Astoria is taking the rest of the city to preschool.
The neighborhood’s Public School 70 is leading the way for the mayor’s universal pre-kindergarten initiative, doubling the number of preschool seats next year to 144. It’s the city’s biggest addition of full-time seats.
The expansion is part of a push to add more than 1,200 seats boroughwide, to accommodate Mayor de Blasio’s promise to provide full-day preschool for every kid in the city.
“This expansion is a great boon for the parents,” said freshman Councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Astoria). “When I canvassed last year, all I kept hearing was that there weren’t enough pre-k seats to go around.”
The public elementary school currently has just 72 seats for preschoolers to attend either a morning or afternoon session, leaving working parents out of luck for most of each day.
“With the half day, you have to find some weird odd childcare for a day, which is more difficult,” said Jackson Heights dad Will Sweeney. “It’s almost more expensive to find someone to work, then.”
Families had until 11:59 last night to sign up online for public pre-K.
