The new school year launched Tuesday with all classes online in Richmond, but the promise of a robust, city-supported day care program for children of working parents and for parents with weak links to the internet has yet to be fulfilled — and it is unclear when it will be.

As Mayor Levar M. Stoney announced Wednesday that the first two day care sites supported by city subsidies had opened, all 80 slots at the two sites being managed by the YMCA through its Student Success Program are already filled and have waiting lists.

Despite a rush to get more sites open, City Hall delivered its own blow to parents des- perate for a safe and secure space to leave their children and where students could be linked into virtual Richmond Public School classes under adult supervision.

Even as he talked up the need, Mayor Stoney kept silent on the internal decision blocking use of the city’s recreation centers as potential day care sites.

Fearing his staff could be infected by COVID-19, Christopher Frelke, director of the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities, issued a statement last week that he would not allow any use of the community centers that have been shuttered almost since COVID-19 arrived in Richmond around March 18.

Mr. Frelke, who for weeks led a city task force seeking to get the day care program underway, announced that the only help his agency would provide would be outdoor pop- up recreation programming for children and pre-teens from 4 to 8 p.m. on school days.

That program, for youngsters ages 6 to 12, launched Tuesday at 20 recreation centers. Mr. Frelke said it would run Monday through Friday, weather permitting, until Oct. 23.

Meanwhile, Mayor Stoney said that efforts continue to start day care in five buildings the Richmond School Board has agreed to allow. One hundred slots will be available at each, including Blackwell, Miles Jones and Linwood Holton elementary schools, Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School and Huguenot High School.

He said the sites are expected to open sometime in September, but there are still some hurdles to opening before a specific date can be announced.

City Hall and RPS are still crafting a memorandum of understanding required by the School Board to determine the parameters of use, the mayor said. Also, the buildings would need to be disinfected once they are cleared for use.

According to Eva Colen, the mayor’s senior policy adviser, four of the buildings would be used for YMCA Student Success Centers. The Y started its city programs Tuesday using two churches, Movement Church on Patterson Avenue in the West End and Battery Park Christian Church on Brook Road in North Side.

As a result of the city’s subsidy, the cost to parents would be relatively inexpensive — $33 a week at maximum, with free service for children of people receiving Temporary Aid for Needy Families, food stamps or other government assistance.

Private providers without subsidy are charging at least $85 a week to provide places where children can attend virtual classes while their parents work.

The city also plans to provide one school building to the Richmond Behavioral Health Authority, which offers services to special needs students with Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs. RBHA would get Medicaid reimbursement and not need city help, but would use the school building to serve 100 of its existing clients, Ms. Colen said. That program would not be open to others.

The question remains whether the plan for day care will fill the need, or if parents will be left to fend for themselves.

Demand is still uncertain. The only data available is from an RPS survey that drew 1,300 responses and found that 63 percent of responding parents, or 850, needed day care services for their children, largely to keep their jobs.

RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras acknowledged to a City Council com- mittee last week that virtual school has turned up a major equity issue that RPS cannot resolve — the fact that broadband or high-speed internet service is at best spotty and often non-existent in public housing communities. They were never wired for it, he said.

Mr. Kamras said the school system has distributed some wireless hot spots in a bid to improve service, but he said those often operate well only in one room in a public housing residence.

He said parents with children in different grades face a challenge in trying to have each child attend his or her virtual class while another child is involved with a completely different classroom.

He also acknowledged that not every student has RPS computer equipment linked to the RPS computer system.

Mr. Kamras said that RPS Chromebooks and tablets have been distributed to 95 percent of city students, but added that more than 1,200 students might not be able to have electronic devices until the end of the month. He said that because of an overwhelmed supply chain, the school system’s order for 10,000 laptops has not arrived. The delay, he said, would be compounded by the need to properly configure them to work on the RPS system.

That’s a problem that Shaquira Robinson is facing. Her children are still on summer vacation because the family has not yet received any RPS equipment.

“I have broadband and it works fine,” Ms. Robinson said. “But my kids have nothing to connect it to. I was told it could be several more weeks.”

She said she would put her children in day care so they could start classes, but with the city program barely underway, that is not an option.

Shamia Turner also lacks an RPS computer for her child who is starting kindergarten. She bought equipment to beef up the speed of internet service to her apartment in order to keep her job as a customer service representative.

She said city-sponsored day care would be helpful. Her home computer has to be reserved for her work.

The best she can do now is link her child to the classroom using her cell phone. “However, there is no video. The teacher can only hear my child. That’s not really working well.”