More than 1,700 children have joined a pre-kindergarten program since the school year started, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday, pushing total enrollment to 53,230 — past the city’s target enrollment figures.

The numbers are a victory for de Blasio, who has made expanding full-day pre-K a signature initiative of his administration. The final tally came with an extra month of planning, though de Blasio hailed it as evidence of the program’s popularity.

“We thought that the need was there, the demand was there, and we could do it even on a tight time frame,” de Blasio said at a press conference at the Spruce Street School in Lower Manhattan, which added 18 full-day pre-K seats this year. “Well, I’m here to say today that … we do have a final figure – and it’s a great figure.”

Nearly every neighborhood now has more four-year-olds in school than last year, and many of the new seats were added in historically underserved neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn.

Read the full story on Chalkbeat New York.