{"id":318814,"date":"2026-08-11T18:06:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T18:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318814\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T18:06:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T18:06:35","slug":"nyc-early-childhood-programs-need-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318814\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC early childhood programs need more"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City\u2019s early childhood (EC) landscape was jolted on July 31 when Chalkbeat<\/a> reported that the Division of Early Childhood Education\u2019s (DECE) deputy chancellor, Simone Hawkins, was stepping down. Many people were confident that Hawkins would continue to steer the DECE into the 2K expansion, while also supporting the other EC programs.<\/p>\n

The timing of her departure comes at a pivotal and chaotic moment. We are on the precipice of a historic 2K expansion, yet we are facing serious systems issues, including a teacher shortage, delayed payments for programs, and pay disparities across the workforce.<\/p>\n

We are the People\u2019s Early Childhood Coalition<\/a> (PEC) advocating for the quality of programming, the well-being of the EC workforce, and the experiences of children and families. We urge Chancellor Kamar Samuels<\/a>, our elected officials, and other leaders to provide the early childhood community and NYC\u2019s families with the highest level of transparency as we experience yet another leadership transition.<\/p>\n

Since 2014, and Mayor Bill de Blasio\u2019s rapid pre-K expansion, we have been asked to modify our work to respond to policy set by people outside of our classrooms. Program leaders are asked to operate their schools on shoestring budgets and without financial support, teachers are told to change their approaches to curriculum and assessment, and DECE support staff live with uncertainty about their jobs. Meanwhile, we carry out our best work and comply because we care so deeply about caring for and educating children.<\/p>\n

After Hawkins was appointed, PEC sought a partnership with her team to open lines of communication about persistent and emerging challenges. She graciously met with us monthly. We applaud her responsiveness in addressing many of our concerns. For instance, crucial information about protections from ICE was not reaching all program directors; guidance became more cohesive once we raised awareness of the DECE-CBO communication gap.<\/p>\n

We pushed back against the mandate to use the private-equity-backed Creative Curriculum, and now there are pathways to curriculum choice. We raised concerns about abrupt school-year starts for three-year-olds, and guidance about phase-in transitions was sent out to promote a child-friendly introduction to 3K.<\/p>\n

We call on Mayor Mamdani, Samuels, the City Council and DECE leaders to maintain these essential priorities that include a continued focus on pay and benefits parity for CBO educators and leaders and persistent improvement of on-time provider payments.<\/p>\n

There must be an unwavering commitment to developmentally meaningful, play-based programming and culturally and linguistically responsive and sustaining practices, including curriculum choice guided by community needs, along with explicit guidance on acceptable screen\/AI\/tech use in early childhood classrooms.<\/p>\n

Regarding the next DECE deputy chancellor, we ask that this person hold the early childhood pedagogical expertise foundational to care, education, and daily classroom life. Our leader must be attuned to the challenges program leaders, teachers, and support staff face when asked to respond to another policy shift, mandate, or recommendation.<\/p>\n

NYC\u2019s early childhood communities \u2014 from children to adults \u2014 represent our richness in diversity, brilliance, capabilities, and generosity. We deserve more. We deserve transparency at the very least.<\/p>\n

Peters is an associate professor of early childhood education and former preschool teacher. Mavrides Calderon<\/a> is an assistant professor and former early childhood teacher and director.\u00a0Yasharian is an educational director with more than 25 years of early childhood experience. Jinadu is a former preschool director and preschool educator with more than two decades in the education sector both in and out of the states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City\u2019s early childhood (EC) landscape was jolted on July 31 when Chalkbeat reported that the Division…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,299],"class_list":["post-318814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318814","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=318814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}