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February 1, 2011, 6:05 pm

Competition for Preschool

By LISA BELKIN

I moved to the suburbs so that I would not have to put myself through preschool admissions. Yes, you read that right; I did it for me more than my children. I knew I didn’t have the stamina or ego strength to get through a process that weeds out three-year-olds based on their academic potential.
Allison Weeks, a reader in Staten Island who works as a fundraiser, thought she had made a similar choice. She chose an open enrollment program for her son and thought she had avoided the ratchet-up-the-competition-and-the-complications trap.

But as so many of us learn, traps spring in unexpected places. She asked if she might share her story with Motherlode readers, hoping you would use the comments to share your own tales, and maybe parents a bit behind her in the process might not be taken by surprise.

How, she wonders, did we get to the point where competition for preschool is the norm? And what can we do about it?
She writes:

I am a working mom (full time) of a 2 1/2 year old son, and have always been pretty laid back about parenting (no high-end baby gear, expensive recreational activities, flash cards /educational training, etc). It’s both a product of lack of time as well as of confidence that my son doesn’t need anything at this age beyond a loving environment and some free creative play time to develop on track.

Recently, it came time to choose and register for a 3-year old nursery school program. My son has been home with my mom during the day since I went back to work in his infancy, so I thought that the socialization seemed necessary. I selected the YMCA simply because the branch was close to my mom’s house. I assumed that the process, given that it is a non-competitive program, should be pretty straight forward. When I called to inquire, I was told that if I wanted any chance at all of getting him in, I would need to get to the building at 5 a.m. to get a ticket on registration day, then come back at 10 a.m. to complete the registration.

Needless to say, I felt like an absolute lunatic leaving my house at 4:30 a.m. in a snow storm to secure a place in a class where my son would spend 2 1/2 hours finger painting and reciting the alphabet two days a week! And for this privilege, by the way, we’ll be paying $2,000 a year (more or less what my parents paid to send me to private high school in the mid-nineties!).

While chatting with other bleary-eyed parents in line for my ticket on registration day, I learned that this was “civilized” compared to other nursery schools on Staten Island, where fights broke out in line and even overnight camp-outs didn’t guarantee admission. It’s amazing to me that, for the simple act of giving a child a basic school experience, this type of behavior should be necessary. My mom and other women of her generation have been baffled by this. It seems to be another example of how all those over-zealous moms out there have set this impossible standard that all parents now have to keep up with. Or maybe it’s that NYC is not at all equipped to educate the volume of children in the five boroughs any more. I’ve also learned from other parents that this experience will seem minor when it’s time to register my son for public kindergarten in our zoned school, where pre-registration and an interview may be necessary for the regular class!

The other point I’d make is that I was only able to participate in this madness because I have a fairly flexible workplace.  For other working parents who absolutely have to be in the office at 9 am, registering would have been impossible.

I am very curious to hear about your other readers’ experiences registering for preschool. 

By the way, after securing ticket #10, he’s in! A bittersweet victory indeed!

Kevin Shermach, a spokesperson for the YMCA of Greater New York asked for a chance to respond to Allison’s question. Here’s what he had to say:

We’re no stranger to the nightmare stories about applying to preschools in the city; we’re raising kids in the city, too. But we were sorry to hear about Allison’s experience and did some looking.
The scene Allison described was pretty close to accurate. The ticket system went in years ago to avoid just that kind of madness in the wee hours and to structure the first come, first served approach to avoid a giant pileup. Why 5:00am? Because that’s when our doors open for the morning, and we don’t want anyone to have to wait out in the cold a minute longer than they choose to.

We were disappointed to hear that our staff told Allison “in order to have any chance…,” but we do instruct our staff to “strongly encourage parents get there as early as they can” to get a ticket. Making the same information available to everyone takes away most of the unfair advantages. One year we didn’t, and you can’t imagine the disappointment, angry or sad—“why didn’t you warn me?” Let’s face it, all any of us wants to do is give our kids the best. At the YMCA, we want to be a partner to moms and dads, not a source of frustration.

We’re looking forward to having Allison’s son join our YMCA family… and to proving to Allison that he’ll be getting a heck of a lot more out of YMCA nursery school than just fingerpainting and the alphabet!