In 2013, Mayor De Blasio campaigned on a promise of universal pre-kindergarten. The program makes access to free pre-kindergarten education available to all NYC families, regardless of child’s abilities and family income. Now, three years later, NYC enrolls more children in full-day pre-K than any state except Georgia, and its preschool enrollment exceeds the total number of students in San Francisco or Boston. While the statistics show a positive outlook in early child education, the program received complaints and doubts from parents. Although every city child is promised a free seat, many children were slotted for schools miles away from their home. Also, as the number of pre-K locations increases to accommodate all four-year-old children, the quality of the education is in question.
This Pre-Kindergarten Explorer created can help parents who do not understand Universal Pre-K or simply want to find the closest and most suitable pre-K for their child. This Pre-K guide gives information about each pre-K’s location, contacts, meal plans, playspace, extended day care options, and enrollment restrictions. Also, it allows the public to visualize whether there are enough seats for eligible kids in each borough.
All data source in this project are public data. Last update is on July 11, 2018. If newer data are available, please let me know and I will update the data on Shiny too. Pull requests are welcome too.
This was my second project at NYC Data Science Academy. Also, it was my first time using R Shiny to create a website for public use. If you happen to be a parent in New York City, I hope you find this website useful for planning your kid’s early education.