Tuesday, October 25, 2011

City Council Announces Free Universal Pre-Kindergarten Programs

The following e-mail sent by the NYC Council, relates to free Pre-Kindergarten programs available to the public. If interested please do review.

Gregory
*******

Dear New Yorker,

Spaces are still available for FREE Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK).

These programs are open to all four-year-olds who were born in 2007, regardless of their immigration status.

There are several ways that families can find a UPK program with available seats near them:

Call the Department of Education (DOE) at (718) 935-2009.

Neighborhood preschools, day care centers and public schools across the city offer UPK. You can find a list of open UPK seats at http://schools.nyc.gov/ChoicesEnrollment/PreK/default.htm.

There are also additional services that children in Administration for Children's Services (ACS)-contracted child care centers can receive if they qualify. Families interested in finding out if they qualify for subsidized services can use ACS's web-based Child Care Eligibility Wizard at http://www.nyc.gov/html/acs/chidcare_eligibility/wizard.html to see if they are eligible.

Early childhood education has benefits across a child's lifetime, including raising academic achievement and increasing the chances that a child will successfully graduate from high school.

That's why the City Council is once again partnering with the DOE, ACS and child care advocates across the five boroughs to help enroll as many four-year-olds as possible in free UPK.

Please feel free to forward this information to any parents who may need help finding childcare services.

If you have any questions or have difficulty obtaining information about UPK programs from the resources listed above, please feel free to contact Mathu Subramanian in the City Council's Policy Division. She can be reached by phone at (212) 788-9194 or by email at msubramanian@council.nyc.gov.

Thanks and have a wonderful weekend.

Sincerely,
Christine C. Quinn
Speaker
NYC Council

Robert Jackson
Chair, Education Committee
NYC Council

Annabel Palma
Chair, General Welfare Committee
NYC Council

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