The city is showing the door to a daycare facility that has called P.S. 122 its home for 26 years. The Children's Liberation Daycare Center (CLDC), which serves 88 kids between the ages of 2 and 6, is going to court later this month to object to its ejection from the building, with no plan for the daycare center's return. The CLDC shares P.S. 122 with three arts organizations and it's the city's Dept. of Cultural Affairs that appears ready to displace it. The Villager reports that the Administration for Children's Services, which oversees publicly funded daycare facilities, has asked the CLDC to relocate to a building on Houston and Stanton Sts. because the building it currently occupies is in dire need of renovation. Parents and workers at CLDC are unhappy that there are no plans for them to return to the building once renovation has been completed.
A group from the daycare on First Ave. and E. Ninth St. marched three blocks uptown to P.S. 19 where Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein scheduled a major news conference to release the city’s first progress report on the city’s public schools.
The daycare delegation, led by Elizabeth Acevedo, a member of the Children’s Liberation board of directors, was herded to the end of the block, away from the school’s main entrance, and chanted “Mayor Mike, listen to us,” and “Save our daycare.”
It got so loud about 10:30 a.m. that a P.S. 19 teacher came out of the school and told them to hold it down, which they did.
The primary complaint about the nine-block relocation is that it would deprive a neighborhood of a city-funded childcare facility. Mayor Bloomberg spoke with the protesters outside of P.S. 19 and said that he'd look into the matter, but stressed that children shouldn't be occupying an aging building filled with asbestos. The New York Times described Tuesday's protest and two-minute meeting with the mayor. We wish we could have been there. "A toddler, strapped in her stroller, joined the chant of “Save Our Day Care,” while a trio of 5-year-old boys walked hand in hand, singing an anthem of resistance, “Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights!”
