By JOSH ROGERS
Lower Manhattan principals offered lucky children about 400 kindergarten seats this September, leaving 148 others on waiting lists to get into P.S. 234, 276 and the Peck Slips School.
At least a few of the waitlisted 4- and 5-year-olds are likely to end up at Spruce Street School, which currently has three openings for its 75 slots.
“We are anticipating three classes so we have a little bit of wiggle room,” Spruce Principal Nancy Harris told Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott Thursday at a meeting of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s School Overcrowding Task Force.
At P.S. 234 in Tribeca, Principal Lisa Ripperger said she sent offer notices to 115 students, leaving a waitlist of 50 students. Sixty-three of the accepted students do not have older siblings in the school, meaning this year, families had better than a 50-50 shot of being accepted in the initial offering. (Siblings are given priority over other zoned students.)
Ripperger said even though the P.S. 234 school zone has shrunk twice in recent years to create new school zones, this is still the fifth consecutive year the school has a waiting list.
The two Battery Park City elementary schools have just over 40 on the waitlist. At P.S. 89, 44 are waiting to get into one of three classes, and at P.S. 276, 41 are waiting and hoping one off 100 slots open up in the four K’s starting in September.
The new Peck Slip School, which is operating in the Dept. of Education headquarters at Tweed until its permanent home is finished, has 13 on its waiting list, but Principal Maggie Sienna told Walcott she was expecting “a little movement” so she would be able to offer at least a few more children spots.
