Transcript: Mayor Adams Unveils Ambitious Plan to Achieve Universal After-School Programming in Upcoming Mayoral Budget, Opening Historic Opportunities for New York City Children and Families Through $755 Million “After-School for All” Programming

April 29, 2025

Deputy Mayor Ana Almanzar, Strategic Initiatives: Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today for this special announcement on the city's after-school program. Thank you Principal Sarah Pinto for hosting us today and everyone for joining us. There she is, yes, thank you. 

My name is Ana J. Almanzar and as deputy mayor for Strategic Initiatives I am excited about the work we are sharing today. As I know it will be one of these administration's legacy accomplishments. Making New York City more affordable is one of our top priorities and today's announcement reflects just how serious Mayor Adams and every city agency like DYCD takes this priority to heart. 

Today you will hear from our after-school partners including participants like Geneva, providers like David Garza and DYCD's Commissioner Howard. But first, Mayor Adams will share more about this transformative investment in our city’s after-school program. Join me in welcoming our 110th mayor of the City of New York, Mayor Eric Adams, my boss.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you, thank you so much D.M. and really thank you and F.D.M. for this visionary, you know, for just bringing in a real vision of after-school and why after-school is so important. It always amazed me that 7 a.m., we open the doors, we allow our children to come inside and at [2 p.m., 3 p.m.] we say get out and we'll see you tomorrow. 

You know, these beautiful buildings and structures, they have swimming pools, auditoriums, gym spaces, classrooms, all of these structures that as a child that we use, we use them from so many different ways but we put locks on the doors of these buildings that should be the focal points of our communities. 

School buildings are places where parents are comfortable in going into no matter what their demographics may be. They're comfortable for children to go into, so why do we prevent this amazing resource to just remain closed for the majority of the time when you think about it? And so this is our way of saying we're going to do a back to the future. 

The things that empowered me as a child and empowered many of us who are standing here now, we're going to make access to our young people and of D.M. Almanzar and First Deputy Mayor Mastro, they sat down, they said we're going to figure it out and our budget director, Jacques Jiha, said let's get this done and we are accomplishing that and so really hats off to you guys for making this happen in a real way. This is going to be the best budget ever folks, the best budget ever. 

Our fiscal year 2026 executive budget reflects our priorities as we've always stated of you know I said yesterday and I'm going to say it again, people should go see that documentary on the Beame years and when President Ford told the city to drop dead, he had to get a bailout from state and federal government. We are moving our city forward without that bailed out. 

We are finding how to manage this budget with what we've had, we're going to fight in the state, we're going to fight in Washington but we know the obligations falls here. No one elected me to define the problem, they elected me to solve the problem and we're going to do just that and so to make New York City the best place to raise a family, we need to make sure young people and families have opportunities to thrive and that includes providing after-school programs they can't attend with that New York favorite four-letter word, free. F-R-E-E for all students. 

After-school programs that are free for all students is our way of saying to families and loved ones and children that we hear you, we see you and we're going to make it happen and continue a rich tradition that started 20 years ago when Mayor Bloomberg started a groundbreaking program to support families and give students the ability to place and a place to continue to learn after-school. 

Hats off to Mayor Bloomberg, we're taking the baton and taking it to the next level. We knew when he put that in place that it came with some budgetary restraints, the dollars needed to be found to continue it and we have done just that. Every family across the five boroughs should be able to count on our city to invest in their children and that's why today the announcement we're delivering on our promise to do just that, today as part of our budget week, we're unveiling the Best Budget Ever with an interest and an investment in additional $331 million dollars to invest in our vision for after-school for all children. 

This includes $136 million to serve over 220, over 20,000 additional K-5 students in Department of Youth and Community Development programs which will be baseline every year going forward starting in fiscal year 2028. Also included in the funding would be $195 million dollars starting next fiscal year to support rate increases for the first time in ten years for these after-school providers. For over ten years they have not had those rate increases, they're going to have it under this administration. 

In total, we're raising the annual budget to $755 million dollars by fiscal year 2028, that's a 78 percent increase in funding in just three years. More importantly, our investment will provide more public school students with access to after-school program which is our focus and our goal. Starting with 5,000 additional K-5 seats for the upcoming fall school year, 10,000 more seats in the fall of 2026 and 5,000 more in the fall of 2027 as we see this roll out and continue to move forward with it. 

In just three years, 20,000 more seats for students will have these opportunities that they need starting today. And in fiscal year 2027, we will work with local communities to determine whether we need to secure additional seats in the coming years. But we are doing more than just expanding after-school programming. 

To achieve the vision of universality, we are also strengthening our current after-school system by issuing the first request for proposal to providers. This will give providers base rate increase for the first time in 10 years, stabilizing nonprofit organization that provide these invaluable work and supporting their employees who serve New York City children. These employees are often overlooked. We want to continue to invest in employees so they can invest in our students and they will be an investment for our entire city. 

After-School for All will bring the total number of K-8 students who can attend after-school program to more than 184,000. Think about that for a moment. That's 184,000 K-8 students who have access to art lessons and homework help and able to socialize with other young people as they develop their full personhood. 184,000 K-8 students who will be able to participate in sports, S.T.E.P. programs, robotics, take field trips and more. The continuing development of the child and their mind during those crucial periods of time when brain development is taking place. 

184,000 K-8 students who won't be at home, playing on their devices, looking at TV, not being motivated or inspired, but being inspired among their peers, their teachers, their educators and all those who want to see them develop. And it's not just young people who benefit. Sometimes we forget when a parent or a caregiver knows that the child is in a safe place, they're able to also continue to thrive and give. They could go back to school and take advantage of our many college and training facilities. They know that they could do the piecework they need at home just as they get prepared for the next day. 

So our parents will know that the growth of their child doesn't stop when the bell rings at the end of the day, but it will continue. And parents shouldn't have to choose between picking up their child or working a job to put food on the table. And now they won't. They won't because we're thinking of them and we know how important these programs are. It's in alignment to what we have been doing throughout the years for our children, including decreasing the cost of child care from $55 a week to less than $5 a week. 

So this is not the first step we've taken for our children and families, and it is our step to continue a step towards a universal after-school program for students. And because after-school programs should not just be for some, it should not be based on your zip code. It should be based on the opportunities of utilizing our school spaces in a real way. And when you think about it currently, only one in five elementary school students can participate in after-school programs in a five borough one and five elementary school student. And so since day one, this administration has been committed to investing in children and families beyond the hours of the school day and the days of the school year. 

Our Summer Rising program speaks volumes to that big bold vision to walk today builds on the success of programs like that Pre-K for all that make New York City more affordable for families as well as our investment of $167 million each year to fund 3K and special education Pre-K. We also supported both our summer youth in programs our midnight after midnight, our basketball programs that we have in our schools and to record numbers to give record numbers of young people the opportunity to grow, to learn and explore their talents. After-school for all. One of our most proudest achievements we could have. 

It will reimagine our communities and turn our school buildings into safe spaces for our children so that everyone can benefit from the city's success. Not just some young people deserve a better future. We want to help them dream big as they move and secure their future with the most access to after-school programs in over a decade we are giving children the chance to build the skills they need to succeed. 

And we are giving parents peace of mind so that their children are in nurturing, safe environments and so that New York City can be the best place to raise a family not only in Park Slope in Tribeca on the Upper East Side and West Side, but in Brownsville, South Jamaica, Queens of South Bronx, Richmond Hill, every neighborhood in the city will have access to these programs. So you could visit nyc.gov/afterschool to find out more. But most importantly, I want to just thank our team for seeing this vision and making it happen. This is what we do, create a safe place for children and families. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Almanzar: I think my heart is going to pop out of my chest and I just want to give a big round of applause to our mayor for encouraging us to dream big and to push this forward. Thank you, mayor. And thank you for your dedication to our youth and for your support to everything we do that we think about how we can help our young people be safe and learned and dream big. 

I also want to thank and acknowledge as the mayor mentioned our first Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro for his encouragement and hard work. Deputy Mayor Camille Joseph Varlack, our OMB director, our beloved colleague, Jacques Jiha. I am now going to thank my colleague, Michael Nolan, who's going to get super red because I called him out. Thank you for all your work in pushing this forward as well. 

This has been a big team effort. I know that the financial investments like this one reflect the work we're committed to in this administration to support all child care programming, including after-school. Our after-school programming includes engaging children in STEM, the arts, recreation and components of career readiness. So getting our program model to this point, it took some time and engagement with some key stakeholders. Thank you, David. We will continue this engagement in the months to come, in the months ahead, which will be managed by our amazing team at the Department of Youth and Community Development. So it is now my pleasure, and please don't tell anybody, to introduce one of my favorite colleagues, my friend, Commissioner Keith Howard.

Commissioner Keith Howard, Department of Youth and Community Development: What an amazing Good News Tuesday. Come on, let's clap it up. This is Good News Tuesday. Thank you, Mayor Adams, First Deputy Mayor Mastro. Phenomenal, phenomenal. Deputy Mayor Almanzar, just, you know, for your continued trusting in DYCD to carry out your ambitious agenda and grow some of our agency's biggest programs. And, of course, shout out to the DYCD team who's in the audience right here. 

This day was long coming, but Mayor Adams' unprecedented investment in after-school and elementary school and just shows that this administration is committed to making the city safe, affordable and the best place to raise a family. 

Mr. Mayor, every town hall that you and I are with, this comes up in conversation. Alright, what are we doing for our after-school program? Why don't we don't have an after-school program in this building? On and on. And I'm pretty sure it's going to come up this week or next week as well. 

Together, we are closer than ever to fulfilling the mayor's forward vision for universal after-school. And let me just say this for those naysayers, for all of you who didn't believe. I'm going to say what Kendrick Lamar said, Mr. Mayor. They are not like us, okay? Whether it's the fatherhood initiative with 3,000 slots for fathers, the mayor mentioned S.Y.E.P. Summer Youth Employment off the bat from 75,000 to 100,000 young people in a six weeks program across the board. 

He mentioned also Summer Rising and Summer Camp with 110,000 young people Saturday Night Lights, keeping young people safe on Saturdays at over 130 locations. Runaway and homeless youth just wrapping up the number by 100 to give us 913 beds. The exciting after-school expansion being announced today, we are proud to not only partner, but be one of the partners with our community groups and our community partners. So our nonprofit organizations who are partnered with us, thank you so much. 

You know, I don't speak only as the commissioner. I know firsthand the value of creating enriching and meaningful opportunities for young people like the mayor. I'm in these streets in these streets, in these communities, visiting programs. And one of the highlights of this past week was us taking a busload of young people from Marcy Community Center. They're a program to tour a HBCU as part of their college readiness program. 

One of the young people, Philip, who happens to be one of the most diamonds in the rough. This young man living with his grandmother, not knowing his mother and his father in his life. This young man walked on the campus of Virginia Union University and got accepted right on the spot. 

If it's not, S.Y.E.P. it’s the other programs that the mayor has challenged us to do and to ample up, just like the deputy mayor said. He's talking about passports for all young people, being global citizens. He's talking about creating a student exchange program traveling internationally. And this is just a few of the things that you're going to be seeing in the next couple of weeks and the next couple of months. 

I want to shout out our partners in public school. You know, Chancellor Ramos, just phenomenal. And all the partners in our public schools, just wonderful. And I want to thank Principal Sarah Pinto and her staff for hosting us this afternoon at P.S. 20. Of course, we couldn't do this without our partners. I shouted them out. But I also want to shout out David also from Henry Street Settlement and just our entire network for just continuing to work with us. If this is the work that we're doing in Act One, Mr. Mayor, I can't wait to see Act Two. God bless you. Thank you so much.

Deputy Mayor Almanzar: You can tell why he's one of my favorite colleagues, right? Thank you, Commissioner Howard. Thank you for your leadership and your commitment to not only our stakeholders, but to all New York City families. It is now my pleasure, and I know that that we had to highlight the work that is done at this school. And I also want to thank our exceptional after cool providers, as the commissioner mentioned for the advocacy for always pushing us. 

As we know, today's announcement is the result of our strong partnership. It is because of providers like Henry Street Settlement that we have been able to maintain the highest quality programming for all our students throughout the years. With that, it is my pleasure to introduce David Garza, president and CEO of Henry Street Settlement.

David Garza, President and CEO, Henry Street Settlement: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Almanzar. Thank you, Commissioner Howard. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mayor Adams. And all of you who are here with us today to make this exciting announcement. It's a truly transformative investment in our youth in the youth of this community, the youth of the Lower East Side and the youth across entire New York City. 

I work at Henry Street Settlement. We have 18 sites within a square mile of here. We are a nonprofit that is embedded in this community. Our mission is to open doors of opportunity for Lower East Siders and all New Yorkers through a whole spectrum of programming, education, employment, healthcare, arts, housing. 

So, I'm just going to go off the dome with the rest of this because my comments blew away. See, it takes partnership, but I was ready. Today, we're here to celebrate adding 20,000 slots. And for us, that translates to 20,000 doors of opportunity that we're adding to the landscape of the Lower East Side. Every single day, Henry Street Settlement has 1,000 children in our care that come to our doors for after-school programming. And one thing we know at Henry Street is we don't do this work alone. We do this work in partnership with District 1. I want to shout out Carri Chan. Where'd she go? I don't know. Of course, I want to shout out Principal Pinto, longstanding partner here on the Lower East Side. I want to shout out all my United Neighborhood House colleagues, some of here today. 

We do this work as a collection of settlement houses so we can canvas the whole city. And I want to shout out the entire Henry Street Settlement team and P.S. 20 team was all here with us today. I want to shout out Geneva Moore, who we're going to hear from a little bit. Because today's announcement marks an unprecedented investment and we're grateful for the expansion of slots, we're grateful for the increased rates, and we're grateful for such a thoughtful strengthening of the program. 

At Henry Street, though, with a hundred and thirty-two years of experience of delivering these services, we know that programs don't help people. People help people. The increased slots will help us reach more kids. The increased rates will help us recruit, develop, and retain more talent because we know that people help people. I know it professionally, from my 25 years of service here on the Lower East Side, and I know it personally. 

On April 25th, Friday that just passed, I stood with nine guys that I went to the third grade with, and that I still stand with today. And we stood at a memorial service in Melbourne, Florida, for a guy named Kevin Sullivan. We called him Bulldog. We all met him. All these guys happen to come from single-parent families in 1970s Brooklyn. We met him in the context of after-school. He was our guide. He was our mentor. He was our coach. He was our protector. He believed in us. 

When other people looked down on us, he looked up. I stand here today because of the belief that he put in me. He made me feel like I was okay at a time that I did not feel okay. And for that, I am forever changed and forever grateful. And I see and I understand it viscerally that the thousand young people in our care are lit up the same way and lifted up the same way as Kevin lifted us up. 

So when I get the text message at two o'clock in the morning from someone who's been put out of their house with no shoes on their feet, and they're 20 years old and they don't know where to go, I know them because they were in our after-school program there when they were 10. When I get the text message from someone who's away at school, and they need three weeks of funding to get to graduation or three weeks of dollars just to make ends meet, I know them because they played in our basketball program when they were 12. And we're still here for them because when you say I'm here for you, you have to be here for them. 

The investment in this program puts us in a position to be here for you because we can't be here for you unless we're here for you. And we stand here today in a way that's resourced and it's that power and that promise and that potential that we embrace as a provider today. We're here to unlock it. That's okay, yes. We're here to unlock it. We're here to embrace it. And as Henry Street and P.S. 20, we're here to execute on the ground. 

In the 25 years that I've worked at Henry Street, I've never seen this kind of investment in our after-school programs. This has been a long time coming and we stand committed to continue to work in partnership with the Mayor's Office, DYCD, in gratitude to the mayor, but with a whole constellation of stakeholders to make it work. 

We're grateful to UNH. We're grateful for the other settlements, six of them in this neighborhood, 40 of them across the city, hundreds of providers to open those thousands of seats and those thousands of doors to opportunity that we talked about. We're grateful for the council's advocacy. Althea Stevens went to Henry Street programs because the inclusive and thoughtful way that the mayor has partnered to put together this concept paper and put together the operating program and the concept paper, that's inclusive, thoughtful leadership and that's how progress and change gets made. 

So we stand here profoundly grateful and committed to work in continued partnership. Thank you for coming to the Lower East Side for this transformative investment in our youth. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Almanzar: Thank you, David, and thank you to the entire team for your tireless commitment to keeping our children safe and supported. And now when we called the school to see if we can be hosted here today and then we called David, we also made another phone call and said we would love to have a participant come and join us. And I heard that both Principal Pinto and David Garza agree on one name and one name only. A young lady who's a fourth grader, the vice president of her student council, Geneva Moore.

Geneva Moore: Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Geneva. I am a student at P.S. 20, the Anna Silver School. I love my after-school program. It's called Henry Street Afterschool. We get to create lots of projects and meet new friends from other classes. At P.S. 20, our students speak lots of different languages. I also like putting on shows for our family so they can see what we've been learning. Every student in this school deserves to go to after-school and have fun like me. Thank you for making this happen.

Deputy Mayor Almanzar: Yes. Indeed. Let's give her a big round of applause. And as we're getting ready for the program to start, I was asking Geneva what she wanted to do when she grows up. And I hope that she grows up taller than I, but she will grow up. And she told me that she wants to be a soccer player, but she also wants to be a leader helping other children. So there you have it, Geneva. Thank you. 

And I want to thank you, and I want to thank every student and family participating in our nation's largest after-school system. And we want to continue on your success. We're invested in your success. In the coming months, please keep an eye out for our concept paper that we'll be releasing soon, and for all the engagement that our office and the commissioner's office will do to make sure that we put in practice a fantastic program, as we have done for the last 20 years under DYCD. Thanks, everybody. And now, on to questions.

Question: So I have two questions, Mr. Mayor. The first question is this. What do you think this is going to mean to working parents, that they're going to have this option for their kids to have after-school programs?

Mayor Adams: That's extremely important. You know, we had after-school programs, many of us that are here as children. But I always talk about my oldest sister lost her entire childhood taking care of her five siblings. 

You know, she, you know, she didn't, she was unable to do the things that normally a young teenage girl would be able to do. And so when you create a safe space for parents, that they know that their babies are in a safe place, not only for public safety reasons, but also to development. 

You know, we ignored the fact that at that age, a child's brain is developing at an unbelievable pace. The socialization skills, how to socialize and be with others. These devices that they use, they are really impacting on the socialization skills that they must develop. How do you communicate? How do you talk to each other? These programs, what we're teaching them, because it's not just about running around, kicking a ball, as Commissioner Howard did during the Summer Youth Employment, teaching financial literacy, communication skills, meditation, mindfulness. They are developing the full personhood of children, because you can be academically smart and not emotionally intelligent. 

Our children must be emotionally intelligent to match their academics. And parents are going to see the difference in their child when they come home after some of these programs that we teach them skills. They're going to see their parents getting overly excited about something, and they're going to say, Mom, Dad, just breathe, just breathe. You know, those skills are unbelievable. And so this means a lot for parents, and it means a lot for our schools, and it means a lot for our city.

Question: Does it also help parents to be able to work longer hours?

Mayor Adams: Without a doubt, parenting is hard, it’s rewarding but it is hard. And you have to put yourself on the shelf as you invest in your child. When you find a safe space for them, you start thinking about going back to school, you know, doing things that you love, getting a job, not having to sit home and wait. 

So this is really opening opportunities for after-school, for our children, but really allowing parents to find themselves again. You know, my son's mom, she took off from work because of the adequate child care that she wanted to have Jordan receive, but she put her whole career on hold. And so parents should not have to place their careers on hold. And overwhelmingly, the person who places a career on hold is the mother of the household. It's just unfair, and we're equaling out the playing field.

Question: Two-part question here. You talked a bit about zip codes, about expanding into more neighborhoods. Do you have any sense yet, at least on this first cohort of seats that are opening up, where those are going to be, how you're going to choose them? And two, if you have a mayoral race coming up, if you're reelected, in order to make this truly universal, what steps are next? Would you need Albany's help to do so?

Mayor Adams: Yep. We're looking at those neighborhoods with greater needs, as you just pointed out. We want to make sure when we start, when we do an analysis of what after-school programs are and where opportunities for doing extracurricular activities after-school, there's clearly communities where they don't exist. Some are overly saturated. You know, if you live on the Upper West Side, you have everything. You have Museum Mile, where you can just walk down the block and they're living, breathing after-school programs and opportunities. We want to go to those places where those opportunities don't exist, and that's part of our analysis to do so. 

But we want it universal. Even if you are on Museum Mile, we want you to have opportunities as well. But we want to go to those areas in the first 5,000 with a greater need, and then as we continue to roll out. And of course, in 2026, when I'm reelected, we're going to continue to make this universal. 

We're always up with our tin cup in Albany, asking them for their help, and we look forward to them assisting because many of them talk about universal after-school. So we think we have some real allies up there, and we're going to continue to get them to support this whole concept. They helped us in decreasing the cost of child care, of maintaining school governance, and so they've been always partners with us, and we're going to continue to do so. Kelly, what's happening?

Question: Speaking of, I wanted to ask you, you know, the governor announced an agreement on the state budget yesterday. Part of that is investing in a child care voucher program here in the city, but she also announced Discovery reforms, Kendra's Law reforms. Can you just talk about maybe getting some wins in the state budget, what your thoughts are on that?

Mayor Adams: Yeah, Jacques reached out to me, and they got to sit down and brief me on it, exactly what's coming out of it. So it's almost premature right now. Thank God it's done before our budget announcement on Thursday, so I need to dig into the crevices and find out exactly how this budget impacts the state. We're creatures of the state, and a lot that happens in the state impacts us. So if you would give me a day or so, I'd be able to answer that, you know, fully. What's happening?

Question: Wondering about the application process, how you think that would work? Would it be first-come, first-served, application-based? How do you envision this happening?

Commissioner Howard: So as the mayor indicated, you know, we have a lot of thought partners, so the first is going to be a concept paper, you know, just engaging our thought partners, our programs partners. And then when we get that, we're going to put out an RFP to mention that as well. So once the RFP comes out, it will tell the specifics on how to apply for those available slots and how to apply for, you know, other slots in the future.

Mayor Adams: Alright. Thank you.

###