Introduction to Public School Districts

A majority of Seward Park Cooperative families send their school age children to public schools. Unlike many places in the U.S., however, sending your child to public school in New York City is not as simple as just registering up at the neighborhood elementary school.

To start, our cooperative straddles the line between two completely separate school districts. Buildings 1 and 2 (on the east side of Clinton Street) are in District 1 while Buildings 3 and 4 are in District 2. And the two districts are quite different.

District 1 is generally regarded as having good elementary school choices in our area, but not very good middle schools. District 2 has less exciting elementary schools in our immediate area, but some excellent elementary schools elsewhere (if you can get in) and some excellent middle schools.

District 2 is much, much larger. District 1 is just the East Village and Lower East Side (below 14th, east of the Bowery down to Delancey, then east of Clinton below Delancey). District 2 is ALL the rest of Manhattan below 96th Street except the Upper West Side (including the Upper East Side, all of Midtown, Chelsea, Murray Hill, the Village, Soho, Chinatown, Tribeca, the Financial District, etc.).

Because of its size, District 2 has “zoned” schools, where kids who live in a school’s geographic zone get priority in the admissions process. District 1 is more unusual (possibly unique to our knowledge) in being a “choice” district, where everyone who lives anywhere in the district has an equal shot at getting into any school in the district. This has the advantage of equalizing access, but the disadvantage of scattering kids throughout the district. It also has had self-segregating effect.

There are also gifted and talented, special needs, dual language, and other special programs that sometimes blur the lines between districts.

The most popular public elementary schools in District 1 with Grand Street families (in order of proximity) seem to be Shuang Wen (dual language English/Mandarin), PS110 (neighborhood school with the only District 1 gifted and talented program) and the four progressive schools: Neighborhood, Earth, East Village Community and Children’s Workshop. The zoned elementary school for the Seward Buildings in District 2 is PS42, but there are kids who go to a number of other District 2 schools. NEST+m is another nearby public school that is highly sought after and has a citywide gifted and talented admissions process.

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