Parents: Upper East Side needs more pre-K spots

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - Pre-kindergarten spots are always hard to find on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Now some parents fear the waitlists are already too long for their kids to get a spot this fall.

It's easy to see all the youngsters on any given day at St. Catherine's Park. But when it comes to access to universal pre-k, there are too many kids for the seats available in their neighborhood. Councilmen Ben Kallos says the area has 2,500 4-year-olds applying for only 515 seats.

In a statement the Department of Education said in part: "We've worked closely with families to nearly quadruple the number of free, full-day, high-quality pre-K seats in this community, and there's still work to do."