New York City public schools are starting later than they have in years past. For some parents, it’s a child care headache, but for day camps, it’s been a boon.
Brooklyn Music Factory in Carroll Gardens has 62 children on the wait list for its final week of camp, for a program that has 42 places at its main space and 18 at a satellite location. Its co-founder and camp director, Peira Moinester, said this was the first time in the camp’s 16-year history that so many parents were checking their place in line.
“It feels particularly heated in terms of people trying to get in the door,” she said.
The seemingly endless summer for city students — who return to class Sept. 10 — is a result of the city teachers’ union contract that includes a post-Labor Day start date with two days for professional development and preparation. (By comparison, in Los Angeles, students were back in public school on Aug. 12.)
Traditional day camps often end in mid-August, either because counselors return to college or staff members pivot to planning for after-school offerings, some camp directors said. And the city’s free summer program, Summer Rising, ended several weeks ago.
For working parents, that has meant taking paid or unpaid time off, relying on screen time, hiring babysitters — or snagging spots at camps staying open into September.
“I feel like this summer, everybody just feels stretched to the ends of what we are capable of managing,” said Julia Blaney, 39, a design director and mother of two living in Brooklyn. She cobbled together child care via day camps and help from her mother and a friend’s teenage son.
She said that when the school calendar was announced, “everybody was in a complete panic.”
Some camps — particularly smaller specialty camps — are offering additional weeks, extra hours and, in some cases, more scholarships. Several smaller camps said they were grateful for the added income, citing high overhead and the strain of running a small business that is only in operation for a few hours per day during the school year.
When Allegra Glinsky, the director of the Brooklyn Dance Conservatory, opened camp registration in early January, several parents mentioned the late school start, she said. Since her two-year-old program is run by professionals who can work right up until the start of the school year, she said she could cover what some parents had referred to as “campless week.”
“They said, ‘Just so you know, this is going to be an issue,’” she recalled them saying. “‘We’re here, you know. We’re ready to sign up.’”
SKATEYOGI, a camp offering skateboarding lessons, is similarly able to run straight through to the start of school this year. Founded 13 years ago with two Brooklyn locations, the camp generally has greater flexibility for late enrollment since most campers attend for only one week.
The extra week has been a gift, said Kevin Banahan, the co-founder and executive director of the program, which he runs with his partner, Yasuyo Takeo. “We’ve had students, maybe, that would be gone for the summer, but because they’ve got this extra week, they’re able to come and try it out,” Mr. Banahan said. Some of those campers have now committed to signing up for SKATEYOGI’s after-school programming.
Paying for extra days of camp, however, can add to the already significant costs of child care in the city. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has taken several steps to address such concerns; the mayor, with Gov. Kathy Hochul, has expanded free child care to 2-year-olds in some communities, and the city provided some parents with an evening of free babysitting during its Parents’ Night Out program.
Tabitha Decker, 47, of Brooklyn said that her son had attended nine-and-a-half weeks of camp, ranging in cost from $450 to around $900 per week. But Ms. Decker — a member of New Yorkers United for Childcare, an organization that advocates universal child care — sees herself as fortunate compared with many other parents: She can call upon her mother for support and has the financial means to pay for camp.
“Even in the best-case scenario,” she said, “this is a patchwork.”
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