Nyc Agency to Check Possible Violations at Day Care Centers

A spokesman for the city’s Agency for Child Development said today that the agency was proceeding with plans to check the eligibility of families whose children now attend two day care centers in Brooklyn poverty areas in which all the enrollees are from Hasidic families. There are some 400 such centers throughout the city operated with city, state and federal funds.

Announcement by the ACD of its re-registration plans evoked expressions of opposition from Rabbi Shmuel Butman, head of the board of the Mosdoth center in Crown Heights and Hertz Frankel, spokesman for the Bedford-Harrison center in Williamsburg. They contended any changes in the ethnic make-up of children attending would force the closing of the centers with their programs of kosher food and Jewish cultural and Yiddish-speaking environments.

The Mosdoth Center was the scene of an incident last Nov., when Puerto Rican and Black parents held a demonstration to protest that they had not been given a chance to apply for enrollment of their children. Some non-Hasidic Jewish parents also took part in the demonstration.

ALLEGED VIOLATIONS CITED

The ACD spokesman said that since there was some evidence of violation of federal and state guidelines in the operation of the two day centers, a decision had been made to have ACD representatives accompanied by neutral observers for the new registration procedure. The spokesman noted that volunteers from the community were being trained to serve as the neutral observers and that they would be present with the ACD representatives when the new registration would take place, probably within a month.

According to the spokesman, alleged violations included inadequate notification to the community of the initial registration at the two centers; no “open access” to the centers; and insufficient evidence of eligibility, as required by the guidelines, of all of the families whose children are now attending the centers. The spokesman also said that there were “at least” 40 unused “slots” at the Mosdoth center, which has a capacity for 102 children. The spokesman said that the guidelines required after-school programs at the day centers and that there was no such program at the Bedford-Harrison center.

On the appointed date, the spokesman said, after adequate notification to the communities, mothers will come to the centers to fill out application forms for their children. The spokesman declined to comment on assertions by Rabbi Butman and Frankel that they would fight the new registration programs, adding “this is not the first time we have run into eligibility problems.”