Transcript: Mayor Adams, City Council Announce Historic 10 Point Plan to Make High Quality Child Care More Affordable, Accessible For All New Yorkers

August 29, 2024

Deputy Mayor Ana Almanzar, Strategic Initiatives: Before we get things started, I would like to thank our host today, Tashoy Saddler-Morris, and Friends of Crown Heights for having us here, and the entire team who welcomed us this morning.

I would also like to acknowledge our partners with us, New York City Councilmember and Education chair, Rita Joseph, New York City Councilmember and Finance chair, Justin Brannan. He's in the house, definitely. It's always good to be home. I would like to also welcome our first deputy chancellor of New York City Public Schools, Dan Weisberg, two very special deputy chancellors of New York City Public Schools, Simone Hawkins and Christina Foti. It has been a true pleasure working with you both throughout these last few weeks.

Also, our colleague, our Commissioner from ACS, Jess Dannhauser. I always say that he has the coolest name in government. Thank you for your partnership, commissioner. Also, Richard R. Buery, chief executive officer of Robin Hood, thank you for your ongoing support of the Adams Administration and of children and families throughout the city. A special thank you to my team at the Mayor's Office of Child Care and Early Child Education, and our interim executive director, Tovah Gottesman. Thank you, Tovah, for all the work you do.

At the start of this administration, we understood that there was work to be done to support our New York City's early child education system. Collaborating with City Council, New York City Public Schools, ACS, DOHMH, DSS, HRA, and so many other partners throughout the city, we understood that there was a lot to be done to make this better. And that speaks about how the mayor leads. It's all about getting stuff done. With that, it is my pleasure to introduce the mayor of the greatest city on Earth, Mayor Eric Adams. Thank you.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you so much, and I am extremely familiar with this amazing organization. As a borough president, I had the opportunity to watch their work and their dedication and level of professionalism. And I don't know, how many sites you have now? Twenty-one sites. Twenty-one sites.

There was something unique about this institution that if you didn't look closely, you wouldn't really understand it, Friends of Crown Heights. They have this Caribbean discipline to it. The Caribbean, they fully understood the power of education. And they knew how important it was to have the foundation. They just slowly built. And you watch them over the years just evolve into a beautiful building like this. And you look at this building, this is their glory. It's not their story. Their story are the smallest settings. And even when there were major transformations, I remember meeting with them as there were attempts to take away these small, local child care providers. And they stood in there and just maintained a level of excellence. And I just cannot thank them enough.

We should have a pathway of your graduates. Trust me, their graduates are probably in some of the most prestigious academic institutions and going on to do some great things. And more than a tree grew in Brooklyn, a great child care establishment grew in Brooklyn. And the foundation and the roots of that was very much part of the Friends of Crown Heights. So Ms. Sadler-Morris, who we're going to hear from, I want to say congratulations to you and the entire team for what you have done in nourishing the minds of young people.

And I'm glad the deputy mayor acknowledged the partnership. The partnership with the finance chair and the forever teacher that has also joined us in understanding the importance of our children and what our children represent. Councilwoman Rita Joseph has crisscrossed this city and has become a constant advocate for how do we improve our educational system. Something that we believe in so much, serving families as this institution for over two decades, starting out with children as young as two years old, and giving them the roots to understand the power of early education.

Early this summer, we stood with the city council. And we talked about the challenges we were facing in education. She couldn't be here with us today, but Speaker Adrienne Adams and her team, we knew we had to lean into how do we continue to success in education. From not only K through 12, but from the days that a mother carries a baby in her womb to the time they move to the profession. We expanded the full scope of what we must do as a city and taking care of producing healthy babies so we can produce healthy adults. And this part of it was crucial.

And despite facing unprecedented challenges, fiscal cliffs, a lot of the dollars that were put in place for early childhood were sunsetting. We were dealing with the challenges of 212,000 migrants and asylum seekers coming out of COVID. In spite of all of that, we put families first. And we made sure that the three important entities of housing, childcare, and healthcare were front and center for our administration. And when we reached the budget deal, we said we landed the plane. On that plane were the passengers of our children who needed to have well-funded infrastructure to have the quality healthcare that we wanted. And we are really proud that we moved towards our North Star. And we've accomplished that goal.

You don't hear the name connected with childcare, but I know the name very well. And that's Rich Buery. In the previous administration, he brought so much knowledge and commitment and dedication over at Robin Hood. And every time we went to Rich, he was there for us. He was there for us with financial support, but also wisdom. And, Rich, I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for this city and for our children. And we're going to continue to move in that direction.

Part of making our city more affordable means that we have to have affordable childcare and early childhood education, which our children deserve. We looked at studies after studies and reports after reports. When a parent must stay home to take care of their children, it's more likely that it is a woman. And when you look at the dollar amount that a mother loses throughout the year, years from having to stay home to do quality childcare, it is an awesome amount of money. And we wanted to zero in on that. And we accomplished that.

It's written in my mom's story of working three jobs, having six children that she would support. And over a lifetime, a mother loses over $145,000 over their lifetime through lack of salary or payroll throughout having to be home to take care of a child. All families deserve to live in a city that is affordable and to live in a safe place to leave their children. And sitting at home watching TV all day is not adequate childcare and development of a young mind as it continues to develop. And we said no to that.

But look at the records. This administration, with the partnership of the City Council, we continue to break records of moving our city forward. Over the past school year, we had 150,000 students enrolled in early childhood education across our system. That's a record high. We've never had that before, never had it before. And so the chancellor, Dan, you and your team over at the Department of Education, ACS team, we are continuing to expand and get children in the seats.

And now I want to be clear, record enrollments have been well done, but they've been growing pains. This is a huge system. It's a city with 3.8 million people and 38 million opinions. There's always something going on in this city. But we push forward and move towards that North Star. There were vacant seats in some places and too many, too few seats in others. A disjointed system. And we have to use technology to bring that system together and really identify where the needs were. It was a bold, bold opportunity, and we leaned into that. And we're paying now to fix the problem.

We have thousands of seats that children were not in the seats, yet we were paying for those seats. That made no sense. And like finance chair Justin Brannan said, when we announced the adopted budget, we can't just throw money at the problem and hope things get better. It makes no sense, and we were not going to do that. The system was not equitable, and there was a knowledge gap between the families who knew how to enroll and those who didn't. That was a problem. And now this administration has addressed these problems head on because we are committed to doing everything in our power to make sure the system is working well for our hardworking families. And we continue to break records over and over again.

Consider the ratios of applicants to acceptance. For 3-K alone, this year we received over 43,000 applicants, triple the number from 2019 where there were only 14,000 applicants. Despite the record demand, when notices first went out in May, we made over 42,000 offers for the next school year. That's 94 percent of families initially received an offer on the first day offers went out.

Today we're announcing that because of our work adding more seats and working closely with families and providers, every child who applied on time has been offered a seat. That is the first time we have ever been able to do that in New York City. That means we have given office to 100 percent of who wanted one and applied on time. So let's fix this chart.

This is real progress. It's real teamwork. Outside nonprofits, inside entities, agencies, organizations, teachers. We are also announcing a $100 million investment in a historic plan to fix lingering problems and improve our system. This is reimagining of the entire early childhood education system from the ground up. And that's also former Mayor Bill de Blasio who had that vision. And vision is a continuing handing off a baton to the next administration, not trying to tear down and rebuild, but to improve on it. We're going to run our mile so when we hand off the baton to the next runner, they can improve on it even more.

Already the plan that we put in place is taking effect and working. Today I'm proud to announce that in the two months since passing our budget, we have added over 1,500 seats in communities that needed them to increase opportunity and access. It was unbelievable when we looked at the map and we saw communities that needed seats, had no seats available in those communities. We have changed that and moved forward. And all of the approximately 2,400 families who initially did not have or receive a 3-K offer have now received one.

We upheld our commitment to make sure that every single child who wants a seat has access to a seat. Our plan also includes a $5 million outreach effort. This is something that the City Council leaned into. Councilmember Rita Joseph knew that to have a great program and parents and families were not getting those programs was a failing program. So we're going to hit the streets, meet people where they are, and take them where they ought to be and not expect them to do it alone. This is essential to ensure that all families are aware of the early childhood education opportunities and how to apply.

It would also fund early childhood special education programs. Never has it been done before. We've been leaving parents and families with children with special needs behind. Every special needs child, we have a special parent that desires the same thing for their child that we want for our child. We're going to reduce the wait list times for special education pre-K seats. This includes 450 additional special education seats available this fall with a goal of reaching 700 throughout the school year. All supported by a historic commitment of $122 million for pre-school special education that supports both community-based organizations and district schools. This is a big deal. Now pre-K students with special needs who have been on waiting lists at providers will have access to classes and support their needs.

And while these are not new programs, they were only temporarily propped up with expiring stimulus dollars as I indicated. They were going to sunset. And we said no. That is why our administration is stepping up to support them with permanent dollars to make sure funding never expires. To better support working parents, this plan also provides free extended early childhood education hours for more than 1,700 families. This is all part of a pilot program to eventually support free extended hours for 1,000 more families. This investment will also support Promise NYC, which provides child care opportunities and options to undocumented children and families that are still our children. And we want to make sure they have the opportunities they deserve.

It's important to make sure that this plan has the resources it needed to become a reality. That is why we will substantially fund the Mayor's Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education. Funding for this office previously had to rely on philanthropic dollars, but not anymore. It is going to rely on permanent dollars from the City of New York.

And we're excited that both our child care advisory group and the biweekly meetings hosted by co-chairs, D.M. Ana Almanzar, and Speaker Adams, that continue to keep things on track. We're communicating, we're talking, we're coordinating, and we're making sure that we continue to move towards our North Star.The budget deal was only the beginning. The execution of that deal must take place, and it is. This all builds on our strong record of success supporting early childhood education.

Finally, let's talk about the broader picture. Today, we're announcing $100 million plan to realize our vision of finally achieving accessible, affordable child care. But let me be clear, we've been building towards this vision for a long time. For example, the budget includes a total of early child education investment of $3 billion. $3 billion going into early child education. This Council and this administration has consistently looked towards investing in early childhood education.

Over the last two years, we have made more pre-K seats available than ever before in our city history, with more families getting their top choices than ever before. And we have invested $5 million, as I indicated, to parents across the five boroughs for outreach. We have driven down the cost of subsidized child care. It used to be $55 a week for those families that make $55,000 or less. It's now less than $5 a week, making sure that these parents can afford this child care. But that's not all. We have achieved educational milestones across the board.

Chancellor Banks and Dan and their team have increased public school enrollment, boosted test scores, revolutionized how we are teaching children math and English, and doubled down on our support for multilingual learners, newcomers, and students with disabilities. Making sure education works. This is so important to me. This is not just a professional story. It's a personal story. Suffering from dyslexia, I knew what it was like without that early diagnosis and getting the support that I deserve. We are clear with the partnership of the Council and this administration and leading Deputy Mayor Almanzar, our leadership is going to allow us to accomplish the goal that we set out to accomplish.

It's so significant to be in this center. Over 50 years ago, September 9th, a mom started her job in a child care service called Amsted Daycare Center. She was a cook. It was her first job, first union job. She no longer was doing three jobs a day, no longer struggling. She felt a sense of purpose as she cooked for those children and watched them come in. They used to call her Auntie Dorothy. And now I stand here with the Auntie Dorothys of today as they embrace these young children to make sure they have an opportunity.

If we don't educate, we will incarcerate. We got to do it early. And that's what this investment is about. We're investing in the future of our children, which will produce the future of our city. It's a proud moment for the City Council and this administration and all of our partners in government as we are doing what's right for our children. Thank you very much.

Deputy Mayor Almanzar: Yes, indeed. A big round of applause to Mayor Adams. Thank you. And before I introduce our next speaker, I just want to acknowledge our colleague from New York City Public Schools, Trevonda Kelly, who worked with her team for weeks to make sure that those families, mayor, that every single one of them got an offer for a school this year for early childhood. Yes. And now it is my pleasure to introduce a fellow Caribbean with that discipline, right. And a forever teacher. As the mayor said, our councilmember, Rita Joseph. Thank you.

City Councilmember Rita Joseph: Good morning, everyone. Good morning. I'm Councilmember Rita Joseph, chair of the Committee on Education. Welcome to the 40th Council District. One of my favorite early childhood education sites led by the Friends of Crown Heights Educational Center. A few months ago, I had a chance to hang out here with some of my youngest constituents as we plant fresh produce to celebrate the week of the young child.

Today, I'm proud to be back as we stand together to acknowledge the progress we've made in early childhood education and reaffirm our commitment to working collaboratively with the Adams administration. Thank you, Mayor Adams. Under the leadership of Speaker Adrienne Adams, in collaboration with the Adams administration, we've had the opportunity to pass a budget deal. Deal that delivers education and makes strides towards progressing our city's early childhood education system. It's a testament that we can achieve when we prioritize our children's future and work together to make meaningful change.

As a forever educator, I want to thank everyone involved for their dedication, hard work. It's a significant step in the right direction. However, as we celebrate this progress, we're also here to recognize the critical gap that remain. With a new school year just around the corner, we face the reality that some of our new special education seats are up and running. This is a pressing issue we cannot afford to overlook. So I'm happy to hear that we have 450 seats in the pipeline and looking to expand. Our most vulnerable New York students who require specialized support are depending on this to get right. Early intervention is not just a beneficial, it's essential. And I've seen students in special education who get the right intervention early later on can be decertified in special education.

For many of these young learners, the services they receive in preschool can set the trajectory for an entire educational journey. New York City is a place where we've shown time and time again that we can rise to the occasion and meet the needs of our residents. It's possible here in the city to ensure that every child has access to a quality education they deserve. And the team that I get to do that with every two weeks at Tweed is right here. And I thank you for your partnership. But it requires us to keep pushing, to keep collaborating, and to remain steadfast in our commitment to our youngest New Yorkers.

We have the opportunity and responsibility to deliver on promise of equitable, high-quality early childhood education, including special education services that are so crucial for our children's success. Let's continue to work together. Mayor Adams, you have a partner in this work. D.M. Almanzar, you have a partner in the rest of the team. Remember, no child is left behind, that every family can feel confident that their child is receiving the best education our city can provide. So thank you again for all of you here. Thank you for our partnership. And I continue to work in this space with you all. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Almanzar: Thank you, Councilmember Joseph, and thank you for your partnership and seeing her every two weeks bringing all that energy, all her dedication, and all that knowledge to keeping us on our toes. So I appreciate that. Thank you. And now I'll welcome our Councilmember, Justin Brannan.

City Councilmember Justin Brannan: Thank you. I want to thank Friends of Crown Heights. You guys are everywhere. You've got one out there. I represent Coney Island. You've got one out there. We've got to get you out in Bay Ridge, too.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We've gotten the band back together here. I worked under Dr. Buery back in a former life under Chancellor Fariña in the DOE, putting together early childhood 1.0. So now we're doing Mayor Adams' early childhood 2.0. So this is a big day because this is sort of our way of giving you a progress report, right? We shook hands on the deal back in June, and now we're here to tell you that what we agreed on is actually happening and coming into fruition and that when FDOS, which is first day of school for all my old DOE friends, we hear FDOS, we shake, we shake. But we're ready. We're ready for FDOS. But this is a big day.

But this is a big day because every day we read another report about how the growing costs of housing and child care are pushing working families out of the city. So hitting the reset button here has long been a top priority shared by the administration and this Council. We know that strengthening our city's early childhood education system is not just sound social policy, but it makes good economic sense. That means that we can make our city's economy even stronger tomorrow if we get this right today.

For over a year, the Council has advocated for extending full-day seats, providing seats for preschool, special education, and supporting the early childhood workforce. And that's what we're announcing today. That's everything that the mayor announced in his remarks. In June, we reached a comprehensive agreement with the administration to immediately fund seats for families still awaiting 3-K placements or on waiting lists for the pre-K special education and to implement other reforms that address problems in the system so that families can access seats. And like the mayor said, and like I said back in June, it was more than just writing a check. There's some problems that you can't just throw money at it. You actually have to sit down and reimagine it and figure out how to best spend that money properly. And that's what we're doing here today. And the work doesn't stop here.

Today, like I said, we're just giving you a progress report. The Council will continue to work in partnership with the administration to fix our city's world-class early childhood education system so that middle and working class families can afford to stay in the city and enjoy all this extraordinary city has to offer. Thank you very much.

Deputy Mayor Almanzar: Thank you, councilmember. And you're right. We need to work together to get this done. Thank you. And now it is my pleasure to introduce someone with a special talent because it takes that hard talent and dedication to be a teacher and to be a teacher of very, very young children. Thank you for having us here today. But I welcome you to the podium, Principal Sadler-Morris.

Tashoy Saddler-Morris, Friends of Crown Heights: Well, welcome to East 40th Street Friends of Crown Heights. It's a pleasure. It's like heartwarming, overwhelming to have the mayor in my presence. I feel so blessed. And all the Friends of Crown Heights representatives that are here today, we are honored to host you. And anytime you're open to come here.

So as you know, Friends of Crown Heights is everywhere. And we have been partnering with community organizations just to make our centers out there in the public. We serve the ages from infants right up to after school. So as the mayor said and mentioned all those monies, we look forward to using, making great use of them. And I'd just like to say, you know, Friends of Crown Heights is unique in the sense that if you look around in the centers, we reflect our community.

We're in East Flatbush today. And you see you have that Caribbean flavor. I'm sure you hear my accent. And you'll see when you go to interact, when he goes to interact with our students. So it's a pleasure to have you. And we look forward to working with you. Early childhood education has always been a passion for me from maybe I was nine years old. And it continues to be. I love what I do. And I'm here to support and to make you, you know, proud of what you do for New York City. So thank you again.

Deputy Mayor Almanzar: They're signaling to me to make sure that I do the proper thing. And how can I not do it? Someone who had dedicated his career to public service, who always had New York City in his heart. I hope Brooklyn is a big part of that. Richard Buery I'm putting on the spot. It is my pleasure to introduce the CEO of Robin Hood, Richard R. Buery.

Richard Buery, Jr, CEO, Robin Hood: It's such a pleasure to be here today with another Caribbean American. I'm representing Brooklyn and Panama, of course. It is really heartwarming to be here today. We always say that early education is the most important, the most common sense investment any community can make. And it's such a powerful one to punch.

First of all, we know that young people's brains are developing at an extraordinary rate in those first five years of life. So much of what will set the course, just learning how to learn, learning how to play, all those things are happening in those early years. So making sure that young people are in rich learning environments, like Friends of Crown Heights, with dedicated educators who treat them like their own children, but also have the training and the support to help them on that journey, is so critical to everything else that happens. We always say that the biggest fans of early education are kindergarten teachers, because they understand the difference when kids come to those classrooms without training.

But it was also what the mayor was saying, the most intelligent economic development and workforce development and economic investment we can make, because parents who don't have a safe place to leave their children can't participate in the workforce. And we know that is a burden that falls most heavily on women. So it is the most incredible and the most obvious one to punch. And I just want to really applaud Mayor Adams. From the outset of your tenure, you've expressed your strong commitment to child care. I know we at Robin Hood are so proud to partner with the city every day on helping to build a strong system, helping to make New York City the best place in the world to raise children.

I remember when I called you to talk about this idea of bringing our collaborative $100 million fund to launch the Child Care Quality Innovation Fund, really focusing on making sure that we were promoting quality, affordability, and access in our system. I don't think I got through the end of the first sentence when you were like, where do I have to be, what do I have to do? And it is that kind of leadership that helps build a system like this. But we also know that with the loss of federal fundings, with the havoc reached by the pandemic, with the challenges to the budget caused by the migrant crisis, this creates a real challenge on building the early childhood education system that we all care about.

And that's why I really want to thank and applaud Mayor Adams, the Council Speaker Adams, Councilmember Brannan, Councilmember Joseph for, despite those challenges, doing what makes sense, making sure that we invest in the things that matter. And we've heard that today, making sure that we're building more seats, making sure that we're building better systems to get the seats where they are. The investment in outreach, which I can't underestimate. You know, if parents don't understand how to navigate the system, they won't get to the seats that they need.

We always used to say, this is not like Field of Dreams. Just because you build it doesn't mean they will come. You actually have to help people come to that system. So I want to thank the mayor and the deputy mayor. I want to thank, of course, the team at City Hall, the team at Tweed, New York City Public Schools, just for fulfilling this promise. And, of course, the new Deputy Chancellor, Simone Hawkins. She leads the effort to implement all the investments that we're making.

I just want to say one thing personally. September 4th will be the 10th year anniversary of the launch of Pre-K for All, where I got to work with Mayor de Blasio to help begin this promise. And what you said is so true. I'm so proud of the foundation that I was able to build when I sat in your seat. But nobody would ever have claimed that what we were doing was finishing that journey. And all the improvements that you're committing to, to help build the system stronger and stronger, it just makes me proud to be a New Yorker, makes me happy to be a parent here, and so blessed to partner with the city and all the nonprofit organizations, like Friends of Crown Heights, which, of course, are the heart of this system, to do this work. So I'm going to say congratulations and thank you, and to the people of New York, the parents of New York, better and better days yet to come. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Almanzar: I just want to give a round of applause to Mr. Buery, who has a young student going to college and one graduating this year. So bravo. Good job. Yes, thank you. Now we'll take some questions.

Question: Good morning, everyone.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: Good, thank you. You mentioned that every family that applied on time for a seat has a seat. Are there other families that perhaps didn't apply on time, or any other people who, for some reason, don't have an assigned seat yet?

First Deputy Chancellor Daniel Weisberg, New York City Public Schools: Yes, there are always going to be families that don't meet the deadline for whatever reason. Those families have access, and so they exist this year as they do every year. Those families have access to our system. Those families actually are putting their names on waiting lists, have done that. We don't have a count for you. We can check on that. Many have actually been accepted.

The commitment the mayor made that we made good on was every family that applied by the deadline would get an offer. That has now happened. That doesn't mean our job is done. Trevonda and her team are still working very hard on all families, whether they met the deadline or not, to try to accommodate them as best we can. The investments that were made between the mayor and the City Council, allowing us to open up over 1,500 seats in a relatively short period of time, which is an amazing effort by our CBO partners, by our principals and teachers and so forth, that allows not just the families who applied on time, but all the families who are interested, newcomers to New York, whatever the reason is, to get a better opportunity to get a seat.

Question: And there was some concern in the past that families were getting a seat, but perhaps not close to their neighborhood, places that were just completely inconvenient. Any sense on whether or not you've been able to better match families to their top choices or places that are closer to their neighborhoods?

First Deputy Chancellor Weisberg: Yes, thank you for that question. This is one of the nuances. It's not just about, and the mayor has been very clear internally as we were talking, and the deputy mayor has been very clear, it's not about just giving an offer to any seat, as you say. It's trying to accommodate the families as best we can to make it as convenient as possible for them.

What's happened since the mayor cited these figures, when we did the first round of offers, we had about 2,400 students who didn't have an offer. We could have just thrown out random offers to all those families. That's not what the mayor wanted to do. That's not what we did. That number came down from 2,400 to 800. Why did that happen? Not because we were forcing them into a place, because they were in the system looking for the sites that had waiting lists or had openings, putting their names on a list, the waiting lists were coming down. And by the way, we don't want to make that decision.

In some cases, yes. In a lot of cases, most convenient to have a site with a little one that's down the block or around a corner. Sometimes it might be in another neighborhood where you work, or it might be in another neighborhood where you have a family member, a grandmother, so forth, who's going to care for the child after the school is done. So we don't want to make that decision for them. What we saw is the bulk of those 2,400 were able to select themselves, which is a great outcome. The ones that were left over at the end, we wanted to make sure they got some offers, so we did the best we could to match them closest to home. And most of them, we were able to find them a spot relatively close to home.

Mayor Adams: And your question is a good question. The first round, 94 percent of the families got their first offers. First round, 94 percent. That was never done before. We knew we had to go in and find areas. Our chief technology officer did a mapping system for us that allowed us to identify where the needs are, and it was astonishing to find out that there were no seats in that area. So we had to open new seats and allocate new funding so that we can actually keep the families in the areas that they want.

This really is a story that's not being told. The partnership with the chief technology officer, with the early childhood development, with City Hall, with our partners, we knew we had to keep fine-tuning until we got to that point of 100 percent.

Question: Thank you. Kind of following up on that same question, but with these last 6 percent of offers, were there any of those offers that were rejected where the families didn't actually accept them?

First Deputy Chancellor Weisberg:. Some of them, sure, not just with the 6 percent, but with all of them. We put an offer out there. Things change for families. They signed up for a particular site. They ended up deciding, no, I'm going to keep my child at home, or they move, or whatever happens. So, sure, not all of those offers get accepted. Our commitment was if they wanted a spot, they absolutely would have a guaranteed spot. That's what we followed through on.

Question: Do you have specific numbers, though, or a ballpark of actual numbers?

Mayor Adams: No, no, we don't. You know, the complexities of this operation and the movement of it, remember, every day we were getting in new arrivals. We're still getting around 700, 800 people a week that are bringing children. And so the complexities of I no longer live at this location, I'm moving, I now want to rearrange to have Grandma pick up my child instead, and she lives in another area. This is not a science where once you set one number, it's automatically fit. That is not it. This team over at the DOE, over at ACS, it's a constant refining of the system. And if you remain stagnant, you will never be able to get these numbers that we accomplished.

When we got engaged, rolled up our sleeves, brought the teams together, and said we have to fit the system based on the realities that are playing out on the ground. And that's what we did. And so if there's one, two families or three families that say, well, that doesn't work for me, that's fine. If that's what folks want their emphasis to be, that's great. Well, my emphasis is we started out with 94 percent. 94 percent, never done before. We're now at 100 percent. That is where I'm going to emphasize on. I'm not great in math, but 100 percent is a great percentage to get to.

Question: One more for Deputy Chancellor Hawkins. I know you're new in the role. What do you see as some of the biggest challenges in early childhood education in New York City right now? What are your priorities for the role?

Deputy Chancellor Simone Hawkins, Early Childhood Education, New York City Public Schools: For one, I have to begin by saying I'm excited to be here, clearly. And have to echo Brooklyn in the house. So I think I would be a bit premature in kind of listing that here. One thing I'm committed to is engaging with stakeholders like Friends of Crown Heights, partners at the City Council, the administration to really firm up what that list is.

I'm committed to hearing and understanding what our priorities for communities, which vary, right? But one thing I know is around payments, is around needs that parents have that is changing and multifaceted. We have to keep up with what they want as they move through community and our communities change. So for me, that's a priority. Someone who was educated here, went to early childhood here, and is raising my daughter here. We have to be a nimble system. So I think my priority is figuring out all the components that can make us do that successfully.

Mayor Adams: That's a great word you use. We have to be a nimble system. This is a nimble system. 40,000 children came through our system in a short period of time. We have to be a nimble system of not only new arrivals, multi-languages. If we are not nimble, if we're not willing to adjust, then we're not going to successfully accomplish this task. And that's what we have been able to do.

Our trademark is the ability to pivot and shift based on the circumstances that are in front of us. Because all of us, all of these individuals standing behind me, they can tell you we were rooted in families, we grew up in systems, where you better be able to adjust some way, somehow, to make it to the next day. And we're doing that every day. Thank you very much.

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