Eliza Halsey, daughter Saidan, & Tim Holahan call for more transparency in the pre-K application process.
New Haven kids are finding the doors closed to free pre‑K spots in magnet schools — a cornerstone of the strategy to closing the urban-suburban achievement gap — because those slots are going disproportionately to suburban kids.
That’s happening not because of evil intentions of the part of policymakers, but because of a bureaucratic wrinkle in the way the state pays for those spots.
A total of 266 seats, or 54 percent of the pre‑K spots at city magnet schools, are currently filled by children who live in the suburbs, according to numbers provided by the district.
The revelation came in response to a Freedom of Information Request from two parents, Eliza Halsey and Tim Holahan.
After facing problems enrolling their own children in pre‑K spots in New Haven, the duo appeared at the school board Monday night to air concerns about the application process.
They brought the plight of frustrated parents to the board’s attention. And they heard about how school officials feel a need to overfill pre‑K slots with suburban students in order to keep magnet school money — because suburban parents pull their kids back to their hometown schools in upper grades.
Mayor John DeStefano has made pre‑K access a major plank of his reelection campaign, hailing it as a huge leg up in the fight to close the achievement gap between city kids and their suburban peers. Enrollment into the early grades has been a notoriously opaque and difficult process for parents.
City-based regional magnet schools are supposed to mix city students with suburban kids. But not necessarily with such a high number of suburban kids as is found in city pre‑K classrooms.
Halsey, who lives in the Hill, said she tried twice to get her daughter into pre‑K at magnet schools when Saidan was 3 and 4 years old. Both times, Saidan remained on the wait-list while suburban kids got in. She then hustled to determine what her other options were. She found the system difficult to navigate — even for a Yale-educated mom experienced in dealing with civic institutions and bureaucracies.
Holahan, who lives in Westville, said he was completely unaware that the city offers free pre‑K for city residents. He ended up sending his kid to preschool in Woodbridge. He said found out later that enrolling in a New Haven pre‑K program would have given his kid a leg up on getting a spot in kindergarten at competitive schools.
Nine magnet schools offer pre‑K for free; tuition for school readiness sites and HeadStart programs is on a sliding scale.
Disappointed with the lack of transparency of the application process, Holahan and Halsey created an informal group of parents who’ve encountered similar problems. They researched the problem and offered solutions.
Here’s what they found:
At Davis Street School, where Halsey tried twice to enroll her child, 28 students live in the suburbs, taking up 44 percent of available slots. Between 41 and 63 percent of pre‑K students at each magnet school live out of town.
Citywide, 266 of 528 pre‑K spots at magnet schools are occupied by out-of-town kids.
There are other options, of course: Magnet school spots make up about 40 percent of the total available early childhood education spots. Eighteen other sites offer pre‑K programs geared only to New Haven kids.
Holahan said he’s fine with admitting suburban kids into the city schools, but the “choice programs are going disproportionately to out-of-town kids.”
He read aloud a story of another parent, “Linda,” who didn’t want to give her real name.
Linda didn’t have a social network that could help her figure out the tricks to get into early childhood education.
When Linda got wait-listed for pre‑K magnet schools, she found there was no single place to get information about the other options, HeadStart and school readiness sites. When she finally enrolled in a school readiness site, she found out the hours didn’t work with her schedule.
One of the most frustrating parts, Holahan said, was that Linda couldn’t find out the cost of the program until she submitted financial paperwork. Linda estimated she spent 40 to 60 hours, without anyone’s help, navigating the system.
Halsey said Monday that her quest isn’t about her child, who found another pre‑K program — but to make the system easier to navigate for other parents. She read a list of requests:
Early in the process, schools should give parents a sense of their odds of getting in, and a sense of how much it will cost. There should be no requirement to physically appear in an office as part of registration, she said.
“We’re lucky to have a good number of pre‑K slots,” Halsey said, we just need to make them more available to New Haven parents.
Superintendent Reggie Mayo agreed to set up a meeting between staff and parents to discuss the recommendations.
Perverse Financial Pressure
Then Mayo issued a warning: The district stands to lose money — and perhaps even pre‑K slots — if not enough suburban kids are enrolled.
The district is under pressure to have at least 35 percent of students in magnet schools hail from the suburbs, Mayo said. If the district meets that percentage, it gets $3,000 from the state for every New Haven kid and $5,000 per suburban kid.
If suburban enrollment drops below 35 percent, Mayo said, the district stands to lose the $3,000-per-student payment from the state. The magnet schools were built with 95 percent state funds, in part because they promised to serve out-of-town kids.
Board member Alex Johnston challenged the district to better engage New Haven parents seeking to enter the city’s public schools.
He said it seems like pre‑K is “a very scarce resource,” which isn’t being marketed because the district is worried about increasing demand while not having enough seats for kids. He said the district shouldn’t shy away from marketing that resource, however — it should do a better job to engage these parents at an early stage, when parents are perhaps most intensely interested in the public schools. Even if the parents don’t get their kids in, he argued, they’d prove a powerful lobbying arm to the state to help change the rules.
Johnston agreed with Halsey that it makes sense to inform parents about their odds of getting in, especially when they are planning a year ahead about an important family decision.
Mayor DeStefano asked if the district is enrolling the bare minimum of suburban kids.
The answer was no, Mayo replied.
Mayo said suburban enrollment tends to fall off in the higher grades, so the city needs to stack the school with more suburban kids in pre‑K. The district aims to keep suburban enrollment at higher than 35 percent, he said, because of the risk that kids will later leave the school. Often suburban parents don’t have preschool in their towns. So they grab urban pre‑K slots at the magnet schools — then move their kids back to their hometown schools for higher grades, leaving the higher grades at the urban magnet schools underenrolled.
“We can work on our customer service,” Mayo offered, but at the end of the day, district needs to keep up that enrollment to avoid losing money, he said.
I couldn't agree more with what these parents are fighting for. I moved back to New Haven several years ago and received nothing but frustration and useless information from the NHBOE regarding enrollment in magnet school for my Pre-K student. I had to aggresively spend countless hours seeking any and all information regarding my options. After repeated failed attempts in the lottery...both my boys are enrolled in private schools now and that is exactly were they are staying. I just cannot deal with New Haven anymore! I feel for other parents who just don't know what to do!!