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Parents and elected officials gathered at City Hall today to protest crowding in Manhattan that has led to long waiting lists for public school kindergartens. (GothamSchools Flickr)

A crowd of shell-shocked parents gathered outside City Hall this afternoon, angry that the Department of Education hasn’t found seats for the hundreds of rising kindergarten students who have been placed on waiting lists for next year at their local public schools.

The waiting lists, which include 273 names in just two Manhattan districts, mean that families in baby- and building-boom areas like the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, and Greenwich Village could find themselves unable to secure a spot at their neighborhood school’s kindergarten.

The lists attracted extra attention yesterday after news leaked that the city was considering closing or relocating prekindergarten classes at two Greenwich Village elementary schools, PS 3 and PS 41, in order to make room for kindergartners.

Parents at the rally said they felt confused and powerless. “As far as I can tell, I don’t have a Plan B — other than home school or moving to Jersey,” said Jay Douglas, whose 4-year-old son is number 42 on a waiting list for PS 187 in Washington Heights.

Elected officials joined the parents at City Hall today to criticize city officials for not planning ahead to meet the demand for spots in public schools. Scott Stringer, Manhattan’s borough president, said the DOE is “closing its eyes” to a widespread capacity problem, warning that taxpaying parents will pack up and move, taking their kids and tax dollars somewhere else if they can’t enroll in their local public school. (more…)

A play-based kindergarten class. Via Flickr

Kindergarten used to be a time when children dressed up in costumes, built cities out of blocks, and pretended to cook feasts in play kitchens. But now 5-year-olds are more likely to spend their school days practicing basic literacy and math skills.

In fact, kindergartners in New York City spend less than 30 minutes a day on creative play, several recent studies have found.

The shift toward academic kindergarten might boost children’s test scores in the short term but is not likely to make them successful in the long term, according to “Kindergarten in Crisis,” a report released this week by the Alliance for Childhood, a coalition of child development researchers. From the report: 

The power of play as the engine of learning in early childhood and as a vital force for young children’s physical, social, and emotional development is beyond question. Children in play-based kindergartens have a double advantage over those who are denied play: they end up equally good or better at reading and other intellectual skills, and they are more likely to become well-adjusted healthy people.

The trend toward academic kindergarten isn’t news for anyone who’s been paying attention to the city’s public schools for very long. Back in 2006, my former colleague Clara Hemphill tackled the subject in a column in the New York Times. (more…)

Here’s another set of folks not being swept along by the rising tide of transparency: Schools that want to admit children according to their own preferences, not the Department of Education’s rules.

DOE policy prohibits elementary schools from giving preference in kindergarten admissions to children attending the schools’ own pre-K programs. But some schools are hoping to escape having to follow the rules simply by not being forthcoming about how they admit their students, according to a report posted today on the Times’ City Room blog. Elissa Gootman writes:

But one official at a popular elementary school that picks students by lottery said the school intended to give priority to this year’s prekindergartners anyway, insisting that the school not be named so it might “fly under the radar” and avoid City Hall’s attention.

I’m also hearing that some non-lottery schools are considering quietly exploiting a loophole in new DOE rules about kindergarten admissions as they register next fall’s kindergarten classes. (more…)

Anxious parents posting on UrbanBaby are asking for your thoughts on Trinity, Brearley, Chapin, Riverdale, and Manhattan’s PS 87. Private school admissions season must be upon us!

The best depiction of what this means for families that I’ve seen is a year-old documentary called “Getting In…Kindergarten,” available for the first time on YouTube. The film tracks three Manhattan families all the way through the process of applying to private and elite public kindergartens, from picking schools to receiving yes and (lots of) no letters. Director Pamela French is herself a New York City public school parent.

I wrote about the film in the Sun last year when it premiered on TLC. (Philissa also wrote about it at Insideschools.) Now, it brings up a new question: How will the competitiveness depicted in the film weather the recession? So far, private schools say they’re doing just fine. More thoughts from UrbanBaby here.