Q&A
Council Member's concerns about 3K seat availability
7:04:09
·
54 sec
Council Member Restler expresses strong concerns about the availability of 3K seats and criticizes the additional $170 million cut to the program.
- Restler points out that in the current school year, most districts had more applicants than enrolled children
- He argues that the additional cut will further limit access to early childhood education
- Restler criticizes the lack of commitment to helping families access needed 3K seats
Lincoln Restler
7:04:09
Current school year in the majority of school districts around the city of New York, there were more 3 k applicants than actually kids enrolled.
7:04:15
We failed in a majority of neighborhoods in New York City to actually enroll every child.
7:04:20
Now we're seeing a further $170,000,000 cut to the program, which means that there's gonna be even more neighborhoods despite 43,000 applications where people are gonna be unable to get the free early child day, free or free full day early childhood education seat that they thought that they could have.
7:04:36
It's gonna lead to further displacement of working families.
7:04:38
These are the kinds of cuts that really do undermine economic growth, undermine our economic recovery, and I strongly and vociferously disagree with.
7:04:47
And we're not getting any commitment today that we're actually gonna be able to help these families.
7:04:52
It's clear from your testimony and from the chancellor's testimony that we're going to have many, many thousands of families in New York City that can't access the 3 k seat that they need.
