Schools official vows ‘better communication’ after daycare centers closure shocker

New York City’s top early childhood official admitted Thursday the communication “absolutely should have been better” before the sudden announcement of a spate of planned daycare center closures.

During a City Council committee hearing, Deputy Chancellor of Early Childhood Education Simone Hawkins pledged to be more proactive after five sites in Brooklyn and Queens were notified less than 24 hours before applications opened this would be their last school year. The centers have since been given at least another year to operate at the same locations.

“The communication absolutely should have been better,” Hawkins said. “What we were hoping for is least harm in regards to allowing the programs to operate until the end of the school year. So although the notification came right before the application, they were not closing immediately.”

“I will admit that the communication around that was not the best,” she continued. “We — my team and I — will be the first to be more proactive in how and when we communicate with programs.”

Hawkins’ admission came during an emotional, three-hour hearing, where at least one childcare provider facing closure broke down in tears over her struggle to make payroll the next day.

“We were blindsided with the news that our lease will not be renewed,” said Ingrid Chungata, executive director of Nuestros Niños Day Care Center. “I cleared our accounts. There’s nothing. We have nothing. Fifty-two years of savings, of having a cushion, it’s all gone. There’s nothing. But I needed to make sure that my staff got paid tomorrow.”

“I don’t sleep. I have lost 15 pounds through this process,” she said, “because it’s so unheard of that a decision like that could be made, and a call cannot be made prior.”

The Adams administration has defended the closures as necessary to right-size public childcare offerings by shifting capacity. Tens of thousands of seats are sitting empty in some areas of the city, while waitlists proliferate in other neighborhoods.

But the plans have become a political liability for Mayor Adams, who is facing renewed pressure to step down after prosecutors said he cut a deal with the Trump administration, prompting several of his top deputies to resign. Adams has denied any quid pro quo.

“We can’t just gloss over these communication issues for a 50-plus-year daycare center that’s being told they’re going to close as if that’s a mistake and we can just move on,” said Councilman Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens). “That’s not acceptable.”

“Communication is the Word of the Day, like ‘Sesame Street,’” quipped Councilwoman Rita Joseph (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the education committee.

The other impacted programs are locations of All My Children Day Care, Friends of Crown Heights Educational Center, Fort Greene Council Young Minds Day Care and Grand Street Settlement, which Gov. Hochul toured earlier this year.

Most have verbal agreements with landlords to operate through the end of next school year; the lease of Friends of Crown Heights has been renewed through 2028, school construction officials announced Thursday.

Meanwhile, Cora Liu, director of operations at the School Construction Authority, disclosed during the hearing that three more leases will expire in the next couple of years. Whether the sites remain open will likely depend on rental rates, enrollment and the availability of other programs nearby.

Despite the one-year reprieve, Hawkins, who took over the early childhood system this school year, suggested that while decisions to prepare the five programs for closure were difficult, “even greater challenges lie ahead” with the potential loss of federal funding.

Under President Trump, the deputy chancellor warned, there could be cuts to Head Start, the federally funded childcare program for low-income families, or other federal funding streams, such as the Child Care and Development Block Grant, which sends $127 million to New York City.

“Unlike these recent lease decisions — where no children face losing access to care due to [other] available capacity in the community — potential loss of federal funding would require us to make even tougher choices in the future, including reducing seats in neighborhoods where no alternative options exist.”

“This underscores why we are actively working to realign resources where they are most needed.”