{"id":180680,"date":"2025-08-27T21:02:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T21:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/180680\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T21:02:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T21:02:24","slug":"lander-says-nyc-after-school-expansion-leaves-too-many-out-but-adams-sees-politics-at-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/180680\/","title":{"rendered":"Lander says NYC after-school expansion leaves too many out, but Adams sees politics at play"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first year of Mayor Adams\u2019 after-school expansion<\/a> shut out a number of high-need New York City schools, prompting an outcry from parents, according to a report issued Wednesday by Comptroller Brad Lander.<\/p>\n

Starting this fall, 40 schools will open 5,000 new spots<\/a> in after-school programs, as part of a $21 million investment in child care after the regular school day. While the expansion is expected to benefit families in the Bronx and low-income areas of the other boroughs, swaths of Brooklyn and Queens were excluded from the funding, as were all Manhattan district schools and programs for students with significant disabilities<\/a>, the comptroller found.<\/p>\n

\"KidsKids take part in an afterschool chess program for Bed-Stuy elementary school students on May 26, 2017, in Brooklyn, New York. (Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

Lander, a staunch supporter of Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, used the analysis to take a jab at the mayor, who\u2019s opposing the Queens assemblyman on an independent ballot line. Mamdani has made free child care a key plank of his affordability campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPredictably, this administration has not only failed to equitably deliver more free after-school seats, but seems to have cherry-picked favorite neighborhoods,\u201d Lander said. \u201cThe city should be distributing resources to district schools in all neighborhoods in need across all five boroughs \u2014 especially for many of our students with disabilities who are locked out entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Adams spokeswoman tore into the analysis for disregarding the broader after-school landscape, which includes programs in some of the neighborhoods left out of the expansion. If reelected, Adams, who skipped the primary after his since-dismissed federal corruption indictment<\/a>, has promised to keep growing the program to 15,000 more students over the next few school years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe consulted community organizations, schools and families to ensure this first phase of these programs equitably reached those most in need,\u201d said Kayla Mamelak Altus, the mayor\u2019s press secretary. \u201cWhere was Brad Lander then? It\u2019s disappointing that Brad was missing in action, only to later play politics with our city\u2019s children by issuing a misleading report that distorts the facts by ignoring our existing programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 40 new schools, on average, have higher concentrations of students in poverty than schools citywide, and also higher than the city\u2019s existing after-school portfolio, according to the Department of Youth and Community Development.<\/p>\n

The department said it worked with the city\u2019s public schools to use a \u201cdata-driven\u201d approach to select high-needs elementary schools for the expansion, considering whether they lacked programming or were in areas of after-school service gaps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe comptroller\u2019s report neglects to highlight the more than a thousand DYCD-funded after-school programs already in the city,\u201d said Youth and Community Development Commissioner Keith Howard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just the first phase \u2014 we will continue to target communities with the highest need and lack of existing programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Broken down by boroughs, the comptroller\u2019s analysis showed just one district and one charter school were awarded new seats across Brooklyn\u2019s Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, East New York and Bushwick. Instead, much of the expansion was concentrated in South Brooklyn, where families have been clamoring for after-school options<\/a> since the state changed how it funds the programs.<\/p>\n

Two Manhattan charter schools received new funding, while district schools were shut out. In Queens, nine of the 11 selected schools were in Districts 24 and 27, including in Corona. All of western Queens and schools in East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Richmond Hill and most of Jamaica were not included in the first phase of the expansion.<\/p>\n

Among the Queens schools left without were PS 171 Peter G. Van Alst in Astoria and PS 76 The William Hallet School in Long Island City<\/a>. Both schools, like those in South Brooklyn, until recently received after-school funding from the state. But when the formula was changed, the programs were shut out of public after-school funds, and administrators and families had to scramble.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been knocking on doors, begging, asking for help,\u201d said Whitney Toussaint, co-president of Community Education Council 30, noting that both schools had economic need indexes of 93%. \u201cAnd so, when Mayor Adams said with this rollout, they were going to do the inaugural rollout with schools with the most need, I immediately thought of these two schools, and I was surprised when they weren\u2019t selected at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

While PS 76 dipped into their school budget for a small program, Toussaint said, she estimated it would cost about $70,000 for PS 171 to keep after-school services this year: \u201cAnd they don\u2019t have the $70,000. I mean, where are they gonna come up with $70,000 in a week? So, we\u2019re trying to figure it out. Like, I don\u2019t care. I\u2019ll get out here and beg.\u201d<\/p>\n

No District 75 schools for students with significant disabilities were selected, though some may be able to participate in shared after-school programs in their buildings, according to the Department of Youth and Community Development.<\/p>\n

Youth and Community Development Commissioner Howard noted that \u201c\u2026 the report points out no seats were awarded in Districts 28 or 30, and erroneously fails to mention [that his department] already funds a total of 25 free COMPASS elementary programs<\/a> in those districts \u2014 serving more than 3,300 young people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The City Council is expected to hold an oversight hearing on the expansion<\/a> on Sept. 18.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: August 27, 2025 at 9:00 AM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first year of Mayor Adams\u2019 after-school expansion shut out a number of high-need New York City schools,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":180681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,407,1370,728,405,403,5294,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-180680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-county","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115102754335648234","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}