A decision to move thousands of kindergartners out of city-run day care centers and into public schools could overwhelm classrooms already bursting at the seams.
The vast majority of children who attend the centers are from low-income families where the parents count on day care to enable them to work. “This is very bad for my family,” said Eva Guadulupe, whose child attends Harlem’s Nasry Michelen Day Care Center. “They finish [public] school at 2:30 p.m. and my job finishes at 5.” The Administration for Children’s Services is shuttering the kindergartens to help close a $62million budget hole.
Despite the closing, the city must still pay rent on many of the leased buildings that housed the centers. Families in low-income neighborhood in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens are already forced to place their kids on buses and ship them miles away to schools with space.
“I don’t like my daughter going on the bus - it’s too far,” said Virginia Castillo, standing in front of Public School 56 in the Bronx last week with Fernicy, 5, in the frigid cold, waiting for a bus to take her more than a mile away to PS 54. Read more..
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
Email This Post