{"id":343253,"date":"2026-09-10T22:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T22:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/343253\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T22:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T22:00:09","slug":"nyc-launches-free-2-k-program-for-2000-toddlers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/343253\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC launches free 2-K program for 2,000 toddlers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a> to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n

As her 2-year-old son bounded into his brightly colored Brooklyn preschool classroom on Thursday morning, Mirlene Casimir lingered on the outskirts of the room with other parents.<\/p>\n

It was a bittersweet moment for Casimir, a nurse and the daughter of Haitian immigrants. <\/p>\n

Her son was part of the inaugural class of New York City\u2019s new childcare program for 2-year-olds. The free 2-K program at the Friends of Crown Heights center in East Flatbush, which runs from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. year-round, would save her money she could spend on her mortgage and student loans, she said. It would allow her to cut back on overtime shifts. She hoped it would also help her son, who doesn\u2019t speak much English at home, with his language skills. <\/p>\n

\"AMirlene Casimir after dropping her son off at 2-K. (Alex Zimmerman \/ Chalkbeat) <\/p>\n

Across four boroughs, roughly 2,000 toddlers began the school year Thursday as part of the 2-K program<\/a> that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has made a centerpiece of his affordability agenda. Mamdani is betting big that the program, which opened in every borough except Staten Island, can make a dent in the often crushing costs of childcare for city families and keep some from leaving the city. He plans to expand the program to 12,000 kids by next fall, and bring it citywide by the end of his first term. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile this morning has brought a new kind of stress to thousands of young families across the city, it is the stress of excitement and new beginnings, not the stress of wondering whether they can afford to be here at all,\u201d Mamdani said Thursday morning at a press conference in Washington Heights with Gov. Kathy Hochul and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels.<\/p>\n

Hochul, who has pledged state funding for the program next year, but not after that, said she was optimistic that the state would find a way to continue supporting it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll keep it going,\u201d she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t start something this incredible and stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Casimir had previously relied on her parents to watch her son, so Thursday was the first time sending him outside of the house for childcare. She was having a hard time saying goodbye. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very nervous, but I\u2019m trusting the teachers here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Soon, a staffer announced it was time for caregivers to depart. <\/p>\n

\u201cDetach, detach \u2014 come on, mommies, daddies!\u201d family worker Lisa Joseph-Mayers bellowed.<\/p>\n

Payment delay problems loom<\/p>\n

Reminders of the challenges still dogging the 2-K program weren\u2019t far away. The Dominican Women\u2019s Development Center, the organization that runs the 2-K program Mamdani and Hochul visited Thursday morning, is still waiting for contracts with the city Education Department to be finalized and for a city-issued loan to arrive, Executive Director Marielys Divanne said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunity-based organizations simply cannot deliver without the payments necessary to pay our staff and keep our doors open,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Typically, programs contracting with the city Education Department get a chunk of their funding in advance of the school year to help with startup costs. But many providers were still waiting for their contracts to be approved by the Education Department in the weeks leading up to the school year, pushing some to the brink of closure, the New York Times found<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We’re on a need-to-know basis.<\/p>\n

Every weekday morning, Chalkbeat New York is bringing thousands of subscribers the news on public schools and education policy that they need to start their day. Sign up for our free newsletter to join them.<\/p>\n

Providers were still waiting for payments on Thursday, with some even delaying opening their programs because of a lack of funds, according to reports<\/a> Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Delays in the Education Department\u2019s system for approving early childhood education contracts are longstanding, and grew worse because of steep staffing cuts in the Division of Early Childhood Education, officials said. That office shrunk from nearly 1,200 staffers at the beginning of 2022 to fewer than 500 in August, 2024, according to the Education Department.<\/p>\n

Mamdani announced a new effort<\/a> last week to speed up contract reviews and loan applications and bolster the staff in the Education Department\u2019s Division of Early Childhood Education. Officials also announced earlier this week a new deputy chancellor<\/a> to oversee that division. <\/p>\n

The Education Department has approved more than 500 contracts and issued more than 300 loans, Mamdani said. Programs applying for a new loan will receive their funds within five business days, he added.<\/p>\n

Divanne said that the recent efforts to speed up the contract and loan process seem to be bearing fruit. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are beginning to see movement and greater intentionality around contracting, and that is encouraging,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Triana Nu\u00f1ez, a staffer at one of the programs run by the Dominican Women\u2019s Development Center, said she was excited to welcome a new group of 2-year-olds, including her younger sister, Jayilani.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to help us a lot financially,\u201d she said, allowing their dad to get to work earlier and their stepmom to resume working full time at a daycare.<\/p>\n

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4146,13533,128689,9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-343253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-chalkbeat","tag-first-day-of-school","tag-friends-of-crown-heights","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343253","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=343253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}