Some community organizations also offer pre-K classes as part of a full-day child-care program.

"They've had wait-list issues of significant proportions," he said, adding that P.S. 107 already eliminated a pre-K class last year to make space.

The law directing school districts to make pre-K classes available to all 4-year-olds within four years was passed by well-meaning but poorly informed legislators.

The state has added public- school pre-K classes and all-day kindergarten, and introduced Reading Recovery, a highly regarded national intensive remedial program.

By 2003, any 4-year-old in the city will be entitled to a seat in a half-day pre-K class.

So what does he say about pre-K classes?

Everyone came except for the pre-K classes; the school agreed that the Mass was too long for fidgety 4-year-olds.

Looming large on the horizon: pre-K classes to prepare children for kindergarten.

Nearly 90 percent of households of the pre-K class receive public assistance.

It took nearly two weeks, but I finally managed to get an e-mail (and phone) list together for the parents of my twins' pre-K class.