Q&A
Council Member Rita Joseph questions DOE on early childhood center closures and neighborhood assessments
1:50:05
ยท
4 min
Council Member Rita Joseph engages in a heated discussion with Deputy Chancellor Simone Hawkins about the Department of Education's (DOE) approach to early childhood education center closures and neighborhood assessments. Joseph expresses concern about the DOE's decision-making process and the potential creation of childcare deserts in communities that need these services.
- Joseph questions the DOE's methods for assessing neighborhood saturation and data-driven policy-making.
- Hawkins explains the DOE's multi-pronged approach to evaluating community needs, including looking at program utilization rates and contract structures.
- The discussion highlights the tension between stabilizing the early childhood education system and meeting community needs, with Joseph emphasizing the importance of better communication and assessment strategies.
Rita Joseph
1:50:05
Thank you council member.
1:50:06
I have a really quick question.
1:50:07
Earlier you mentioned about saturations of neighborhood.
1:50:12
Have you done an assessment to address the saturation of neighborhoods prior to determining these closures?
1:50:18
Because we're all we're all about data, right?
1:50:21
Data drives our policy as a former educator, my data drove how I taught my kids in schools.
1:50:27
How was the data driving your assessment on how saturation just to piggyback off of Councilmember Shaker's And again, Nusotros Nios is not the only one.
1:50:39
When I first got here, sheltering arms closed after fifty years because New York City public schools couldn't pay them.
1:50:45
And again, we're displacing working them.
Simone Hawkins
1:50:48
Families and we know every dollar we put on early childhood, you get a return of $8.
1:50:53
So the investment
Rita Joseph
1:50:54
is very, very important.
1:50:55
So I just want to know what is your ideas around assessing these saturation of neighborhoods and how do we continue to shift because I was watching the mayor on when he went up to Albany for tin cup.
1:51:07
He said there's 30,000 vacant seats.
1:51:09
How are we going to shift those seats in neighborhoods that need them and take and and pull them?
1:51:14
That's what I mean when I talk about assessment.
Simone Hawkins
1:51:18
Yeah, so one of the considerations we mentioned chair was around community saturation.
1:51:22
So we looked at these communities specifically not just stratified by the community school district, but also the zip code.
1:51:28
And we said how many of these programs exist?
1:51:31
How many of these programs exist with the same age range and seat type?
1:51:35
And what is their utilization rates?
1:51:38
And in each instance, we found that these communities can absorb the capacity, not just the enrollment, the capacity of each of these sites because there is significant under enrollment in many of these communities because of that unhealthy competition.
1:51:51
It is not as easy to pick up a seat out of one of these sites, maybe 30,000 seats or three and move them to another community because of those contracts, because of the way we currently fund, right.
1:52:02
As I mentioned, if a provider has one kid but they have the expenses up to 75% of their annualized contract, they are able to draw down on that.
1:52:11
And by removing vacant seats from any sites capacity, we are ultimately diminishing and decreasing their annualized value and contract value that they will be paid.
1:52:22
And so these contracts are organized on a per pupil basis, so less kids less money.
1:52:27
And so if we're talking about making sure that programs are viable, we are not going to succeed in making them viable if we move seats specifically.
1:52:36
And so they we have to look at a multi pronged approach.
1:52:39
We have to look at the current contracts, we have to look at what we can modify and configure within the sites.
1:52:45
I know some of the sites mentioned like I said earlier, they just don't have the right seat types.
1:52:50
We have to look at the recruitment strategies.
1:52:52
I understand what we're saying about you know New York City Public Schools providing support and we're committed to do that, but we also know these are independent businesses.
1:53:00
Some of them they operate other programs outside of early learn or early childhood, right?
1:53:05
And so we look to them to lead their business strategy as I did in the programs I ran, may it be for early childhood or runaway homeless youth, right?
1:53:14
And so we look to them to really guide what they need for their business and their in their communities and we are there to support them as much as possible based on the information we have.
1:53:24
But it is not that easy to just shift seats without frankly destabilizing some of these businesses.
Rita Joseph
1:53:30
We've already destabilized a lot in early childhood.
1:53:34
I just want the question was not answered, how are you assessing neighborhoods in order for this not to happen again?
1:53:42
We cannot hear another five closures.
1:53:44
We cannot afford a childcare deserts and communities that need them.
1:53:50
So what is the assessment plan?
1:53:51
That's what I would like to hear.
Simone Hawkins
1:53:52
The assessment plan is to continue doing what we did.
1:53:55
We're looking at site data, we're looking at current contracts, maybe leases and otherwise, we're looking
Rita Joseph
1:53:59
at
Simone Hawkins
1:53:59
community saturation.
1:54:01
And so with all of these plans to stabilize the system, it's going to come with a few hard choices.
1:54:07
And so what we hope, right, in having conversations with providers, with communities, with you all is that you can co create how we make those decisions but not making a decision is not an option.
1:54:16
We have to figure out a plan to stabilize the communities that are underutilized, right.
1:54:23
We have communities that are in desperate need of care.
1:54:25
We still have childcare deserts in the city.
Rita Joseph
1:54:28
Yes we do.
Simone Hawkins
1:54:28
And so how
Ingrid Matias Chungata
1:54:28
do we meet the
Simone Hawkins
1:54:29
needs of those communities while we are frankly misusing funds by pumping money into communities that don't have the children.
1:54:36
So we have to co create a strategy that makes sense and again it's gonna come with some hard choices but I'm hoping through improved communication we can do that together.
Rita Joseph
1:54:44
Communication is the word of the day like Sesame Street, right?
1:54:48
Communication is the word of the day.
1:54:50
Councilmember Hanif?