12-hour school day 'Yay!'
Boost for families: ‘It keeps kids safe’
A Brooklyn elementary school is experimenting with a novel idea to ease the burden of child care on working parents by offering 12hour school days — and it’s become a hit for parents, students, and teachers alike.
Brooklyn Charter School, in the heart of Bed-Stuy, opens bright and early at 7 a.m. and lets students stay until 7 p.m., all free of charge and with extra meals provided.
The standard school day at Brooklyn Charter begins at 8:30 a.m. and goes through 4 p.m., making the extended schedule a godsend for many parents juggling their work schedules with the burden — and cost — of child care.
“It helps a lot,” said Lenge Winfield, whose 10-year-old stays until 6:45 p.m.
“This is a convenience for me being that I don’t have to pay anything,” Winfield told The Post. “Rent increase in these last five years, it’s crazy — even if you are living in the most poverty-stricken area you pay $2,500. So any dollar you don’t have to give for education or an afterschool program is definitely helpful. They are getting quality care.”
The school rolled out the extended day in September, in an effort to stem a steady decline in enrollment, administrators said.
“We needed to understand what was happening in our community,” principal Joanne Hunt said. “We found a lot of families were leaving because they couldn’t afford to be in the city and they also needed child care, and quality child care.
“Not all work in families or traditional 9-to-5. Even if you are, if you get off at 5, you have to pick up your child by 6. What programs are available at that time?”
Since starting the program, enrollment has climbed by nearly 100 students, Hunt said.
The notion of keeping elementary-aged kids in class for such a stretch may sound grueling, but the school said after-hours programs include arts and crafts, drumming, dance and coding lessons. Full dinner is also offered.
Funding for the school and other charters in the city comes from a combination of Department of Education funds — $18,340 per student enrolled for a full school year — federal funds for low-income families, and private donations from board members, grants and grassroots gifts.
Kids also gave the extended day a thumbs up.
“The school is good. I like it. I like the gym, I like the dance, I like everything,” 8-year-old Kyle Thomas-Morrison told The Post.
“I like it. I’m happy to be here,” said his 6-year-old sister, Janae.
Their grandmother, Yvette Jones, said the kids are bounding out of the house each morning to get to school early.
“You see the energy they have coming in here,” Jones said. “I have no problem at all getting them up.”
Winfield said it keeps students out of trouble. “These hours are the most crucial when they get out of school, because people are smoking weed, I see people rolling up crack . . . Imagine if the parents are not right there to pick them up?”