Constantinides: The time is now to establish universal after-school
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Councilmember Costa Constantinides is a candidate for Queens borough president. Photo via Constantinides’ office.
By Costa Constantinides
Special to the Eagle
Many parents of New York City public school children know that stressful feeling every afternoon when the clock hits about 2:30. They think about the school bell ringing and their children coming home for the day.
Those who cannot afford the $400 or more each month for a quality after school program are left to wonder: Was the person I entrusted to pick up my child allowed to do so? Will my child do their homework or just flip on the TV? Who’s going to pick them up tomorrow?
The city of New York has been slow to adapt to shifting work-life changes, where a parent is no longer home when that final school bell rings. It’s beyond time we phase in a Universal After School program that makes quality programming in a constructive space available to every elementary school student. My friend and colleague Benjamin Kallos has introduced a bill to do just that in the City Council, and I’m proud to have signed onto it.
Because every one of the 500,000 students enrolled in kindergarten to fifth grade deserves a secure place to do their homework, play, and grow while their parents are still at work. Right now, the City’s Comprehensive After School System provides spots for just 47,000 at a cost of $150 million per year. Increasing annual funding by $100 million would be able to expand COMPASS for every elementary school student, which would in turn free up tens of thousands of parents from having to leave work early and potentially sacrifice wages.
Considering only about half of the City’s 1,800 public schools have Department of Education- or Department of Youth and Community Services-funded is shameful. Structured after school programming has been found to help developing students sharpen skills and better retain what they’ve learned in school all day. It can help them hone their reading skills, or open them up to the benefits of sports, music, or art.
Yet it costs hundreds of dollars every month to put our children in that kind of programming. I know for Astoria, where the median household income is $67,648, paying upwards of $4,000 per year just for after school over 10 months each year is impossible for many. Instead, these parents are left with a constant stress of who’s watching their children and whether they’re continuing to productively develop once school lets out.
Let’s do better by them and the 1.1 million children in our school system by adopting Universal After School.
Councilmember Costa Constantinides represents Astoria and Rikers Island as well as parts of Woodside, Jackson Heights and East Elmhurst. He also chairs the Committee on Environmental Protection and is a candidate for Queens borough president.
