City Council members including Speaker Adrienne Adams panned Mayor Adams on Wednesday for failing to deliver on his promise that all families would have access to 3-K programs after many were initially shut out.
The mayor reduced the early childhood education budget by $170 million this year, citing thousands of empty seats in an initiative bolstered by expiring federal pandemic aid. But when offers were released at the end of last week, 6% of applicants — about 2,500 families — were not matched with a program.
“Despite the administration’s repeated promise that every child who wants a seat will get one, we are far from fulfilling this reality,” Speaker Adams, no relation to the mayor, told reporters outside City Hall. At stake, she said, is the ability of working and middle class families to stay in New York.
“New Yorkers are struggling to afford to raise their children here, leading many to feel they have no choice but to leave the city to provide their children with a better life,” she added.
With plenty of room left over in 3-K programs, City Hall said families will have access, promising to work with parents to fill empty seats.
“The mayor was clear: Every child who wants a seat will have access to a seat and he will keep his word,” mayoral spokeswoman Amaris Cockfield said in a statement. “The guidance sent to a limited number of families by New York City Public Schools, unfortunately, did not fully convey all the seats still available to New York City students. NYCPS sent an updated letter that will make perfectly clear that there are approximately 9,000 seats still open for 3-K.”
The share of families who applied to 3-K on time and received an offer has grown by two percentage points since 2021, despite receiving almost 10,000 more applications, education department data show.
But just because spots are available, that does not mean families can access them, advocates say. Locations that parents did not list on their applications — where they can rank up to 12 choices — can be far from home or untenable due to their work schedules. In addition to the 6% of applicants who didn’t get a program this year, 16% were not placed in any site ranked on their forms, the Daily News previously reported.
Officials have moved thousands of program seats across the city and adapted them to meet the scheduling and age-specific needs of more families. They also tapped consultants at Accenture to produce a report, due last month, that could suggest more improvements, education officials said at a budget hearing last week. It’s yet to be released.
“They’re automatically put on a waitlist for all of the locations that they put down,” First Deputy Schools Chancellor Dan Weisberg said at the hearing, “and they can if they choose look to see … where is there a seat and just sign up for that location. Maybe it’s a little farther than they wanted to go. So we’re really hopeful that over the next few weeks everybody — every family that’s looking for a seat — will get one.”
Last month, Mayor Adams announced the city would pay $514 million to continue programs backed by expiring federal stimulus funds after the pandemic. The investment included $92 million for 3-K next school year — but it did not restore recent budget cuts to the program that Adams has blamed on the costs of sheltering migrants.
At the budget hearing, education officials could not say how the remaining cuts would impact the number of available seats. The Council is pushing for an expansion of 3-K, with the outreach and changes to the program to ensure all spots are filled.
“When we asked the Department of Education what would be the impact of $170 million in additional cuts, they couldn’t answer the question,” Councilman Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) said Wednesday. “They couldn’t answer the question! How do we take this administration seriously when they will not provide serious, detailed plans about the impacts of their draconian budget cuts?”
“We are going to restore funds for early childhood education,” Restler added, “because when the mayor says every three year old in New York City who wants a slot should get one, we’re the ones who are actually going to make it happen.”
A final city budget is due by July 1.
