Unions, Parents Protest Planned Day-Care Shifts

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang 'KIDS AREN'T INVENTORY': Council of School Supervisors and Administrators First Vice President Randi Herman criticizes a city plan to shift 3,000 children from their current day-care centers to other facilities as an efficiency measure.

Standing with children, union leaders and parents, City Council Members demanded Feb. 10 that the Administration for Children's Services and the Department of Education make clear where they plan to move 3,000 children from their current day-care centers.

"We have no idea where these 3,000 kids will end up and whether it will be appropriate," Councilman Bill de Blasio said during the protest outside DOE's Tweed Courthouse headquarters. "The second part of the problem is you already have 21 child-care centers that have been threatened with closure because of less subsidy."

Worries About Relocation

ACS announced the cuts in November as part of its effort to close a $62- million budget gap. Beginning in January, it stopped payment to child-care classrooms at 14 contracted centers with 15 or more vacancies. Although this does not mean for certain that they will close, the loss of funding could be crippling. The protesters said that the plan could result in children being sent to day-care centers far from their schools and the neighborhoods where they live.

"Children are not inventory," said Council of School Supervisors and Administrators First Vice President Randi Herman, who represents day-care administrators. "We do not move them; we bring the services to the children."

Ms. Herman added, "Children can remain where they are in their daycare centers. The Department of Education can and should send the Teachers to the children. Send the instruction to the children, and at three o'- clock, ACS then should pick up the child-care from three to six."

Councilman de Blasio said that he has asked ACS and the DOE for a plan for the 3,000 children, but has received no word.

"Give us a plan we can believe in," he said on the steps of Tweed.

ACS: Can Finish School Year

ACS spokeswoman Sheila Stainback said in a statement: "We can no longer afford to offer the option used by some parents until now to enroll their five-year-olds in Children's Services contracted child-care centers. To be clear—all five-year-olds currently enrolled in the 2008-2009 school year in the contracted centers will finish out the year. There will be no disruption for these children. Starting this September 2009, however, families will no longer have the option to enroll their five-year-olds in contracted child care centers."

She continued that ACS was "encouraging these families to enroll their children in public elementary schools. We are providing these families with information about the enrollment process for public school, and we are working with the Department of Education to ensure that these children are accommodated."

'Mayor Betraying Kids, Unions'

Brooklyn Councilwoman Letitia James was visibly angry at the attempt to reshuffle the 3,000 day-care center enrollees, a move she said adversely affected working-class families and day-care employees.

"This Mayor once again turns his back on these children, but there is something more insidious, and that is, the Mayor of the City of New York would like to break the backs of unions," she said.

Mayoral spokesman Jason Post called saving day-care centers and jobs a "top priority" for the administration.

As parents and day-care workers complained that a plan for day-care centers has not been provided, Councilwoman James continued to play the class card, saying that it will be primarily workingclass families that will feel the pain if children lose their current publicly subsidized day-care center, or moved to one that is inconveniently located.

"Most of my constituents do not have nannies," she said.