Child Care Centers To Reopen At Urging Of RRP

The Reproductive Rights Project of the New York Civil Liberties Union was notified that the New York Department of Education (DOE) had decided to re-open two additional child care centers for student parents for the summer school term. The DOE cited a letter from the NYCLU in its decision to re-open the centers.

The Living for the Young Family Through Education (LYFE) Program offers child care to student parents in the New York City School System. Earlier in the summer, the DOE announced that only one LYFE center — at Street Academy in Brooklyn — would remain open for summer school students. The RRP, recognizing that such limited child care options would mean that student parents from other areas of the City would face real obstacles to attending summer school, sent a letter appealing to the DOE to make child care accessible to students around the City.

“Child care enables these students to attend summer school and increases their chances of academic success,” said Anna Schissel, Staff Attorney for the RRP. “Their babies also benefit from being enrolled in the LYFE program. Having early exposure to the school setting, they are both more likely to graduate high school and less likely to become teen parents themselves.”

Upon receiving the letter, the DOE decided to reopen the LYFE centers at Brandeis High School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and at Dewitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. Having all three centers open will make child care options accessible to student parents in need of summer school credits and other remedial assistance from nearly all areas of New York City.

This victory follows the RRP’s success in convincing the DOE to keep several LYFE Centers open during the summer of 2002 after it threatened to close the entire summer LYFE program.