Parents still scrambling for ‘Summer Rising’ seats as NYC program begins

Families were still scrambling Tuesday for seats to New York City’s free summer program for school kids after the initiative re-opened for the season with extra capacity. More than 30 families were turned away in Brooklyn Tuesday morning despite being assigned a site for the popular “Summer Rising” initiative. “I have nowhere to send my son now for the summer,” aid Monique Yearwood, a charter school parent, who was assigned to the Norma Adams Clemons Academy in Flatbush.

“I had to find alternate child care for this morning,” she added. Now in its second year, “Summer Rising” has expanded to 110,000 elementary and middle school students from 98,000 last year, according to city officials. But the departments of Education, and Youth and Community Development, still struggled to keep up with the demand for the program, which has a roughly $350 million price tag.

“Nothing was resolved,” said Yearwood, a dental hygienist at Kings County Hospital who was more than an hour late to her job after dealing with the site’s last-minute denial. After The Post requested comment on the specific situation, the DOE informed Yearwood her son could attend the program after all. Officials apologized for the incident and ensured the district superintendent will be available tomorrow morning “to ensure smooth operations.

” “Every student registered at this site has a seat,” said Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for the DOE. Other families who couldn’t get in the program were still holding out hope someone else would drop out. Staten Island resident Vlad Fruman said his 8-year-old son was shut out of Summer Rising’s Richmond County site, only two days into the registration period this spring.

He also tried reaching out in mid-June, when he was told seats could open on the local level, and on the last day of school. “Today the program started, and I’m reaching out to see if there are any available seats — but nobody has responded,” said Fruman. For now, the Frumans’ plan is to send their son to a summer camp in Vermont — that does not include academics, and only lasts two weeks.

The city program, meanwhile, provides academics by licensed teachers in the morning, and enrichment activities like arts, sports and field trips in the afternoon through community groups. “We feel that he doesn’t get enough education during the year, that it would be great for him to go into the next grade with more education during the summer,” Fruman told The Post. “It’s not an excuse to offer a program, but not have any available seats,” he said.

Advocates on Tuesday continued to monitor how the city would address the unique needs of some students, like children with disabilities or living in homeless shelters. Summer Rising last year was criticized for being inaccessible to those students, which the Adams administration acknowledged when it announced the revamped program this spring. “What’s the use of having a great program, if children who are really in need are not having access to them?” Mayor Eric Adams said in March.

“We have to address those issues that we heard of from the previous years. ” Some of those problems still lingered on the first day of the program. “The bus showed up this morning, but there was no paraprofessional,” said Randi Levine of Advocates for Children, about one of the families who works with the advocacy group.

“So the child was not allowed to get on the bus,” she said. .