NYC child care centers get a reprieve from closure after public pressure

Five New York City child care centers slated for closure will remain open through the coming school year, the Adams administration announced Friday, reversing an earlier decision to shutter them at the end of this school year.

Gothamist first reported that the city planned to shut down five child care centers this year by not renewing their leases. After a month-long public pressure campaign pursued by parents, local officials and some of Mayor Eric Adams’ primary challengers, all five have been granted extensions through June 2026.

According to Ingrid Matias Chungata, Executive Director of Nuestros Niños in Williamsburg, one of the five centers that had been slated for closure, the extension came with a catch.

“ They're not looking to renew the lease of the building,” Matias Chungata said. She met with elected leaders and Department of Education officials on Wednesday and left with a one-year extension allowing parents to register online for next year as soon as Friday. But instead of renewing the city’s long-term lease, Matias Chungata said, they were negotiating a month-to-month arrangement.

“We have heard the concerns of parents, community partners, and elected officials, which is why we have met with all five programs facing lease expirations and with the respective local elected officials to create a collective plan that will offer them the opportunity to operate for the upcoming school year,” Adams said in a statement on Friday, adding that the details were still being worked out.

The mayor is in legal and political limbo after an order from the Department of Justice directed federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against him, in what some members of his own party and the former prosecutor on his case have characterized as a quid pro quo. The mayor and his attorney maintain he has done nothing wrong.

The other four centers that have been granted extensions are All My Children in South Jamaica, Queens, the Grand Street Settlement's Bushwick Family Center, Friends of Crown Heights and the Fort Greene Council in Brooklyn.

The programs' supporters say they're concerned the short-term fix will mean repeating the same shutdown scenario next year as the city reviews its expiring leases and seeks to shrink its rental portfolio.

“If we don’t have a building to run our program, then it’s like shutting us down,” Matias Chungata said.

Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso celebrated the extensions but acknowledged the centers were not in the clear.

"This is why I love Brooklyn. We fight for our people, and we win for our people,” Reynoso said. “But don't get it twisted — these centers are not yet saved.”

The city has previously justified the impending closures by saying the centers were under their target 95% enrollment, though some of the centers said the city’s numbers were off.

City Councilmember Jennifer Gutiérrez, who interrupted her own maternity leave to attend the meeting with the Department of Education and Nuestros Niños, called the one-year extension a step forward. But she blamed the city for creating this situation in the first place. She said the education department's 95% enrollment target was a sudden increase from prior years, and several advocates for the centers noted they were previously expected to reach only three-quarters enrollment.

“It is baffling that we are spending time justifying the removal of a 50-year model institution with strong enrollment,” Gutiérrez said, “especially when New Yorkers across the city are calling for expanded access to high-quality child care programs.”

As part of the one-year extension, Gutiérrez said, the city also agreed to help the center meet a 95% enrollment target by next December, and would reach out personally to all families who are currently using these programs to make them aware of their availability next year.

The City Council is scheduled to hold an oversight hearing about child care in the city next Thursday.

This story has been updated following an announcement by the Adams administration.