NYC Afterschool Funding — Overview

COMPASS NYC (Comprehensive After School System of NYC) is the city's umbrella elementary-and-middle-school afterschool system, administered by the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD). Together with SONYC it serves roughly 100,000 students across 890+ sites in public schools, community centers, housing developments, parks, and faith-based locations.

SONYC (School's Out NYC) is the middle-school track within COMPASS, providing free, structured afterschool programs for grades 6–8 at participating district middle schools. Programs typically run about three hours per day, five days a week, plus most school holidays, and are free to families.

Programs are delivered by community-based providers under multi-year contracts with DYCD. Sites operate on school premises in partnership with the principal, mixing academic enrichment, arts, STEM, sports, leadership, and youth development programming.

COMPASS and SONYC are funded primarily through New York City tax levy dollars appropriated annually by the Mayor and City Council, with smaller state and federal contributions. DYCD passes those funds through to community-based providers on a per-slot basis tied to enrollment and attendance.

Provider awards are made through a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) process administered through PASSPort. Awards are then negotiated into contracts that must be registered with the NYC Comptroller before public dollars can lawfully be paid out. Registration is not a formality — it is the moment at which the city is legally committed and at which the Comptroller can flag deficiencies.

The 2026 rebid is the first major citywide re-bid in more than a decade. New contracts begin fall 2026 and run through August 2032 — six years of locked-in providers and funding flows.

Per-student rates have been one of the loudest complaints from the afterschool field for years. The 2026 rebid raised them, but advocates say they still fall short of what stable, high-quality programming actually costs — especially when families lose trusted adults mid-transition.

Ranges are reported from public DYCD materials and advocate analyses. Exact per-school per-pupil amounts vary by program model, hours, and enrollment.

Public DYCD descriptions of the rebid identify these components of provider selection:

• Technical score — organizational experience, qualifications, program design, capacity, MWBE / diversity goals, budget management. This appears to carry the majority of the weight.
• Principal ranking — schools ranked bidders; DYCD has said most schools received their first or second choice. The weight assigned to principal ranking inside the overall score has not been published.
• Continuity, existing relationships, and disability/IEP expertise — not identified as a named scoring criterion in the public concept paper or award materials. Outcomes show long-trusted providers were displaced, which is consistent with continuity not being a decisive factor.

The campaign is asking DYCD to publish the rubric weights and the per-school scoring sheets so families can see how each factor actually moved the result.

DYCD's RFP and FAQ materials describe a process that weighs program quality, organizational capacity, community fit, and equity considerations, with input from principals and host schools. In practice, families and educators across multiple boroughs report they were not consulted, incumbent providers with strong track records were displaced, and no school-specific transition plan has been published.

Reporting from Chalkbeat, Tribeca Citizen, and the Bronx Times documents the same pattern across districts and boroughs — establishing this is a citywide procurement issue, not a single-school dispute.

These are not gotcha questions. Each one is a standard piece of public information that should already exist for a procurement of this size. Updated June 2026.

1. 01

   Scoring weights for continuity

   What exact scoring weights were given to continuity of care, existing relationships, disability and IEP expertise, and principal and family input — compared to new-provider capacity? Publish the rubric.

2. 02

   Per-school scoring sheets

   Release the full scoring sheets for every displaced school so communities can see why providers with 10–15+ years of relationships lost contracts they had held.

3. 03

   Transition plans and appeal process

   What specific transition plans and appeal process exist for the 12+ Manhattan middle schools — and other affected schools citywide — losing long-standing providers before the fall 2026 contract start?

4. 04

   Disability and IEP supports through the handoff

   How will DYCD ensure students with IEPs, 504 plans, or behavioral support needs do not lose specialized supports during the provider handoff? Document this school-by-school.

5. 05

   Model budget and rate justification

   When will the full model budget and rate justification for the 2026–2032 contracts be public, and how do they compare to the $6,800 (elementary) / $5,700 (SONYC) fully-funded targets advocates requested?

6. 06

   Family, SLT, and PTA voice going forward

   Will families, SLTs, and PTAs get a formal role in any future mid-contract adjustments or in the next RFP cycle — not a comment period after decisions are already made?

Two Council committees touch DYCD directly. Calls and emails to their chairs carry more weight than general “contact the Council” outreach.

• Committee on Children and Youth

  Direct DYCD oversight; budget and afterschool policy. Chaired by Council Member Althea Stevens (Bronx), who has held hearings on youth funding, rates, and afterschool stability.

  General committee inbox: childrenandyouth@council.nyc.gov

• Committee on Education

  Coordinates with DOE on permits and space for COMPASS sites. Chaired by Council Member Eric Dinowitz.

  General committee inbox: education@council.nyc.gov

• District-level allies

  Council Members representing affected schools have begun raising the issue publicly — including Council Member Virginia Maloney (Manhattan, District 4), who has stood with Manhattan Youth families asking for scoring and appeals data. Find your own Council Member through 311 and ask for a written position on contract registration.

Names and committee roles last verified June 2026. Always confirm against council.nyc.gov before printing or pressing “send” on a mass email — chairs and inboxes change.

The fastest way to push for written answers is a short, signed letter to your Council Member, the Speaker, and DYCD leadership — cc'd to the Comptroller — followed by a 60-second phone call.

Sources: NYC DYCD program pages (COMPASS, SONYC, award lists); NYC Comptroller contract registration; United Neighborhood Houses and Campaign for Children rate analyses; Chalkbeat, Tribeca Citizen, and Bronx Times reporting (2025–2026). Direct links are in the Evidence Library.