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@SweetiePie: I’m born and raised Brooklyn and went to public school there as a child... it all depends on the neighborhood. There are a lot of great schools. You can go to schools.nyc.gov and use the find a school search with a poential address to see the zoned school. Many schools have pre K but you are not guaranteed admissions since most of the preK seats and classes are smaller than the K classes. And the application for UPK is based on your current address.

Have you applied yet for UPK? There are a lot of great programs that aren’t associated with schools as well. I find Facebook and google groups for my neighborhood useful for finding out info about schools.

ETA there are also a tonof private preschools. Many of the application deadlines have passed. Do you have a neighborhood in mind? If so I can suggest some schools

@SweetiePie: I feel like a criminal that I haven't called you! Things have been *crazy* here with us coordinating to leave, but not as crazy as having a newborn, I'm sorry, I'm in shame spiral

Re schools, I don't know anything about private school because we can't afford it and just never considered it (also as a product of good public schools my gut reaction is FTS).

If you guys are serious about staying in NYC, the universal pre-k treatment is the same here in Brooklyn as it is in Manhattan--they try not to do this but you can get placed further away, although I think not usually UES/Chinatown far. I went to a public schools lecture by a woman whose only job is educating parents about the public school system, and she does consulting on the side. I recommend you go just to get the groundwork--her lectures fill up fast, fyi.
http://www.nycschoolhelp.com
Basically I went to try and discern whether we could safely buy in a shitty school district and still have options, and my take-away on that was a big no, and we wanted to buy, hence NJ.
Here are my bare-bones iPhone notes from her lecture on the pre-k section: "Pre k are often not convenient or consistent. 70k seats, but only 30k in public schools. Plenty of seats but not all are great. Other 40k are in other places. Bishop Gold prek center is amazing in park slope. Most are in early ed centers. 5 days a week 6 hrs a day. 18 kids two teachers. Probably won't be enough seats in pre k in good zoned schools. Lots of difficulty with early bird or after care though and your placement can be hard to get to. Need to talk to neighbors and go visit ALL the programs. See with your own eyes. Waitlists don't really move much."

Re DUMBO and Park Slope, be aware that both of those neighborhoods both have big slices that feed to not great/really bad districts. Then when he gets into kindergarten, the big drawback is that there is overcrowding and waitlisting in almost all of the "good" elementary schools--tons of people getting their kid in by renting in that area and then buying further out and commuting their kids into the cobble hill schools etc, then sibling preference, plus just tons of families squeezing in. I know a couple of people here in Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill whose kids didn't get in to 29 or 52 and it was a huge pain in the ass, but most do. And if you do get in, the schools are great and you're home free. Park Slope might be a safer bet because the zone has more great schools, so if you don't get into your zoned school, you probably will get into a very nearby neighboring school where you'll still be happy. In Brooklyn Heights, the best elementary school shares a zone with a lot of less nice schools, so if you don't get into that you might be furious that you're paying $$$ to live in Brooklyn Heights and your kid is going to school way far away. I don't know if you guys are talking about buying or renting for now, but there are fewer rentals that are going to be big enough for you out here--the huge apartment buildings like the one you live in with all the different floor plans etc just aren't here the way they are in Manhattan, it's mostly little 2 bedroom places where the second bedroom is pretty small. Sorry this is a mishmash and I don't mean to discourage you--I think it's so great out here and that you would love it. xxxx

@SweetiePie: I don't live in Brooklyn so I can't speak to that, but have you considered any other neighborhoods in Manhattan? The school situation in Battery Park is great, and at the moment there don't seem to be any real waitlist issues with the excellent public elementary schools or with the many public pre-K options in the neighborhood and in Tribeca (some of which are in standalone pre-K centers, but people are very happy with them). I'm not sure how rental prices compare to what you're paying now, but you may want to take a look.

I know you nixxed JC, but what about Hoboken? Free prek 3 and 4, k-5 schools are great and quite a few private options which are really good (and half as much as the UES)

@SweetiePie: well so it’s certainly not inexpensive. I can wall you what we pay for our 1400 sq ft 3/2 rental that has a yard and terrace,, we couldn’t get anything close to what we have now on the UES for what we pay. (We moved from the UES). Hoboken doesn’t have the Brooklyn vibe but more interesting places are coming in every day, the schools are improving on a yearly basis, and it is SO family friendly and small town feeling.
Plus you can factor in the small but important “bonus” of not pay ny city tax living here. It is easier to have a car here as well (garages are half to a third of what we paid in the city). The commute just has to make sense for you.
You can wall me if you have any more questions. We also have a super active FB group who is a great resource as well.

I could probably write a novel about this topic, but in short I would highly recommend looking at the independent upk programs. I personally think they are even better than the ones in the public schools. Although generally the “curriculum” is the same, but the environment is smaller and more intimate and in my experience they have been more flexible (which was important for me with another young baby at home).
Regarding public schools in K and up that is a separate matter. The core curriculum is very similar across the board. the main differences lie in the “extras”- special assemblies, after school programs, outside programs that are brought in etc. But then many of them are hard to get into even if they are in your zone. Ultimately you have to find what works for your particular situation in terms of neighborhoods you would want to live in/cost of rent/possible cost of private school. There are lots of combinations that work.
As an aside I was also going to suggest Hoboken as an option you should look into.

If you do end up considering JC and Hoboken, some things you might want to know:

-The rental market in Hoboken is actually softer right now than it has been in a while, because so many new rental buildings have been going up. So it's a decent time to be a renter. I think certain areas of the JC waterfront are the same.

-Public Pre-K is much easier to get into in Hoboken than in JC, (JC has a crazy lottery system that used to have people camping out on the street for 3 days beforehand to get into the "good" pre-ks, and this year they went digital and apparently it was a giant mess and parents are unhappy).

-HOWEVER, JC has 1 public elementary, middle school, and HS whose raw test scores are amazing (this is because the elementary school has almost no low income students, and the middle and high schools are magnet schools). McNair HS in JC is consistently rated one of the best public HS in all of NJ. Cornelia Bradford ES in Exchange place is the elementary school.

Hoboken is a *much smaller* school district, therefore we have no magnet schools and so many people have put their kids in private schools in the past, because of the perception of Hoboken having bad schools, that it became a self-fulfilling prophesy as the only people who attended the HS were the people who couldn't afford to go private or move to the suburbs. Like the HS is 75% low SES. However, as PPs mentioned, the Hoboken school system is pretty rapidly changing and now it seems pre-k through 5th grade are consistently well rated, and by the time my oldest is in 5th grade, I expect the change to extend to higher grades. Obviously, Hoboken is still battling a housing cost issue, where many families who need more space are priced out, but I think the future is looking pretty bright for Hoboken schools. And their Pre-K program is pretty amazing. I have friends with kids in every single campus in town, and all of us have been really pleased.

-finally, there are plenty of private schools in both JC and Hoboken if that ends up being your jam, and I have a friend whose kiddo started attending Dwight Englewood and this year, there are enough Hoboken kiddos attending that they are sending a bus to hoboken for pickup--so if you want an "elite" private school, there's that option too. They start (private) preschool at age 3.