Zoned by address, but the French seat is a separate application. The three routes in, the priority ladder, the calendar, and all 14 NYC public and charter programs.
New York City public school admissions is address-based, and that fact misleads almost every family that goes looking for a French program. Your address gets your child into the zoned school. It does not get them into the French dual language class inside that school.
A dual language program is a separate program choice on the same application. You list it explicitly, and you can be turned down for it while being guaranteed a seat in the very same building. The NYC Public Schools directory says so plainly: you are not guaranteed a spot in the program even if this is your zoned school.
There are 14 public and charter schools with French programs in the five boroughs in this directory, spread across 5 community school districts. Three separate application systems cover them, and which one you use depends entirely on the grade your child is entering.
Most French programs in New York sit inside an ordinary zoned elementary school. Living in the zone guarantees you a seat at the school, barring overcrowding. It does not reserve a seat in the French class.
You apply through MySchools and list the dual language program as its own choice, alongside the plain zoned option. Zoned, non-zoned, dual language and Gifted & Talented all go on one form. There is no cap on how many programs you rank: the DOE dropped the old 12-choice limit from the 2024-25 application and now says only that you can apply to as many programs of interest as you like. Twelve is not a DOE number — it is the floor InsideSchools recommends, and it is good advice.
Some schools have no attendance zone at all, so every seat is applied for. PS 133 in Brooklyn works this way: there is no address that entitles you to it, and admission runs on sibling status, then district, then borough, then citywide. Middle schools are the same idea one age band up — District 13, 14 and 15 all run choice processes rather than zones.
New York French American Charter School in Harlem is a charter, so it sits entirely outside MySchools. You apply on the school's own portal, there is no zone, and any New York City resident can enter. Every application received by the deadline goes into a public random lottery, with preference for siblings of enrolled students.
| Round | Who it is for | Applications open | Deadline | Offers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Middle school | Entering grade 6 | Mid-October | Mid-December | Early April |
| Kindergarten | Turning 5 that calendar year | Early December | Late January | Late March |
| 3-K and Pre-K | Turning 3 or 4 that calendar year | Mid-January | Late February | May |
| Charter lottery | Any grade the school offers | Autumn | March 31 | Mid-April |
An offer is not first-come, first-served. MySchools takes your ranked list, the seats each program has, the priority group you fall into, and a random number assigned to your child, and matches them. Applying on the first day and the last day are worth exactly the same.
For a Kindergarten seat, the priority ladder generally runs: siblings of current students, then children already in that school's Pre-K, then children living in the zone, then children living in the district, then everyone else.
The dual language seat has a second filter on top of that. These programs exist to serve English Language Learners, so target-language speakers are placed first and English-proficient children fill whatever seats remain. Programs also differ on whether they favor the zone — some prioritize children living in the attendance zone, others take from outside it. This varies program by program and is rarely published, so it is a question to put to the school directly.
Two of these schools run an explicit 50/50 model, half Anglophone and half Francophone: PS 58, which opened the city's first French dual language program in 2007, and PS 133, which goes a step further and holds testing appointments for families applying for a Francophone seat. If your child is a French speaker, ask the school whether Francophone seats are counted separately — where they are, the odds are a different calculation entirely.
| School | Borough | Grades | DBN | How you apply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS 110 - The Monitor School | Brooklyn | PK-5 | 14K110 District 14 | MySchools · K round |
| PS 133 - The William A. Butler School | Brooklyn | PK-5 | 13K133 District 13 | MySchools · K round |
| PS 149 Sojourner Truth1 | Manhattan | PK-8 | 03M149 District 3 | MySchools · 3-K/Pre-K round |
| PS 20 - The Clinton Hill School | Brooklyn | PK-5 | 13K020 District 13 | MySchools · K round |
| PS 3 - The Bedford Village School | Brooklyn | PK-5 | 13K003 District 13 | MySchools · K round |
| PS 5 - Dr. Ronald McNair School2 | Brooklyn | PK-5 | 16K005 District 16 | MySchools · K round |
| PS 58 - The Carroll School | Brooklyn | PK-5 | 15K058 District 15 | MySchools · K round |
| PS 84 - The Lillian Weber School | Manhattan | PK-5 | 03M084 District 3 | MySchools · K round |
| Boerum Hill School for International Studies | Brooklyn | 6-12 | 15K497 District 15 | MySchools · MS + HS rounds |
| Fort Greene Preparatory Academy | Brooklyn | 6-8 | 13K691 District 13 | MySchools · MS round |
| I.S. 136 Charles O. Dewey3 | Brooklyn | 6-8 | 15K136 District 15 | MySchools · MS round |
| IS 318 - Eugenio Maria De Hostos | Brooklyn | 6-8 | 14K318 District 14 | MySchools · MS round |
| Lafayette Academy | Manhattan | 6-8 | 03M256 District 3 | MySchools · MS round |
| New York French American Charter School | Manhattan | PK-8 | 84M483 District 3 | Charter lottery |
1 PS 149 Sojourner Truth: The French dual language program here begins at 3-K, so it is applied for in the 3-K and Pre-K round and does not appear on the school's Kindergarten listing. It opened in 2022 and has not yet reached the middle grades, even though the school runs to grade 8.
2 PS 5 - Dr. Ronald McNair School: The school serves pre-K through grade 5, but the French dual language program is still phasing in: it launched in 2025-26 and currently runs pre-K through grade 3, with the school stating it intends to extend it to grade 5. Ask which grades are running before you apply.
3 I.S. 136 Charles O. Dewey: Sources conflict on whether the French program here is dual language or a world-language course: the MySchools entry says both in different places. Listed because InsideSchools, the Albertine Foundation network and the 2019 launch coverage all describe a French dual language program. Confirm with the school before relying on it.
DBN is the District Borough Number, the city’s unique
code for each school — district, borough letter, school number. 15K058 is
District 15, Brooklyn (K), school 58. The borough letters are M Manhattan, K Brooklyn, Q Queens,
X Bronx, R Staten Island. Charter schools carry 84 in the district slot instead of a
district number, which is why the charter here reads 84M483 while sitting in
District 3. Quote the DBN when you contact the DOE — school names repeat across boroughs.
The hardest part of French in New York is not getting in at 5 — it is staying in at 11. Most of the city's French dual language programs are elementary: 7 of the 14 schools here start at PK or K and stop at grade 5. After that the cohort has to find one of a small number of middle school options, and there is no automatic transfer.
Boerum Hill School for International Studies is the outlier that runs 6–12, so it is the only public route in this directory that carries a child from middle school through high school in one building. In Manhattan, Lafayette Academy is the established French dual language middle school; PS 149 runs to grade 8, but its French program started in 3-K in 2022 and has not climbed that far yet.
If continuity matters to you, work backwards: look at which middle school your elementary program actually feeds, and ask the school how many of last year's fifth graders continued in French. That number is far more informative than any label.
No. Being zoned guarantees a seat at the school, barring overcrowding. The dual language program is a separate choice on the application and has its own priorities, so you can be admitted to the school and not to the French class.
Through MySchools, in the round that matches the grade your child is entering — 3-K and Pre-K, Kindergarten, or Middle School. List the dual language program as its own choice on the application rather than assuming the school choice covers it. You can rank as many programs as you want — the DOE dropped the 12-choice cap from the 2024-25 application and sets no target number; twelve is the minimum InsideSchools recommends — and applying early gives no advantage.
Effectively yes for the program seat, though it is not a pure draw. Offers are matched from your ranked list, the seats available, your priority group and a random number. The charter school is a straightforward random lottery run outside MySchools.
No, and most programs are built for a mix. But dual language programs exist first to serve English Language Learners, so target-language speakers are placed first and English-proficient children take the remaining seats. At a strict 50/50 program the Francophone and Anglophone seats are counted separately.
There is no automatic continuation. 7 of the 14 NYC French programs in this directory stop at grade 5, and continuing means applying again in the Middle School round to one of a handful of options. Ask your elementary school how many of last year's fifth graders continued in French.
Not in this directory. Every New Jersey French school in the New York City metro area is private, so the routes on this page are specific to New York City. The metro page lists the New Jersey options and their tuition.
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