Ready for pre-K?
Eliza Shapiro
The Early Childhood Education Center in Sunset Park illustrates both the enormous promise of the city’s planned expansion of pre-kindergarten programs and the daunting challenges that go along with it.
The center is one of six pre-K programs operated by the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association, and can currently accommodate about 70 toddlers. There are hundreds of families on the wait-list for spots at the center this fall, and more than 1,000 parents on the wait-list for spots in the six programs.
The Sunset Park center’s operators are hoping to offer an additional 120 spots this fall, in response to neighborhood demand that is, to say the least, acute.
“It’s a fact that we are lacking pre-K programs in this neighborhood,” said Paul Mak, the president and C.E.O. of the association. “We’ve been seeing parents who have no choice but to send their children back to their native country, usually China, so they can go to pre-K.”
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/magazine/2014/04/8544392/ready-pre-k