{"id":376909,"date":"2026-10-19T15:10:30","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T15:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/376909\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T15:10:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T15:10:30","slug":"new-york-city-announces-2k-expansion-details-adding-10k-seats-by-fall-2027-the-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/376909\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City Announces 2K Expansion Details, Adding 10K Seats by Fall 2027 \u2013 The 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

Join our zero2eight Substack community for more discussion about the latest news in early care and education. Sign up today.<\/a><\/p>\n

New York City\u2019s free 2-K program will expand to include an additional 10,000 seats across all five boroughs beginning next fall, according to an announcement made Monday by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0The initial 2,000 seats opened this September across five districts in every borough but Staten Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are just so, so thrilled to be able to announce this next step in expanding access to 2-K,\u201d said Emmy Liss, executive director of the Mayor\u2019s Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education.<\/p>\n

\"\"Emmy Liss is the executive director of the Mayor\u2019s Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education.<\/p>\n

In an interview Friday with The 74, she described the move as \u201cpart of this broader commitment we have made as an administration to ultimately provide free, high-quality childcare to every child under 5 \u2026 as we really make this shift to recognize childcare for the public good that it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani and Hochul were set to announce the expansion from a Bronx trampoline park on Monday, surrounded by families and childcare providers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor far too many New York City families, the joy of welcoming a child comes with a terrifying set of questions: How will I afford child care? Will I need to give up my job? Will I be forced to leave the city I love?\u201d said Mamdani said in a release. \u201cToday, for 10,000 more families, we have an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

In New York City, a family needs to make over $330,000<\/a> a year \u2014 the equivalent of 10 minimum wage jobs \u2014 to afford the average cost of child care for a single 2-year-old.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Hochul committed more than $1.2 billion<\/a> to help advance the city\u2019s vision of universal childcare, including around $500 million to fund the first two years of 2-K.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s investment is also supporting a number of other initiatives. Two weeks ago, the mayor announced<\/a> he\u2019d be moving 10,000 kids off of a voucher waitlist, providing them all with free childcare. And he\u2019s pledged almost $700,000 towards early childhood educator apprenticeships to help better recruit, train and retain these teachers.<\/p>\n

This fall\u2019s expansion will bring free programming to 17 of the city\u2019s 32 geographic school districts and will also expand capacity in the five districts already being served. New seats will open across dozens of neighborhoods including Bedford-Stuyvesant, Coney Island, Corona, Jamaica Hills, East Harlem and Randall\u2019s Island.<\/p>\n

Mamdani also made good on his promise that Staten Island would be part of the 2027 expansion after the borough was left out<\/a> \u2014 or once again forgotten, as some angry Staten Island officials charged \u2014 in the initial rollout.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RelatedAmid Financial Scramble, NYC\u2019s 2-K Opens to Smiles from Toddlers and Parents<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The announcement comes just over a month after a bumpy rollout of the initial 2,000 seats. Delayed payments<\/a> and contracts left a number of providers scrambling to open, without months worth of city funding. Mamdani ultimately pledged $43 million<\/a> to make sure all classrooms were operational, though a number of centers welcomed kids without receiving contract registrations. When asked Friday if all contracts had since gone out, Liss told The 74 \u201cthe vast majority\u201d had been registered or were pending with the comptroller\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

She added that while the mayor\u2019s office is \u201cincredibly proud that on the first day of school all of our 2-K programs opened,\u201d they also recognize that the delays in the run-up were \u201creally unacceptable and do not represent the way that we, as a city, believe that we should be working with our childcare providers and partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding and contract delays have long plagued the city\u2019s early childhood system; they appear to be particularly brutal this year thanks to a confluence of factors, including a restructuring<\/a> and scaling back of the department under former Mayor Eric Adams.<\/p>\n

Liss said her office has been working toward systemic change and improvement by reforming and modernizing systems; improving communication and transparency with providers; and significantly expanding hiring to address some of the staffing gaps that contributed to the delays. Mamdani has committed to hiring over 200 new city employees who will focus on early childhood education.<\/p>\n

But a number of those actually running centers remain skeptical. Millie Carbajal, owner of M&M 24-HR Daycare in the Bronx, said historically providers have been forced to join networks that don\u2019t pay them on time, leading to significant financial stressors, which she worries will persist under Mamdani\u2019s expansion. She also argued childcare workers still aren\u2019t being paid a living wage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RelatedA Day in the Life of a Childcare Provider Who Works From Sunrise to Sunset<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Rebecca Scott, a Bronx mom whose 2-year-old son is currently enrolled in the pilot 2-K program, echoed some of these concerns, emphasizing how important it is for providers to be adequately compensated as access expands.<\/p>\n

From a parent\u2019s perspective, though, she\u2019s been \u201cvery delighted\u201d with her son\u2019s program so far. Scott said she\u2019s been impressed by the caliber of teachers, the class size, the dietician-approved meals and the play-based curriculum.<\/p>\n

Scott said that had her son not gotten one of the coveted first 2,000 slots, she and her husband would have had to make real sacrifices. He works for the city and she is an independent public health consultant. Without 2-K, they would have kept their son enrolled in part-time care, forcing her to \u201cfit in work around my husband\u2019s hours, which obviously is not ideal career-wise and also compensation-wise.\u201d<\/p>\n

This fall, 2-K will continue to be delivered through center-based and licensed family-run programs, and the model will remain full-day, all year round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RelatedMamdani\u2019s Child Care Czar on NYC\u2019s First-of-Its-Kind, Universal 2-K Rollout<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Liss said contracting with these home-based family programs will remain a major focus for the administration since, \u201cwe know that in some of the city\u2019s past early childhood expansions, home-based providers have not had as much of a seat at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many families with very young children, she added, this type of learning environment is most comfortable. Of the first 2,000 2K seats, \u201ca large portion\u201d are in these programs, she said, though official enrollment numbers won\u2019t be available until later this fall.<\/p>\n

Within the next week, the mayor\u2019s office plans to release<\/a> a survey for existing providers as well as new ones interested in offering 2-K services.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of the upcoming expansion, Scott, the Bronx mom, said she thinks it\u2019s \u201cincredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, the cost of full-time childcare is over $20,000 a year, and that could be half of a Bronxite\u2019s salary, and so it\u2019s really inaccessible at the moment,\u201d she said. \u201cThe expansion to all of the Bronx \u2014\u00a0and eventually to all of New York City \u2014\u00a0is completely game-changing for working families.\u201d<\/p>\n

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We\u2019d love to hear how The 74\u2019s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Join our zero2eight Substack community for more discussion about the latest news in early care and education. Sign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10883,138649,3587,1445,9,24,55,54,12,56],"class_list":["post-376909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-2-k","tag-early-childhood-learning","tag-expansion","tag-mamdani","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-news","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376909","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=376909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}