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“We need more afterschool spots, especially in under-resourced neighborhoods. We also need a unified early childcare and education system that bridges the gaps between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.”
When my first child was born, I had been freelancing for three years and like many, assumed I’d figure out how to manage both, including the inconsistencies of self-employment. While I was getting used to planning for constant shifts in work time and income, I hadn’t anticipated adding the mix and stress of constantly finding childcare.
As my due date approached, I felt new parent excitement and nervousness mixed with career apprehension. Instead of asking my boss for parental leave, as my other pregnant friends were, I worried if I’d be able to continue building my business while taking care of a baby. Knowing that project work comes and goes with unpredictable hours and schedules, would working for myself while parenting be sustainable?
For the first six months I juggled both with the help of a part-time nanny for the 15 hours a week I could afford, which allowed me to continue working.
By the time my son was two and I had more client work, he was eligible for a local preschool five days a week. This worked well for two years. The nonprofit preschool offered care until 5 p.m. for an additional fee, giving me the flexibility I needed while staying affordable. But unfortunately, the preschool wasn’t ready to expand its capacity beyond 3-year-olds without a guaranteed income stream from government contracts, outside of its federally funded Headstart, which is limited to qualified families with little to no income.
The spring that my son turned 4, I had four months left to work and then I’d have to quit altogether or cut back my availability to maintain part-time help. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s massive expansion of “Pre-K for All” hadn’t kicked in yet, and there were very few pre-K seats in our local school district, a small neighborhood that includes the Lower East Side, East Village and parts of Chinatown. District 1 has always been a diverse neighborhood in many ways that I appreciate, while consistently being home to a high proportion of low-income and working-class families. Families who need reliable and affordable childcare.
At the last minute we were assigned a pre-K seat in a neighborhood elementary school. Relief meant we could save $20,000 a year we were otherwise spending on care. And our son could also stay onsite for low-cost afterschool until 5 p.m. whenever we needed it.
By kindergarten, we lost our low-cost afterschool due to city budget cuts and once again, parents—me included—scrambled to find alternatives so we could still work.
I spent the next few years donating time and talent to cobble together a parent-led afterschool program that would meet the needs and budgets of our families. I learned a lot about the complexity of childcare and afterschool programs and can appreciate the reluctance of small providers entering this business, despite overwhelming need across the city. The high-touch, highly regulated landscape of afterschool care for young children that meets parents’ needs is one of the most difficult business propositions. But it’s also one of the most urgent.
In his last year as mayor, Eric Adams promised to add 20,000 afterschool slots for students in grades K-5, phased in over three years. Following standard policy, his plan did not include Pre-K or 3-K children, even those enrolled in schools.
In January, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced support for Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s goal of expanding childcare to all 4-year-olds statewide by the fall of 2028, which would “enable Mr. Mamdani to make New York City’s preschool program for 3-year-olds, known as 3-K, truly universal, and create a new free child care system for the city’s 2-year-olds,” according to the New York Times. The effort is welcome, but it falls short. Current policy doesn’t support care for 3- and 4-year-olds after 3 p.m.
Working while parenting is no longer an either/or for most of us, while opting out of parenthood is becoming more common. Mamdani vision and Hochul’s commitment could offer an opportunity to create a unified continuum of education that includes afterschool care for all children enrolled in public school.
As a working parent who has experienced and studied New York’s complicated education and childcare systems for over 10 years in a high needs district, I know we need more afterschool spots, especially in under-resourced neighborhoods. We also need a unified early childcare and education system that bridges the gaps between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
We need a continuum of care based on a standard workday that brings together and coordinates policies and funding for public school expansions (adding more Universal Pre-K and 3-K seats, especially in high need neighborhoods) and afterschool care until 5 p.m. for all ages. This can happen with a sustainable funding model that braids together federal grants, state and local tax revenues while exploring additional unconventional financing from philanthropies (as charter schools do) and sliding scale fees (like private childcare and afterschool programs).
Despite the city’s massive addition of Universal Pre-K seats in 2014, recent addition of 3-K seats and funding for more afterschool spots, many parents must continue scrambling to pick up their kids at 2:30 p.m.
Part of this systemic breakdown is due to siloed effects of multiple city agencies managing regulations and funding related to children’s day by age and hour. School day hours are managed by the NYC Public Schools (NYCPS, formerly known as the Department of Education), while time outside of school for children in kindergarten and up is managed by the Department of Youth and Community Development, and NYC’s Administration for Children manages vouchers for childcare. Each has different funding sources, different missions, different regulations and different rules that don’t always align.
While almost half of 800 elementary schools start in 3-K, the city-funded afterschool contracts officially exclude 3-K and Pre-K students in those schools, according to MySchools and DYCD contract data released through the NYC OpenData portal. In some cases, an entire school district officially reports no city-funded afterschool for any of its Pre-K or 3-K children. A search on the NYCPS website re-directs to the DYCD website.
A recent call I made to the District 1 school office confirmed this frustrating rule:
Me: Hi, I’m calling to find out which elementary schools in District 1 with Pre-K seats have after school programs.
D1: None of the DOE [NYCPS] public schools in D1 have 3-K or Pre-K afterschool. Afterschool only starts in kindergarten; Some schools may have a fee-based afterschool for earlier grades. But you would need to call each school you are interested in to find out more.
Me: So my child can’t get afterschool until kindergarten, unless the school offers a fee-based afterschool for Pre-K?
D1: Correct—because of the age, they have different requirements such as potty training and feeding.
If a school is licensed for 3- and 4-year-olds until 3 p.m. why don’t the regulations align with the push for 3-K and Pre-K? Moreover, finding care should be easier than calling every individual provider, assuming parents even know who care providers are in their neighborhood.
Fortunately, the new mayoral administration has already begun to address some if these challenges by bringing in Emmy Liss as executive director of the first Mayoral Office of Child Care. Liss has dedicated more than 10 years to advocating for solutions to affordable childcare and early childhood education. She’s worked inside and alongside city government pushing for equitable childcare agendas. As the head of the newly created Child Care office, I hope that one of her tasks will be untangling the afterschool childcare web of rules and funds so that we can maximize resources to offer more care options.
The Office of Child Care’s recent launch of Child Care Finder, a free tool for locating licensed child care providers by neighborhood, is a major game changer. That they are tackling the challenge of finding care is a positive sign that they are listening. Which parents they are listening to is not yet clear. The priorities are still fragmented and lacking a wholistic vision of education and care that lasts until 5 p.m. for families at all income levels.
The United Federation of Teachers, a major partner in the afterschool ecosystem, is also seeking solutions. In October 2025 they announced the release of their Child Care Navigator. The UFT tool has a more robust interface that allows for many more filters. For example, searching for providers that stay open until 6 p.m. along with the number of spots available. It also has a built-in messaging app to make the process more efficient for parents who are time broke.
Given the progress that has been made so far, and with the co-operation of state and local leaders to address our need for more affordable citywide childcare, I’m hoping the gap from 3-5 will be closed by 2029.
Are two more hours too much to ask for?
Tricia Davies is a self-employed parent who has spent more than 10 years navigating affordable care and developing a parent-led after-school program.