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More families get preschool seats closer to home as Mamdani adds more slots
By
Karen Yi
Published Jul 10, 2026
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By
Karen Yi
Published Jul 10, 2026
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Hundreds of New York City families who didn’t initially get into the preschool programs they wanted for their 3-year-olds have been offered slots closer to home, city officials said.
The updated placement numbers are a result of more than 700 seats the Mamdani administration added to its free 3-K program after applications closed in order to meet demand. That allowed nearly 1,700 families to enroll their toddlers in programs that are more convenient and closer to where they live.
The new data was released by the city on Friday, as the Mamdani administration continues to fix its existing preschool offerings for parents and work toward building a universal childcare system. Parents have often complained that the city’s 3-K programs don’t work for them because their children were assigned to classrooms in other boroughs or places where it was hard to drop them on their commute to work.
"Child care can only be universal if it is actually accessible. For years, parents have been forced to travel across boroughs or settle for options that simply don't work for their families," said Emmy Liss, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education. "Under Mayor Mamdani's leadership, we're beginning to change that."
Of the 42,600 families who applied to 3-K this year, about 70% received their first choice and about 84% received one of their top three choices; both numbers are an improvement over last year.
About 5,100 families didn’t receive a seat in any of the programs they ranked. But with the new added seats, about 20% were able to get into a classroom closer to home, city officials said. The biggest gains were on Staten Island, where the average home-to-slot distance dropped from 5 miles to under 2 miles, according to city information.
Mamdani added 2,000 new 3-K seats this year, as part of a $1.2 billion investment in childcare by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The city will also launch a new program for 2-year-olds this September. City officials said families will be notified of their placements in August.
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new york city
staten island
Karen Yi
Karen Yi covers homelessness and poverty. She joined the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom in 2020. Before that, Karen covered Newark for the Star-Ledger and spent almost a decade working for newspapers in New Jersey and Florida. She grew up in Miami and has a dog named Cashew. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-589-1460.
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