Sometimes Shit Works! (3K Edition)

Volume 3, Issue 14

Azad turns three later this summer, and last week we learned that she won lottery admission to our family’s top choice “3K” program. New York is unique among American cities for having not just universal pre-k for four-year-olds, but also a large number of free public seats for three-year-olds, an enormous help to families in a city that sucks money out of us like a cosmopolitan leech.¹

Entering in the so-called “3k lottery” was a surprisingly encouraging experience … as much as a game-of-chance system for access to public services can be, anyway. Sheila and I have 30+ years of professional experience in and around public schools between us, and those decades had fostered more suspicion than trust. And yet, we were delighted by things we saw in every public 3k we visited: French-immersion for littles; indoor greenhouses; many a paint-covered finger. The night before applications were due this March, Sheila practically dared me to rank the nine dissimilar programs we had visited together.

I swallowed, ranked, and showed her my list. 

School ready, fo sho.

Hers was identical. Identical!²

We’re still basking in this increasingly rare moment of civic functionality, not to mention family values symmetry. At the same time, I’m hyper-aware that near-universal accessibility to early childhood education is unusual in this country.

For parents in NYC who have this option, though, GET ON IT! Childcare is impossibly expensive, but all-day public 3K is available here for almost everyone who wants it. You just have to:

1. Sign up for the 3K lottery on myschools.nyc, during the same calendar year when your kid turns three;

2. Identify school options (this is the hardest part) through word of mouth, the map on the aforementioned website, play groups, message boards, Facebook, WhatsApp, you know, wherever other parents commune and carp;

3. Visit some schools; and

4. Submit a ranked list through the website before the deadline.

Harder than it needs to be? Yes. But better than it could be? Also yes.

1. I’m trying to keep this post somewhat positive, so I’ll just footnote the fact that the city continues to try to decimate this program in favor of adding EVEN MORE COPS; and that 6% of the families who applied for schools got none of their options, which seems kind of ridiculous, given the resources available for other things like, oh I don’t know, cops.

2. What are the chances? Shout out to actually sharing values!