Mamdani’s 2-K Childcare Plan Aims To Keep Black Families In NYC

New York City is riding a wave right now. The Knicks just won their first NBA Championship in over 50 years, the World  Cup has taken over the city and Juneteenth is right around the corner. Presiding over it all is Mayor Zohran Mamdani – who, even amid the celebrations, is making moves for the Black New Yorkers the city has been quietly ignoring and losing for decades. 

The initiative is so important to Mayor Mamdani that he took time away from hosting a Juneteenth celebration at Gracie Mansion to speak to NewsOne about his 2-K childcare program – a new program delivering free childcare to the Black neighborhoods that City Hall has historically overlooked. Of course, he started the conversation with a quote, shouting out his championship basketball team: “There’s not much to complain about in the city when the Knicks just won the championship.” But make no mistake – the celebration is just the backdrop. The work is what really matters. 

Christopher Smith: What’s notable about the first phase of your 2-K program is the neighborhoods it will be launched in some of the Black neighborhoods afflicted by low income and low resources. With Juneteenth around the corner, how special is it to you that this program will help so many struggling with the affordability of child care in these areas?

Mayor Zohran Mamdani: I think it speaks to the fact that Juneteenth cannot just be an opportunity to say thank you to Black New Yorkers and appreciate the immense amount that Black New Yorkers have given this city and have shaped this city and made this city into something that we all love and live in. 

Juneteenth is also a celebration of freedom and must also serve as an acknowledgment of the freedoms that are still left to be won. Now, I think about what Martin Luther King Jr. said many decades ago, “What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to eat a hamburger? What good is a freedom if you can’t afford to use it?” 

And so, as much as we must use Juneteenth to celebrate, it is also a reminder for us in city government of all that we have to do to still transform the most expensive city in the United States of America into one that Black New Yorkers can afford to live in. And we’ve seen that while every New Yorker faces the cost-of-living crisis, the impact is not evenly borne, and Black New Yorkers have seen the impact to such an extent that we’ve lost 200,000 Black New Yorkers over the last few decades alone.

To your point about 2-K, we often hear that there are a number of Black neighborhoods across our city that are either last on the list or not even on it when it comes to investments from City Hall, so we wanted to rectify that. 

In delivering these first 2,000 seats of high-quality, free childcare for 2-year-olds, we made sure that we would begin that in the Rockaways, in Canarsie, in Brownsville, in Fordham, in so many of the neighborhoods where we see the impact of this crisis hitting people the most.

Funding for the 2-K program has thankfully been secured for the first year, with the help of Governor Kathy Hochul. Has there been any further discussion about City Hall pursuing more public-private partnerships with other organizations to reach the ultimate goal of universal pre-K care?

You are correct that we have secured funding for the first year. In fact, we’ve also secured funding for the second year. In total, we’re looking at $1.2 billion in funding we secured from Governor Hochul and the state. And that has allowed us to deliver these 2,000 seats, which parents can apply for today at myschools.nyc.

Their children will begin this fall. And then ramp that up to 12,000 seats next year. Now, by the end of year four, we are going to deliver a seat for every single 2-year-old, and that is the work that we will be doing in partnership with the governor to secure that funding for the years to come. And as you said, part of this is also going to be looking to see any which way we can partner with the private sector, with businesses across this city, because we also want to make it as easy as possible for childcare to be found and for childcare to be delivered.

New York City schools have, unfortunately, been the target of egregious attacks by the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. Are you hopeful that the 2-K program will be unaffected by the aims of agencies such as ICE?

We have heard the federal administration make threats time and again, as it pertains to immigration enforcement in our city, and I’ve been very clear, both with the president directly and also in public, that ICE is a cruel and inhumane method of enforcing immigration across our city – and across our country. I believe that it’s an agency that should be abolished. I believe that immigration enforcement should have some humanity at the heart of it, and that is not what we see in an agency that, frankly, I am even older than.

And when it comes to the threats in this city, we’re not going to back down from our laws or our values. And I have made it clear that we are proud of the longstanding New York City Public School policy, which is that any child of eligible age can enroll regardless of their immigration status or their parents’ immigration status. 

That continues to be the case with 2-K, and we are offering the application at myschools.nyc in 13 different languages. If someone calls 718-935-2009, they’ll find, frankly, even more languages that they can use to apply. Because we want this program to be a reflection of the city, and this city is a city where the world is at home.

The 2-K program is open for enrollment now at myschools.nyc – children start this fall, with a goal of universal childcare by year four. In a city that has quietly lost nearly 200,000 Black residents, Mayor Mamdani isn’t just talking about the problem – he’s dedicated to building the infrastructure to change it, one 2-year-old at a time. 

SEE ALSO:

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Creates Deed Theft Prevention Office 

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Vetoes Bill Requiring Police At School Protests

NYC Has Lost 200,000 Black Residents, Mayor Mamdani Is Fighting Back With Free Childcare was originally published on newsone.com