NYC Expands Free Pre-School for 3-Year-Olds Into All 5 Boroughs

NEW YORK CITY — Six school districts will offer free pre-kindergarten classes for 3-year-olds over the next three years as New York City's "3K For All" program expands, city officials announced Thursday. Kids will be offered preschool seats in two districts in Queens and one each in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island starting in the fall of 2018, Mayor Bill de Blasio's office said.

Each district will have a spot for every 3-year-old after two years, making classes universally available in a total of eight districts by 2021, officials said. Those eight districts contain a total of 744 city schools.

The expansion builds on the city's efforts to bolster early childhood education by offering free pre-kindergarten for every 4-year-old, which officials said has more than tripled the number of kids in such classes. About 1,500 3-year-olds are currently enrolled in preschool in the South Bronx and central Brooklyn, where every kid will have a spot by next fall, the city said.

"Early education is essential to the success of our students and City, and today we’re taking another big step forward," city schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said in a statement.

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The "3K" expansion will start in the 2018-19 school year in East Harlem's District 4 and in District 27, covering the Queens neighborhoods of Broad Channel, Ozone Park, Howard Beach and the Rockaways.

District 31 in Staten Island and District 9, covering the Grand Concourse, Morrisania and Highbridge sections of the Bronx, will follow in the 2019-20 school year. District 19 in East New York and District 29, which covers six neighborhoods in southeast Queens, will get the classes in the 2020-21 year.

De Blasio, a Democrat, announced the so-called 3K for All program in April as a supplement to his program for 4-year-olds, which has been a major plank of his re-election campaign. The city has said it will spend $177 million on the 3K initiative by 2021, but will need state and federal money to expand it to every school.

Research shows kids who get two years of pre-kindergarten education do better in school and are less likely to need special education as they grow up, de Blasio's office said. Fewer than 2 percent of students are enrolled in gifted programs in half the districts targeted for the 3K expansion, according to data published by the education news site Chalkbeat.

"These six new districts will give kids across the five boroughs the strongest possible start in life and ease the financial burden for their families," de Blasio said in a statement.

The classes for 3-year-olds are offered at city schools and community-based education centers, the city says. Some 4,500 teachers will eventually be hired to support the program, The New York Times reported in April.

(Lead image from Mayor Bill de Blasio's office)