Read this before the tuition page
Apply for free 3-K or pre-K before you pay us anything
New York City gives every resident three- and four-year-old a free, full-day early education place. We are a private nursery and we are not that. If you have not checked, check before you read our rates.
If your child is three or four, the City may do this for nothing. New York City gives every resident three- and four-year-old a free, full-day place in 3-K or Pre-K for All, regardless of family income or immigration status. For the 2026-2027 year that meant children born in 2023 for 3-K and 2022 for pre-K, with applications open from 14 January to 27 February 2026. We are raising this before we quote you a weekly rate, on the pages where you are most likely to be about to pay us, because a family paying for a four-year-old's daytime hours without having applied is usually spending money the City would have covered. Families still pay us for these ages for good reasons — hours beyond what a free place covers, or not getting one — and neither of those is a reason to leave the question unasked.
This is the first page we would want a parent of a three- or four-year-old to read, and it is the one that costs us the most money. New York City funds free, full-day early education for every resident child of the right age through 3-K and Pre-K for All. It does not means-test, it does not ask about immigration status, and for a family who fits it, it is worth many thousands of dollars a year.
A private nursery that quotes you $365 a week for a three-year-old without asking whether you have applied is not lying to you. It is simply letting you not know something, which is a quieter thing and, over a year, a more expensive one.
Who is eligible, and when to apply
Eligibility runs on birth year rather than on a birthday. For the 2026-2027 school year, children born in 2023 could apply for 3-K and children born in 2022 could apply for pre-K. The application window ran from 14 January to 27 February 2026, and it is an application window rather than a queue: applying on the first day and applying on the last day are treated identically.
You need to live in New York City. That is the whole eligibility test. Your income does not matter, your immigration status does not matter, and neither does whether you work. Families are routinely surprised by this because almost every other form of childcare help in this city is means-tested, and they assume this one is too.
Missing the window does not end it. Applications continue to be accepted afterwards and places continue to be offered from waiting lists as they come free, so a family who finds out in June is later than ideal rather than out of options.
Why a family would still pay us, legitimately
Hours. A free place covers the school day. If you work a shift that starts at seven or finishes at six, the free place does not cover the hours at either end and something has to. A fair number of our preschool and pre-kindergarten families are with us for exactly that reason, and it is a good reason.
Not getting one. Offers depend on what is available near you, and a family can be eligible and still not receive a place they can actually get their child to. That is a real outcome and it is not your fault.
Continuity. A child who has been in our infant, toddler and twos rooms with the same two adults has something we would not lightly break, and some families decide the last year here is worth paying for even though a free place exists. We think that is a defensible decision, and we think it should be a decision rather than an accident.
What we do about it at enrolment
We ask. It is the second step of our enrolment process and it happens before we quote a rate. If your child was born in 2022 or 2023 and you have not applied, we will say so, and we will say it even when the answer means we do not get your business.
Sunita keeps the current dates in the kitchen and raises them with families who are already enrolled as well as with families on a tour — including families whose fees we would lose. That is not generosity. It is the minimum standard for being trusted with a child.
What we will not do is present the free option as a worse one in order to keep you. If a City place fits your hours and your journey, it is very likely the right answer and we will tell you so.
The honest limits of what we can tell you
We do not run 3-K, we do not hold City contracts for it, and we have no influence over who receives an offer. Anything we say about the process is what any parent can read on the Department of Education's own pages, and where those disagree with us, they are right and we are out of date.
The dates in this paragraph are the 2026-2027 ones. Application windows move each year, and a page on a nursery website is not a substitute for the City's own current guidance. Check it. If we have let this page go stale, that is a fault of ours and telling us about it would be a kindness.
In order
How this works in practice
Work out your child's birth year
Eligibility is by year of birth, not by age on a given day. Children born in 2023 applied for 3-K for the 2026-2027 year; children born in 2022 applied for pre-K.
Apply through the City rather than through a nursery
The application is made once, to the Department of Education, and it covers every participating programme you list. No nursery applies on your behalf and none can move you up it.
List more than one programme
An application naming a single site is an application that fails when that site is full. Listing several genuinely reachable options is the single most useful thing a family can do.
Tell us what you are waiting on
If you are holding a place with us while an application is outstanding, say so. We would rather plan around it than discover it in August, and it changes nothing about how we treat you.
If an offer comes and it fits, take it
We will help you work out whether it covers your hours, and if it does we will help you leave. Notice is four weeks, we do not charge a penalty, and we will hold your sibling's place.
Questions we are actually asked
Apply for free 3-K or pre-K before you pay us anything — frequently asked
Is 3-K really free?
Yes. It is funded by the City, there is no tuition, and there is no income test. Families are frequently sceptical of this because nothing else in New York childcare works that way, but it is genuinely free at the point of use for every resident child of the eligible age.
Does my immigration status affect eligibility?
No. Eligibility for 3-K and Pre-K for All depends on living in New York City and on your child's year of birth. It does not depend on your immigration status or on your income, and applying does not require either to be disclosed in the way families often fear.
If I take a 3-K place, do I lose my place here?
For the hours the free place covers, yes — we cannot hold a full-time place open for a child who is elsewhere for most of the week. What we can do is convert you to part-time, to before-and-after hours, or to hourly sessions, and we will work that out with you rather than making it an ultimatum.
Why would a private nursery tell me this?
Because you will find out eventually, and a family who discovers in year two that they could have had this for nothing does not stay, does not recommend us, and is right not to. We would rather have a smaller number of families who know exactly what they are buying.
What if I have already missed the deadline?
Apply anyway. Late applications are accepted and places continue to be offered from waiting lists through the year as children move away or decline offers. Being late is a disadvantage, not a disqualification.
Tuesday and Thursday mornings, while the children are here
Come and see the room
A tour here happens during a session, in the room your child would actually be in, at the time of day they would be in it. You meet the person who leads that room rather than only the director, and you see the noise and the mess that are genuinely there. It takes an hour. If your child is three or four we will ask whether you have applied for free 3-K or Pre-K for All before we quote you a rate, because a good many families should not be paying us at all.