GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

At a LYFE center at Urban Academy. Picture by Los Dragonnes via Flickr.

A report out today by the New York Civil Liberties Union says the Department of Education should bolster its daycare program for students with young children of their own. But because of budget cuts, the DOE could actually move in the opposite direction, cutting off young parents’ access to free DOE-run daycare centers currently housed in 40 public schools across the city.

The programs, called LYFE centers, have existed since 1982. Last year, after the city eliminated special schools just for pregnant and parenting teens, saying that the schools were academically weak, the LYFE centers became the centerpiece of the DOE’s services for young parents.

Now the centers could also be on the chopping block, a possibility that has one editor of the report worried.

Without the LYFE centers, “the DOE would lack any real meaningful services for this very high-risk population,” Galen Sherwin, director of NYCLU’s Reproductive Rights Program, told me. “The outcome would be devastating.”

The LYFE centers have already taken a hit from the faltering economy. (more…)