More Than a Preschool: Why New York City Cannot Afford to Lose Its CBOs

At the small preschool where I work in Park Slope, the most important thing we build isn't something you will find written in a curriculum. We build trust.

When a parent leaves a three- or four-year-old with us every morning, they are handing us the most important person in their world. That trust doesn't happen overnight. It happens through conversations at drop-off, reassuring a nervous parent, celebrating the little victories, and knowing a child well enough to recognize when something just isn't right.

Over time, these families become part of our school family. We know the siblings. We know the grandparents. We watch children grow. And one of the greatest compliments we receive is when a family comes back years later with a younger sibling. They remember how their first child was loved, taught, and cared for.

They come back because they trust us

That is the part of Community-Based Organizations, or CBOs, that gets lost when we reduce early childhood education to contracts, funding, and enrollment numbers.

CBOs are independently operated organizations that contract with New York City Public Schools to provide publicly funded early childhood programs such as 3-K and Pre-K. According to NYC Public Schools, there are more than 1,150 CBOs throughout the city. The DOE itself describes these programs as typically small, close-knit environments embedded in their communities, where teachers have opportunities to develop close relationships with families.

That matters tremendously when the children walking through the door are three and four years old.

Before a child cares about letters, numbers, or writing their name, they need to know: Am I safe here? Does my teacher know me? Is my parent coming back? Before a parent can truly partner with a teacher, that parent has to trust them.

Relationships aren't an extra part of early childhood education.

They are the foundation

And yet there is an uncomfortable contradiction in the way New York City operates this system: the teachers being asked to build these lasting relationships are often the very teachers the system makes hardest to retain.

A certified teacher can teach Pre-K in a CBO. Another certified teacher can teach Pre-K in a DOE school. They can educate children the same age, be responsible for their learning and development, communicate with families, assess progress, and prepare children for kindergarten.

Yet their financial realities can be very different.

A 2024 NYC Comptroller review examined 1,842 certified full-time CBO lead teachers and found that 19% of teachers with master's degrees and 24% with bachelor's degrees were being paid below the applicable DOE minimum used in the analysis. Among the master's-level teachers who were underpaid, the median salary disparity was $19,952.

Almost $20,000.

And salary isn't the whole story.

CBO teachers are employees of their individual organizations, not NYC Public Schools. Their salaries and benefits are provided by their individual employers and can vary from program to program. Appointed NYC public-school teachers, meanwhile, automatically participate in the Teachers' Retirement System.

It would not be accurate to say CBO teachers can never have a pension or retirement plan because an individual CBO may provide one. But CBO teachers do not automatically receive the same NYC Teachers' Retirement System pension available to appointed public-school teachers.

That is why "pay parity" cannot simply mean comparing two paychecks.

We have to talk about benefits. We have to talk about retirement. We have to talk about longevity. And we have to talk about what it means to build financial security over an entire career.

How can two teachers educate children of the same age within the same publicly funded early childhood system while having such different levels of compensation, benefits, and long-term financial security?

Then there is another problem most parents never see: keeping a CBO financially afloat.

Teachers still need their paychecks. Rent is still due. Insurance still has to be paid. Children still need books, food, paint, paper, and classroom materials.

None of those bills wait.

New York City's problems with delayed contracting and payments to nonprofit and human-service organizations have been well documented. A 2025 NYC Comptroller analysis found that at seven of eight City agencies examined, human-service providers waited more than 200 days on average from the start of a contract to receiving their first payment.

That statistic is not specific to every DOE-funded early childhood CBO, and it would be misleading to suggest that it is. But it demonstrates a much larger and very real problem: organizations providing public services can face enormous cash-flow pressure when government contracting and payments are delayed.

For a large organization, that is difficult.

For a small neighborhood school operating on tight margins, it can become an emergency very quickly.

Someone still has to make payroll. Someone still has to keep the lights on. And someone still has to open those doors Monday morning when a group of three- and four-year-olds arrives expecting their teachers to be there.

We cannot ask small community organizations to help carry a public education system and then expect them to absorb the financial consequences when the funding system doesn't move quickly enough.

And then we wonder why teachers leave.

I know how much teachers can love their schools. I know how attached we become to our children and families. But teachers have families of their own. They have rent and mortgages. They need health insurance. They need to think about retirement. They deserve to think about what their lives will look like twenty or thirty years from now.

If an experienced CBO teacher has an opportunity to move into the DOE and gain access to a different salary structure, DOE benefits, and the Teachers' Retirement System, can we really be surprised when that teacher considers leaving?

And when that teacher leaves, we don't simply lose an employee.

We lose a relationship.

We lose someone who knows the families. Someone who taught an older sibling. Someone a parent trusted enough to call when they were worried. Someone who knows that a particular child needs five quiet minutes after drop-off before they are ready to join the class.

You can hire another teacher.

You cannot instantly replace years of trust.

Trust is the most powerful relationship anchor

That brings me to the question I believe New York City needs to answer before this becomes a much larger problem: What happens if CBOs start disappearing?

The children don't disappear with them.

They still need somewhere to go to school.

With more than 1,150 CBOs participating in the City's early childhood system, losing substantial CBO capacity would mean New York City would have to find another way to serve those children. That could increase demand on remaining CBOs, Pre-K Centers, and district-school programs.

But families could also lose something that is much harder to replace than a classroom seat: a neighborhood institution.

A school that taught three children from the same family. A director who knows everyone by name. A teacher who remembers when the younger sibling used to come to pickup in a stroller. A place parents recommend to their neighbors because they trust the people inside of it.

You can move a Pre-K seat. You cannot move years of relationships with it

This isn't an argument against the DOE. It is an argument for recognizing how dependent New York City's early childhood system is on partnerships.

CBOs and public schools ultimately have the same responsibility: educating and caring for New York City's children.

But a partnership cannot work if one side is struggling to remain sustainable.

I see the value of these programs every day in Park Slope. I see it when a parent stays an extra minute because they need advice. I see it when a former student comes back to visit. And I especially see it when a family returns years later holding the hand of another little three-year-old who is finally old enough to come to our school.That is trust.That is community.And that is something worth protecting.

If New York City wants CBOs to remain a major part of its early childhood system, providers need a funding system they can depend on. Teachers deserve meaningful salary and benefit parity. And experienced educators should not have to choose between remaining in a community they love and obtaining the long-term financial security they deserve.

Because if these programs begin disappearing, this won't only be a CBO problem. It will become a problem for families, neighborhoods, and an early childhood system that still has to find somewhere for those children to go.

CBOs provide seats. But what makes them special is that they build relationships. And relationships are what turn a preschool into a community.

References

New York City Public Schools. Pre-K Teaching Opportunities: Community-Based Organizations. NYCPS. Information on CBO programs, employment, teacher qualifications, salaries, benefits, and the role of community-based providers in New York City's early childhood education system.

Office of the New York City Comptroller. (2024,March 5). Review of Salaries Paid to Certified Early Childhood Teachers Hired by Community-Based Organizations. Analysis of salary disparities between certified CBO lead teachers and comparable DOE teachers.

Office of the New York City Comptroller. (2024,March 5). NYC's Early Childhood Education Teachers Continue to Face Significant Pay Disparities, New Comptroller Report Finds. Findings on compensation and pay parity among CBO early childhood educators.

Office of the New York City Comptroller. (2025). Nonprofit, Nonpayment. Analysis of New York City's contracting and payment delays affecting nonprofit and human-service providers.

New York City Council. (2019). Pay Parity for Early Childhood Education Employees. Information regarding New York City's efforts to address compensation disparities among early childhood educators.

Teachers' Retirement System of the City of New York. Membership Eligibility. Information regarding pension and retirement-system membership for appointed New York City public-school teachers.