In order to fulfill the mayor’s promise of universal, full-day, pre-kindergarten, city officials have worked quickly and creatively to find space for the approximately 17,000 additional seats coming online next fall. Perhaps a little too quickly and creatively, according to some parents.

In District 30, located in northwest Queens, parent leaders have raised concerns about the city’s plan to temporarily site pre-kindergarten classes at five public schools while a stand-alone pre-k center is under construction. The classes will not be considered part of the existing schools, nor will they be overseen by the schools’ principals.

The set-up is a departure from the first year of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to expand pre-k, when the city relied on principals to step forward to open classes in their schools.

A group of parents have called the plan a co-location, and want the city to go through the approval process for such a configuration: educating the community on the plan, gathering public input and ultimately winning approval from the Panel for Educational Policy.

“This is unacceptable,” said Brenda Figueroa, a parent of a fifth-grader at P.S. 17 Henry David Thoreau, which will house one of the classes. She said she thinks the city is avoiding the term “co-location,” and skipping a state-mandated public hearings process.  

But education officials do not view the placement of pre-k classes alongside existing schools as a co-location. The classes do not significantly change the use of the building, according to the Department of Education, even though schools may give up administrative or classroom space, and bathrooms in school buildings will have to go through at least some renovations to outfit them for 4-year-olds.

"As we expand free, full day, high ‎quality, pre-K to every 4-year-old, we are in constant communication with community leaders, families, elected officials, educators and partners in real estate to identify space for classrooms to best serve neighborhood needs across the City,” said Devora Kaye, a spokeswoman for the education department.

She said the city will continue to solicit feedback from families and school leaders. But the issue of skipping community buy-in is a sensitive one, following an era of school closings and co-locations under the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  

Jeffrey Guyton, president of the Community Education Council for District 30, said that the city was acting hastily, without enough outreach.

“This is a good thing,” he said of expanding pre-k, “but good things can be rolled out really nicely with advance communication with the people who are impacted.”