{"id":117955,"date":"2026-01-31T00:08:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T00:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/117955\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T00:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T00:08:27","slug":"mamdani-touts-50k-free-preschool-applications-pledges-effort-to-attract-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/117955\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani touts 50K free preschool applications, pledges effort to attract more"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two weeks into his preschool registration blitz<\/a>, Mayor Mamdani said 50,000 New York City families had applied for 3-K and pre-K as of Friday, a number that was \u201ccurrently in line\u201d with the application pool at this time last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite high demand for affordable child care, many free preschool programs, especially in the city\u2019s lowest-income neighborhoods, have struggled for years to fill their seats.<\/p>\n

Mamdani, who campaigned on a dramatic expansion of free child care for ages 6 weeks and up<\/a>, promised to do more outreach than former Mayor Eric Adams. Those efforts have yet to result in more applications than under his predecessor, though the mayor remained optimistic the count would continue to grow before the Feb. 27 deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far, we\u2019re currently in line with where we were last year,\u201d Mamdani told the Daily News at a home-based daycare in Chinatown. \u201cWe\u2019re also going to be utilizing every tool at our disposal to get the word out or, as we say, \u2018Get out the child care\u2019 \u2014 \u2018GOTC.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re here today to celebrate 50,000 applications across pre-K and 3-K. And we also know that there\u2019s still far more New Yorkers who will apply much closer to the deadline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the winter break, close to 9,600 of 3-K seats, or 18%, were vacant, thanks in part to a mismatch between where available programs are located and waitlists have proliferated, according to local school data.<\/p>\n

\"NewMayor Mamdani visits a home-based childcare provider in Manhattan to encourage 3-K and pre-K application submissions on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (Michael Appleton \/ Mayoral Photography Office)<\/p>\n

To encourage more families to apply for the fall, Mamdani earlier this month pledged a \u201cfull-court press\u201d by city government, including a new video to be displayed on TaxiTV monitors in yellow cabs, LinkNYC kiosks on the sidewalks<\/a>\u00a0and on social and other digital media. He also convinced Gov. Hochul to allocate $100 million to 3-K and funds to launch free child care for 2-year-olds<\/a> by next school year.<\/p>\n

Mamdani visited the Chinatown daycare to learn more about home-based or \u201cfamily\u201d daycares<\/a>, which are the most popular form of child care<\/a> for low-income families with young children, but were largely left out of the city\u2019s rollout of universal 3-K and pre-K.<\/p>\n

The mayor said home-based providers would play a key role in the upcoming expansion to 2-year-olds. For infants and toddlers, some parents prefer family daycares because of their cozy feel and their ability to choose a provider who speaks the same language they do at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cHome-based providers are going to be a critical part of universal child care. They already are,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cAnd when we\u2019re talking about fixing the issues that we\u2019ve seen with universal child care for 3-year-olds and also trying to deliver it for 2-year-olds, home-based providers are going to be a key part of both of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MayorMayor Mamdani visits a home-based childcare provider in Manhattan to encourage 3-K and pre-K application submissions on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (Michael Appleton \/ Mayoral Photography Office)<\/p>\n

The Chinatown daycare serves kids who are 2 years old, funded by a combination of a contract through a child care network<\/a>\u00a0with the Department of Education, a federal Early Head Start<\/a> grant and vouchers for low-income families<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Inside the apartment, posters of the alphabet, numbers, shapes and colors covered the walls, translated into both English and Chinese. When the mayor visited, kids were about to wash their hands for lunch, one of three meals they would receive during the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cProviders prepare all meals,\u201d one of the providers said through a translator. \u201cParents love it, because it\u2019s very hearty. It comes out of love in the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two weeks into his preschool registration blitz, Mayor Mamdani said 50,000 New York City families had applied for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[67,85,267,75,84,83,9,24,264,12,63],"class_list":["post-117955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-education","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}