Chalkbeat

Mamdani rolls out first-ever citywide directory for NYC child care options

2026-04-01T22:16:36+00:00

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New York City families now have a one-stop-shop to search all available child care options in the five boroughs, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Wednesday.

The NYC Child Care Hub is the city’s first-ever comprehensive directory. It includes detailed information on over 10,000 private, community, and city-run child care programs. Families can find health and safety inspection records, walking and transit directions, and cost and contact information for each center. It also offers tips on questions families should ask child care providers.

“Too often, parents in this city have been forced to rely on information they can only find from one set of friends or another, this Facebook group or that — they have been made to feel as if they have to jump through a certain number of hoops in order to know where their options even are,” said Mamdani at the announcement. “This will make it easier for parents to understand the options in front of them.”

The directory brings together information that had previously required separate searches: free preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds run by the city’s Education Department (and follow the school-year hours and calendar), home-based care that is overseen by the state’s Office of Children and Family Services, and center-based care licensed through the city’s Health Department.

The tool comes a month after Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the launch of 2,000 2-K seats opening this fall. It will be helpful to close the knowledge and access gap as the city gears up to announce the locations for its first wave of free 2-K seats, which will largely rely on the existing network of home-based providers, officials have said.

Through the tool’s lookup map, families can type in their address and filter by their child’s birth date and their preferred provider type.The platform also includes financial resources, with details on the Cash Assistance or Child Care in Lieu of Cash Assistance programs administered by the city’s Human Resources Administration.

One-on-one, personalized guidance is also available. Parents with additional questions about navigating child care applications or the directory can call the Hub helpline between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. at 1-888-469-5999 or fill out a contact form for phone or email support. Both the Hub and individualized support are available in multiple languages.

The site was developed in partnership with families and advocacy organizations to ensure it meets the needs of New York City families. The city will continue to update child care listings as new options become available, Mamdani said.

Last October, the United Federation of Teachers launched its own child care lookup site that allows families to search providers by ZIP code. The city’s tool, while similar, also offers an interactive questionnaire that helps families filter by specific needs such as child age, day of week and time needed, and preferred center type.

“We hear all the time from families who say they didn’t know they were qualified for 3-K or they didn’t know there was a center near them. Now parents will know that they have options,” said Kellen Calder, parent and organizer with New Yorkers United for Child Care, at the announcement.

Lizzie Walsh is a Data Fellow at Chalkbeat New York. She reports on New York City education and produces data-driven stories across Chalkbeat’s national network. Contact her at ewalsh@chalkbeat.org.

As Mamdani expands child care, lessons from a Brooklyn early childhood center

2026-02-11T00:27:30+00:00

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When Maria Santana first started dropping off her son Anthony at FirstStepNYC, an early education center in Brownsville, Brooklyn, he would cry for hours, refusing to eat or nap until she picked him up.

Santana, who was working as a home health aid, told the center’s director that she thought she’d need to pull Anthony out. The director, Catharina Oerlemans, had a better solution: She asked Santana to come work for FirstStepNYC as a food handler.

FirstStepNYC was originally built in 2013 as a demonstration: What could early education look like if the city drew on the resources and expertise of the school system, the supports provided by a social service agency, and the principles of Head Start, to create a program that works with entire families — starting from before children are born and continuing until they go to kindergarten?

As New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani seeks to expand the city’s fractured, unwieldy, and financially stressed assortment of subsidized early childhood programs, FirstStepNYC’s founder thinks his administration should look to the program as a model again.

Mamdani has promised to create 2,000 new “2-Care” seats for 2-year-olds in the fall, with a plan to grow the program to 8,000 seats next year and make it universal in four years.

It’s a project that will involve major financial, logistical, and workforce challenges, especially as current early education teachers maintain that they are dramatically underpaid. And even if successful, it won’t solve the problems of a system that is fragmented and often reaches families too late, said Laura Ensler, a longtime coach and consultant who worked with the administration of then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg to create FirstStepNYC.

“Education begins prenatally,” Ensler said. An early education plan that begins with older kids is “like starting to build the house on the fourth floor.”

Using Head Start funding, FirstStepNYC sends home visitors to spend time with pregnant parents each week. They provide education on prenatal care and early childhood development, but also work with parents on their own goals for education and employment.

If parents are interested in working in a school, the program supports them to get the training they need and, if possible, hires them.

Anthony is now 14, but Santana is still at FirstStepNYC, not only preparing meals for the kids but managing Excel reports, running the front desk, and assisting the family support team — all skills she learned on the job.

She’s far from the only one. There’s Ms. Cheryl, who began as a client of the home visiting program and now works as an assistant teacher. There’s Ms. Destiny, whose daughter was in the infant room when she started working as a classroom floater. And there’s Ms. Maritza, Ms. Lakiesha, and Ms. Julissa, the office manager.

“You have to have a two-generational approach,” Ensler said. “It’s a family affair.”

Tackling teacher turnover

FirstStepNYC’s particular set-up allows the program to evade some of the financial stress and teacher turnover that plagues many early education programs. It also offers an example of what educators can do when they are not strapped for funds.

The center — which is run by SCO Family of Services — is housed in a public school building, so it doesn’t have to use funds from its early education contracts to pay for services like janitors, security, and food. Instead, the program uses that money to pay for positions like family support staff and a dedicated disability coordinator.

The result is more support for teachers, as well as opportunities for staff members to move into different jobs, reducing the isolation and career stagnancy that often leads to burnout in the field.

In turn, reduced teacher turnover creates stability and a sense of safety for kids, Oerlemans said. That’s important for all young children, but especially for kids who regularly experience upheaval in other parts of their lives.

“No matter how many shelters you go to, or how many foster care families you are a part of, knowing there’s a place that you’re always loved, a place that you’ll be fed something, a place that’s warm, that’s the most important thing,” Oerlemans said. “That really solid attachment allows children to know that they’re in a safe space. And when they know that they’re safe, they will learn.”

Teaching toddlers, feeling supported

On a very cold Friday morning in February, attendance was low — both because of a recent snowstorm and because FirstStepNYC had scheduled a half day to accommodate a professional development session on potty training.

In the “large movement” room, a group of 1-year-olds played with rubber balls and flopped on foam mats. In a 2-year-old classroom, teachers wiped noses and checked diapers while kids built a collective project with Magna-Tiles. Classrooms were adjoined by bathrooms with tiny sinks and toilets. The wall outside a prekindergarten classroom showed pictures of kids experimenting with flashlights — part of a unit on light and shadows.

In a hallway, Annie Mayor, FirstStepNYC’s assistant director of Early Head Start, had time to peek in at her son, who’s a student in a 2-year-old classroom.

Mayor always assumed she’d work as a traditional K-12 teacher, she said. “When you go to school, you never think about toddlers. No one goes to get a master’s and thinks, ‘I’m gonna change diapers.’”

But when she came to FirstStepNYC, she found that she loved the work, and she appreciated that there was support and opportunities to grow. Mayor started as an assistant teacher, then became a toddler teacher, and then the schools disability coordinator before moving into her current role.

“We have family support, an assistant director, an education director. We get coaching, we’ve been able to get a lot of support to complete our career goals,” Mayor said. “In other centers, there really is just you and your classroom.”

When teachers and staff are supported and less stressed, Mayor added, it allows for a sense of peace and calm for everyone.

Farther down the hall, five pre-K students sat on their classroom rug, listening to a guided meditation.

“Feel your breaths,” the guide said. “Feel that this is what’s keeping you alive. Feel how amazing it is to just … breathe.”

Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.

Q&A with Emmy Liss: NYC’s new head of child care shares her vision for the city’s youngest kids

2026-01-16T18:15:16+00:00

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When Emmy Liss publicly accepted her appointment as head of the Office of Child Care at the New York City Mayor’s Office, she acknowledged the people taking care of her own kids. “I would not be standing here today without the caregivers and educators in my children’s lives,” she said.

In addition to her experience as a user of child care in New York City, Liss brings a long history in child care policy and strategy. As the chief operating officer for the city’s early childhood education program under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, Liss was central to the rollout of universal prekindergarten.

Now, she’ll oversee another expansion of New York’s sprawling, unwieldy system of day cares, child care centers and pre-K programs. The job comes with major challenges. While Gov. Kathy Hochul promised to pay for the first two years of a new child care initiative for 2-year-olds, many of the city’s current child care providers are struggling to stay afloat. Low salaries, high staff turnover and onerous regulations hobble programs’ ability to accept kids, even as families clamor for seats. Meanwhile, hundreds of kids with disabilities sit on waitlists for preschool classrooms that can meet their needs.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Liss discussed the new administration’s vision for free, universal child care.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What has your experience been with child care in New York City?

I think about this every day, that without all of the caregivers in my children’s lives, I literally would not be sitting here doing this work. My own children have been cared for in multiple different settings, including now in a public pre-K program. I am so grateful for the caregivers and educators who have cared for them, looking out for their development and supporting their growth.

I want that for every parent in New York City – to know that their children are safe, that their children are learning, that their children are being recognized for the wonderful, tiny, hilarious little people that they are. And then be able to enjoy time with their families because they will not be going into debt to pay for that care.

You were very involved in the rollout of Universal Pre-K, which, while vastly increasing access to early education, has also been criticized for destabilizing community-based providers and for leaving out kids with disabilities. What do you see as the most important lessons from that rollout?

I think one of the most important lessons to take from [pre-K] is its universality. There are families, and particularly children with disabilities, whose needs were not fully met in the initial rollout and we still need to do important work there. But in starting with the premise of a universal program, we built the support from families and communities and the expectation that this would be there for them, and then we rallied all of government around delivering it. That’s a really important lesson as we think about what it will take to marshal the resources to deliver on universal child care.

We also recognize that we cannot build a universal child care system without community-based and home-based child care providers, and that not all providers had their needs met in the initial rollout of 3-K and pre-K. We want to work closely in partnership with them in this next phase of work, because we cannot do this work without them.

We’re still working through the policy details but we really want to make our commitment clear: that this program and our commitment is to all children.

What is the role of family child care providers in this expansion?

When we think about where families are choosing to send their children for care, for so many families that choice is family child care. These are providers who are important pillars of their community. As we think about expanding the system, we plan to really engage with and listen to providers about what they need in order to be successful in a program like this.

What can the city do to address salary disparities between teachers in public schools and teachers in community-based child care programs?

That’s something we’re going to be looking at closely, in collaboration with our partners in labor and others. If we want our child care providers to be able to expand and to serve more children, they need a workforce, and that workforce needs to be respected and well paid.

Finding space for new programs is clearly a challenge. How will you approach that?

We’re going to start by looking comprehensively, neighborhood by neighborhood, at what our supply looks like and what we anticipate the demand is. Where we see unmet demand for child care services, we will work across all of the city agencies that touch physical space to think about [how we can] use existing space and create new space.

How do you think about ensuring program quality, especially with such a large number of small-scale providers? Is there a tension between ensuring quality and allowing programs to be culturally responsive and flexible to meet kids’ interests?

It is absolutely possible to have a system that promotes and ensures quality, and that includes programs that are culturally responsive. Not all programs will look exactly the same. There is often a narrative that you have to choose [between] access or quality, and I disagree.

The way that we rolled out Pre-K for All is a good case study. When you look at the data from that expansion, you see that at the same time that we were rapidly increasing access for families, we were also delivering results for children, as measured by nationally normed assessments. We saw that those classrooms and programs were high quality.

It requires being really thoughtful about how we use our resources and how we coach and support programs. But it’s a false choice to suggest that quality means uniformity, or that we can’t have programs that really meet the needs of each cultural community of the city.

Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.

Hochul plans to fund first 2 years of universal child care for NYC 2-year-olds

2026-01-08T19:50:16+00:00

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New York State will fund the first two years of a free child care program for 2-year-olds in New York City, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Thursday.

The program, known as 2-Care, was central to Mamdani’s campaign promise of creating universal child care for families in the five boroughs. However, many were skeptical that the mayor would succeed in convincing state officials to invest in a major child care expansion.

The state is taking the “unprecedented step” of committing to two years of funding “to show you that we’re in this for the long haul,” Hochul said, appearing alongside Mamdani at a YMCA in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Statewide, Hochul is proposing to invest $4.5 billion this year for child care initiatives. Her office did not immediately say how much of that will go to New York City programs. The Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Albany, estimates that 2-Care will cost about $1 billion per year.

Hochul made the announcement ahead of next week’s State of the State address, where she will outline her priorities for the budget, which must be approved by April 1. In addition to the 2-Care funding, the governor plans to invest $470 million to support universal prekindergarten across the state, making seats available for every 4-year-old by 2028. The state will also increase funding for child care vouchers by 40%, helping “hundreds of thousands of families keep their costs low and keep their heads above water,” Hochul said.

Neither the mayor nor the governor took questions, and neither addressed a major looming threat: Thursday’s announcement comes under the shadow of a massive federal funding freeze that threatens billions of dollars in New York’s child care funding. On Wednesday, the governor said that approximately $3 billion in child care funding is at risk.

2-Care too fast?

Many advocates, including the influential grassroots group New Yorkers United for Childcare, have pushed to see 2-Care grow as quickly as possible. However, some early child care education providers are wary of an expansion that happens too quickly or without enough attention to the effect on small child care providers.

When the city expanded its pre-K and 3-K programs under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, it inadvertently destabilized the smaller programs that make up a crucial sector of the child care ecosystem. As 3- and 4-year olds moved to classrooms in public schools, many family child care programs — which look after younger kids in home-based settings — and small, mom-and-pop day care centers were forced to close their doors.

Child care centers lost qualified teachers to school-based programs, which pay more and offer better benefits. Additionally, the new programs largely left behind kids with disabilities, who require specialized teachers and cost more to serve.

Mamdani said that the city’s new child care expansion “will include children with disabilities and children who live in homeless shelters,” but he did not offer details on how those kids’ needs will be met.

Meanwhile, destabilizing inequities still exist, said Lauren Melodia, director of economic and fiscal policy at the Center for NYC Affairs at The New School. According to a New School survey last year, family child care providers earned just over half as much per child as providers in child care centers in fiscal year 2025. That’s “despite the fact that they’re offering the same service,” Melodia said.

If the city wants 2-Care to be successful, it will have to include family child care providers and people who work with young kids in the planning, said Helen Frazier, a longtime early childhood educator and member of the advocacy group People’s Early Childhood Coalition.

Toddlers need caring environments that meet their needs, including flexible schedules and easy access to bathrooms and outdoor space, Frazier said. “We hope that Mamdani will start to focus more on what could be great for children, as well as what could be great for parents.”

At Thursday’s event, Mamdani addressed some of those concerns. “We will deliver 2-Care by working in partnership with child care providers, especially home-based providers who have been doing this work without thanks or recognition for far too long.”

Abigail Kramer is a journalist in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.

Teachers union hopes to help NYC’s child care crisis with new search tool

2025-10-08T19:18:32+00:00

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Bronx dad and paraprofessional Earnest Suarez felt like he was in a tug-of-war.

His 1-year-old son needed day care and his 18-year-old son needed to go to college but he couldn’t afford both.

“Am I paying for his college or paying for child care?” Suarez said, his arms swing back and forth as if he’s holding two weights.

He landed on saving for college. Suarez’s high school son and elderly mom began taking care of baby Jackson, but when schedules didn’t line up, Suarez was forced to take off work at Ella Baker Elementary School on the Upper East Side.

Then, his colleague introduced him to the NYC Childcare Navigator, a platform the United Federation of Teachers created about a year ago to help their members find affordable, nearby child care centers. Of the 1,600 union members participating, half of them reported that a parent could go back to work full time, and 42% reported increased household income after access to child care.

The platform — which has about 12,000 child care listings —is now open to residents across New York City, union officials announced Wednesday.

“We couldn’t gatekeep something that we knew so many New York City families needed,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the union.

The lack of affordable child care reached dire levels since the pandemic, increasing by a total of $4,000, at least, over five years since 2019, according to New York City Comptroller Brad Lander’s report from January. The cost of private child care ranged from $16,900 to $26,000 annually in 2024, depending on the type of care and population it served, the report found. Making matters worse, the city stopped enrolling low-income families in the Child Care Assistance Program after a funding shortfall in the state budget in May.

The union partnered with two software firms, Mirza and Upfront, to build the navigator tool.

The navigator works in 10 languages and uses an AI chatbox to answer questions for users, said Doug Friedlander, project director for the tool. Families can input their income, residence, and background information to see if they are eligible for child care benefits. From there, families can see which centers are available and connect with a provider.

Child care data in the city is spread across multiple agencies, like the Department of Education, Department of Health, and Office of Children and Family Services. But agencies weren’t collecting information about the opening hours of centers, or if they have available seats, said Dana Levin-Robinsion, the chief executive officer of Upfront.

The tool “finally brings all that information together in one place,” Robinson said.

Child care providers can add this information live so users have the latest updates.

“I’m definitely less stressed,” Suarez said. After using the tool, his youngest goes to a child care center in the Bronx, and his older son, who was eager to continue his education after high school, is now at college.

Ananya Chetia is a reporting intern for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Ananya at achetia@chalkbeat.org.

Two measles cases have emerged in New York City. Here’s what to know and how to protect yourself.

2025-03-07T23:26:10+00:00

This story was originally published by Healthbeat: Public health, explained. Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

With measles cases on the rise in the United States, public health experts in New York are encouraging vaccination against the highly contagious virus.

Measles spreads easily and can lead to serious complications, or death, among those who are unvaccinated. New York City has confirmed two cases of measles so far this year, according to Chantal Gomez, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Both cases involved unvaccinated infants, who have since recovered. The cases were unrelated.

In nearby New Jersey, three connected measles cases have been confirmed this year. A significant measles outbreak has also emerged on the Texas-New Mexico border, with more than 200 cases reported as of Friday. Last week, an unvaccinated child in Texas died from measles — the first known measles fatality in a decade — and on Thursday, officials announced the death of an unvaccinated adult with measles in New Mexico.

Dr. Jennifer Duchon, the pediatric hospital epidemiologist and director of antimicrobial stewardship at the Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital, emphasized that measles is preventable through vaccination.

“We don’t need to have measles outbreaks,” she said. “We have a preventative strategy. People don’t need to get sick, and children don’t need to die from this disease.”

Here’s what to know about measles and how to protect yourself and your family.

How contagious is measles?

Measles is far more transmissible than the flu or Covid-19. The virus remains active and contagious in the air or on infected surfaces for up to two hours, according to the World Health Organization.

That means that if someone with measles enters a room of unvaccinated people, everyone would likely become infected, said Dr. Mark Jit, chair and professor of the Department of Global and Environmental Health at the NYU School of Global Public Health.

In the 1950s, before the development of vaccine, nearly all children had measles by the age of 15, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of the three million to four million Americans infected each year, about 400 to 500 people died.

The measles vaccine became available in the 1960s, followed by the combination measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine in 1971. In subsequent decades, as vaccination coverage increased, measles cases fell.

In 2000, measles was declared eliminated in the United States. Today, most measles cases that emerge in the United States are imported through travel to countries with high rates of the disease.

What do we know about measles cases in New York City?

In addition to New York City’s two confirmed measles cases, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, reported a confirmed case of measles in an unvaccinated child who traveled by bus last week from John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens to Philadelphia.

The Health Department is aware of that case, but New York City residents were not considered at risk, said Dr. Jennifer Rosen, the Health Department’s director of epidemiology and surveillance. She did not elaborate on how the agency made that determination.

Since New York City is a global travel hub, it’s not uncommon to see measles cases emerge through travel to other countries, she said. But outbreaks are rare.

“That’s really a testament to high vaccination coverage overall in New York City, and particularly among school-aged children,” she said.

Still, vaccination coverage is not equally distributed, and areas with low vaccination rates can increase the risk of local outbreaks.

That’s what happened in 2018, when an unvaccinated child returned to the city from a trip abroad, sparking a large outbreak among Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn, with more than 600 cases by the following summer. The outbreak caused serious illness, particularly among unvaccinated children, but no deaths were reported.

For Rosen, that outbreak highlighted the importance of prompt vaccination and achieving herd immunity, which refers to the percentage of immunized people needed to ensure that a disease can’t spread widely in a community. For measles, herd immunity requires about 95% of the population to be vaccinated, according to the WHO.

“If most people in the community are protected, then even if one person gets measles, they can’t transmit it to anyone, because everyone around them is vaccinated,” Jit said.

How high are New York City vaccination rates?

Overall, MMR vaccination rates in New York City are very high. By kindergarten age, 98% of children have received two doses of the MMR vaccine, according to Health Department data.

But the rate of vaccination among younger children is lower, and has fallen in recent years. For children ages 24 to 36 months, the current coverage for one dose of the MMR vaccine is 81%, a decline from 88% in 2019, according to the Health Department.

The lower rate of vaccination for younger children indicates that “we have work to do,” Rosen said.

It’s a concern for the rest of the state as well. In a recent release, the state Health Department warned that current MMR vaccination rates among 2-year-olds have fallen below herd immunity levels in all counties outside of New York City. Only 81.2% of 2-year-olds statewide, excluding New York City, have received one dose of the MMR vaccine, and some counties have rates under 65%.

What are measles symptoms and how are they treated?

Measles symptoms typically appear a week or two after contact with the virus, and can include a high fever, cough, runny nose, red eyes, or a rash, according to the CDC.

Initially, symptoms can be quite general, making it hard for caregivers or health care providers to differentiate measles from other diseases, Duchon said.

But there are telltale signs. Children experiencing the initial stages of the disease are more “miserable” than they would be with a typical cold or cough, and often have a high fever, Duchon said. About three to five days after initial symptoms, a rash typically develops, which turns white when pressed. The rash tends to start in the face and spread across the body.

Not all measles symptoms look the same, and effects can vary as well, she added.

The disease can lead to encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, which can be deadly. Measles can also weaken the immune system, making a patient vulnerable to secondary infections like pneumonia. A patient’s diminished immune system can persist for years.

There is no treatment for measles, Duchon said, and care for a patient tends to be supportive. On average, one to three in every 1,000 children infected with measles die.

How can you protect against measles?

Vaccination is the best way to avoid becoming sick with measles, according to doctors and public health experts.

The CDC recommends that children get two doses of the MMR vaccine, with a first dose at 12 months old and a second dose at 4 to 6 years old. Two doses of the MMR vaccine are 97% effective at preventing measles. Most people vaccinated against measles are protected for life.

“The vaccine is safe and efficacious,” Duchon said.

In the late 1990s, a now-debunked study by a British researcher connected an increase in autism diagnoses to the MMR vaccine. Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that the vaccine is not associated with an increased risk of autism.

An early dose of the MMR vaccine is also recommended for children ages 6 to 11 months who are traveling internationally or in the case of a local outbreak. Those children will still need to receive the full two-dose course of the vaccine at 12 months and at 4 to 6 years old.

Eliza Fawcett is a reporter covering public health in New York City for Healthbeat. Contact Eliza at efawcett@healthbeat.org.

‘Caught between two systems’: NYC family sues over missed Early Intervention services

2023-09-26T21:50:13+00:00

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After a Brooklyn toddler with autism failed to receive many of the therapies she was entitled to, two city agencies refused to provide makeup services to help her catch up, according to a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday against the city’s health and education departments.

The case concerns a child, identified by her initials R.A., who has limited speech skills and cognitive delays and was eligible for a range of therapies through Early Intervention, a program that provides services to children with various delays from birth to age 3.

The child, who was 2-years-old at the time, was entitled to occupational, speech, and behavioral therapies, but she only received limited sessions of behavioral therapy during her seven months in the Early Intervention program and none of the occupational and speech therapies, the suit claims.

When the toddler turned 3 last year, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which operates Early Intervention for city residents, refused to provide makeup services for the therapies since she had “aged out” of the program.

The girl now attends a special education preschool. But the Education Department, which is responsible for overseeing special education plans for school-age children, has also declined to provide additional therapies to make up for what she missed during Early Intervention.

The family is “caught between two systems,” said Betty Baez Melo, the director of the early childhood education project at Advocates for Children, which brought the lawsuit along with Morrison & Foerster LLP. “Neither agency is taking accountability in order to provide the child with the services that she didn’t receive.”

The lawsuit contends that R.A. has a right to what are known as “compensatory services” under federal law to make up for lost therapy sessions. The family unsuccessfully attempted to secure compensatory services from the Health Department from an administrative law judge. (Advocates for Children is also involved in a separate federal lawsuit against the Education Department to expedite makeup services for school-age children.)

Receiving therapies early on is crucial for young children with disabilities or delays, according to experts, because their brains are still rapidly developing. Securing services early in a child’s life can also help head off the need for more extensive — and costly — special education services later on.

Though the lawsuit centers on a single child, Baez Melo said the case has implications for other families. About 58% of children who were eligible for Early Intervention didn’t receive all of the services they were entitled to between July 2018 and February 2022, according to an audit released by the state comptroller earlier this year. That period includes the onset of the pandemic, when the number of children receiving services dropped and providers scrambled to provide therapies remotely.

Spokespeople for the city’s health, education, and law departments did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

R.A.’s mother, a 29-year-old who lives in East New York and is identified in the lawsuit as B.A., said the process of securing services has been a distressing experience.

B.A. suspected her daughter might have a disability early on, as R.A. struggled to make eye contact, often repeated questions instead of answering them, had difficulty sitting still, and did not like touching or eating soft food.

The family hoped Early Intervention services could help with some of those challenges. The city initially offered teletherapy, a setup that would be difficult for the family to access since R.A. has trouble sitting still, and her mother does not speak English fluently, making it more challenging to follow a therapist’s instructions to deliver services to her daughter.

Although R.A. received some behavioral therapy, known as Applied Behavioral Analysis, it never amounted to the 20 hours a week she was supposed to receive, according to court papers. She also didn’t receive any of her required speech and occupational sessions.

Many families across the city struggle to secure providers, a challenge that is more acute in certain neighborhoods. B.A., an immigrant from Bangladesh, also wondered whether language barriers made the service coordinator take her less seriously.

“I didn’t do anything wrong — we started everything on time, but I couldn’t help my daughter,” B.A. said in Bengali during an interview that was interpreted by her sister. “She needs a lot of help besides what the [Education Department] provides.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC failed to provide full services to 9,800 preschool children with disabilities last year: report

2023-06-06T09:30:00+00:00

More than one-third of New York City’s preschool children with disabilities did not receive all of the extra support they’re entitled to in the last school year, according to a report released Tuesday morning.

The report, by advocacy organization Advocates for Children New York, analyzes the most recently available city data for the 2021-22 school year. The figure represents an increase from the 2020-21 school year, when 30% of children, or about 7,800, didn’t receive all of their required services.

The data means that a child may have received some of their required speech therapy, for example, but no required physical therapy — services that are spelled out in an individualized education program, or IEP.

Among the 9,800 children — or close to 37% — who didn’t receive all of their required services:

About 6,500 children who required speech therapy — or about a quarter of children who needed monolingual speech therapy and a third of children who required bilingual services.
Nearly 28%, or 5,300 children, who required occupational therapy.
About 2,000 children, or nearly 26%, who needed physical therapy.

The report showcases a yearslong problem with the city’s public preschool system, which serves 3- and 4-year-olds: Programs struggle to provide all children with the services they need, as they are legally required to do. Young children’s access to these services might be more crucial now, since some of these students may have missed out on necessary services as infants and toddlers early in the pandemic, like tens of thousands of kids nationally.

The greatest disparity in who received services was based on language: Sixty-nine percent of children who required only English instruction received their services, versus 53.5% of those who needed to be taught in another language.

The racial and socioeconomic disparities were smaller. While 69% of white students fully received services, the same was true for 67% of Hispanic children, 65.5% of Black children, and 62% of Asian children. Sixty-seven percent of permanently housed students received services, versus 61% of homeless children.

The city’s data might actually “significantly” underreport the problem, the report said. The education department considers a child “fully served” if they received at least one session of all of their required services, the report said.

“A child whose occupational therapist quits in November and is never replaced, or a preschooler who waits six months for mandated speech therapy to begin because the DOE is unable to find a provider, is not fully served from the perspective of their parents and teachers, but they are left out of the counts above,” the report said.

In December, Mayor Eric Adams vowed to open hundreds of additional seats for preschool children with disabilities to ensure that all children get the seats that they’re entitled to. Advocates have praised that commitment, but it already is being tested. While the city has opened 700 new seats this school year for students with more challenging disabilities, about 300 preschoolers are still waiting for a spot, the report noted.

Having access to seats is a perennial issue. Last year, just over 1,000 preschool children who required a small special education class did not have access to those seats by the end of last school year, according to the report.

“We agree with the concerns of our parents and advocates that for far too long students with disabilities were excluded from programming and services,” Nicole Brownstein, a spokesperson for the city’s education department, said in a statement. “This administration is committed to righting this wrong.”

But the city’s commitment to open more seats doesn’t address the ongoing shortage of staff who can provide extra required services for these children, one significant reason why children are missing out on services, said Betty Baez Melo, director of the Early Childhood Education Project at Advocates For Children. The city contracts with outside organizations to provide many of these services, so Advocates For Children is calling on Adams to spend another $50 million to increase pay for those service providers and hire their own staffers.

Brownstein noted that the education department has expanded its own teams who provide services to preschool children, including hiring an additional 24 speech therapists, 23 occupational itinerant therapists, and 12 physical therapists.

The $50 million request from Advocates For Children would also go toward speeding up evaluations for children, another weak area the report cited. Nearly 16% of children, or 1,974, who were eligible for preschool special education services waited more than 60 days — the legal deadline — for a meeting to determine what extra services they should receive, according to the organization. That’s a similar rate to last school year.

Over the last three years, the education department has opened 21 Preschool Regional Assessment (PRAC) teams, which provide evaluations in addition to state-approved agencies that the city contracts with. This school year, staffers on PRAC teams had the option of working overtime, allowing more students to get evaluated — something they plan to do again next school year, officials said.

Still, education department officials said there are not enough agencies to meet the evaluation needs of preschool students, as more children have been referred for services since the pandemic. They plan to work with city, state, and federal government officials to ensure there’s enough funding to link students with necessary services.

While data for this school year is not yet available, the organization reported that it’s received many calls from families who have struggled to access services for their young children. One of those calls was from Terese, a mother in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn who asked to use her first name only for privacy reasons.

Her 4-year-old son required the help of a special education itinerant teacher, or an SEIT, who helps children like hers with disabilities inside of a general education preschool class. But in February, that teacher left her son’s preschool with no replacement.

Terese spent a month emailing the main special education contact in her district about a replacement teacher with no response, even taking days off work to deal with the issue, she said. Meanwhile, her son was talking less at home.

“The teacher started reporting to me that he was not communicating in the classroom,” Terese said.

Terese’s problem was not unique. According to the report, roughly 1,300 preschoolers, or nearly one in five children did not have an SEIT all last school year, even though their IEP required one.

Eventually Terese contacted Advocates For Children, which advised her to lodge a complaint through 311. After that, a special education official with her district responded, blaming the lack of a teacher on a staffing shortage. By mid-May, her son once again had an SEIT, she said.

“I felt all alone,” Terese said. “The DOE just left me to fend for myself with my child with special needs.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

600 children would lose child care with end of free NYC program for undocumented families

2023-05-18T21:27:57+00:00

Angela and her family left their home in Colombia after her husband, a police officer, received multiple death threats amid rising violence in the South American country.

Along with thousands of asylum seekers, her family arrived in New York City in September. They made ends meet through her husband’s sporadic construction gigs, but Angela, unable to find affordable private child care, stayed home to watch her toddler son.

Then, through tips from other newly arrived Colombian mothers, Angela discovered a new city pilot program called Promise NYC, which in January began covering up to $700 a week in child care for low-income, undocumented immigrant families. In late March, Angela’s son, just shy of 2 years old, became one of about 600 children who received vouchers to enroll in subsidized day care or after-school programs that are otherwise unavailable to those without legal immigration status.

Angela has since started a part-time job cleaning, is taking courses that would allow her to work in construction, and is figuring out how to obtain legal immigration status. But that could all end on July 1, if the City Council approves Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed budget, which slashes the pilot program for next fiscal year.

“My child wouldn’t be able to share or he wouldn’t be able to learn and grow with other children in the day care that he is part of, and I would have to resort to finding alternatives that I’m not yet prepared for,” Angela said through a translator.

The move has confused program providers, advocates, and some City Council members, who described Promise NYC as successful and netting more demand than they expected. The mayor himself touted the $10 million initiative in his vision for early childhood education last year, but in recent months, advocates became worried that Adams would cut the program. Spokespeople for City Hall and the Administration for Children’s Services, or ACS, declined to explain the mayor’s decision.

”To take that away would mean, you know, possibly the family loses employment or a kid has nowhere to go during the day,” said Kimberly Warner, deputy director of legal, organizing, and advocacy services for the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, or NMIC, a nonprofit organization tapped by the city to help enroll children in Manhattan and the Bronx. “It would be very destabilizing.”

The mayor has proposed cuts across many city agencies, including about 3% of the education department’s budget, citing in part rising costs as more asylum seekers come to the city.

A group of about a dozen elected officials, including some City Council members and state lawmakers have called for the city to provide $20 million for the program next year, which would cover the same number of slots for a full year. Some are hoping for even more funding, as thousands of newcomer immigrants are expected in New York City.

In a statement, Queens Council member Tiffany Cabán, one of the lawmakers who pushed to create Promise NYC, said the program has been a “game changer.”

Without legal immigration status, undocumented immigrants have limited options for work, often turning to low-paying, under-the-table jobs. Nearly 29% of undocumented New Yorkers were living in poverty as of 2017, compared to 18% of naturalized citizens at the time, according to city estimates.

That means many likely struggle to pay for child care, but undocumented children typically don’t qualify for state or federally backed programs because they must be legal residents of the United States. HeadStart programs are an exception, but there are a limited number of seats, providers said.

Private care is pricey: In 2022, the median annual cost of toddler care in Manhattan was just over $17,800, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Three and 4-year-old children can attend many of the city’s free preschool programs, regardless of immigration status. But there are some programs within the city’s sprawling system, run through centers and by organizations outside of brick-and-mortar school buildings, that require children to be legal residents, including those that offer care past 3 p.m., advocates pointed out.

“That is the exact problem that Promise NYC was trying to resolve,” said Betty Baez Melo, director of the Early Childhood Education Project at Advocates for Children New York.

After advocacy from elected officials last year, City Hall agreed to launch the program. Adams even touted Promise NYC in his “Blueprint for Child Care & Early Childhood Education in New York City,” saying it would allow families to seek care “without compromising the confidentiality of their immigration status.”

The program was publicly announced in December 2022 and launched one month later, in mid-January. The four organizations charged with doing outreach and connecting families to child care are responsible for making sure families are eligible.

Warner, from NMIC, said she and her team were overwhelmed and “surprised” by the calls that immediately flooded in, mostly seeking care for kids ages 2 to 7 years old. They’ve enrolled 245 children across Manhattan and the Bronx and have roughly 150 people on a wait list. According to an ACS spokesperson, 600 children — the agency’s target — enrolled across all five boroughs by the end of April. Costs were fully covered for all but three children, the spokesperson said.

The Chinese-American Planning Council, which was tapped to oversee enrollment in Queens, has about 170 people on a waiting list, said Sumon Chin, the organization’s director of early childhood learning and wellness services.

Besides handling high demand, Chin’s organization also struggled to find child care options for infants and toddlers in certain pockets of Queens that are known as “child care deserts,” such as the Corona neighborhood. Along with keeping the program, Chin hopes the city will provide more funding so that each organization can hire more help, due to the demand and difficulty of the work.

Soneyllys, a mother from the Dominican Republic, enrolled her toddler son in day care through Promise NYC in February. Since then, she has noticed he’s talking and is generally more active at home. It also allowed her to work for the first time since coming to the United States two years ago, she said through a translator.

She worries that losing child care will make it difficult to get legal immigration status.

“I cannot afford day care, and I will not be able to give my child a better life because I don’t have the opportunity to find a full-time job that I can provide for my child,” she said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

58% of NYC’s youngest children don’t receive all of their Early Intervention services

2023-03-01T00:29:38+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Subscribe to our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

The majority of New York City infants and toddlers who are eligible for specialized therapies have not received all of the support they’re entitled to, according to figures released Tuesday by the state comptroller.

From birth to age 3, children with developmental delays or disabilities are entitled to “Early Intervention,” a host of services that include speech and occupational therapy, or even psychological support.

But nearly 58% of New York City children who were eligible for those services did not receive all of the therapeutic support spelled out on the individualized plans, representing nearly 27,000 children.

That’s significantly higher than the 42% of children who did not receive services across the rest of the state during the period included in the audit, which ran from July 2018 to February 2022. The audit includes data from the onset of the pandemic, when the number of children receiving Early Intervention services dropped and providers attempted to conduct therapies virtually, a challenge for many young children.

The gap in services is particularly acute in the Bronx, where families have long pointed to problems securing Early Intervention services. More than two-thirds of children there did not receive all of the therapies they were entitled to, according to a Chalkbeat analysis, the most of any borough.

“We’re at a point where thousands and thousands of children are waiting for services and in some cases never receiving their services,” said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children, a group that has pushed for reforms to the Early Intervention system. “We’re seeing statewide systemic violations of children’s rights.”

Children can be referred for early intervention services in a variety of ways, including by their pediatrician, day care provider, caregiver, or even by child welfare agencies. Securing services early on in a child’s development is crucial for addressing delays and disabilities and can head off the need for more complex or expensive special education services later.

“Early Intervention exists because the brain is most malleable in the first three years of life,” Dr. Liz Isakson, the executive director of Docs for Tots, an organization that helps ensure children with delays get connected to services, previously told Chalkbeat.

The comptroller’s figures show that nearly 12% of city students who were referred for services were never evaluated for them (compared with 17% across the rest of the state). Among children who were evaluated, 95% received an individualized family service plan spelling out what support their child needs. But nearly a quarter of city students had to wait longer than the required 30 days for their services to kick in.

The audit points to several factors that can prevent children from getting the services they need. In some cases, provider shortages make services difficult to acquire. Working parents may not be able accommodate sessions during regular business hours.

In other instances, parents may not consent to services, potentially due to stigma or mistrust of government agencies, though the audit urges state and local agencies to better track why so many children are not receiving services and investigate racial and geographic inequities.

“The Department of Health needs to address the underlying reasons why children are not receiving the services they are entitled to, why services are often delayed and how access can be improved,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement.

Advocates also contend that one source of ongoing service delays is that providers are continuing to lean on telehealth services even in cases where face-to-face support is needed.

“We’re creating a two-tiered system,” said Betty Baez Melo, who directs the early childhood education project at Advocates for Children. She noted that families in low-income communities have struggled to get access to providers who are willing to provide in-person services and argues the state should create financial incentives to encourage face-to-face services, a move supported by city officials.

The city’s health department, which administers the Early Intervention program, emphasized that children can miss therapies for a variety of reasons, including illness, vacations, or conflicting appointments. In those situations, city officials offer make up sessions, wrote spokesperson Patrick Gallahue.

“The time period of the comptroller audit covers the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which presented enormous challenges to our Early Intervention Program,” Gallahue wrote. “Still, our staff worked furiously to bring services to families who needed them.”

Health officials also emphasized that gaining consent for services during the pandemic was challenging without a face-to-face conversation, but still sought it through email and text messages.

A spokesperson for the state’s health department, which oversees Early Intervention programs across New York, did not answer a question about the provision of telehealth services in lieu of in-person therapies. Asked about the large share of students who don’t receive all the services they’re entitled to, state officials emphasized that Early Intervention services are voluntary.

“Parents have a right to accept or reject some or all of Early Intervention services recommended for their child at any time, for any reason,” spokesperson Jeffrey Hammond wrote in a statement. “Although the COVID-19 pandemic affected the Early Intervention program, the Department has since worked to strengthen outreach to families.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Adams creates new City Hall office for child care, early childhood education

2023-02-10T22:19:43+00:00

This story has been updated to reflect Robin Hood’s involvement.

As New York City’s early childhood sector faces upheaval, Mayor Eric Adams announced Friday the creation of a new office to oversee child care and early childhood education.

The new office, which will be housed within City Hall, was months in the making. It’s charged with overseeing strategy and planning with city agencies that touch early childhood education, including the education department and the Administration for Children’s Services, officials said.

The office’s creation comes as the education department’s own early childhood office has faced intense scrutiny over the past several months under Adams’ leadership.

The city has failed to pay preschool providers on time, leading some to shutter, while Adams has shelved plans to further expand preschool for 3-year-olds as some programs have gone unfilled while others are oversubscribed. The shift spurred City Council hearings and backlash from elected officials and education advocates who had supported the push for universal pre-K for 3-year-olds.

Additionally, Chancellor David Banks’ plan last fall to move hundreds of early childhood workers into new positions — which has so far been paused — resulted in chaos and confusion across the division.

At the same time, the city recently announced an ambitious effort to provide preschool seats for every student with a disability, an issue that former Mayor Bill de Blasio was unable to solve.

The new office is meant to help child care providers cut through so-called red tape, according to a statement from Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright.

It will be led by Michelle Paige, who was chief program and equity officer for University Settlement, which focuses on creating programs, including daycares and preschools, aimed at fighting poverty and inequality on the Lower East Side and Brooklyn. Paige has also worked for Children’s Aid and was an early childhood teacher at the start of her career, according to city officials.

Asked how many people will work under Paige, a City Hall spokesperson said officials are still developing the office’s structure.

The plan to create this new office was nestled into Adams’ “blueprint” for early childhood education published in June. At the time, officials wrote that the office would create “responsive systems that are centered on parent choice, supporting providers, and delivering high-quality options for families” with support from Robin Hood, an anti-poverty nonprofit organization.

Last April, Robin Hood provided a 21-month, $847,000 grant that is supposed to help hire staff and cover other costs for this project, according to a spokesperson with the organization.

Early childhood education organizations applauded the decision to hire Paige and create a new office to oversee the sector.

“With this new office, we hope to see the long-waited-for thoughtful and effective coordination of New York City’s child care sector, ensuring responsive access and support for the city’s families and child care programs,” said Ramon Peguero, president and CEO of The Committee for Hispanic Children and Families, in a statement.

The idea to create the office is “very much needed,” according to a former staffer of the education department’s early childhood division. It’s important for city agencies to coordinate with each other to pull off successful early childhood education programs, since they intersect with multiple offices, said the ex-staffer, who requested anonymity.

Still, details remained murky.

“Obviously, all of us have read the blueprint, but I dont think it’s super clear,” the former staffer said. “What does ‘reaffirming New York City’s commitment to families’ mean? What does it mean for child care, what does it mean for universal child care?”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC promises affordable child care to undocumented families through voucher program

2022-12-15T19:03:30+00:00

Next month, New York City will begin providing subsidized child care to low-income, undocumented families, who typically can’t access such services because of their immigration status.

The $10 million initiative, called Promise NYC, is expected to serve 600 children over the next six months, city officials announced Wednesday. It also aims to help the influx of asylum-seeking families from South America who have come to New York City over the past several months.

Because children from undocumented families typically don’t qualify for state or federally subsidized child care, advocates had pushed state lawmakers to expand care for undocumented children earlier this year. But that effort failed.

In the spring, city lawmakers pushed the mayor to include $10 million in this year’s budget expanding childcare for undocumented children. In June, Mayor Eric Adams committed to funding the initative, which would pay for vouchers and “develop a mechanism for families to seek care without compromising the confidentiality of their immigration status,” according to his “Blueprint for Child Care & Early Childhood Education in New York City.”

The city tapped four community-based organizations with “deep ties to immigrant communities in their respective boroughs” to help launch the program: the Chinese American Planning Council in Queens, Center For Family Life in Brooklyn, Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation in Manhattan and the Bronx, and La Colmena will help Staten Island families.

The four organizations, which are contracting with the city’s Administration for Child Services, will be responsible for signing up eligible families.

Beginning in January, low-income undocumented families will be eligible to participate in the city’s child care voucher program, which provides free or low-cost child care to families with children ages 6 weeks to 13 years old. (To qualify, they must earn less than 300% of the federal poverty level.) Child care providers — licensed center-based or registered home-based care — will get reimbursed by the community organizations overseeing the program, city officials said.

Many asylum-seeking families residing in shelters are having trouble finding work without access to child care, according to Gothamist.

In a statement, Adams said his plan will alleviate the challenges that come with being a new immigrant.

“Navigating obstacles in a new city and a new country are tough, and coupling those issues with a lack of child care can prevent parents and families from achieving the dream they so desperately set out to achieve,” Adams said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC won’t expand prekindergarten for 3-year-olds next year

2022-11-16T23:51:43+00:00

Mayor Eric Adams is not planning to expand New York City’s free prekindergarten program for 3-year-olds next year, as city agencies are facing calls to cut back on spending, education department officials confirmed Wednesday.

City officials are planning to divert $568 million in federal COVID relief money that had been earmarked for 3-K expansion over the next two fiscal years to use elsewhere for the education department, Emma Vadehra, the school system’s chief operations officer, said during a Wednesday City Council hearing. Instead, funding for 3-K will hold steady from this year, she said, allowing the education department to meet “a very large portion” of savings goals set out by Adams, which he’s also required of other city agencies.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio had planned to use stimulus money to create 60,000 seats for the city’s 3-year-olds and make 3-K universal by September 2023. But the Adams administration has stepped back from that promise.

As of this fall, the city had planned to open 55,000 3-K seats, for a total budget of $711 million. About two thirds of that is covered by stimulus dollars, according to a City Hall spokesperson. But at the same time, about 36,500 children have enrolled.

A spokesperson for City Hall did not detail how officials plan to repurpose the money intended for 3-K, except for saying that it will go toward “central costs” at the education department.

Under de Blasio, city officials planned to use the largest pot of the education department’s $7 billion in COVID stimulus dollars on expanding preschool for 3-year-olds. But the former mayor never laid out how the city would pay for the program once those temporary dollars ran out. Neither has Adams, setting up the city for a $376 million funding shortfall for 3-K by July 2025. That sum has raised concerns among budget watchdogs, including the city and state comptrollers.

Cutting back on an expansion of 3-K could help the city avoid a fiscal cliff for that program. However, repurposing those stimulus dollars for other initiatives could still require the city to either find more money for those additional services or make cuts.

Several local lawmakers and advocates expressed anger over the city’s decision to halt 3-K expansion and said that there was still demand for seats in various pockets of the city.

Asked multiple times during Wednesday’s hearing when the city would make 3-K universal, department officials did not provide a direct answer, instead pointing out that thousands of seats have not been filled.

“The issue is making sure we have those seats as close as possible to families who need them,” said James Morgano, manager of expansion at the city’s Division of Early Childhood Education. He said the city is conducting an assessment of where those seats should be.

Brooklyn Council member Lincoln Restler questioned why he hears from so many families in Greenpoint who have been unable to find a 3-K seat. Restler blamed lack of demand on insufficient outreach to families from the education department.

“If this administration is not prepared to put the funding in, then I strongly encourage my colleagues in the council to step up and make this the priority that it needs to be,” Restler said during the hearing. “Working families and our youth depend on high-quality early childhood education, and if you all aren’t prepared to make it happen, then we need to take it into our own hands.”

Gregory Brender, public policy director for the Day Care Council, said they see “incredible demand” from parents in neighborhoods where the city has expanded 3-K.

“It would be devastating to a lot of neighborhoods to know that they’re not gonna have the opportunity to see 3-K expanded, as has been in other parts of the city,” Brender said.

In a note to superintendents on Wednesday discussing plans for 3-K, department officials wrote that the Adams administration has “emphasized the importance of continuing to work with our city, state and federal partners to develop a proposal for early childhood education resources“ for when stimulus dollars run out.

The plan to pare back on expansion is another example of how early childhood education programming is changing under Adams, who campaigned on focusing more on “birth-to-5” programming. During Adams’ tenure so far, the city has come under fire for failing to pay preschool providers. Officials have also faced pushback for plans to reassign hundreds of early childhood workers who provided extra instructional and social-emotional support to classrooms serving the city’s youngest learners.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

3-K is getting the bulk of NYC’s school stimulus funding. But Adams might curb its expansion.

2022-09-22T13:32:13+00:00

When New York City schools received more than $7 billion in federal stimulus money last year, city officials planned to spend more than a quarter of it on one of then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature initiatives: expanding preschool for 3-year-olds.

His administration, however, never outlined how the city would pay for the program once those federal dollars ran out by the 2025-26 school year, only saying that he felt confident the economy would bounce back by then.

Now, as Mayor Eric Adams stares down a potential $10 billion budget shortfall when federal dollars dry up in three years, observers are concerned that the city may not have enough money to pay for the growing program.

City officials declined to say whether they wanted to make preschool universal for 3-year-olds as de Blasio had planned, instead saying that the education department was “committed to optimizing access to care, as based on family need and preference, for ages birth to five.”

And the mayor and his schools chief, David Banks, seem to have their own agenda that Adams campaigned on: making care for children under 3 more affordable for low-income families, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

That could leave many families who are banking on child care and early learning for their 3-year-olds without subsidized options, according to budget watchdogs and organizations that represent preschool providers.

“The concern is really, if you’re offering a service that’s gonna be expected to be recurring, you need to tie down funding for it,” said Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan budget watchdog nonprofit.

Officials did not say how they plan to pay for the popular program once federal relief dollars run out nor have they shared plans to scale back stimulus spending.

“Federal stimulus dollars will eventually sunset, and we look forward to working with our partners from all levels of government towards a sustainable path forward for investing in high-quality Early Childhood Education programs,” education department spokesperson Suzan Sumer said in a statement.

Need for affordable child care

De Blasio began opening free preschool programs for 3-year-olds in 2017, after successfully launching universal preschool for 4-year-olds. Using federal stimulus dollars, the city opened 3-K seats in every community school district last year.

Prekindergarten for 3-year-olds was the only grade where enrollment actually grew last year, more than doubling from the year before, as the city opened more seats.

Last year, the city offered more than 46,000 3-K seats, a figure that includes spots that are funded by federal dollars, and filled about 38,000 of them. The city was expected to open about 8,000 more this school year, according to the education department.

Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the education department, tweeted that there are neighborhoods where many seats go unfilled, while in others, there are not enough to meet demand. For example, this year, Southwest Brooklyn had 1,054 available 3K seats and 53 left unfilled. But in the Bronx’s High Bridge and Morrisania, just under half of the 2,400 open seats had been filled.

Rebecca Iwerks, who lives in East Harlem with her husband and three children, enrolled her 3-year-old daughter in a city-funded program near their home. Before this year, she and her husband, who both work, were paying for daycare that cost nearly as much as their rent.

Iwerks’ daughter has “been really happy,” waking up each morning asking if she’s going to school. She seems to have been talking more there, Iwerks said.

“Having a more affordable child care option for her is a huge game-changer for us,” Iwerks said.

Several studies have found that preschool is beneficial for children. A 2019 study out of South Carolina found that children who attended public preschool programs had higher test scores in grades 3-5, improving the academic environment for their peers, too. The students who attended the program were also less likely to be disciplined. Another study found that the siblings and children of students who attended preschool did better academically, had better employment outcomes, and were less likely to be involved with crime.

However, a national 2018 study challenged that narrative: It found that public preschool didn’t lead to higher test scores in fourth grade, but there were gains for children in districts with majority Black students.

3-K gets lion’s share of COVID relief money

When federal COVID dollars rolled in, city officials planned to use $2 billion of it on expanding 3-K through the 2024-25 school year. It was the single largest use of the district’s stimulus dollars over time, according to an analysis last year from the Independent Budget Office, or the IBO. De Blasio had planned to make the program universal by next school year.

The problem, budget watchdogs have warned, starts in July 2025, when federal aid will run out. By then, the city will face a $376 million shortfall for 3-K and has not pointed to a funding source to cover the whole program, according to a budget tracker by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. That’s part of the roughly $840 million budget shortfall that the education department will face in 2025 because of programs it has funded using federal stimulus funds.

While stimulus spending on pre-K is increasing each year, the city is spending less on academic recovery for K-12 schools, including for extra services for students with disabilities, as the federal money dries up. The city is also spending less of these funds overall on school budgets due to projected declining enrollment.

Of the roughly 5,000 districts tracked by Future Ed, an education thinktank out of Georgetown University, 225 districts and charters are spending stimulus dollars on preschool or early education — though none at the level of New York City, according to Phyllis Jordan, associate director of Future Ed.

School districts are allowed to use the federal relief on expanding preschool programs, said a spokesperson for the state education department, which signed off on the city’s planned use of COVID dollars. Signaling support for the city’s plan, the spokesperson said that expanding pre-K programs “addresses lost early childhood learning, socialization, and other foundational skills required for long-term success.”

The huge investment of federal dollars drew mixed feelings from Nora Moran, director of policy at United Neighborhood Houses, which represents preschool providers. The city has addressed something that “is a huge issue for working parents” and good for young children, Moran said, but her organization was concerned about using temporary dollars to prop it up.

They raised the issue with the de Blasio administration, only to be told that the economy would rebound, she said. If it doesn’t, community-based providers might have to cut back programs.

“I think it would be probably a catastrophe for a lot of providers and families if you’re seeing a loss of programs,” said Gregory Brender, policy director for the Day Care Council, which also represents preschool programs. “Families end up scrambling, you have workers losing their jobs.”

Expanding smartly

Even as policy analysts worry about the program’s future, they also want the city to focus on a program that actually works for families. Both Moran and Brender noted that most preschool classrooms run from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., which mirrors the school day but doesn’t cover families who work later. It doesn’t offer the sort of after-school programs that might be available for students in older grades. Moran noted that there are some federally funded preschool seats that go until 6 p.m., but those are in the minority and reserved for low-income families.

Iwerks, the East Harlem mother, still pays for aftercare for her daughter — albeit, at a fraction of the cost – that goes until 5:30 p.m. She feels lucky that the after-school program is located in the same church as her daughter’s 3-K.

“It’s a good question about how all this investment is happening and who’s able to benefit from it if you can’t get child care for a pre-K kid after 3 o’clock,” Iwerks said.

Brender, of the Day Care Council, said that any cuts to the program may invite intense budget fights down the road, and the city must make tough choices about what to do next.

“But we know that families are still desperate for early childhood options, and we do think it’s going to be popular enough where hopefully the city and state would work to continue it,” Brender said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s pre-K workers, programs say they’re in limbo after reorganization

2022-09-15T20:53:17+00:00

After a summer of scrambling to replace two teachers and getting her preschool classrooms ready for the fall, Joanne Derwin opened her email last week to find some news:

The extra support that programs like hers received from the education department was “being reimagined.”

That’s probably why, Derwin realized, she hadn’t heard from the instructional coordinator or social worker whose help over the years had been “transformational.” An instructional coordinator helps teachers plan lessons and teach, while social workers help families navigate various issues, such as food insecurity.

“We were given no warning, no heads up,” said Derwin, executive director of One World Project, an early childhood program in the Windsor Terrace neighborhood of Brooklyn. “Like, nothing.”

Two weeks ago, on the Friday before the first week of school, the education department announced that it was moving 1,000 central and borough office workers to district offices to be overseen by the city’s superintendents. Officials said the move would bring “staff closer to the communities, schools, students, and teachers.” Nearly 400 early childhood education staffers — most of whom already spent their days working inside preschool classrooms — were included in the move.

The lack of communication about the new plan from the education department, as well as the abrupt announcement, has sowed confusion and concern among staff and preschool providers, according to interviews with instructional coordinators, social workers, and people who run preschool programs. The workers have since held a virtual town hall airing their concerns, and a rally on the steps of the education department headquarters.

Department officials have said no one is losing work as part of the reorganization, and that instead, people will be reassigned or encouraged to apply for new jobs. The department plans to have about 200 employees continue working under the early childhood division – but with program leaders, such as Derwin, instead of with teachers, officials said. Social workers would work on creating resources for families and hosting workshops, though it’s unclear how closely they’ll work with families.

Another 200 would go to district offices and from there would be sent to schools to provide extra instructional and social-emotional help where it’s needed, from early childhood programs up to fifth grade.

One preschool provider, whose community-based organization is contracted by the city to provide universal preschool seats, is worried she’ll be stretched too thin without the extra support.

“It was just something that somebody else was helping us out with, instead of me going to five classrooms and jumping from one place to another,” said Marina Yeruslanov, educational director at Cheer-N-Grow Learning Academy in the Bronx, which contracts with the city to serve 3- and 4-year-olds. “It’s going to be hard for educational directors to maintain all of this, especially if it’s a large facility.”

Confusion and chaos

As part of the reorganization plans, 360 instructional coordinators and social workers learned two days before the start of the school year that they would be “excessed” — meaning they’d lost their position, but would continue being paid as they reapplied for other jobs in the system. Officials in the early childhood education office encouraged those employees to apply for the new roles once they were posted. The jobs were described as similar to the work they do now, according to excessed employees.

But now, a week into the school year, the new jobs have not yet been posted.

Despite being excessed, employees said they also haven’t been able to access the portal where they’re supposed to apply for new jobs within the education department. Officials plan to post the jobs in the next few days, department spokesperson Art Nevins said.

The union had initially praised the reorganization announcement, but on Thursday raised fresh concerns.

“While the UFT supports the concept of moving services as close as possible to the students who need them, the Department of Education has announced this change without any real planning for how to implement it,” Alison Gendar, a spokesperson for the union, said in a statement. “We will be working with our members — all of whom are still employed — to ensure their rights are protected as the DOE’s administrative issues are worked out.”

Instructional coordinators and social workers typically help preschool programs as needed in the week before school starts, including running professional development sessions, four excessed staffers told Chalkbeat. But in late August, they were told that they would not host those sessions, scheduled for Sept. 6 and 7, according to an email shared with Chalkbeat.

Once they were excessed on Sept. 6, supervisors informed instructional coordinators and social workers that they couldn’t go to preschool programs to help, even if program directors called, according to staffers. Meanwhile, program directors were calling and asking for help with training new teachers or setting up their classrooms.

“The thing that is the most bothersome for all of us right now, as we sit here, is telling sites that we are so sorry, we can’t come support you right now,” an instructional coordinator, who requested anonymity in fear of retaliation, told Chalkbeat last week.

Then, the message changed this week, staffers said. Some employees said they’re being pulled aside by supervisors and being asked to respond to programs, but many staffers are refusing because they don’t believe they should be doing their old jobs if those roles no longer exist.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said that instructional coaches and social workers “are to be doing their normal duties.” Asked why staffers were told not to go out to programs, Weisberg said he couldn’t say, but “certainly, if anybody’s confused about that, they can escalate that up the chain. I will guarantee you what they’ll hear is they should continue the normal job duties.”

What comes next?

Meanwhile, some program leaders are apprehensive about what the change means for their teachers and students.

In the bulletin that went out to programs, Deputy Chancellor Kara Ahmed wrote that education department staffers would reach out to help support them as the reorganization took effect. But Yeruslanov, with the Bronx program, said she still hasn’t been contacted by anyone in the department.

On her own, Yersulanov compiled education-related information and resources from previous years to get teachers prepared for the start of school, she said. She recently heard from her old social worker, who said she’s going to come in next week to help out as long as she can.

Before the reorganization, instructional coordinators and social workers worked directly with teachers and families.

For example, a typical day for one social worker involved meeting families at drop off at one of the several schools she supported. She might help teachers navigate behavioral problems with students – sometimes assisting teachers in conversations with families if the issue was persistent. She would also guide families through a constellation of social service resources, or even things like kindergarten applications.

Instructional coordinators observed teachers and helped them plan lessons or activities, ensuring they were following the best practices for educating 3- and 4-year-olds. Some days, if there was a particular issue with a child, they might shift their attention to focus on helping that teacher with that student.

Derwin, who also has not been contacted by the education department, said her program has a tight budget, so the extra support was a game-changer.

“I really can’t emphasize enough how hard things are right now on the ground,” Derwin said. “You have teachers who are struggling, we’ve had years of a global pandemic and trying to support our children in masks, trying to figure out how we do language acquisition, how we support social-emotional needs, how we support families through impossibly complicated and difficult situations — and now this one thing that was actually really helpful is being taken away.”

Weisberg, the first deputy chancellor, said he’s confident the change will help programs and disputed the idea that it would result in less support. Part of the shift is meant to give program leaders the tools to coach their own teachers, instead of having a coach or social worker “intermittently” working with a few teachers in the school whose priorities or style may be “totally inconsistent” with what the leader wants.

He noted that many community-based programs, which contract with the education department to provide universal preschool seats, have other personnel who can fill in where programs are feeling a gap.

“We’re optimistic that this is going to feel like more support, because this is going to be working directly with leaders and is going to be consistent with them,” Weisberg said, who added that they made this change in part based on feedback from preschool programs.

Yeruslanov said they’ve been managing without their instructional coordinator and social worker, but she noted that it’s only the second week of the school year. She relies heavily on the social worker because her center serves many single mothers as well as foster parents, who are navigating many responsibilities. Last year, she recalls at least ten one-on-one meetings that her social worker had with families she serves.

It’s “challenging” for Derwin to imagine taking on coaching on top of her other responsibilities, even with staffers who oversee education and operations.

“I’m not sure who they consulted with, but I know from our example, our school specifically, we feel the loss of not having our instructional coordinator and not having a social worker, especially now during these really trying times,” Derwin said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

What is going on with NYC’s public school enrollment? We explain.

2022-08-09T22:19:26+00:00

New York City’s fight over school budget cuts has dominated the news. But at the heart of that debate is declining student enrollment.

Overall, K-12 enrollment has dropped by 9.5% since the pandemic began. Officials are expecting 30,000 fewer K-12 students to be on the rolls this fall compared to last year.

In this most recent school year, three-quarters of schools saw fewer students, a Chalkbeat analysis previously found. Enrollment of Black and white students dropped by 7.5% each, while it dropped by 5% for Asian American students and 4.5% for Latino students.

Enrollment numbers have been declining steadily since the 2015-16 school year – before the steep drops during the pandemic, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office, or IBO.

But there’s also little evidence that families are fleeing traditional public schools for charters or private schools.

Student enrollment has big implications for public schools. Projected declines have already impacted school funding this year. And fewer students could mean tough decisions about school closures and mergers, which education officials have not yet discussed.

Here’s an overview of what is happening with enrollment in New York City:

How does NYC’s enrollment drop compare to the rest of the country?

Enrollment in public schools nationwide dropped by 1.2 million students, or about 2%, between the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2020, according to the Return to Learn Tracker, which collects state level data. (This figure does not include prekindergarten).

That tracker shows an additional 91,000 students did not show up to public schools in the fall of 2021. That would put the total drop in enrollment at 1.27 million children nationwide since the pandemic started.

Compared to the national numbers, New York City’s declines are striking and likely have led to the state’s dubious distinction: With 6% fewer students in schools statewide since the pandemic began, New York has seen the biggest declines of any state, according to the tracker.

Enrollment is not dipping evenly across all grades.

To understand why enrollment may be dropping, it’s first important to know which grades are seeing fewer students.

In the 2020-21 school year, most grades in the city’s traditional public schools saw enrollment declines, except for eighth, 10th, 11th and 12th, according to the IBO. The most steep drop was in pre-K for 4-year-olds and kindergarten.

Then, last school year, every grade saw fewer students except the city’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds, which more than doubled as seats have expanded. The biggest decreases were in third grade, followed by sixth grade. First and fifth grades were next. In turn, some of the smallest declines were among pre-K for 4-year-olds, kindergarten, and high school grades except for tenth grade.

However, when comparing to pre-COVID, the largest enrollment drops last year were in pre-K for 4-year-olds, followed by second grade, then kindergarten, third grade and first grade. Nationwide, kindergarten enrollment dipped following the start of the pandemic, but districts began reporting some rebounds this past school year.

Enrollment in New York City’s pre-K and elementary grades ranged between 82% and 88.5% of what they were before the pandemic, the IBO found. Starting in seventh grade through senior year of high school, enrollment ranged between 89% to 99% of what it was pre-pandemic, with the highest levels in the high school years.

So, while enrollment has dipped across every grade since 2019, changes are more pronounced among early grades, despite the availability of free preschool in New York City.

Are students leaving the school system, or are parents choosing not to enroll their children?

The answer is probably both.

Last year, a team of researchers estimated that, after the first year of the pandemic, about a quarter of the nation’s enrollment loss was linked to schools that didn’t offer in-person learning. Remote learning policies specifically dissuaded families of younger children, while it had no significant impact on older students.

A Chalkbeat and Associated Press analysis also found that enrollment among white students dipped more in states where most students were learning virtually.

That could help explain some of the drop in New York City during the 2020-21 school year, when schools were not yet open full time.

“Parents demonstrated they didn’t want kids at that age sitting in front of a computer,” said Thomas Dee, a professor in Stanford’s Graduate School of Education who was part of the research team. He also noted that families wanted a safe in-person option. That could have meant families home-schooled or delayed enrolling their children in preschool or kindergarten.

So what accounts for another drop in enrollment this past school year, when buildings were open full time?

Parents again may have been delaying the start of school for preschool and kindergarten-age children, Dee said. Or parents may have felt more comfortable moving younger children to a new school. Some families might have moved because of the city’s rising cost of living.

City officials have previously linked enrollment declines, in part, to declining birth rates.

A Chalkbeat analysis found that the greatest drop in enrollment happened in schools with the smallest share of low-income students. But, the second biggest drop happened in schools where between three-quarters to all students were poor. Enrollment among low-income students fell nearly 7% this year, more than double that of students who are not considered low-income.

With the rise of remote work, it’s also possible that families are moving to a new place — perhaps to be closer to family or live somewhere more affordable.

Contrary to some theories, there’s no evidence that families are fleeing public schools in droves or for charters and private schools. While the city’s enrollment dropped by about 100,000 students since 2019 — not counting 3K — overall enrollment in city charter schools has grown by just over 10,000 students, or by 7.8%, since the pandemic started. And over that same time period, the city’s private schools actually saw a 3.6% drop in pre-K-12 enrollment, according to state data.

Dee said it’s also possible that more families are home-schooling, and not all of them have registered with the state. Homeschooling nearly doubled, to 14,000 students in New York City, with the largest increases in districts with higher shares of students living in poverty.

Demographic changes, Dee noted, may also play a big role. New York State had some of the largest population declines last year, particularly among school-age children, he said.

“No social behavior has only one cause, and I think as more data become available, we are starting to realize the broader trends that influence the character of enrollment decline and flight from places like New York City,” he said.

What can districts do to build up enrollment?

Mayor Eric Adams and schools Chancellor David Banks have raised alarms about the city’s enrollment numbers and have promised to entice families to choose public schools.

Asked how the administration is planning to do that, a spokesperson pointed to various initiatives the city has rolled out, including rethinking literacy instruction and programs for students with dyslexia, expanding gifted and talented programs, piloting a new Asian American and Pacific Islander curriculum and including parents in the hiring of superintendents, which had a bumpy rollout.

“Chancellor Banks, his leadership team, and every district superintendent is focused on reversing dropping enrollment in our public schools,” Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the education department, wrote in a statement. “This work is informed by listening to families and school communities as well as putting in place policies that will ensure our public schools are the destination of choice for all of our students and families.”

There are a few things that parents typically focus on when it comes to choosing schools for their children, Dee said.

First, parents are attracted to school quality. For many families, that can mean ensuring that schools have high-quality curriculum, well-trained and effective teachers, and often, smaller class sizes, which Dee noted can be a pricey endeavor.

Recent budget cuts due to declining enrollment will likely result in higher class sizes. State lawmakers passed a bill to reduce class sizes in the city’s public schools, but the Adams administration has opposed it, and Gov. Kathy Hochul has yet to sign it.

Families also care that classrooms are “welcoming, inclusive, supportive spaces” for students, Dee said.

From his research, Dee found that parents of young children wanted safe in-person instruction, so he suggested improving COVID mitigations at schools. That includes ventilation and filtration. The city has been shedding safety measures, such as universal masking and social distancing, and city officials have not yet released their safety plans for this fall.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Here are education highlights from New York’s state budget

2022-04-18T19:37:04+00:00

New York state lawmakers passed a budget over the weekend that will boost funding for New York City schools by about 4% per pupil next school year.

The city’s public schools will receive just over $12 billion in state funding. State funds represent roughly 40% of the city’s education operating budget.

School funding is usually a bitter battle among lawmakers and advocates during budget season. But lawmakers reached a deal last year to fully fund Foundation Aid, the formula that sends more dollars to high-needs schools.

As a result, even the most fervent school funding advocates shifted their attention to expanding other programs and initiatives. One of the largest pushes went toward expanding subsidized child care across New York.

The final budget deal calls for $7 billion in early child care funding over the next four years, which could pave the way for universal child care and greatly expand access for New York City families. But some advocates and lawmakers were disappointed by that level of funding and are frustrated that it still excludes children who are undocumented.

Lawmakers also passed legislation to mandate electric school buses and instituted some funding changes for private special education programs, which serve public school children with the most challenging disabilities and have been struggling to retain teachers.

Here are highlights from the state budget.

NYC schools get $56 million less than proposed

New York City schools will see about $475 million more in state funding next school year. That figure is $56 million less than what Gov. Kathy Hochul had proposed; it wasn’t immediately clear why the final budget sent less money to the city.

Unlike previous years, it was clear from the governor’s proposal in January that school districts would receive an influx of cash following commitments last year to boost Foundation Aid, which gives districts the most flexibility, including the ability to hire more teachers or create new programs.

Some advocates, however, were disappointed not to see a funding increase for career and technical education programs. The New York State Educational Conference Board, a coalition of large school organizations, including the state teachers union, had called for updating a three-decade-old formula that helps fund career and technical education. The state’s Board of Regents also asked for more funding.

“Completing high school should put every young person on a path toward success in adult life,” Charles Dedrick, executive director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents, said in a statement. “Quality CTE programs have proven to be an effective option for students, including those planning to enter the workforce, to pursue further education, or both.”

Thousands more NYC families will be eligible for subsidized child care

The state’s $7 billion, four-year agreement for expanding subsidized child care would make it more affordable for families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty limit, or around $83,000 for a family of four. Previously the upper limit was around $55,500 for a family of four, or 200% of the poverty level.

While the final deal did not make care free, keeping in place co-payments that advocates had hoped would be eliminated, those payments are now capped at 10% of a family’s income.

About 74,000 more New York City children under the age of 5 will be eligible for significantly subsidized care, for a total of about 290,000 children across the five boroughs, according to an analysis of 2019 Census data conducted by United Neighborhood Houses, which represents child care providers.

Children who are undocumented will not be included, leaving an estimated 5,000 children across the state excluded from the program. Because state and federal dollars are “co-mingled” for subsidized child care, covering undocumented children would violate federal law, according to a spokesperson for Hochul’s office.

But advocates believe officials could separate out state funds and use them specifically for excluded children. It could work like the state’s excluded workers’ funds, which provided benefits to New Yorkers who lost work during the pandemic but were left out of federal relief programs, said Gregory Brender, director of public policy for the Day Care Council.

Many advocates called the investment “historic” for the industry and for families desperately in need of support. But some who had called for even more funding said the plan will fall short and cause families long waits for subsidized care — leading at least one leading lawmaker behind the universal childcare push, Sen. Jabari Brisport, to vote against the budget.

New York City in recent years has significantly expanded free child care for 3- and 4-year-olds through free preschool programs, but families with infants have struggled to find and afford care.

It remains to be seen how many families will take advantage of more affordable care and how the rollout will work. In 2019, more than 93,000 families qualified, yet only about 8,000 were enrolled in publicly supported programs, according to public data analyzed by the Citizens’ Committee for Children, or CCC, a nonprofit advocacy group.

The annual cost of care is about $18,000 to enroll in center-based programs or about $10,000 for programs that are run out of providers’ homes. Many women who left the workforce during the pandemic have not returned, with 35% of those reporting lack of childcare as the reason, according to census data analyzed by CCC.

Providers, meanwhile, have struggled since well before the pandemic. Many operate as private businesses, while those that participate in public programs say the rates they’re paid do not come close to covering costs. COVID only made things more difficult, with more expenses and plummeting enrollment. Many were forced to close.

Districts will start purchasing electric buses

The final budget requires all school districts to use zero-emission school buses that don’t use gasoline by 2035. Starting in 2027, districts can only purchase or lease green buses, or they must require the same of companies they contract with for transportation services.

This follows a law passed by New York City Council in November 2021 requiring that all school buses in use are zero-emission by 2035. Roughly 10,000 school buses service New York City, according to the New York State Association for Pupil Transportation, or NYAPT.

Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had committed last April to changing 75 of 960 city-operated buses to electric by 2023, costing $30 million. The city contracts with other companies to run other school buses. An education department spokesperson said there have been no changes to de Blasio’s commitment.

Hochul had pitched the change in her budget proposal in January, earning pushback from NYAPT and other school advocates over the complicated logistics that could arise from the mandate. The groups worried about the costs that would come along with the mandate, such as building charging stations.

To meet the mandate, a district without any electric buses would have to convert close to 8% of its fleet on average annually in order to meet the new requirements by 2035.

NYAPT estimated the new mandate will cost at least $1 billion a year across the state, assuming about 4,000 new zero-emission buses are purchased annually. That organization had called for allowing districts to convert 5% of their fleets annually beginning in 2029, or pushing the start date of the mandate out to 2035, while letting districts choose a fleet of all-electric school buses or “a diversified fleet of school buses is more appropriate when considering the safety, environmental, and economic factors of their school district.”

A spokesperson for the association did not immediately share its response to the final budget.

The budget dedicates $500 million for zero-emission school buses in the state’s environmental bond act, a borrowing plan that must still be approved by voters this November. It also allows districts to apply for a two-year extension to meet the requirements of transitioning their fleets.

Dedrick, from the state’s superintendents group, said the $500 million allocation “will be a significant help to school districts.”

Private special education funding

Advocates and education policymakers had hoped for changes in how New York funds state-approved, privately run special education programs that serve thousands of school-age and preschool children with severe disabilities.

But those requests didn’t make it into the final budget.

Advocates welcomed a commitment from Hochul to boost funding for these programs by $240 million. But there was no final deal to freeze a complicated policy called “reconciliation,” which they argue could make the funding increase moot.

Under reconciliation, not only must programs return state funding they don’t use in a given school year, they also lose that funding in the following year. That means, for example, that if a teacher quits, and the school is unable to hire a replacement, then the school will not get the money for that position in the following year, said Chris Treiber, associate executive director for children’s services at InterAgency Council of Developmental Disabilities Agencies, Inc., which represents these programs.

“Our schools are so understaffed, they’re unable to recruit teachers, teacher assistants and clinicians,” Treiber said. “If they had to spend all this money in one fiscal year, they never would be able to.”

Last school year, 853 schools which serve school-age children had a teacher vacancy rate of 29%, while preschool programs had a vacancy rate of 33%, according to figures from Treiber’s organization.

The final budget allows these programs to retain a certain portion of unspent funding. Over the next three years, schools can hold on to up to 11% of surplus funding. That percentage would decrease to 8% in the 2025-2026 school year, to 5% the following year, and then 2% by 2027-2028 and annually after that. Treiber said his organization is still working to understand how exactly this would impact their programs.

Stagnant state funding has contributed to the closure of these programs and a shortage of seats for 3- and 4-year-olds with disabilities.

More than 22,000 New York City children are enrolled in these programs. Rate increases for the preschool special education programs stalled after the 2008 recession. Since 2015-16, the state has approved a 2% annual rate increase, which trails what public schools and programs for older children have received.

Hochul vetoed a bill in December that would have provided preschool special education programs with the same annual rate increase that school districts receive.

On Monday, State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said she’s concerned about these programs closing due to funding issues, leaving children with the most severe disabilities with fewer options. Her team also requested just over $1 million to begin reviewing the tuition rate-setting methodology, but that, too, was left out of the final budget.

“While we are still looking at this issue, we do believe the tuition rate setting methodology is one that has to be addressed,” Rosa said. “We are hopeful we can continue the dialogue because there has to be a full understanding of the long-term implication this has.”

More mental health and tuition help

A total of $100 million in state grant matching funds will be available over the next two years to match what school districts are spending to address the fallout from the pandemic, including for student mental health and academic recovery. Hochul pitched this in her budget proposal in hopes of helping school districts address a youth mental health crisis spreading across the nation.

That funding will match what school districts are spending, including on extended day and after school programs and hiring mental health professionals.

The state will also spend $150 million toward New York’s Tuition Assistance Program in order to help cover tuition for 75,000 more part-time college students.

Christina Veiga contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: This story previously stated the state has expanded free child care. In fact, more families will now qualify for subsidized care, but families will still be required to contribute a co-payment capped at 10% of their income.

New York’s $7 billion deal could pave the way for universal child care

2022-04-18T19:35:51+00:00

Gov. Kathy Hochul is pledging a historic $7 billion in child care funding for New York families as part of this year’s state budget deal announced Thursday.

Lawmakers must still vote to approve the budget deal that Hochul said she’s reached with leaders of the state Assembly and Senate. If passed, the multi-billion-dollar investment would be spread over the next four years, paving the way for universal child care and helping to stabilize an industry shaken by COVID.

Hochul said the deal would double how much the state currently spends on subsidized child care and expand the number of eligible families.

It’s unclear how the state will roll out the ambitious expansion, which would dramatically increase which families qualify for reduced-cost care and steer more money toward providers.

“What we’re seeing in New York could propel us to the national forefront,” said Steven Morales, New York policy director for All Our Kin, a national nonprofit organization that supports child care providers who work out of their own homes.

Hochul did not share more specifics about the deal, and her office did not immediately respond to questions. Two sources familiar with budget negotiations said they are expecting subsidies for free care to include families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty limits by August, up from the current 200%. That means that a family of four earning around $83,000 would qualify for subsidized child care. Previously the limit was around $55,500 for a family of four. (The final deal did not make care free, keeping in place co-payments that advocates had hoped would be eliminated.)

Some advocates were disheartened by the deal. Alliance for Quality Education, which had pushed for a $5 billion investment next year alone, believes the plan falls short and will lead to a “slow roll out” that may force parents to remain on wait lists for years or “continue to be forced to pay high costs” for child care.

“The issue with all of this is that they are doing a lot more in terms of including more families with the 300% eligibility, but they’re not adding a lot more money, so it’s almost like this illusion that more families will get access to child care when they actually know the counties will run out of money quickly,” said Jasmine Gripper, executive director of Alliance for Quality Education.

In a significant loss for advocates, children who are undocumented will not be eligible for subsidized care, leaving out an estimated 5,000 children across the state who are excluded from more affordable programs because of immigration status, according to an estimate from Empire State Campaign for Child Care.

Children who are citizens but whose parents immigrated without papers could still qualify for care, but advocates worried that work requirements would be a barrier for those families, especially those who “work under the books and get paid in cash,” Gripper said. It is unclear what work requirements would look like for the program or if any changes are being considered.

For providers, sources said they expect the budget will include just over $340 million in stabilization grants to help cover the costs of operating through the pandemic. The sources also expect the state will change the way it calculates reimbursement rates and help centers stay financially viable over the longer term by paying providers more than they currently receive to care for young children.

Many of these investments have been on the wish lists of early childhood education advocates for years. Jessica Sager, All Our Kin CEO and co-founder, said the pandemic finally made the need for child care more obvious than ever as parents struggled to teach their children from home or had to leave the workforce altogether.

“We have been forced, as a society, to deal with the consequences of this broken system,” Sager said.

New York City has significantly expanded child care for 3- and 4-year-olds through free preschool programs in recent years, but families with infants have struggled to find and afford care.

In 2019, there were more than 200,000 infants living in New York City and more than 93,000 whose families qualified for subsidized care because of their income. Yet only about 8,000 were enrolled in publicly supported programs, according to public data analyzed by the Citizens’ Committee for Children, or CCC, a nonprofit advocacy group.

It costs almost $19,000 to enroll in center-based programs or more than $10,000 for programs that are run out of providers’ homes, putting care out of reach for many families. Many women who have left the workforce during the pandemic have not returned, with 35% of those reporting lack of child care as the reason, according to census data analyzed by CCC.

Providers, meanwhile, have struggled to make ends meet since well before the pandemic. Many operate as private businesses, while those that participate in public programs say the rates they’re paid do not come close to covering costs. COVID made things more difficult, with more expenses and plummeting enrollment. Many were forced to close their doors.

Jennifer March, executive director of CCC, said the proposals from the state Senate and Assembly, which called for investing at least $3 billion, had the potential for “real impact on the workforce, real impact on parents and their ability to work and access affordable care, and real impacts on children,” March said.

Gregory Brender, director of public policy for the Day Care Council, said his organization is still hoping to push lawmakers to make care eligible for more families even after the budget is finalized, including those with varying immigration statuses.

“Child care has been treated differently than public education, where it’s been based on income requirements and work requirements and other requirements,” Brender said. “We really need to move to a system where early childhood education is a right.”

Christina Veiga is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on school diversity and preschool. Contact Christina at cveiga@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: This story previously stated the state budget deal would expand free childcare. In fact, the deal expands which families qualify for dramatically subsidized care, but co-payments will still be required.

NYC mayoral race: Where do the candidates stand on pre-K, child care, and after school?

2021-06-10T12:00:00+00:00

When New York City last had an empty seat in the mayor’s office, the winning candidate rose to popularity in part on a signature education policy proposal: extending public pre-kindergarten to all children.

During this raucous mayoral campaign, the landscape looks incredibly different from when Bill de Blasio first took office, following a life-changing pandemic and four years under President Donald Trump.

But the needs of the city’s youngest learners are still at the forefront of many voters’ minds, as the pandemic illustrated how the stress put on the nation’s patchwork child care system hobbled working families. Women, especially, have been set back since the coronavirus gripped the country: a jobs report from December found that women made up all of the losses that month. Women of color have suffered disproportionately from the economic fallout.

Chalkbeat spoke to six of the frontrunners for the Democratic primary, a race that could decide the election in heavily Democratic New York City. We interviewed Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, former NYC Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, former vice chair of Citigroup Ray McGuire, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, and civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley. We asked about their views on early childhood education as well as the crucial topic of youth services, which includes programs like paid summer internships for teens.

Below is a voter guide, where you will find the main takeaways from each interview, as well as links to full videos for those who want to explore deeper. Early voting begins June 12 and runs through June 20, and Primary Day is on June 22. We also rounded up the candidate’s platforms on a host of other education issues. You can read up on their positions here.

(Top row, left to right) Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, and former NYC Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia. (Bottom row, left to right) Former vice chair of Citigroup Ray McGuire, NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, and civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley.

Democratic mayoral candidates Andrew Yang and Dianne Morales turned down invitations to participate.

Jump to the topics we covered: Child care access, child care affordability, early childhood education workforce, after-school and youth programs

Child care access

While New York City has made dramatic strides in expanding access to preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, challenges remain for many working families.

It can still be a struggle to find quality care for younger children. New York City has an estimated 15 slots for infant and toddler care per 100 children. Capacity went down in middle-income communities between 2011 to 2017, according to the advocacy group Raising NY.

And even those with children in the city’s free pre-K programs may face a child care crunch after the traditional school day ends around 2 p.m. and during summer break. City-subsidized preschool programs have pushed for more seats in centers that provide longer hours and care year-round.

Eric Adams

Adams called himself a “big believer” in opening up school buildings beyond the regular day, pointing to his efforts as Brooklyn Borough president to give free space on school campuses to organizations that provide after-school programming. But he did not have specific plans for providing extended hours for child care.

He proposes expanding access to child care by making it more affordable for centers to open. He wants to tap into the city’s own inventory of building space and give incentives to developers who dedicate free or low-cost space to child care providers. Adams also proposes to drop permit costs for programs and help centers bring on new staff more quickly by speeding up the background check process. The background check backlog has hampered many child care and after-school programs.

Shaun Donovan

Donovan said it’s “absolutely the right goal” to make extended-day and full-year care available for all children, but he suggested that such an expansion — and the timeline for accomplishing it — would depend on federal funding.

His campaign’s centerpiece vision — “15-minute neighborhoods” — would make everything from public transportation to healthy food to quality child care available within a 15-minute walk from every New Yorker’s home.

To help accomplish that, he would focus on the business side of running a child care facility, with centralized support for providers, many of whom are small business owners who come from the communities they serve.

“To be very specific, the bookkeeping, the applying for assistance, the payroll, and accounting — all of those things need to be things that we help many of these centers with so that they can focus on our kids,” he said.

Kathryn Garcia

Garcia said that extended child care hours should be available to “anyone who needs it to support them being able to go to work.” However, she stopped short of saying it should be universal.

She wants to expand free child care for low-income families and said building out the system should “accommodate what parents’ choices are going to be.” In New York City and across the country, child care is provided through a patchwork of home-based programs and center-based programs.

“So it is a plan that is multipronged and needs to move forward in a way that ensures that we are working with families to get them what they need,” she said.

Ray McGuire

McGuire wants to offer operating funds, grants, and capacity-building support to early childhood care providers so that they can open more centers. It’s unclear how much he’d like to spend on this initiative, which would focus on areas currently facing the greatest unmet need for child care slots.

McGuire also said he’d provide training support for educators to ensure that programs are high quality and pledged to work with institutions such as CUNY to make that happen.

He added that he’d like to see the school year and school day extended, and not just for pre-K students, saying those costs will pay off in the long run if children are cared for in safe, engaging programs rather than being free to get into “mischief.”

“We need to invest now or pay later. I’d rather invest today,” McGuire said.

Scott Stringer

Stringer has proposed one of the most detailed child care plans, which he unveiled well before announcing his current run for mayor. As the city’s comptroller, he partnered with state legislators to call for a new payroll tax that would be used, in part, to cover $500 million in capital investments to create more space to open child care centers. Stringer’s plan prioritizes 10 communities most lacking in child care options, including Tottenville on Staten Island, Bushwick in Brooklyn, and Sunnyside in Queens.

“We can’t reopen the same way we closed. Part of the reason why we need child care is so people — mostly women, mostly women of color — can get back into the workforce,” he said.

Stringer’s plan acknowledges the need for more convenient child care hours for working families, but it’s unclear if he would support a universal expansion of the school day and year.

Maya Wiley

Wiley proposes to invest $500 million into “community care” centers, as well as stipends to families to pay for child care. The centers would be intergenerational hubs that provide a range of services, from free child care to senior care and job training. She proposes paying for this model by diverting money from police department hiring and tapping unspent federal funds.

Wiley calls for centers in each borough that can serve up to 300,000 people in the first year — and up to 1 million at full capacity. She wants to survey residents to determine what services to offer, and invest money through a proposed $10 billion capital plan for the city, opening up centers in schools, existing community centers, and new sites.

She called for “more access to longer hours” at city child care programs.

Wiley also noted that many child care providers are privately run small businesses, and a large number of them have been devastated by enrollment drops and closures related to COVID. She said helping small businesses in the wake of the pandemic will be “a really important part of our economic recovery.”

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An early childhood educator reads to her young students at Phyl’s Academy in Brooklyn.

Child care affordability

The expansion of universal pre-K for 4-year-olds saves New York City families an estimated $10,000 a year, according to the de Blasio administration. More and more students are also enrolling in free preschool for 3-year-olds, as the city expands its 3-K program to every school district next year. De Blasio is relying on one-time federal stimulus for the latest expansion, which still leaves the city about 20,000 seats short of reaching every 3-year-old.

Still, care for younger children remains one of the most expensive line items in families’ budgets, accounting for 31% of median household income for those with young children. In some Bronx neighborhoods, the cost can consume 65% of a household’s income.

Meanwhile, a Byzantine approval process and bureaucratic backlog in getting families approved for subsidized care leave many waiting for vouchers to help pay for child care — even while seats in centers go empty.

Eric Adams

Adams hopes that providing free or low-cost space for child care programs will result in cost savings that get passed on to families. But he also wants to expand the city’s earned income tax credit, though he does not say by how much. Adams also proposes to expand the voucher program, but his plan doesn’t say by how many slots or whether eligibility might change.

As for the city’s current voucher landscape, Adams said the city needs to do a better job communicating with families about availability. He suggested tapping into the city’s census outreach teams, which hosted teach-ins and conducted phone- and text-banks to help spread the word in ways that resonate across languages and cultures.

“We should be using these teams year-round to continually push out information,” he said.

Shaun Donovan

Donovan said he supports making 3-K universal. He did not provide details for how he would pay for such an expansion or how quickly it might happen.

On vouchers, Donovan said the city needs to partner more effectively with social service organizations to help families know which programs they’re eligible for. Those kinds of groups “can be the best partners to reach families and make sure that we are signing them up quickly, overcoming language and trust barriers that often stand in the way of families even applying in the first place, to make sure that we have a robust pipeline of applicants,” he said.

Kathryn Garcia

Garcia proposes to offer free care for children from birth to age 3 to any family making under $70,000. She did not outline how the city would pay for those services but said strong early childhood care is “critical” to ensure students are ready for school and that families can work. The state legislature recently proposed a similar plan.

To help make sure more families can get the care they need, she said the city needs to streamline the voucher process “so that we’re not spending our time filling out forms, but spending our time making sure a kid is in that early childhood placement.” For example, she questioned why parents are repeatedly asked to go through an onerous process to verify their income levels when applying for different types of assistance.

“This is just government bureaucracy run amok,” she said.

Ray McGuire

McGuire said he would “guarantee every parent access to quality early child care and education,” serving children starting from birth to 4 years old, but he provided few specifics. He said that families would pay for care on a sliding scale based on their income level. Those on the lowest end could enroll their children for free, but McGuire did not say what the income threshold would be or how much families could expect to spend.

He suggested his program could run like existing voucher programs but said that he would ”cut bureaucracy” to address backlogs in the current system, without providing specifics on how he’d tackle that issue.

Scott Stringer

Stringer acknowledged the city needs to “manage the voucher system well” but also pointed to onerous federal regulations around that system. A better solution, he said: “A massive expansion of child care is how we, I think, satisfy the demand.”

He has called on the city to extend free child care for the lowest-income families. Others would pay on a sliding scale, up to 12% of household income for those earning around $100,000 for a family of four. In all, he estimates the city could serve 34,000 more children. Like his plan to open more centers, this would be funded by a tax on businesses with payrolls of more than $2.5 million.

Maya Wiley

Wiley proposes to give $5,000 in grants to 100,000 of New York City’s neediest families. She calls this “care income.” The money would be distributed based on a yet-to-be-determined formula and could be used to pay for informal care that so many parents rely on — including from a neighbor or extended family members. Parents who decide to stay home to care for their children could also use the money to offset expenses. Undocumented immigrants would also be eligible “because every last resident in the city deserves quality care for their family members,” she said.

The idea is to compensate caregivers — usually women — for vital work that often goes unpaid, Wiley said.

When it comes to addressing issues in the voucher system, Wiley said that it is riddled with “so many hurdles” that “it becomes next to impossible” for families to navigate the process. She hopes her proposed care centers could remove some of those barriers by locating community organizations and government agencies within them.

“It’s a big resource to have a one-stop-shop center that starts to streamline how that’s done and makes it easier for families,” she said.

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Early Childhood Education workforce

Some preschool teachers who work in the city’s privately run, publicly subsidized pre-K programs are paid dramatically less than their counterparts in public schools, which can cause retention and recruitment challenges for programs. New York City has taken steps to address these gaps by boosting some teachers’ salaries by as much as $20,000 after educators threatened a strike.

But large disparities remain. Teachers who work for community-run pre-K sites don’t get the same pay bumps for longevity as public school teachers, and many work longer hours and throughout the summer. And the latest pay deals did not include teachers in certain special education pre-K programs, making those who work with some of the most vulnerable students among the lowest-paid teachers.

Eric Adams

Adams said he supports the push for pay parity, and that includes equal benefits for teachers. He said he wants to compensate teachers for their years of experience and provide financial incentives for them to get credentialed but didn’t provide specifics about how to do that.

“It’s almost humiliating what we are paying these professionals,” he said.

He said the city should direct an influx of state and federal money to pay for the increases. If elected, Adams said there should be a clear path towards parity within one to two years of his term as mayor.

Shaun Donovan

Donovan said he’d like to see equal pay in his very first year in office for pre-K teachers in different settings. The former Obama White House official said he’d tap into his “deep relationships” in the federal government to try to secure more investments in the early childhood workforce.

He also wants to replicate existing programs that offer tuition assistance, removing a financial barrier that can stand in the way of many child care workers from earning their degrees, and with them, higher pay.

“To do it, I think it’s not just going to take the resources; it’s going to take the partnerships as well,” Donovan said.

Kathryn Garcia

Garcia said that more equitable pay for early childhood educators also helps ensure that high-quality teachers staff centers. “I’m a big believer in making sure that we are creating a more equitable environment for everyone so that everyone can thrive,” Garcia said.

Any pay boosts, she said, would have to be a part of union negotiations and what’s known as pattern bargaining — when pay provisions negotiated by one union also apply to others.

But that didn’t happen when the city agreed to raise substantially certain pre-K teacher salaries in 2019. At that time, officials went around the normal contract negotiation process after teachers threatened to strike.

Ray McGuire

McGuire said that raising salaries goes hand-in-hand with his plans to expand access to child care because better-paying jobs mean that providers can grow. His timeline is “immediate,” McGuire said, but he did not provide more specifics.

Scott Stringer

Stringer said one of his top priorities as mayor would be “to implement a massive pay parity plan to get the workers the resources they need.” He said he would propose funding increases for just that in his very first budget. He said teacher pay is crucial when it comes to program quality — and his expansion plans.

“It’s not an afterthought. You can’t go forward unless you do it,” he said of raising salaries.

Pointing to an influx of resources coming to the city, Stringer said, “We have buckets of money.”

“I’m less concerned about how to pay for it as I am about how to implement it,” he said, adding that he would work with community-based providers and others on the ground.

Maya Wiley

Wiley said she’d like to see pay parity achieved within the first two years of her administration — if not sooner. She said there is a “real opportunity now” with the Biden administration to boost pay in programs such as the federal HeadStart program. In his American Families Plan, Biden has proposed to hike pay to at least $15 an hour for early childhood educators across the country.

She also said that centers should have equal access to other resources that support quality care, noting that the city’s deeply segregated programs can also result in uneven quality.

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Students from P.S. 11 l in Chelsea participate in outdoor learning on Manhattan’s High Line park.

After-school and youth programs

Nonprofits that provide after-school and summer youth programs typically have to fight each year for their funding to be included in the city’s budget. Those programs have also been the target of cuts: When the pandemic first struck, the city slashed some 40,000 slots from the summer youth employment program, which provides paid internships to teens and young adults. The mayor’s proposed budget would restore funding for this summer.

Advocates have called for more stable funding for these programs to be built into the city’s budgets, so they and families can plan ahead. Many would also like to see summer youth employment expanded to become universal for any teen who wants a job, and for after-school care to be open to any student who needs it.

Eric Adams

As borough president, Adams said he allocated $2 million towards a pilot program to provide community organizations space in school buildings. He wants to expand that program, which will allow nonprofits to provide after-school opportunities like sports, especially in underserved areas. “Because when you really think about the cost, rental of space, use of a space — that is really some of the largest parts of actually having an overhead,” he said.

Adams has also called for schools to be open year-round with services for students and families. In addition, he would like to see a universal tutoring program but didn’t say how he would make it happen.

Shaun Donovan

Donovan has called for growing the summer youth employment program to include 150,000 slots. (According to advocate estimates, that would be enough to serve every youth who wants one.) He wants every high schooler to have at least one paid internship, apprenticeship, or other summer job before they graduate. He says those opportunities must provide exposure to “meaningful” careers. To make sure those opportunities are available, Donovan proposes to partner with organizations that already offer training and mentoring to high school students.

Kathryn Garcia

Garcia said she would expand after-school and other youth programs by tapping the American Rescue Plan, which earmarks billions of federal dollars intended to help students catch up from more than a year of interrupted learning due to COVID. She said nonprofits will be crucial partners in doing so and said she’d like to replicate models that incorporate work experience into their academic programs.

She said paid internships should be “available to anyone who wants it.” But she added that they should be “thoughtful opportunities” for youth “so that kids really have an idea about what the work world will look like.”

Ray McGuire

McGuire, a former corporate executive, promised to “leverage my relationships, both big and small,” to build a robust summer jobs program for any high schooler who wants a position. He would also like to see after-school and summer school programs significantly expanded to help students fill in gaps after two academic years interrupted by COVID. To do that, he said he’d like to funnel money to nonprofits to expand opportunities in theater, coding, academic recovery, and other areas.

Scott Stringer

Stringer proposes opening youth employment programs to any student who wants to participate. He has also proposed spending $200 million to make sure every child in K-8 has access to an after-school program.

“To do anything less is just a disservice, and I think creates an unequal education,” he said, adding that he’d like to build multiple years of funding into the city’s budget so that families and providers can be sure they’ll be able to operate in the longer term.

Stringer said that such a significant expansion of after-school programs would likely strain providers and that the city will need to find creative ways to alleviate that strain.

“There’s a pressure point because they can’t expand because of finances and their own capacity. And we need to leverage different relationships we have in the city, through procurement, through other means, to get them to a place where they can serve more people,” he said.

Maya Wiley

As part of a platform to reduce shootings, Wiley has called for doubling the number of summer youth employment programs to serve young people at the highest risk of gun violence. That would mean dedicating 10,000 slots to those young people. She said that communities with the highest unemployment rates also tend to suffer disproportionately from gun violence.

“We must make it easier to get a job than a gun in our communities,” she said.

She also supports more after-school programs “for all our youth” and wants to see school buildings used for programming “all year long.” She said she’d like to see longer-term funding assured for providers, “to ensure that we’re building and growing them appropriately and in ways that are meeting the needs of our kids.”

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This work was made possible with support from the Campaign for Children (C4C).

Election watch: Getting NYC’s mayoral candidates on the record about their plans for preschool, youth services

2021-05-03T15:06:56+00:00

Where do New York City’s mayoral candidates stand on early childhood education and youth services? Chalkbeat wants to find out.

Between now and the June 22 primary, Chalkbeat — in partnership with the Campaign for Children — will dig into these topics and push the leading Democratic candidates to spell out their visions for educating the city’s youngest learners.

First up, our reporter Christina Veiga will moderate on May 5 the Campaign for Children 2021 Community Speak Out, which will focus on mayoral hopefuls’ views on universal access to childcare, youth services, and early childhood education.

Additionally, Veiga is conducting one-on-one interviews with the mayoral candidates on these issues. These interviews will be posted on our platforms in the coming weeks, and will inform a voter guide we plan to create specifically on the next mayor’s vision for early childhood education and youth services.

It’s a pivotal moment for these sectors. With more federal attention and resources being dedicated to early childhood education and care, the mayor will have power to prioritize using more funds to build and strengthen services in New York City.

Yet, there’s a lot of work to be done. While the city has made strides expanding pre-K, affordable infant and toddler child care options are still hard to come by. The annual cost of many child care programs for these youngsters consumes about 31% of median household income for all families with young children in NYC but can be as high as 65% in communities where median incomes are lower. And the system, in some ways, is broken: There is a backlog of families waiting to receive vouchers to help pay for care, even while seats in centers go empty.

The early childhood workforce also needs more attention. Child care work is predominantly staffed by women of color. They are among the lowest paid workers in the city. While there has been headway on salary parity between entry level early childhood educators in community-based organizations and in schools, seniority, longevity, and teachers in settings serving children with disabilities have yet to be addressed.

As Chalkbeat presses the city’s top mayoral contenders on their plans to address all these issues and more, please stay in touch by writing to us at ny.tips@chalkbeat.org. You can also sign up for Starting Line, our early childhood education newsletter, to stay on top of the latest developments in the sector across the country.

NYC sees steep drop in babies and toddlers with disabilities getting services during pandemic

2021-01-15T19:59:07+00:00

As New York City became the global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic last spring, the number of infants and toddlers referred for evaluations due to possible disabilities plummeted, according to an analysis of city data released Friday.

At the same time, thousands of young children who were already receiving these services stopped getting them.

The analysis focuses on “Early Intervention” services, which are required by federal law, and are designed to ensure that children from birth to age 3 with disabilities or developmental delays get crucial help such as physical, occupational, or speech therapy.

The findings mirror a decline in referrals for special education services among school-age students and offer another grim window into how students with disabilities have struggled during the pandemic.

The decline among toddlers and infants is worrying because securing services early in a child’s life can make a significant difference in their development. Children who do not receive appropriate services early on in their development could result in more intense — and expensive — special education services later on, according to the report.

“Early Intervention exists because the brain is most malleable in the first three years of life,” said Dr. Liz Isakson, the executive director of Docs for Tots, an organization that helps ensure children with delays get connected to services. “I am worried about the infants and toddlers that never entered the system.”

Between last July and September, 15% fewer New York City children — representing about 2,900 infants and toddlers — received Early Intervention services compared with the same period in 2019. Some of that drop is likely explained by a decline in referrals.

Based on trends from previous years, the report indicates that between 3,000 and 6,000 fewer city infants and toddlers were referred for Early Intervention services than usual. In a typical year, about 33,000 city children receive these services. Although the number of children referred for services began to rebound in April and has since returned to pre-pandemic levels, advocates remain concerned about children who were not identified for services in the spring.

“Infants and toddlers cannot afford to wait for critically important Early Intervention services, said Kim Sweet, the executive director of Advocates for Children, the advocacy group that conducted the analysis. “The State and City need to take quick action to ensure children with developmental delays and disabilities get the services they need right away.”

With the closure of day care programs and drop in regular pediatrician appointments, the pandemic interrupted some of the ways children are typically flagged by experts for possible developmental delays and referred to services. Parents may have also been less reluctant to seek out help, possibly overwhelmed by the pandemic and suffering from the death of relatives, job loss, or supervising remote learning.

Even among families who were already receiving services, participating remotely appeared to be a significant challenge. Some families may not have found teletherapy services useful for their babies and toddlers, or they may have been logistically untenable for working parents. (While in-person services are now approved, families have been encouraged to participate remotely, according to the report.)

Technology access is also a barrier. Although the city provided about 450,000 iPads to school-age students who lacked technology access, city officials did not provide devices to children in Early Intervention, the report said. Some families who lacked a computer or tablet attempted to use cell phones, though some families found that “ineffective” for their infants and toddlers. City officials said they are working with the state, which also plays a role in overseeing Early Intervention, to “develop a mechanism to loan devices to families.”

Isakson worries the lack of technology access may further exacerbate existing inequities in the Early Intervention system. People who live in low-income areas of the city are less likely to be referred for evaluations, or receive services after an evaluation.

“The tech divide follows right along that,” Isakson said. “If you think about equity and school readiness and long-term effects of children arriving in kindergarten, that’s pretty substantial that devices were not provided.”

A city survey conducted between April and mid June found that nearly a quarter of parents receiving Early Intervention services were not receiving any of their services when they were contacted.

“Very early in the pandemic, we shifted all home-based Early Intervention services to a teletherapy approach in order to reduce the community transmission of COVID-19,” wrote Julia Morrill, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which administers the Early Intervention Program. “We have done our best to work with families in order to get children the services they need during this incredibly difficult time.”

The report includes a series of recommendations, including launching an outreach campaign to ensure children don’t fall through the cracks, providing technology to families who receive Early Intervention services, and providing “make-up” services to students who missed out. It also calls for increased funding for providers, especially as there may be an influx of students who are ultimately referred for services with greater needs that have gone unaddressed due to the pandemic.

NYC preschools can reopen. Expect teachers in masks and fewer teddy bears.

2020-07-07T21:59:49+00:00

Privately run child care centers in New York City can reopen as early as Monday, about three months after the coronavirus forced 3,000 programs to shut their doors.

Program leaders had been lobbying to reopen their businesses, arguing that child care is essential to getting the economy humming again.

Allowing programs to reopen means they may now benefit from state grants to help pay for the costs of rebooting child care centers, such as acquiring more space to comply with social distancing requirements.

Still, the sudden announcement on Tuesday sent operators scrambling to comply with new safety measures with little guidance from the city health department. And it’s unclear how many will be able to reopen quickly after extended closures wreaked financial havoc on centers, which mostly rely on privately paid tuition to get by. Some have already permanently closed.

“I’m just about to lose my mind right now, I have to say,” said Fela Barclift, who won’t be able to reopen any time soon because she already started construction over the summer to install more hand-washing stations in her child care center, Little Sun People in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. “We don’t have support for reopening.”

Child care providers overseen by the state, such as those based in private homes, have been allowed to remain open throughout the pandemic. But the rest of the child care centers, including Barclift’s, which are overseen by the city’s health department, were ordered to shut down on April 6. Only some 125 centers contracted to serve the families of front-line workers continued operating, and the city officials have said they have not tracked any outbreaks linked to those programs.

On Tuesday, the city’s Board of Health voted to allow centers to reopen. Officials said that transmission of the coronavirus had been sufficiently curbed and that parents need safe child care options as the city steadily begins to reopen.

City programs will have to follow state guidelines, which call for limiting groups of children to 15, requiring staffers to cover their face, and staggering schedules for families to drop off and pick up their children. Programs are required to regularly disinfect surfaces, and to limit the use of toys that aren’t easily cleaned, such as plush toys or dress up clothes. Families and employees will have complete daily health screens, which ask whether they or anyone they are in close contact with have COVID-19 symptoms.

Face coverings are not required in the classroom for children younger than kindergarten age, and they are “encouraged but not required” for older children, according to the state’s regulations.

Beyond that, however, providers said they’ve been given little guidance for reopening — and no runway to plan. They’ll have to make sense of a maze of new and constantly changing requirements.

Before she can reopen her Park Slope child care center, Honeydew Drop director Fabiola Santos-Gaerlan said she’ll have to change some fundamental aspects of her program and figure out how to create new classroom spaces.

Typically, children of mixed ages play and learn together in a large, open room, she said. Now, she’ll have to break them up by ages, and divide an 800-square-foot space into various rooms. The temporary space dividers that she has priced out cost more than $1,500 each.

“We’re going to be so stressed trying to meet the guidelines,” said Santos-Gaerlan. “These are all things that we need to save for and plan for.”

She said she is applying for a state grant to help pay for the dividers, but isn’t sure when the money would come through. When the state first announced the grants, which are funded through federal stimulus money, it was unclear whether New York City programs would be eligible for the funds. That’s because the state requires programs to reopen by the end of July — but it was still unclear whether the city would allow programs to begin operating by then.

For other early childhood centers, the all-clear for reopening has come too late. At the Maple Street School in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, director Wendy Jo Cole has decided to continue to operate only virtually over the summer. There is too much that needs to be done to reopen safely, she said.

In the meantime, she has taken advantage of safety webinars offered by the state, has scheduled trainings with the school nurse for her staff, and is working on a plan to offer class mostly outdoors come September. But she wishes the department of health were more proactive in helping providers figure out the complicated logistics of reopening. Cole said requests for virtual meetings have gone unanswered.

“While we appreciate the permission to open, we need the support. Running a preschool in a pandemic is way different than running a preschool regularly,” Cole said.

Families will need child care to reopen NYC, but preschools fear they won’t survive the coronavirus shutdown

2020-05-21T22:00:36+00:00

Whenever New York City is ready to begin reopening its economy after months of sheltering in place, child care will be essential for families returning to work. But independent preschools like Andre Farrell’s warn they might not be able to hold on that long.

Just three weeks after preschools and daycares were ordered to close as the coronavirus pandemic engulfed New York City, Farrell hit a financial wall. The director and owner of Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Katmint Learning Initiative had no choice but to permanently shut down two of his three schools.

Katmint quickly shifted to online classes, but many families had logged off. The program is serving fewer than half the typical enrollment and Farrell has slashed tuition.

Child care in New York is a $4.2 billion industry, just over a third of which is supported by public dollars. While fundraising campaigns for restaurant workers and other sectors have grabbed attention, preschool programs say their struggles as small business owners has gone under the radar.

Many pre-K centers feel like they’ve been left to fend for themselves to keep their staff paid and, for those who manage to stay afloat, figure out what it might look like to finally reopen. They are turning to each other for help: The leaders of about 50 centers and schools have banded together to create the Brooklyn Coalition of Early Childhood Programs, a new advocacy group that is fighting for public support and recognition they say they have so far lacked.

“We feel totally alone,” Farrell said. “Do people even care? Do people even understand what we do for every neighborhood — not just in New York, but in every neighborhood in America?”

In New York City, roughly 40 preschools and daycares contracted with the education department are currently open to serve the children of front line workers. The rest were ordered to close on April 6. Schools that participate in public programs like universal pre-K have continued to receive their full payments, but independent centers like Farrell’s say they are in dire financial straits.

Farrell opened his first preschool about seven years ago in Bed-Stuy, where he grew up and is raising his own family now. Many parents felt like they had to leave the neighborhood to find a quality program, Farrell said, so he decided to create one himself — hand-picking teachers, building a curriculum that celebrates the culture of the surrounding historically black neighborhood, and offering extended hours to better serve the area’s working families.

After the coronavirus shuttered the centers, Farrell’s teachers tossed their “no screen time” rule and switched quickly to virtual learning, offering art classes and Spanish. Still, with parents now at home with their children, and many losing their jobs, enrollment plummeted from about 100 students to 40. Their staff of about 15 fell to just eight teachers.

Running a preschool or daycare is rarely a money-maker, even without a pandemic to contend with. Summers, especially, can be difficult to staff as families often sign up for care at the last minute. This summer will be the hardest yet, with in-person programs seemingly out of the question as the health crisis drags on.

Honeybirds Playschool, serving over a dozen children in a Bedford-Stuyvesant home, was already staring down a budget gap this year. Construction on the backyard play area set the program back $7,000. Then came the order to shut down.

“I really question how we’re going to pay our teachers, and how we’re going to be able to prepare for reopening — if and when that comes,” said Juliana Pinto McKeen, director of the school. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, frankly.”

Both Farrell and Pinto McKeen will be able to hold on for a little while longer thanks to the federal Paycheck Protection Program. Intended to help small businesses continue to pay their employees, both received a chunk of the $660 billion stimulus.

Though the loans can be forgivable, a national survey found that many child care providers are worried that taking the money could be risky when it comes to navigating the fine print and parsing out the rules attached.

Most independent operators are responsible for both instruction and running their businesses — everything from changing diapers to balancing the business ledger. They often lack the kind of back-office support that would help them make sense of a byzantine government program rolled out in a hurry.

Farrell was an accountant before getting into the business of early childhood education, and he still has had trouble understanding the terms of the program. And for all the headache of figuring it out, the financial boost is short-lived, covering about eight weeks.

“What happens to July, August, September, if we’re still not allowed to open?” he asked.

Besides the forgivable loans, the federal stimulus package called the CARES Act earmarked $3.5 billion specifically for the nation’s child care sector — a small fraction of more than $2 trillion in stimulus spending. New York was awarded nearly $164 million, and is using it to subsidize child care costs for low-income frontline workers, as well as to help centers pay for cleaning supplies and protective gear.

Lawmakers are negotiating the next round of federal spending. So far, $7 billion is expected for child care and preschools. That amount would only keep the country’s child care sector afloat for less than a month, said Rebecca Ullrich, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, and anti-poverty advocacy group.

Public money will be crucial to helping preschools and daycares reopen their doors because families are already tapped dry, Ullrich said. New York has among the highest childcare costs in the nation: Sending an infant to daycare can cost more than public college tuition. Now, with the economy shut down, one in three parents of young children in the state say they are skipping or reducing their meals.

“If we leave child care behind as a system now, we will be paying for it, in terms of our recovery, for years ahead,” Ullrich said. “If child care does not survive the crisis, there will be no going back to work… because people need child care to go to work.”

Compounding the financial pressure, city preschools and daycares feel like they have been left alone to try and figure out what a return to class might look like, without much guidance or communication from the Department of Health, which regulates child care facilities.

A Maple Street School student makes art.

Pre-pandemic, the relationship with providers and the health department could often be fraught. Recently, centers faced shortages of critical staff members because of a months-long wait in getting background checks cleared for teachers, therapists, and others. The backlog could make it a nightmare to rehire staff to make up for any layoffs, center directors fear.

Then there are countless other unknowns about welcoming students back to school. Will they need to change pick up and drop off routines? Who needs to wear masks, and when? What happens if someone at a preschool tests positive for the virus?

“We need guidance and support and from our licensing agencies — and from our city and from our country,” said Wendy Jo Cole, director of the Maple Street School in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.

It is almost certain that reopening will not mark a return to normal, which will only add to financial pressures, with centers potentially operating at a fraction of regular capacity.

Cole had to cancel two of the school’s main fundraisers this year, which typically bring in more than $100,000 for scholarships for families, in an effort to make sure enrollment reflects the borough’s rich diversity. She is now thinking creatively about how to shore up her school’s budget, including developing online subscription packages, while anxiously awaiting the day they can reopen.

Even buying cleaning supplies will add to the bottom line — if providers can manage to secure them.

“Getting paper towels and bleach right now is not easy. Preschools are full of sneezes,” Cole said. “I love our school and it saddens me so deeply that we are in this place that we don’t know how, when, and if we can open.”

Registration is open for NYC’s public pre-K, 3-K programs — if you can get through

2020-02-05T22:01:58+00:00

It’s time to apply for the city’s free pre-K and expanding 3-K programs — that is, if the education department’s application portal is working.

As the admissions process officially kicked off Wednesday, parents who flocked to the MySchools portal were greeted with messages telling them the site was down. Others who called the pre-K hotline were met with a two-hour wait time, according to parents who voiced frustration on Twitter.

“We’re currently making updates to our school directories, and the site is unavailable during this brief process,” read a message parents received from MySchools when they tried to log on the morning applications launched. “Please come back again soon.”

Families will have plenty of time to submit applications, where they can rank up to 12 programs — and when they apply should have no bearing on their lottery number, school officials said.

Those with children born in 2016 — meaning they’ll turn 4 by Dec. 31, 2020 — can apply to free pre-K programs through Mar. 16. Families with children born in 2017 — meaning they’ll turn 3 in the 2020 calendar year — have until Apr. 24 to apply for 3-K.

Hey @nycmayor @NYCDOE, maybe ask your provider to NOT upgrade their site on a day when millions of NY parents are trying to register for 3K? Esp when progs as vital & needed as 3K & Pre-K were trickled out to the neighborhoods of NYC. I'm currently bussing out of district for 3K. pic.twitter.com/QjmXroH6eY
— Dyan Stephens Brown (@bedstuymommy) February 5, 2020

Admissions are not first-come, first served, according to a tweet from the education department’s Twitter account.

“Families will not receive any advantage by applying earlier or later, and you can edit your application at any point during the application period,” education department officials wrote, and they directed parents to a hotline.

If you’re applying for 3-K or Pre-K, please note that https://t.co/0QkSKz1REo is currently functioning but experiencing some slow speeds. We're working to resolve this. Please call 718-935-2009 if you need assistance. Apologies for any inconvenience. Thanks for your patience.
— NYC Public Schools (@NYCSchools) February 5, 2020

Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to announce an expansion of free 3-K at his State of the City address on Thursday to include District 1, serving Chinatown, the East Village and Lower East Side, as well as Greenpoint and Williamsburg’s District 14.

These areas had not been announced previously as being part of the city’s rollout for next year, the mayor said Wednesday.

This fall, the 3-K program is poised to serve 26,000 children across five boroughs in 16 of the city’s 32 districts. The figure includes all 3-year-olds served citywide in Head Start and child care programs, which had been operating under the Administration for Children’s Services but are now under the education department’s purview to create a single early childhood system for families.

“3–K and Pre-K for All are unlocking the potential of every child and creating more opportunity for families,” de Blasio said in a statement.

But some families take issue with calling it pre-K for All, and are concerned about the expansion of 3-K when there’s a looming shortage of nearly 2,000 seats for preschoolers with disabilities.

“If my child was [typical] he would probably already be in a school,” said Juanita Lopez, a mother of a 3-year-old with autism who has struggled to find a seat for her son. “Because he has special needs it feels like there are so many hoops you have to jump through to get any kind of assistance.”

3-K and pre-K enrollment specialists — experts about programs offered in each neighborhood — should be available to help families throughout the process, officials said. For now, though, parents may have to contend with the long wait times.

Here are the neighborhoods that are expected to have 3-K in September. (The districts with asterisks will be new this fall.)

> District 1 (Chinatown, East Village, Lower East Side)*

> District 4 (East Harlem)

> District 5 (Harlem)

> District 6 (Washington Heights and Inwood)

> District 7 (South Bronx) and District 23 (Brownsville)

> District 8 (Country Club, Pelham Bay, Throgs Neck, Castle Hill, Soundview, Hunts Point)

> District 9 (Grand Concourse, Highbridge, Morrisania)

> District 12 (Central Bronx)*

> District 14 (Greenpoint, Williamsburg)*

> District 16 (Bedford-Stuyvesant)

> District 19 (East New York)

> District 23 (Brownsville)

> District 27 (Broad Channel, Howard Beach, Ozone Park, Rockaways)

> District 29 (Cambria Heights, Hollis, Laurelton, Queens Village, Springfield Gardens, St. Albans)*

> District 31 (Staten Island)

> District 32 (Bushwick)

Alex Zimmerman contributed reporting.

Lead paint testing begins in NYCHA community centers serving young children

2020-01-30T23:03:15+00:00

The New York City Housing Authority announced Thursday that inspections would begin soon for potentially dangerous lead paint conditions in almost 200 community centers that serve young children.

The inspections, which will start this weekend and are expected to be completed by March 31, are one of the requirements under a settlement agreement that forced the city to cede some of its control over the authority to the federal government after decades of mismanagement and neglect.

One of the highest-profile scandals to face the authority has been its failure to inspect and remediate lead paint in apartments. But public housing buildings also include community centers that provide a host of services, including more than 180 that run programs serving children under six years old, who are considered most vulnerable to the effects of lead.

Chalkbeat recently reported that those programs, some of which run classrooms that are part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s heralded universal pre-K, often contend with the same facilities issues plaguing residents.

The city’s education department has also faced criticism for its handling of lead paint inspections and remediation after a WNYC investigation found alarming levels of lead in deteriorating paint and dust at some schools. In the wake of the news reports, the education department expanded its testing and announced it had found deteriorating lead paint in more than 1,800 classrooms.

But those inspections left out pre-K centers in public housing buildings, because they are are mostly run by non-profit organizations and regulated by a different city agency — namely, the health department.

The authority said in a press release that notices will be “posted and distributed” if deficiencies are found, but officials did not immediately respond to questions asking for more specific information about where and how families would be made aware. For a schedule of the inspections, check here.

“The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene encourages families to speak with their healthcare provider about blood lead testing. It is important that families establish a relationship with a health care provider so there is ongoing care for their child following test results,” the authority’s release said.

NYC and union officials hail move toward pay parity for pre-K teachers but some worry over educators left out of deal

2019-07-09T23:35:02+00:00

Hundreds of New York City pre-K teachers could see their pay increased by as much as $20,000 under a deal announced Tuesday by city officials and labor leaders.

Still unclear is when progress will be made for thousands of pre-K teachers whose pay is lagging and who don’t belong to a union — though city leaders and advocates said the tentative agreement could also set the stage for these teachers to receive a salary boost. Should that come to pass, today’s agreement could be a historic starting point for pay increases across the city’s pre-K landscape, though some are waiting for more details before declaring victory.

At issue is the wide pay gap between teachers who work in community-run preschools — which enroll the bulk of students in the city’s free, universal pre-K program — and those who teach in public school classrooms overseen by the education department and governed by its contract with the United Federation of Teachers.

Teachers who work in community-run classrooms aren’t considered public employees, but their salaries are largely dependent on public dollars that flow through city contracts with pre-K providers.

On Tuesday, the city announced an agreement with District Council 1707 Local 205 that would steadily boost salaries for 315 pre-K teachers over three years, eventually matching what starting teachers in public schools make. The deal marks a significant win for those teachers, who were among those calling for a strike at community preschools this spring — just as Mayor Bill de Blasio kicked off a bid for president touting universal pre-K as his signature policy achievement.

“We cannot have a system where certified teachers and community-based organizations start out earning thousands of dollars less than those doing the same job in public schools,” said Speaker Corey Johnson, who, along with city council members, pushed to address the inequity in budget negotiations. “Today is setting the path to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Only a small number of teachers are in line for the largest raises because only those who are certified would be eligible. Those are the very teachers who often jump ship for public school classrooms, where they can earn tens of thousands of dollars more — a trend that many hope the new pay deal will help reverse.

Another 900 teachers in the local are not certified and they, along with about 3,000 support staffers such as janitors and cooks, stand to earn $1,800 bonuses on top of 2.75% wage increases.

“No longer will we ever tolerate a system that treats workers like second class citizens in the city of New York. I don’t care if you’re a teacher or you work in a cafeteria,” said Henry Garrido, the executive director of District Council 37, which recently merged with DC 1707.

Under the agreement, certified teachers with masters and bachelors degrees would see their pay increase every October through 2021. By that date, certified teachers with a master’s degree would make at least $69,000, and certified teachers with a bachelor’s degree would earn about $61,000 — a jump of almost $21,000 and more than $17,000, respectively.

The union also negotiated reductions in health insurance premiums and copays. Members are expected to vote on the proposal in August.

“You will suffer no longer. You will now be able to pay your rent, to hold your head up high,” DC 1707 executive director Kim Medina said to members. “We have made history.”

Just as significant are those who are not included in the agreement: teachers who don’t belong to the union — and who make up a majority of pre-K teachers in community programs. But de Blasio said he expects the union deal to serve as a template for the rest of the workforce.

“Once this agreement is ratified, it will be the model, going forward, for certified early child education teachers across the board,” de Blasio said.

However, the city did not provide details around how or when the non-unionized teachers might also reach parity. Alice Mulligan, the director of a pre-K center in Brooklyn where teachers don’t belong to the union, said the city’s promises were too vague.

“I don’t know what that means. You can’t take that to the bank, and that won’t put food on the table,” she said. “There’s nothing for us.”

It’s an issue the city will have to resolve if leaders are serious about stemming the churn of those who leave community programs in search of higher pay. Activists who have long pushed for parity seemed confident that the union deal would be felt by other teachers, too.

“It’s a huge step forward and will bring really profound stability to the system,” said Jennifer March, executive director of the Citizens’ Committee for Children, an advocacy group.

The full cost of the union deal is expected to reach $15 million, with most of that money already budgeted through labor reserves, budget officials said. To reach pay parity for all certified teachers in the city’s Pre-K for All program would cost at $83 million annually, according to one estimate.

The labor agreement is unusual in that it was struck even though Local 205’s contract had not yet expired. The city and union agreed to extend that agreement, with changes, for three years.

That timing could prove critical because it sets teachers in community-run programs in the same negotiating cycle as the UFT, allowing them to make the case that their contracts should match that of the powerhouse teachers union, which has been far more effective at negotiating higher pay for its vastly bigger pool of members.

The new agreement is also expected to set the table for the other union local under DC 1707 that represents pre-K teachers: Local 95. Those teachers work largely in Head Start programs, with the bulk of their funding coming from the federal government. Their contract is already expired, and union officials expect to take it on next.

After a wave of backlash, New York City education department tweaks new pre-K and childcare contracts

2019-05-31T00:36:08+00:00

Facing growing alarm about an overhaul of how preschool and childcare providers are paid, the New York City education department is making significant changes to new contracts that operators must bid on to receive public money.

The changes increase the minimum amount of funding that the operators will receive regardless of their student enrollment, addressing a major concern voiced by providers. But many providers are likely to be disappointed that the contracts continue to leave wide gaps in the salaries paid to pre-K teachers in community-run programs and those in public schools — an issue that nearly led to a strike earlier this month.

Some advocates were encouraged by the city’s moves, which came after elected officials and dozens of providers wrote letters to Mayor Bill de Blasio and the education department to demand changes. Jennifer March, director of the advocacy group Citizens’ Committee for Children, said the tweaks “represent progress.”

“We look forward to working with the administration and the City Council to build on this progress,” she said in an emailed statement.

In an effort to streamline and strengthen services, the education department is in the midst of taking over the city’s subsidized child care programs, which had previously been overseen by the Administration for Children’s Services. As part of the shift, the city in March released a new round of contracts for providers to bid on.

Providers balked at the new contracts, saying they would “starve” programs of funding. The backlash is notable because the city relies on the capacity provided by community providers to make Pre-K for All — the free, universal preschool program launched by the mayor — a reality. De Blasio has made pre-k a major talking point as he travels the country pursuing a presidential bid.

“We’ve heard the voices of community advocates and the council and are committed to ensuring early childhood education providers have the stability and funding they need to put our kids on the path to success inside and outside the classroom,” de Blasio said in an emailed statement.

Changes to the contracts were posted Thursday night. To address concerns about tying funding to monthly student enrollment, the city will now guarantee a larger portion of operators’ budgets.

The city is also providing more guidance regarding the types of indirect costs that public funds can help cover, including rent, furniture, and utilities. Amid concerns that the contract amounts would stay fixed for the eight-year term, the city may boost funding if costs such as labor go up.

With the changes in place, the city is pushing back the deadline for bid submissions by a week, to June 13. Providers who already turned in their bids have until then to make amendments.

Council Speaker Corey Johnson called the changes a “huge win.”

“Community-based early care and education providers helping to raise a new generation of New Yorkers,” he said in an emailed statement. “They deserve all the support we can give them.”

Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect that the city has previously helped cover operators’ indirect costs. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated those costs were previously not paid for by the city.

New York City borough presidents echo demands for a do-over of pre-K, early childhood plans

2019-05-22T19:00:41+00:00

Adding to a groundswell of concern over the New York City education department’s pending takeover of publicly funded preschool and daycare programs, all five borough presidents are calling on the city to scrap its plans and start over.

The borough leaders worry that the city’s changes will starve providers of funding, stifle access to supports such as social workers, and perpetuate salary disparities among pre-K teachers who work in community-based programs — which nearly sparked a strike earlier this month.

The city’s plans would “weaken the city’s social safety net, while greatly hindering the ability of community-based organizations to provide comprehensive early education programming to our city’s children,” states the letter, which was sent to Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday. “This is unacceptable, and we urge you to immediately stop the implementation of the proposed changes.”

More than 70 early childhood providers have already made the same plea for a do-over, as has the city Comptroller, Scott Stringer.

The growing alarm clashes head-on with de Blasio’s praise of the city’s early childhood efforts on the campaign trail as he makes a long-shot bid for the presidency. It is also notable because the city needs the capacity provided by community providers to make Pre-K for All — the free, universal preschool program launched by the mayor — a reality.

At the heart of the concerns are new contracts recently released by the education department that fundamentally change the way programs receive funding and how they are overseen. Providers must bid on the contracts in order to receive public funding for programs like Pre-K for All.

Responses to the contracts are due in June, when the education department is set to take responsibility for publicly funded preschool and childcare programs for children as young as six-weeks-old.

You can read the borough presidents’ letter here.

New proposal would extend early childcare pipeline from birth to preschool for some NYC children

2019-05-17T23:11:24+00:00

The New York City comptroller, with support from some state legislators, is pushing for a new payroll tax to dramatically expand access to affordable care for the city’s youngest children.

A proposed state bill would raise almost $660 million, elected officials say, allowing the city to serve 34,000 more infants and toddlers from birth through age 3.

Calling his plan NYC Under 3, Comptroller Scott Stringer positioned the proposal as a benefit to families and also the city economy by growing the workforce. But he also said that expanding childcare could help improve academic outcomes for students from low-income homes.

“Achievement gaps and inequality don’t start in grade school or kindergarten, or even pre-K,” Comptroller Scott Stringer said at a press conference to announce his plan. “They start on day one.”

The proposal could give Stringer a popular policy to pursue during a widely expected run for mayor in 2020. He appears to be taking a page from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s much-touted early childhood achievements, which have become a centerpiece of his campaign for president. Polls show that addressing the exorbitant cost of childcare for working families has broad support among all voters.

Under the proposal, low- and moderate-income families would pay for childcare on a sliding scale. Care would be free for the lowest-income families, with the fee rising to 12 percent of a household’s income for those earning around $100,000 for a family of four.

But Stringer’s plan could face a steep uphill climb, as it requires support both from the state legislature and City Hall, and could face push-back from the business community.

De Blasio has focused on serving 3- and 4-year-olds. By extending his initiative to children starting in infancy, Stringer would be helping to create a more seamless pipeline from birth to Kindergarten for the city’s most vulnerable children. His proposal also attempts to resolve some of the criticisms and unintended consequences of the city’s rapid expansion of free preschool, such as low teacher pay.

The education department would likely oversee the expanded programs, owing to changes already underway meant to coordinate oversight of early childcare and education from the cradle to college.

The initiative would be funded through a new payroll tax that would cost about $100 a year per employee, according to Stringer. A bill to implement the tax was introduced Thursday with support from state senators Brad Hoylman and Jessica Ramos, and Assemblywoman Latrice Walker. The law would affect companies in New York City with payrolls greater than $2.5 million.

Lawmakers say the tax would cover the cost of expanding childcare to 84,000 children.

“These are the critical years for our babies,” Walker said.

The tax would also cover payments for a proposed city bond that would be needed to cover $500 million in capital investments — a critical piece to making any childcare expansion work, since the city is already crunched for space.

Expanding care for infants could help provide more stability for providers across the city, who say they have seen their enrollments squeezed by the mayor’s pre-K expansion. As they lose students to the city’s own classrooms, independent operators have been left to serve increasingly younger children — which is more expensive partly because smaller class sizes are required.

Operators say the shift in demographics has threatened the financial stability of community-based centers, which the city needs to make Pre-K for All work. To find seats for so many children, the city relies on a mix of independent operators and public schools.

The comptroller recommends studying the true cost of providing care to determine new reimbursement rates for the centers, including salary boosts for teachers. One persistent criticism of de Blasio’s pre-K program is that teachers in community centers are paid far less than their public school counterparts — a discrepancy that almost led to a strike earlier this month. Stringer’s plan also builds in $25 million to pay for teacher training and education scholarships, which could help strengthen quality.

‘Clean up your mess’: Some NYC pre-K providers have tough message for de Blasio ahead of White House bid

2019-05-16T10:30:55+00:00

To hear Mayor Bill de Blasio tell it, New York City’s monumental effort to make free pre-K universal has been nothing but a success: In two short years, almost 70,000 4-year-olds have enrolled in classrooms that earn high marks for quality and near uniform praise from experts and parents.

But on the ground, the independent preschool operators the city has relied on to make Pre-K for All a reality tell a starkly different story. They say the mayor’s ambitious early childhood plans have pushed them to the brink. Now they are mounting a fight for what they say is their survival.

The tension is rising just as de Blasio has set his sights on the White House, touting his pre-K efforts as a central selling point for a potential campaign. The need for more preschool has already proved a popular talking point as he travels the country to meet voters, and de Blasio has doubled down on his signature achievement by attempting to expand free preschool to all 3-year-olds, too. Closer to home, however, providers have a tough message for the mayor.

“We tell our children: ‘Clean up your mess before you move on to something else.’ This mayor needs to do that, too,” said Alice Mulligan, the director of a private preschool in Brooklyn. “He cannot tout the success of this program until he fixes it.”

Their alarm is notable because the city depends on a mix of public schools and privately run centers to create enough seats to enroll all 4-year-olds in pre-K. A majority of children in the program — 60%— attend a community center.

At the core of the dispute is a city plan to overhaul how pre-K and childcare programs are overseen. The changes include fundamental shifts in how classrooms are funded, creating heightened anxiety around a system that many already decried as deeply flawed.

A spokesman for City Hall said the changes are necessary to build “a strong birth-to-five system” within the Department of Education, or DOE.

“The DOE held over 100 meetings and solicited feedback for over a year,” Raul Contreras wrote in an email. “We’ll continue to engage providers and advocates, and move towards solutions that work for everyone.”

But providers who rely on city contracts for funding say the reforms — which shift oversight of publicly supported preschool and childcare programs to the education department — could lead to their financial ruin.

Among the most pressing issues is that teacher salaries significantly lag behind those of public school pre-K teachers. The disparity nearly sparked a strike this month until a last-minute agreement was struck to enter into negotiations. Providers are also concerned about a new system for calculating their payments from the city.

“It’s a whole new world,” said Andrea Anthony, who heads the Day Care Council, which represents nonprofit providers. “It’s scary.”

Operators are so worried, a group of about 70 recently asked the mayor in an open letter for a complete do-over of the city’s plans, which take effect in July. In another sign of the growing concern, dozens of early childhood educators have recently formed a new advocacy group called CBOs for Equity, which is also pushing for changes.

When de Blasio announced plans in 2017 to revamp New York City’s early education system, the goal was to streamline a patchy network of care and put the education department in charge of learning from cradle to college. Previously, programs for low-income families, such as federal Head Start classes, were overseen by the Administration for Children’s Services.

Some providers were hopeful about the transition, only to be dismayed in March when the city took the first major step towards change by releasing a new round of contracts for providers to bid on in order to continue receiving public money.

One main concern with the contracts is a new funding system based on monthly student enrollment, which providers say can fluctuate dramatically while their fixed costs remain the same.

Based on current enrollment trends, the change means very few centers would receive their full budget, according to figures from the Day Care Council of New York. A group of more than 50 operators recently warned the city that they were already struggling to fill seats after the education department opened its own centers in their neighborhoods.

The enrollment concerns only add to worries that per-student funding for community programs is already low compared with public schools. And the city’s payments to centers will stay fixed over the course of the new eight-year contracts, with no increases built in for cost of living or other factors.

“We were very hopeful that with this transition of the whole system to the DOE that the two tier system that the city has had would go away,” said Jane Golden, chief program officer of Sheltering Arms, a nonprofit that provides pre-K to 1,500 children across the city. “So when the [new contracts] came out, I think we’re all really disappointed and frankly angry.”

The education department counters that the funding model will provide a new safety net by guaranteeing a portion of operators’ budgets, and noted that centers will benefit from a city team that focuses on recruiting families.

But the most glaring problem, operators say, is teacher pay. Teachers in community organizations and public schools are represented by different unions, and those in privately run centers earn significantly less than their public school counterparts despite meeting the same qualifications. Teachers in community organizations have a starting salary of about $42,000, compared with $59,000 in public schools.

Directors say they constantly lose teachers seeking out higher pay, making it hard to stay open and causing a churn in staff that can have a negative impact on classrooms.

“As soon as a slot opens up, they run to the DOE. We’re providing them with excellently trained teachers and draining our nonprofits,” said Alan van Capelle, president of Educational Alliance, a major pre-K provider. “It’s exhausting. We’re tired.”

After the new contracts were released without additional funding to address the pay disparity, teachers represented by District Council 1707 voted to strike. For now, the union has pulled back on that threat, after the city agreed to meet providers and teachers at the bargaining table.

Marcia Black, who teaches pre-K in a community center in the Bronx, was ready to join the walkout. It took her almost 10 years, relying on an informal lending network among friends, to finally earn the master’s degree she needs to lead her own classroom. Now she earns about $50,000 while working towards her permanent certification, which would earn her tens of thousands of dollars more in a public school classroom.

“The job itself may be rewarding but the financial part of it is just not there,” Black said. “You work so hard, you go to school, and for what?”

City officials say some progress has been made on the salary front. The city has offered retention bonuses and boosted pay when universal pre-K first kicked off — although a spokeswoman for the city recently acknowledged more should be done.

And while many pre-K centers have unionized staff and belong to organized advocacy organizations, plenty of others are politically isolated because they are independently operated and their staff don’t belong to unions. That’s why Mulligan, the head of Our Savior’s Lutheran, launched CBOs for Equity: to find greater strength in numbers by having centers like hers join forces.

“If the coalition can really take shape to be an active voice, it can really make change,” said Maria Nogueira, who runs Treasure Island pre-K center in Brooklyn. “The mayor needs to hear not one voice, not five voices. He really needs to hear all.”

Whether the rising discontent among operators translates to any real change in the city’s programs remains unclear. Some have called for the city to focus on increasing spending to stabilize the system, rather than pouring money into efforts to expand pre-K to 3-year-olds. Though providers laud the goal of helping more New York City children start off school on solid footing, some wonder whether the push for 3-K for All will be feasible given the current challenges.

“I can’t tell you what the mayor is going to do… but there’s going to come a day that we’re going to stop taking these contracts,” warned van Capelle. “The city has to be a partner with us, and they can’t take us for granted.”

‘Get this right’: Comptroller Stringer adds to calls for major changes to New York City’s pre-K contracts

2019-05-14T11:20:13+00:00

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer is calling on the education department to make major changes to its new contracts for pre-K and childcare services, echoing the concerns of community providers who say there are major flaws in the ways the city plans to fund them.

In a letter shared exclusively with Chalkbeat, Stringer notes that the city relies on community-run programs to make its universal pre-K program work, but those very operators have raised “serious questions” about the “feasibility” of the city’s new contracts. About 60% of children enrolled in the city’s free Pre-K for All program attend privately run programs, as opposed to public school classrooms.

“Providers are the backbone of our early childhood education and care system, but the system can be neither high-quality nor sustainable if built on their backs,” Stringer wrote in a letter sent Friday to the education department. “They deserve for the City to take the necessary time to get this right.”

The education department is in the midst of taking over responsibility for the city’s publicly funded early childhood programs, which have previously been overseen by the Administration for Children’s Services. As part of the shift, the city released a new round of contracts for providers to bid on to provide city-funded services. But the contracts include major changes to how children would be enrolled in centers, and how providers would be paid for their services.

At the end of April, about 70 operators, mostly nonprofit organizations, said in a letter to the mayor that they were “outraged” by the structure of the new contracts. Among their chief concerns: a payment model based on monthly student enrollment, which providers say can fluctuate dramatically and can therefore make it hard to budget for fixed costs.

Another major issue is that the new contracts don’t address salary disparities among teachers who work in community programs compared with educators in district schools, making it hard to hold onto staff in search of higher paychecks. The pay gap, which can run as high as 60%, led to threats of a strike that was averted when the city agreed to begin negotiating this month with providers and the union, District Council 1707.

The providers in their letter called on the city to withdraw its proposed contracts and draft new agreements that address their concerns. They said the changes would “starve the early education system of sorely needed investments even as teachers threaten to strike and providers consider closing classrooms or entire programs to remain financially viable.”

The city has said its aim is to create a more streamlined system of care and provide more services to families by expanding free pre-K to 3-year-olds through a program the city is calling 3-K for All. But providers questioned whether those goals are feasible under the new contracts.

“It is one thing to state your support publicly for the benefits of Universal Pre-K, campaign on the expansion of 3-K, and laud the progress to be achieved in creating a unified birth to five early childhood education system in New York City,” providers wrote. “It is quite another to commit the resources necessary to make such progress a reality.”

A spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio noted that officials held more than 100 meetings and solicited feedback for over a year before releasing the new contracts for bid.

“We’re taking the next step in building a strong birth-to-five system,” Raul A. Contreras, deputy press secretary for the mayor. “We’ll continue to engage providers and advocates, and move towards solutions that work for everyone.”