Kids, Parents, Teachers Protest Contract Cancellation for Afterschool Provider
On Monday afternoon, more than 100 parents, educators, community leaders, and elected officials gathered on the steps of City Hall to demonstrate against a recent decision by the City’s Department of Youth & Community Development (DYCD) to cancel contracts for Manhattan Youth to provide afterschool services at 13 middle schools.
Based in Tribeca, Manhattan Youth has managed academic and athletic offerings at each of the 13 schools for more than a decade. The organization (which was awarded contracts to continue providing afterschool services at 12 other schools) offers everything from athletics (fielding teams in more than a dozen sports) and arts to enrichment activities and academic support.
At issue is a new City process for designating providers of afterschool services. For decades, this was based largely on the judgment of each school’s principal, with existing providers also evaluated on metrics like attendance, participation, and academic performance. Last year, however, the DYCD decided to base the selection process on competitive bidding and issued a request for proposals (RFP).
Bob Townley, the founder and executive director of Manhattan Youth (who inaugurated the organization’s first afterschool program in 1986), says, “there are multiple problems with this approach. First, principals, who know their schools best, have been cut out of the process. Second, bidding out goods and services, such as office supplies or a construction project, makes sense, because that is an apples-to-apples comparison. But what we do is based on intangibles and variables. For example, we hire many of the school’s employees, such as teachers and aides, to stay late and continue working with the kids they already know. Those students end up forming important relationships with our staff, who act as mentors and counselors. And we pay those school staff union scale. Plus, we never turn any child away, even when more kids at a school sign up for our program than the contract will pay us for.”
“The scoring system for this RFP didn’t take any of those important values into account,” Mr. Townley continues, “because they are difficult to measure. So the scores, which focused primarily on quantifiable metrics, such as cost, ended up being subjective and arbitrary. They bear no relationship to the reality of what is actually happening in those schools, and the kind of service we provide. In this situation, the lowest bid doesn’t translate into the best services for kids. Probably, it results in just the opposite.”
“Imagine if the schools were run this way,” he adds, “and every six years they fired the principal and all the teachers, because another bidder promised to deliver the same service for less money. It would be chaos, and it would harm the kids. That is exactly what is happening here. And it’s doubly unfortunate, because there was no legal requirement to manage this process through an RFP. It springs from a policy change decided on by the Adams administration, which the Mamdani team inherited.”
DYCD’s decision unleashed a barrage of outraged criticism from parents and leaders at the 13 schools from which Manhattan Youth is being dropped. Within days of the May 15 announcement of the plan, more than 40 presidents and board members at Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) sent an open letter to Mayor Mamdani, saying, “this decision was made through a rushed and opaque process that excluded the very stakeholders most impacted by the outcome—students, families, teachers, School Leadership Teams, PTA leadership, and broader school communities. We are deeply troubled both by the process itself and by the substance of the contract awards.”
The letter continued, “based on information shared with our communities, principals were directed to participate in a closed-door ranking process in which they were required to rank providers they did not necessarily support or want for their schools. Principals were reportedly instructed not to discuss the process with key stakeholders, including PTA leadership, School Leadership Teams, teachers, staff, families, or Community Education Councils.”
The PTA letter also alleged, “there was no meaningful opportunity for public input, no transparency regarding evaluation criteria, and no appeals process. Families learned of decisions affecting thousands of students only after selections had already been finalized. This level of secrecy and exclusion is unacceptable for decisions that directly affect student safety, enrichment, family logistics, mental health, and school culture.”
The parents concluded by asking that City Hall pause implementation of the middle school afterschool contracts and reinstate Manhattan Youth partnerships for schools that request the continuation of these programs. An online petition at Change.org, which raises the same concerns, has gathered more 6,287 signatures as of Monday evening.
At Monday afternoon’s rally, City Council speaker Julie Menin (who formerly chaired Community Board 1), said, “afterschool programs are an essential part of our school communities, and decisions that will shape them for the next six years should not be made in an opaque way without meaningful input from the parents, students and educators who rely on them. I met with DYCD and demanded greater transparency into how these contracts were awarded. I am joining Manhattan Youth and families today to call on the Mayor and DYCD to listen to these communities and rectify these decisions before the proposed transitions move forward.”
City Council member Christopher Marte said, “families should not have to fight just to understand who is making decisions about their children’s afterschool programs and why. These contracts shape students’ daily lives, parents’ work schedules, and the stability of entire school communities, yet DYCD has not provided the transparency this process demands. Parents are asking basic, legitimate questions about how providers were selected, what standards were applied, and why community input appears to have been sidelined.”
State Assembly member Grace Lee said, “as a working mom, I know firsthand how important afterschool programs are to families. They give parents peace of mind and provide children with opportunities to learn, grow, and stay active after the school day ends. The decision not to renew these contracts would have a real impact on working families across Lower Manhattan. We are urging DYCD to reinstate these contracts and ensure these critical programs remain available to the families who depend on them.”
After the rally, Mr. Townley said, “I am optimistic that with help from Julie Menin and our other elected officials, we can still make this right. Under the terms of the RFP, DYCD maintains the right to change the outcome and overturn any previous decision. So fixing this would not be hard.”
“But while going back to these schools would be easy for us,” he noted, “starting up there will be a heavy lift for any new provider. Between now and September, hiring all-new staff and getting them cleared by the City’s process for approving anybody who works with children will be almost impossible. One principal has already told me that the new provider for that school has said they will not be ready by the start of the school year.”
“This issue is really about just two constituencies,” Mr. Townley concluded. “First, it is about what’s best for the kids. And second, it is about the parents, who entrust their children to us. This process must be about serving both of them.”
A DYCD spokesperson was not available to comment.
As PS 234 art teacher for many years I wholeheartedly endorse Bob Townley, Manhattan Youth, and his and his staff’s incredible work with children, families, and the TriBeCa community as a whole. It brings us together in untold ways and fosters a neighborhood village that we love.
Bob Townley and Manhattan Youth made Tribeca the community it is.