A lottery will determine which families will participate in the Panther Club afterschool program in the 2026-2027 academic year. The change comes following complaints from parents that the current first-come, first-served registration process is unfair.
Panther Club, which is operated by the village of Pleasantville’s Parks and Recreation Department at Bedford Road School, has 150 available slots for children. The village Board of Trustees has said the program cannot expand due to space and staffing limitations. Currently, 52 children are on the waitlist.
The Village Board of Trustees discussed the issue at work sessions January 12, January 26 and February 9. Some parents suggested a lottery system would not be better than the current one.
Pleasantville resident Ashley Gray suggested that the program should accommodate all families who wanted a spot, even if that meant each child would only be able to attend two or three days a week. “It’s unfair that one child gets five days, and my child gets one. That is not equal or good for anyone,” he said at the board’s February 9 meeting.
Other parents said the selection process should favor families with lower incomes, or who live further away from the school.
Ultimately, three of five Village trustees favored a lottery.
Parks and Recreation Superintendent Mike Newman said details about how to sign up for the lottery will be included in his department’s spring brochure. Families will be chosen at random in early July.
“We draw names per family. So if a family has three children, we are going to make sure that families will be able to get their three children in,” Newman said.
The Village Board had also considered a grandfathering system to allow current families priority, but ultimately decided to keep the lottery random.
The Village of Pleasantville created Panther Club in 2015 after the JCC’s afterschool program on Bear Ridge Road closed.
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