Scrambling to Enroll More Preschoolers
Susan Farley for The New York Times

SPACE At Community Nursery School in Dobbs Ferry there are openings rather than the usual waiting list.

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By JULI S. CHARKES
Published: April 23, 2009

DOBBS FERRY, N.Y.
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Susan Farley for The New York Times

Transitional Learning Center in New Rochelle held a breakfast for prospective families.

WHILE many Manhattan preschools still find themselves turning away anxious parents and their children because they don’t have enough spots, directors at several nursery schools and preschools in the suburbs say that they are worried they won’t fill all their openings in September.

“Normally, we have phones ringing off the hook from parents inquiring about the school,” said Linda Jo Platt, the director of the Community Nursery School here. “This year, the phones have been dead.”

Private nursery schools have enjoyed robust enrollment in recent years, often having long waiting lists in many suburbs around the region. But directors at private nursery schools said they are concerned that the faltering economy and listless real estate market were contributing to a dip in applications and enrollments.

Ms. Platt, for example, said she would typically have a waiting list of 40 to 50 families willing to pay annual tuition of $3,300 to $5,800 for full-day instruction. (Other schools in Westchester called that range typical, although the tuition was higher at some schools on Long Island.)

Today, there is neither a waiting list nor full enrollment at Community for the coming year. The school has 10 available spaces for the fall, and in that regard it is not alone.

“Everyone is stunned,” said Olivia Hewitt, director of the Scarsdale Friends Nursery School and co-president of the Westchester Association for the Education of Young Children, a 300-member consortium of nursery school educators. “There are empty spaces and whether or not they are in your school, it is making everyone nervous.”

Michelle Vogt, business manager for Smoke Rise Nursery School, a traditional nursery school serving about 55 families in Kinnelon in Morris County, said registration ended three months ago, but two of the school’s classes still have openings. “We don’t think we’ll be filling all of them,” she said.

Officials at four Long Island nursery schools said their numbers for the next school year were about normal. “But I believe we’re the exception,” said Ron Kuznetz, the owner of Miss Sue’s Nursery School and Kindergarten in Plainview, which has an enrollment of 210. “I’ve heard of other nursery schools that are eliminating their afternoon programs because they can’t get enough kids.”

The drop in nursery school enrollment comes as demand for scholarship money toward daylong child-care programs is rising, said Kathleen Halas of the Child Care Council of Westchester. The council administers the county’s scholarships for child-care programs, some $1 million for the current fiscal year, Ms. Halas said.

The enrollment declines in the private schools can in some cases seem small. Ms. Hewitt’s comments came on a day when she received calls from two families committed to sending children to her school, which has operated in Westchester for 55 years. That left her with just two spaces to fill for the 33-student capacity.

But that she is contending with any available spaces this late in the year, she said, was a sharp contrast to times past. “Typically at this time of year we are full,” Ms. Hewitt said. “We’ve never seen this before.”

At the Transitional Learning Center in New Rochelle, the director, Jeannette Mirabile, said applications for the coming school year were down some 20 percent. “People are more hesitant this year, people are holding on to their money a bit more, even if that money is available,” Ms. Mirabile said.

Perhaps hardest for school administrators is securing enrollment only to see parents pull out later. At Community, Ms. Platt said several families registered children while still living in New York City and planning to move to Westchester, only to reverse those plans because they could not sell properties in the city.

That happened at Good Shepherd Nursery School in Irvington, N.Y., said its education director, Sasha Wilson, when two families reversed plans to send children to her school, choosing instead to enroll them in a preschool program paid for by the state in neighboring Tarrytown. “That was the hardest,” she said.

To make up for low numbers, several schools spoke of freezing tuition or extending hours to meet the demands of a changing clientele. Some schools are also marketing themselves more aggressively.

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Mary Jo Patterson and Linda Saslow contributed reporting.
More Articles in New York Region » A version of this article appeared in print on April 26, 2009, on page NJ3 of the New York edition.
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Past Coverage

* Corzine Still Focused on Preschools (April 12, 2009)
* Recession Stalls State-Financed Pre-Kindergarten, but Federal Money May Help (April 8, 2009)
* Aid Critical to Public Preschool Plan (March 1, 2009)
* School Unit Gets Reprieve At Montessori In Brooklyn (December 18, 2008)

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