenleaf, a P.S. 234 parent and New York University business professor who has been projecting downtown elementary enrollments for the past several years.
Last year, lower Manhattan’s kindergarten population surged 30 percent, to 375 children, and dozens of students were placed on a waitlist for the popular P.S. 234 in TriBeCa.
Greenleaf expects Downtown's five elementary schools to see even more kindergarten applications this year, based on recent birth rates. In 2005, lower Manhattan saw 663 children born, which yielded last fall’s record-breaking kindergarten class. In 2006, the number of births shot up to 760, which will likely mean even more children seeking a place in downtown’s schools, Greenleaf said.
"We are already over capacity, and we are expecting more children," said Tricia Joyce, a parent leader at P.S. 234.
Joyce said she expects about half of P.S. 234’s 125 kindergarten seats to be taken up by siblings of current students, just like last year.
While the city dealt with last year’s crunch by opening a sixth kindergarten class at P.S. 234, the school does not have enough room to do that again this year, Joyce said.
Instead, this year’s overflow will likely go to the Spruce Street School, which is moving into its permanent home in the base of Frank Gehry’s Beekman Tower in September, Department of Education officials said late last year.
But the real solution is for the city to build another elementary school downtown, and while the Department of Education is eyeing the Peck Slip Post Office as a potential site, nothing is final.
"There’s an urgent need to get more seats, and quickly," Greenleaf said.
Parents who are seeking kindergarten seats for next fall should apply to their zoned school between Jan. 10 and March 4.
Some of downtown’s schools have more specific policies, and both P.S. 234 and P.S. 276 in southern Battery Park City are asking parents to make an appointment online for a time to come in and fill out paperwork. The Spruce Street School has also set aside specific time slots, but parents do not need to make appointments. Those applying to P.S. 89 in northern Battery Park City can do so anytime between now and March 4. There is no advantage to applying early.
Parents should bring their child’s original birth certificate or passport, immunization records, a current Con Edison bill, a rent, mortgage or maintenance bill and a bank or credit card statement. Parents pre-registering at P.S. 276 should also bring their child with them, while parents applying to the other downtown schools should not.
Schools will begin notifying accepted students on March 21, and then families will officially register their children between March 28 and April 15.
Joyce, the P.S. 234 parent, is starting a listserv to distribute information about school overcrowding to lower Manhattan parents. Anyone who is interested can e-mail TJoyce19@gmail.com to sign up.
