NYC Council bill would require Adams administration to regularly provide 3-K updates

The New York City Council apparently isn’t done feuding with Mayor Adams over cuts to 3-K.

Brooklyn pol Lincoln Restler, in an exclusive interview with the Daily News, said he plans to introduce a bill during Thursday’s meeting to force the administration to be more transparent about demand for the city’s free preschool program.

“The mayor has promised us — more times than I can count — that every child in New York City who wants a 3-K seat can get one,” Restler said. “The data tells a radically different story. That statement is flatly untrue, and we need to hold this administration’s feet to the fire.”

The proposed law would require the local Education Department to release quarterly reports on program availability and outreach, including which programs have empty seats. Last year, thousands of budgeted 3-K seats went unfilled, even though demand exceeded supply in nearly half of local zip codes.

“Every year, we go through this absurd rigmarole with the DOE, where my colleagues and I beg and plead repeatedly for information about what is happening with 3-K and pre-K enrollment,” Restler said. “It’s much needed transparency that will be elucidating not just for members of the Council, but for our constituents — who are desperate to understand what the heck is happening with 3-K.”

The Adams administration announced Wednesday the school system had extended offers to all families who applied for a 3-K seat on time — with a catch.

At the time that initial placements were released in mid-May, 84% of parents had received an offer to one of the 3-K programs to which they’d applied, down two percentage points since last year. Other families were matched with programs that may have been far away from home or work, or during hours that working parents couldn’t accept.

In June, Adams and Council leadership shook hands on a deal to cut the early childhood budget by $170 million, targeting investments in programs for kids with disabilities or from undocumented families instead.

As Restler sees it, 3-K programs could fill the empty slots with proper outreach, the details of which his bill would require the administration to share with the Council. If passed, local education officials have to share the number of staff and budget assigned to those efforts, and households reached.

“When I was working in the de Blasio administration, we had multilingual, diverse outreach teams that were out at barbershops, at school playgrounds, in NYCHA developments, deep in immigrant enclave communities, enrolling families in programs that they wouldn’t have otherwise been aware of,” Restler said. “When those outreach efforts disappear, it does have a significant impact on enrollment.”

Press secretary Nathaniel Styer said the Education Department will review the legislation once it’s introduced.