Playing the Preschool Lottery

Patch contributor Becky Sirpis spent Saturday morning at the Emmanuel Preschool admissions lottery hoping to secure a spot for her 2-year-old son. Here is her first-hand account: 

The thermometer in my car read 16 degrees and the streetlights were still on when I pulled out of the driveway on the way to the lottery on Saturday. I was armed with a bottle of water, my Kindle, the application and my checkbook. After a quick stop for a bagel, I pulled up to Emmanuel at 7:40 a.m.

I didn’t know what to expect. The information packet said that you must be in line before 8 a.m. or you would not be eligible to participate. I was imagining a line of hopeful parents wrapped around the church by the time I arrived, but I was surprised to find that the door was open and only a few parents were seated in the auditorium. 

As I walked through the door, I glanced at the sign that informed parents of how many slots were available for each age group. 

The preschool application process gives priority to parishioners of the church (if it’s a church preschool), siblings of current students and returning students. So it stands to reason that my son’s chances of getting in are higher in his first year of eligibility since there are no returning students, right? Wrong. 

The sign on the door said that there were two spots available for the 2-year-old age group and six available for the 3-year-old group. Out of 24 total spots in the 2-year-old class, only two were available for non-parishioners or non-siblings. I contemplated making a quick exit, but decided that if for no other reason than the fact that I’d get a good 20 minutes of uninterrupted reading, I would stay.

The whole process was much more civilized than I envisioned. Everyone quietly entered, took their raffle ticket, placed half of it in the bowl and then sat in relative silence as everyone else filed in. I admit to a little disappointment as I was hoping for some crazy parent or ridiculous preschool policy stories.

As I waited for the lottery to begin and watched the room around me, I remembered that this was our last chance. My husband and I decided that we were drawing the line at two preschool applications. Our son will be 2 in June and we feel like he could just as easily wait until he’s 3 to start preschool. We also felt that $155 was our limit for application fees this year to potentially be denied admission.

Since the previous week’s lottery did not end in our favor, the Emmanuel lottery was our last shot for the year.

At 8 a.m., the lottery began with the 2-year-old age group. Two numbers were pulled and two men calmly walked to the front to turn in their applications and checks. I illogically thought, “Hmm… maybe I should have sent my husband—apparently men have the better chance.”

They lottery administrators began to pull numbers for inclusion on the waiting list. With each number, my spirits dropped. But then—a familiar number. I fumbled with my ticket, blinked my eyes and felt like I had won the lottery! 

I didn’t even know how far down on the waiting list we were, but by golly, we were on it. I made my way to the front and watched as they put a No. 6 sticker on my son’s application.

I turned in the application and stroked a check for the fee, feeling like the preceding 30 minutes was time well spent.

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt—especially those involved in churches—so I will assume because this isn’t their first rodeo, they have found that the lottery system is one of the only fair ways to fill the open slots in preschool. 

I think it’s the eager parents (myself included) who want socialization and stimulation for their children and the limited space in local preschools that combine to create the mayhem each January and February.

I was pleasantly surprised by the decorum at Saturday morning’s lottery. The Alexandria preschool application process has become a cutthroat ordeal, so it was nice to see adults behaving like, well, adults, and not letting competition override civility.