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Q&A
Discussion on expanding school playground access during after-school hours and weekends
1:50:00
·
114 sec
Council Member Brewer inquires about plans to expand the program that keeps school playgrounds open during after-school hours and weekends. DOE officials respond to questions about funding and criteria for selecting schools.
- Funding was added to open 11 more school playgrounds for extended hours
- DOE welcomes additional funding to expand the program further
- The criteria for selection includes distance from nearest park and high-need neighborhoods
Gale A. Brewer
1:50:00
to do Well, because they have complained to us.
1:50:01
So we will make sure that there's some advocacy along those lines.
1:50:05
There's a lot of complaints to be advocating and adjudicating for such a small staff.
1:50:10
Yes.
1:50:10
Second question is playgrounds.
1:50:12
For twenty years, I've been trying to get, in addition to what Richard Murphy did under Dinkins when I was there, to get more school playgrounds converted to those that are available on weekends.
1:50:24
And obviously the custodians have to be involved because they need to be clean on Monday morning.
1:50:29
So funding was added to this plan to allow for 11 schools to have playgrounds open for additional after week, after school.
1:50:37
We need more than that.
1:50:39
So does DOE have plans to further expand this program?
1:50:43
And how many schoolyards that are not currently open during after school and weekend hours are further than half a mile from the nearest park.
1:50:50
That's always been the criteria.
1:50:52
If you're further away, blah blah blah.
1:50:54
You can be open, but if you're not, you cannot.
1:50:58
To the credit of the speaker, she mentioned this in her state of the city, the mayor did.
1:51:04
Said where the hell did you get that idea?
1:51:06
He said from you.
1:51:07
I said you're full of it.
1:51:08
You I do not believe that you ever listened to my ideas, but thank you very much.
1:51:12
And I've been talking about it for twenty years.
1:51:14
So how are we gonna get more of these playgrounds open?
1:51:18
Thank you.
Emma Vadehra
1:51:20
Thank you for the question and for the idea.
1:51:22
So we were glad that we were able to get dedicated funding to open more of those.
1:51:26
As you said, that's what the costs are, the labor costs.
1:51:29
We would welcome additional funding dedicated to opening more of those.
1:51:33
I don't have the number you asked for in terms of how many are left, but we can get that back to
Sandra Mitchell
1:51:36
you.
Amina J.
1:51:37
Okay.
1:51:37
And and
Emma Vadehra
1:51:38
that is the same criteria, you know, we used this year in terms of what we prioritized as well as generally high need neighborhoods.
Gale A. Brewer
1:51:44
Alright.
1:51:44
So you don't know where this 770,000 figure was calculated?
1:51:48
Because I guess that's what the 11 was for.
Emma Vadehra
1:51:50
That was that is the number it takes to do those 11, and that's what we were able to do.