City Cuts Funding to Nearly 200 After-School Programs By Julie Shapiro, DNAinfo Reporter

NEW YORK — Nearly 200 after-school programs across the city are in danger of closing for good this fall, after all of their funding was axed, officials said Monday.

Advocates have known the cuts were coming for months, but the city just notified nonprofits late last week about which programs will receive funding and which will not.

"It's disgraceful," said Lynn Appelbaum, chief program officer at the Educational Alliance, which just found out that it lost funding for three of its four programs. "It's just sad…. What's going to happen to these kids and their families?"

In all, the city slashed the number of after-school spots at elementary and middle schools from about 53,000 this year to only about 25,000 next year, the city Department of Youth and Community Development said Monday. That means that starting in September, tens of thousands of children across the five boroughs will be left with nowhere to go after school lets out.

The cuts are steepest in Manhattan, which will lose 40 of its 70 after-school programs, the city said. Brooklyn will lose nearly half of its 153 programs, The Bronx will lose 40 of its 92 programs, Queens will lose 31 of its 83 programs and Staten Island will lose six of its 19 programs, advocates said.

One of the hardest-hit neighborhoods in the city is the Lower East Side and Chinatown, where P.S. 2, P.S. 20, P.S. 124, P.S. 137, P.S. 140 and P.S. 142 will lose funding.

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