Jenny Andreyeva, 32, a single parent, lost her job as an events manager during the pandemic. While she took to her computer, “sitting day and night, applying to every single job,” her 5-year-old daughter spent months playing alone, talking to her toys.
“It was great for her imagination, but it is heartbreaking,” Andreyeva said.
Her daughter began kindergarten at P.S. 199 in Manhattan today but this created another problem: What will happen to the after-school programs families have relied on?
The city’s Department of Youth & Community Development offers 1,080 free programs for kids in grades K-12, held in schools, recreational facilities, religious locations, community centers and public housing complexes.
Now, according to the city health department’s reopening plan, students can only participate in those after-school programs held in school buildings on the days they have in-person instruction. Programs in schools constitute the vast majority of after-school offerings.
Since New York schools have offered either virtual instruction or blended models that allow kids to attend for a few days a week, families will be left without after-school care most days. The school calendar was only released earlier this month, a further burden for parents trying to devise schedules.
After-school programs will adopt health guidelines that determine their activities, including fewer students in each group, said Dayana Perez of the city’s Department of Youth & Community Development, via email.
Though they’ll operate on-site, they’re “prepared to offer remote activities as needed, should a temporary school or site closure be required,” Perez said. After-school programs begin opening this week but don’t have to start operation until Oct. 5.
It’s too early to tell if enrollment numbers have changed this year, but there’s a cap on the number of students allowed in each program, said Darryl Rattray, the department’s associate commissioner for youth services and strategic partnerships. If the spots have been filled at the program a family has applied to, the child is placed on a waitlist. Rattray encourages families to apply to other nearby programs.
“We are working with our nonprofit agencies who provide after-school programs to be sure that they are communicating with their parents,” Rattray said. Parents, he added, “should definitely reach out to them to see what options are available.”
Rattray understands the importance of after-school programs for children.
“After-school is very important in the lives of every young person — from the youth development approach, from the social-emotional, learning, development approach,” Rattray said. “It’s an important and essential need in the lives of our young people to support our families, our neighborhoods, our communities.”
Any possibility of lifting after-school program restrictions is dependent on the pandemic, he said.
Diana Chavez directs the after-school program at IS 10 in Queens, administered by the Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens. It will offer virtual after-school programming on the days children have remote learning and in-person programming for the days children are physically in school. Though she couldn’t provide numbers, she’s seen a decrease in enrollment.
Parents are “looking for someone physical, someone to be there in the house to watch them,” Chavez said. “If we were open five days, and they could come in all five days, definitely, they would use our service.”
As an incentive, the program offers homework help, tutoring and priority enrollment for summer camp. Chavez said the program might provide a two-hour weekend session at a playground near the school to give parents a break.
But Andreyeva argued that if schools don’t offer in-person instruction five days a week, taxpayer dollars should be returned to parents, “so that we can use it however we need in order to educate and take care of our children when they should be in school.”
The city has taken some steps to help parents. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in July that the city will offer learning labs — free childcare and after-school programming for 100,000 children from pre-K through eighth grade on the days they don’t have in-person instruction.
“There’s 1.1 million students in New York City,” Andreyeva pointed out. “So, the chances of getting into that program are pretty much impossible.”
Andreyeva considered starting a small pod — a group of students participating in virtual instruction together. But she feared letting the other families down if she found work and had to bow out.
She even researched options for leaving the country for two years while the United States gets back on its feet. “I’m literally at a point where I’m ready to pack my bags and leave the country if they don’t open schools,” Andreyeva said. She found a private school in Costa Rica, but couldn’t register, since its borders aren’t open to U.S. citizens.
Rattray says children of essential workers will have priority in after-school programs, along with children who live in shelters, hotels and public housing; kids in foster care and welfare recipients; children with disabilities and children of Department of Education staff.
Rachel Leung, 38, who lives in Brooklyn and works in marketing, doesn’t foresee her 5-year-old son receiving one of those spots. “I shouldn’t get priority, because we need the teachers in the school building; we need the hospital workers in the hospital,” she acknowledged.
Her son is attending the hybrid first grade at P.S. 197. Last year, he won a lottery slot for free after-school care provided by the New York Junior Tennis League. Though he has received a slot again, Leung hasn’t accepted; she wasn’t sure if it would be free and had already started exploring other options.
She considered tutoring centers, but decided against them because of the additional exposure. “We want to really make sure that we’re doing our part,” she said. “If there is a second wave, we didn’t want to help spread it.” She chose not to rely on grandparents, either, because English isn’t their first language, and she just wants “grandparents to be grandparents.”
Instead, Leung and a friend will create a pod for their three kids. After 15 interviews, they hired a caregiver to whom the two families will pay about $1,000 a child each month, increasing by about $100 if instruction becomes entirely virtual.
“We just finished paying for daycare, and now we feel like we have to pay for daycare all over again,” Leung said.
Yet, she acknowledges the pressure for other families. “I can probably cut things back and afford the pod,” she said. “There’s a lot of parents, a lot of kids, that cannot.”
The pastor at the Church of the Village, Alexis James Waggoner, 38, also hopes to start a pod. Her daughter has enrolled in virtual kindergarten at the Manhattan Country School, which also offered a virtual after-school program for a fee. Waggoner opted out because additional screen time “felt like more harm than good.”
Waggoner wants to find another school family to form the pod, with parents alternating days overseeing schooling. She has a similar plan with another family to trade off after-school care.
“You have to do what makes sense for you and your family,” Waggoner said.
(Photo of P.S. 199 by Shanna Kelly.)