Last month, Mayor Adams announced the city would pay $514 million to continue programs backed by expiring federal stimulus funds after the pandemic. The investment included $92 million for 3-K next school year — but it did not restore recent budget cuts to the program that Adams has blamed on the costs of sheltering migrants.

“I do want to come back to some of the statements you made when you were last before us,” said Councilman Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn), referencing a preliminary education budget hearing on March 18.

“You went on to say, ‘The parents in New York City are waiting to see if these cuts are going to be restored. I’m fighting to make that happen. And I believe that it is exactly what is going to happen in the coming weeks,'” he continued. “But of course, it didn’t happen. The mayor did not restore $170 million of cuts to early childhood education just that he made this year.”

Despite those cuts staying in the budget, education officials could not say how the reduction would impact the number of available seats.

“The last time you were here, you said we would restore it,” said Councilwoman Rita Joseph (D-Brooklyn), head of the Education Committee. “What’s the plan for that?”

Since former Mayor Bill de Blasio planned to expand 3-K, the Adams administration has attributed subsequent cuts to a series of problems as the program was stood up with temporary COVID aid. While 23,000 early childhood seats are currently empty, families are being shut out of programs elsewhere in the city.

With 3-K offers set to be released Thursday, 16% of families were not matched with any program ranked on their applications, according to preliminary data shared at the hearing. About 78% of families will receive an offer to one of their top three choices.

“I can’t over emphasize enough the state — the challenged state — that we assumed when we came into office as relates to early childhood,” Banks said. “We have made very, very significant progress, given what we inherited when we got here.”

Education officials have moved thousands of program seats across the city and adapted them to meet the scheduling and age-specific needs of more families. The city also tapped consultants at Accenture to produce a report, due last month, that could suggest more improvements to the program. It’s yet to be released.

“For working families, access to early childhood education is a deciding factor of whether they can remain in New York City or must leave to raise their children elsewhere,” said Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens).

Despite the city’s hefty down payment last month, another $200 million fiscal cliff remains after COVID aid expires this summer. Programs on the chopping block or at risk of being trimmed back include hundreds of school nurses hired during the pandemic, alternatives to disciplinary action and suspensions and services for preschool age children with disabilities.

“The Council has been steady on this that our biggest challenge is not the costs related to the migrant influx but to grappling with the expiration of temporary dollars that were used to prop up permanent programs,” said Councilman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn), head of the Finance Committee.

Those budget woes were only worsened by less-than-expected school aid from the state, after lawmakers punted a funding formula overhaul until next year but tweaked how inflation is calculated. The result was a state aid increase that was nonetheless $126 million below what city education officials anticipated.

“It is very challenging as chancellor to have a list given to you of all these wonderful and amazing programs and to be told, which ones do you prioritize?” said Banks. “How do you prioritize arts over community schools? I mean, it’s like asking you which one is your favorite child? These are all wonderfully amazing programs. We don’t want to lose any of them.”

A final city budget is due by July 1.

The Town of Greece Police Department said in a statement that the threat was made on Snapchat against Arcadia Middle School. The message was reported by Greece Central School District security just after 6 a.m.

“We worked with security to mitigate the danger and disruption to students, staff, and parents,” the police department said.

The author of the Snapchat post was identified as a 13-year-old female student at the school who was later charged with making a terroristic threat and falsely reporting an incident in the first degree — both Class D felonies.

The specifics of the threat were not made public. The girl’s identity was not released.

“The student was issued an expedited appearance ticket returnable to Monroe County Probation. We appreciate the quick response and work done cooperatively between the school district and our officers,” the police department said.

The incident comes less than two weeks after a transphobic and homophobic bomb threat was made at Arcadia High School, leading to an evacuation. The threat referenced a fight that had occurred in the girls’ restroom earlier in February, but the school did not offer additional details.

The NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition, a coalition of various student groups, had promoted an “autonomously planned” walkout on social media, as the newly minted university president Linda Mills was scheduled to deliver her first commencement address.

Graduates in keffiyehs painted their hands red to protest Israel’s military action in Gaza and what they see as NYU’s complicity in failing to divest from the Jewish state.

“No graduation as usual,” the student groups said in an Instagram post.

As students walked out, Mills introduced a musical performance from “Wicked,” which involved many NYU alumni and she described as a story about two formidable forces at odds who ultimately unite, “appreciating that each offers the other something to learn.”

“Today, as we face a world of war and polarization, this is as important as ever — the enduring desire to be open to those most unlike us. And this is the lesson of Wicked,” the university president said.

Spokespeople for NYU did not immediately return a request for comment, but told a student newspaper the disruption was minimal.

“During a joyful 2 1/2 hours for 40,000 grads and guests, I observed a few passing moments of booing by a tiny fraction of the crowd,” NYU spokesperson John Beckman wrote in a statement to student newspaper Washington Square News.

“It had no impact on the proceedings, which carried on very well, and the overwhelming majority of the attendees seemed to enjoy the Commencement Exercises very much.”

Last week, about 20 pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted the main campus library for a few hours at the height of final exams season, unfurling banners and demanding divestment.

University officials have twice summoned the NYPD to clear Gaza solidarity encampments, resulting in close to 150 arrests at NYU since April 22.

NYU’s main commencement came on the heels of a series of smaller graduations at Columbia University, after college officials cancelled the university-wide ceremony. While school-level celebrations have continued, some have featured disruptions and demonstrations, including a social work graduate who ripped their diploma folder in half on stage.

“They stayed strong. They just had tight security and said, the rest of the graduates is more important,” NYU graduate Zack said. “So I think it’s a credit to the president and the administration.”

For many of the undergraduates who finished their degrees this semester, Wednesday marked their first major graduation after many high school ceremonies were cancelled in 2020.

“We started during the pandemic. And so, we’re so happy to be having a graduation for real,” said Dakota Bobadilla, a drama major from San Francisco, whose family flew across the country for the ceremony.

“It’s a little scary going into the future,” another graduate, Ella Webb, said as she starts a job as a grant writer while she auditions in New York. “But I’m really excited to be here.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters briefly occupied the lobby of the CUNY Graduate Center in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday night, about two weeks after big NYPD crackdowns at City College of New York and other campuses.

Roughly two dozen students demonstrated for several hours inside the lobby on Fifth Ave. near E. 34th St., hanging banners and dubbing the Center’s library “The Al Aqsa University Library.”

Al Aqsa University, the oldest public university in Gaza, has been destroyed during Israel’s war on Hamas.

About 75 protesters stood in the rain outside the Graduate Center waving Palestinian flags. Dozens of NYPD cops lined the street outside the building but did not breach the building. Meanwhile, students were seen diligently studying inside the library as the spring semester wound down.

Students involved in the demo called on administrators to negotiate a divestment from “Israeli weapons, tech and surveillance companies.”

Around 10:30 p.m., students emerged from the Graduate Center and declared victory, telling protesters on the street that after negotiations, CUNY administrators agreed to forward their demands to the entire student body.

The protesters lit a traffic flare and evacuated the library, which custodians immediately began cleaning up.

Organizers indicated they’d been motivated by campus crackdowns that made national headlines earlier this month.

“On April 30, the City College administration called the New York Police Department to dismantle the CUNY Gaza Solidarity Encampment, resulting in brutalization of protestors and almost 200 arrests,” the students said in a statement before leaving the building. “On May 13, CCNY threatened pro-Palestine students with suspension for protesting on their own campus.”

On May 1, police made 173 arrests after pro-Palestinian protesters occupied a City College administration building, vandalizing offices and shattering glass doors, before CUNY called in the NYPD to clear the encampment, officials previously said.

A CUNY Graduate Center spokeswoman did not immediately requests for comment Tuesday night.

Columbia scrapped its university-wide commencement amid ongoing protests over the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas that peaked with the takeover of an academic building, Hamilton Hall, when administrators summoned the NYPD for the second time this spring.

“It’s been super tumultuous, a very fitting end to our experience I think, considering the way we started,” said Samantha Velasquez, a neuroscience and political science major from the Bronx, who began college online. “I’m just glad I got to walk I guess because I didn’t get to in high school.”

School-level ceremonies, where students get to cross the graduation stage, continued miles away from Columbia’s main campus in Morningside Heights at its athletic complex in Inwood.

But a small share of students persisted with their demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza, waving Palestinian flags and wearing keffiyehs. On stage, the Class of 2024 valedictorian donned the Middle Eastern scarf and placed a “Free Palestine” sticker over her clear award plaque, a livestream inside graduation showed. Another student paraded outside the complex with a sign saying “Columbia funds genocide” after the ceremony.

“This has informed everyone’s end of their time on campus,” said a graduate, who decorated his graduation with ‘Hind’s Hall,’ the name protesters gave to the occupied building after a young victim of war, and an image of a tent. “It’s important to let admin know that this is what we’re thinking about, even though it’s graduation.”

A graduation program reviewed by the Daily News showed University President Minouche Shafik, who is facing a vote of no confidence by arts and sciences faculty, was scheduled to —  but did not — deliver remarks before the conferral of degrees.

A Columbia spokesperson disputed the president was scheduled to speak in the first place, saying programs were printed before Shafik was confirmed.

An estimated 15,000 Columbia students were expected to receive diplomas this semester. Some seniors who face disciplinary action related to the pro-Palestinian protests were not eligible to complete their degrees.

“To me, graduating high school is something you are supposed to do, if that makes sense, so I wasn’t that torn up about it,” said Noah Layton, who skipped protests this semester to avoid risking a diploma. “This was much harder to do. So it stings a little bit more.”

Some of the smaller ceremonies of the last several days have featured some disruptions and demonstrations.

A handful of graduates at the School of General Studies ceremony Monday refused to shake the dean’s hand as they received their diplomas, student newspaper Columbia Spectator reported. At the end of last week, a Columbia social work graduate in zip ties and a keffiyeh ripped their diploma folder on stage.

Juan Zuniga did not fault student protesters for the loss of university-wide commencement, originally scheduled for Wednesday.

“I support the students’ right to free speech,” Zuniga said. “Their cause is more than our graduation. It is what it is. I’m just disappointed.”

Instead that day, students will host a smaller, wristband-only celebration on main campus with music, performances, student speeches, and a block party with food trucks, an announcement read. The event is open to graduates only, and not to families and friends. Certain items are prohibited, including signs and flags.

“Obviously, the administration could have handled it better,” said another Columbia senior, while adding: “I understand why. It’s a safety concern, whether you support the protests or not. I wouldn’t want my relatives from the UK to fly over here for anything bad to happen.”

“It’s also New York. In any other Ivy League, it would be easier to control. Even though it sucks, because it’s so publicized, this type of thing does attract all sorts of people.”

Columbia has requested the NYPD remain on campus through May 17, after all graduation ceremonies have ended.

Pro-Palestinian protests that had been a feature of campus life since the fall came to define the spring semester after a group of students set up a tent city on the campus lawns, as university officials were set to appear at a congressional antisemitism hearing. The encampment, now dismantled, sparked a national movement of college protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

With Roni Jacobson 

Video of the protest, which went viral Sunday night after the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine posted the clip on social media, showed the master’s program graduate cross the stage with their hands above their head, before tearing the folder in two and tossing it behind them.

The protester then held up their graduation cap, reportedly decorated with the name of a Palestinian prisoner, Mohammad Natsheh, during the event on Friday evening.

University officials twice this semester summoned the NYPD to arrest pro-Palestinian campus protesters, who were placed in the plastic handcuffs the protester and another couple of graduates wore.

“What significance do our diplomas hold when there are no universities left in Gaza because of our tax dollars and tuition?” the student group wrote on Instagram.

A few pro-Palestinian students fastened silver duct tape over their mouths, while dozens more wore keffiyehs and carried photos and wrote the names of Palestinians imprisoned or killed during Israel’s war in Gaza, a recording of the ceremony showed.

“Thousands of Columbia graduates and their families have already celebrated at Class Day ceremonies that started on Friday and concluded successfully with virtually no disruption,” a Columbia spokesman said in a statement.

“We join in the excitement of the remaining graduates who will celebrate their incredible achievements at their own Class Days and graduation events the rest of this week and as they start their next chapter.”

One of the social work graduates crossed the stage holding a midsized Israeli flag, according to the recording.

Leo Massey, who said by graduation he believed he was the only Jewish student in his about 14-person program, said he brought the Israeli flag “just in case” pro-Palestinian protests broke out during the ceremony.

“If I don’t bring the Israeli flag, who is going to?” he recalled Monday of his thinking. “After I’ve been there for 2.5 years at the Columbia School of Social Work, I couldn’t think of anyone else speaking out about this.”

The pro-Palestinian graduate who ripped the diploma did not return requests for comment.

Last week, Columbia announced the cancellation of its universitywide commencement, citing security concerns after weeks of campus protests over the war in Gaza that culminated with the takeover of an academic building, Hamilton Hall.

School-level graduation ceremonies are continuing as scheduled but were relocated from main campus to Columbia’s athletic complex several miles north. The largest undergraduate college graduation will be held Tuesday.

There were other protests and disruptions during Columbia graduation ceremonies over the weekend, including a Ph.D. student walkout and students who crossed the stage with Palestinian flags, including one that said “divest from genocide.”

Another graduate adorned their cap to say: “Acknowledge the Class of 2024 of Gaza and those who will never graduate.”

An estimated 15,000 Columbia students were expected to receive diplomas this semester, including many undergraduates whose high school graduations were canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. Several seniors who face disciplinary action related to the pro-Palestinian protests are not eligible to complete their degrees.

Columbia has requested the NYPD remain on campus through May 17, once all school-level ceremonies have ended.

To many, the intensity came as a surprise. But for students at Columbia University and other colleges, the emotional response for many has been building, driven by factors that include the prevalence of up-close and personal narratives and unfiltered visuals of the war that have exploded on social media.

If Vietnam was the world’s first televised war, the conflict between Israel and Hamas has become a 24/7 phenomenon on many young people’s phones.

“It’s how clear the violence is and how readily available that information is,” Emma, a freshman at Columbia, said. “I think students are so deeply plugged into the internet.”

“On campus, it has really come to define the semester and the year. The students here are critical thinkers. If you are living here on campus, it’s impossible not to see what’s happening — and how wrong it is.”

The pro-Gaza encampment at Columbia was dismantled for the second time on April 30, when the NYPD took back Hamilton Hall. But the protests have continued across New York.

As Mayor Adams, and police and university officials, placed blame on outside agitators for the conduct of protests, experts pointed to a more pervasive  factor that contributed to underlying discontent on campus: Students were deeply affected by graphic images of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza after Hamas’ terror attack on Oct. 7.

“In the course of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the endless images of dead civilians have shaped young Americans’ understanding of the war,” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a African-American studies professor at Princeton University, wrote in the New Yorker. “Palestinians have captured scenes of unimaginable brutality and narrated their experiences.”

“Every smartphone has become a portal into Gaza.”

Some students pushed back against the narrative that outside agitators radicalized students, saying the issue has captured the attention of their classmates. College leaders calling in the cops, they said, only intensified the situation, while officials say the conduct of the students forced them to act.

“I think the mayor is a little too removed from where we’re at to give accurate comments,” said a Columbia undergraduate senior. “There could be, but from what I’ve seen, no. This has really resonated with students.”

CUNY student Bashir Juwara said he was already struggling with the death he witnessed in posts from Gaza, when he was arrested outside the City College encampment on April 30 for walking in the roadway and disorderly conduct. As student body president at CUNY’s Hunter College, Juwara said he had spent months engaged with college officials on campus issues related to the war.

“I’m always close to in tears whenever I see the videos,” said Juwara, adding he tries not to “because it’s so heartbreaking seeing little kids slaughtered. It’s something my heart cannot take … I cannot wrap my head around what I’m seeing, and it makes me want to take action, but my action is limited. I’m just looking to do as much as I can with the power I have.”

But for many critics of the anti-war movement, it was not so much the underlying sentiment but the conduct of some protesters that crossed the line.

For some Jewish students who identify closely with Israel, the campus demonstrations — and the outside protests and antisemitic incidents they have attracted, such as a sign at Columbia labeling Jewish counterprotesters Hamas’ next targets — have left them feeling at odds with their classmates.

At the CUNY encampment, students demanded the university ban programs that send Jewish students to Israel, while groups elsewhere in the country called on college officials to cut ties with Hillel, a Jewish campus organization that hosts shabbat and services for students away from home.

“Most of us did not choose to be political activists,” a group of Jewish students said in an open letter this week. “We do not bang on drums and chant catchy slogans. We are average students, just trying to make it through finals much like the rest of you.”

But the students — about 650 of them who signed the letter as of Friday afternoon — said others have “forced us into our activism and forced us to publicly defend our Jewish identities,” which they said “cannot be separated from Israel.”

“Our love for Israel does not necessitate blind political conformity,” the letter continued. “It’s quite the opposite. For many of us, it is our deep love for and commitment to Israel that pushes us to object when its government acts in ways we find problematic.”

With Roni Jacobson

The decision, issued in Nassau Supreme Court by Justice Francis Ricigliano, delivers a significant victory to the New York Civil Liberties Union, which had sued the GOP-led Long Island county over the ban.

In February, County Executive Bruce Blakeman issued the ban, forbidding transgender women and girls from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity at about 100 county-run facilities.

Issuing his order, Blakeman cited concerns about transgender women gaining an unfair advantage in athletic competitions. He struggled to identify any examples of such an issue materializing in his county, but framed the ban as a preventative measure.

In a 13-page decision, Ricigliano wrote that Blakeman instituted the ban “despite there being no corresponding legislative enactment providing the County Executive with the authority to issue such an order.”

In doing so, Ricigliano added, Blakeman exceeded the “scope of his authority as the Chief Executive Officer of Nassau County.”

The opinion went further than may have been expected by the NYCLU, which had sought a temporary pause on the ban amid the litigation. But by focusing on the limitations of Blakeman’s powers, the judge skipped past the civil rights questions undergirding the case — robbing either side of a conclusive legal victory on those points.

Still, the NYCLU celebrated the demise of the ban Friday.

“We are gratified the court has struck down a harmful policy that belongs in the dustbin of history,” Gabriella Larios, a lawyer for the NYCLU, said in a statement. “The ruling deals a serious blow to County Executive Blakeman’s attempt to score cheap political points by peddling harmful stereotypes about transgender women and girls.”

Blakeman said in a statement that the decision displayed a “lack of courage from a Judge who didn’t want to decide the case on its merits.”

“Nassau County will appeal without much faith in Appellate Division applying the law without far left doctrine being used to undermine women’s sports,” he added, referring to the mid-level court division above the state Supreme Court.

In Nassau Supreme Court, the NYCLU had argued the ban violates New York State’s 2019 Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, which outlaws gender identity-based discrimination in New York’s public spaces.

The Democratic state lawmaker who wrote the 2019 law, Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal of Manhattan, sided with the NYCLU.

“It’s very clear,” he said earlier this week. “You can’t discriminate against New Yorkers — whether they be adults or children — based on their gender identity or expression.”

The county argued in court documents that the ban was supported by the protections for women enshrined in the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

Nassau County suggested in an April court filing that federal protections should be applied to “biological” women in sports, and that those protections supersede any competing protections for transgender women in state laws.

In a separate case, a federal judge, Nusrat Choudhury, wrote that she found the county’s claims based on the equal protection rights of women and girls to be “unpersuasive.”

In the federal case, Nassau County sued state Attorney General Letitia James after she issued a statement urging the county to rescind its ban, which she described as “transphobic and blatantly illegal.”

Choudhury dismissed the county’s lawsuit last month. She ruled that the county lacked standing to bring the lone claim in its complaint against James, a Democrat.

Some Republicans appear to see transgender sports bans as a winning political issue. Democrats say the measures are cruel and potentially dangerous to transgender youth, who report alarmingly high rates of depression.

The NYCLU filed its complaint on behalf of a Nassau County women’s roller derby league. The lawsuit said the league, the Long Island Roller Rebels, has at least one member who could have been barred from playing under the ban.

“We have deoccupied and reclaimed this space in honor fo the Diana Tamari Sabbagh Library,” students said in a statement, after a building destroyed during the war in Gaza at the end of November.

The move came one week after police cleared a nearby encampment of NYU students and is the third such occupation led by NYU students since April 21.

About 20 students participated in the protest in the library during the height of final exams season.

“The library is not only a place for study (it is our finals period), it is a setting in which we hold exams, including exams scheduled for this afternoon. It is impermissible under the University’s rules to disrupt academic activities or to interfere with other students’ academic work,” NYU spokesperson John Beckman wrote in a statement.

All students involved would be subject to disciplinary proceedings, Beckman added.

“We are disappointed that a group of students would be so insensitive to the rights of other students.  We are working to bring the situation to a close as quickly as possible.”

Campus officials initially said that the library was closed, but later reversed the directive to say that it would remain open for the final exam period.

Protesters left the library by 6 p.m., the spokesman said.

Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School will again be known as Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby Lee Elementary School.

The decision was reached by a 5-1 vote Thursday at a Shenandoah County School Board Meeting.

Virginia was home to the capital of the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War, which lasted from April 1861 to April 1865. The state moved to change school names memorializing secessionists after Minnesota man George Floyd was filmed being killed by Minneapolis police in 2020, sparking nationwide riots.

Board member Brandi Rutz told the Daily News via email that the initial process four years ago to change the school names was rushed, “flawed” and complicated by the COVID-19 lockdown.

“We are not discounting the past, the negative parts of our Virginia history or the experiences of our Black neighbors,” she said. “They need to be heard, acknowledged, welcomed and included.”

For Rutz, “the preservation of the democratic process and overwatch of government” was on the ballot at Thursday night’s meeting.

“I feel that was the subject of last night’s vote,” she said.

Fellow board member Gloria Carlineo, who noted she’s a Hispanic woman born and raised in Puerto Rico, shares Rutz’s sentiments about the previous vote being unfair. She also said for many area residents, the preservation of Virginia’s history is a big factor in the naming of schools.

“It is very sad that we live in a time where not only is history being systematically erased but that people are encouraged to feel victimized as part of their cultural or ethnic heritage,” Carlineo said via email.

Other board members did not immediately return a request for comment.

One Black resident in attendance at Thursday’s session, which lasted more than six hours, felt the renaming was a step in the wrong direction, according to the Washington Post.

“Why are we here tonight to go back to a time in history that was very cruel?” that person asked. “Is this the type of legacy you want to put in Shenandoah County’s public school buildings?”

Ashby Lee Elementary School was named for both cavalry officer Turner Ashby, who died in battle in 1862, and Gen. Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate forces. Stonewall Jackson served under Lee and led the charge in 1864’s bloody Shenandoah Valley Campaign.