Deadline to Apply for Half-Day Pre-K Extended

NEW YORK
Councilman Chaim Deutsch (L) with Mayor Bill de Blasio on the steps of City Hall. (Courtesy of Councilman Deutsch’s Office)
Councilman Chaim Deutsch (L) with Mayor Bill de Blasio on the steps of City Hall. (Courtesy of Councilman Deutsch’s Office)

The deadline for yeshivos and nonpublic schools to apply for the recently issued half-day prekindergarten RFP was extended by a week, to next Friday.

Councilman Chaim Deutsch announced on Thursday that the original due date of Friday, May 22, was pushed off until May 29 after community leaders and institutions told him that they need more time. Mayor Bill de Blasio informed Deutsch on Thursday that he approved of his request for extra time.

For many non-public schools, de Blasio’s signature full-day pre-K program was not feasible since rules required six hours and 20 minutes of secular instruction.

As chair of the council’s subcommittee on non-public schools, Deutsch worked with his colleagues to make available a half-day program for the upcoming school year. The Request for Proposal was finally released on May 1.

The half-day program, which only requires 2 and 1/2 hours of secular education a day, is a better suited program for many of these institutions.

Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, thanked both de Blasio and Deutsch for agreeing to the extension.

“The half-day option is important to many families and schools in our community,” Rabbi Zwiebel said. “The extension of the application deadline will ensure that no school that wants to apply for this program will be deprived of a meaningful opportunity to do so.”

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