By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER EAST SIDE — Parents angry over waitlists for Upper East Side elementary schools are pushing the education department to allow them a second choice for the school their children will go to in the fall.
A group of parents on the wait list for P.S. 290 at 311 East 82nd Street proposed a resolution to allow them to rank their preferences for other neighborhood schools.
"The very least the Department of Education could do is allow parents who are on a wait list to at least rank the alternate schools so they can give people what they want or the second best option," said Michelle Hankin, whose daughter was number 65 on the wait list for kindergarten at P.S. 290.
Community Board 8 passed the parents resolution at its full board meeting last week.
The city was scheduled to mail out alternate school placements to parents of children still on the wait list on Monday.
The education department did not return calls by deadline.
The push for a voice in school placement comes after growing parental frustration at finding themselves unable to enroll their kids in the schools that are right in their neighborhood.
Lucy Appert's family lives a block and a half away from P.S. 290, her son Henry is number 85 on the waiting list.
"It is a certain kind of contract you enter into," Appert said. "We've stayed in our apartment for 11 years thinking we were going to this school."
A new school, P.S. 267, will open in the fall to relieve overcrowding but it will be housed temporarily at P.S. 158 at 1458 York Avenue, which Appert says undermines the idea of a neighborhood school.
"That's ridiculous for my kid to go over a mile to school," she said.
Over time, the parents group hopes to pressure the DOE into re-zoning the neighborhood to prevent this type of situation in the future.
"It was completely forseeable, anyone could've seen that 290 would be overcrowded," Hankin said. "They seem to just be making it up as they go along."
"My daughter is paying the price of poor planning by the DOE," she said.
