Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced that the popular BPS Sundays free museum program, initially set to end last month, will be extended through the end of the year, but said the funding is not yet there to expand it to all city schoolchildren.

Wu made the announcement Sunday at Franklin Park Zoo, where roughly 10,000 of the 36,000 students and family members who have taken part in BPS Sundays, which includes six cultural institutions, have visited since it launched last February, according to numbers cited by the mayor and a zoo official.

“School started this last week in BPS, and we wanted to make sure that this component was hand in hand,” Wu said, while sporting a baby bump and preparing to take her two young sons inside the zoo. “It’s not just their time in the classroom, but also getting to experience the whole city as your classroom. The program will continue and we continue to be in conversations about what the next steps are.”

Wu said the $1 million-plus  program — funded by a combination of ARPA, for-profit business and philanthropic funds — will likely extend into 2025 as well, but declined to share details until they were finalized.

She also stated, when asked, that there are no current plans to expand the program to all city schoolchildren — including charter, private and METCO students — who critics have described as being unfairly excluded from an initiative that seeks to remove financial barriers.

“It’s been a dream and a goal from the very beginning, to make sure this is actually reachable for everyone,” Wu said. “We wanted to make sure we were understanding what we were asking these institutions to do.

“They have had their share of extreme financial distress during the pandemic, and are still just starting to recover from that,” the mayor added, “So asking them to just throw their doors open for free without really knowing what the dollar amount would be was not going to be something that would be sustainable for them or responsible for the city.”

Wu said the city has been in conversations and negotiations “for some time,” and “measuring very carefully who’s been coming, what the cost has been, and we feel very good about the potential for an expansion in the next phases.”

Talks, she said, have also included exploring the addition of other cultural institutions.

The six participating institutions are the Franklin Park Zoo, Boston Children’s Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Science, and New England Aquarium. Under the program, BPS students and up to three family members are eligible for free access on the first two Sundays of each month.

The mayor’s decision to limit the program to BPS students has been the subject of controversy since she announced the initiative in her State of the City address last January. Critics have called the decision to exclude charter school children politically motivated, which the mayor has denied, saying that it is a funding issue.

“I have been advocating for the inclusion of all Boston students, and the longer we wait, the less opportunity there is for all students to attend one of these exceptional museums,” City Councilor Ed Flynn told the Herald Sunday. “Every child in Boston deserves the same opportunities.”

While the mayor has cited funding as the factor limiting expansion, Flynn said Sunday that the money is there, pointing to funds that have been allocated for the program by businesses, foundations and nonprofits.

Flynn and Erin Murphy, two city councilors seen as antagonists of the mayor, have been pushing for an expansion of the BPS Sundays program to all city schoolchildren, saying that the many low-income and minority families who don’t qualify for today’s initiative can’t afford the cost of a museum visit.

“I express my profound disappointment and concern regarding Mayor Wu’s announcement today to extend the free museum program exclusively for Boston Public School families through the end of the year,” Murphy said in a statement. “The decision to extend this program for four more months while continuing to exclude deserving families is problematic.”

“I urge Mayor Wu to reconsider the scope of this initiative and to collaborate with the City Council to ensure that it benefits all children in Boston,” Murphy added. “By including all families, we can foster greater inclusivity and equity in our city, truly reflecting the diverse and vibrant community we aim to support.”

Flynn and Murphy filed a resolution calling for Council support of such an expansion in February, but saw their push blocked by Wu allies and her former staffers, Sharon Durkan and Henry Santana, who objected to its passage and canceled a hearing on the resolution, respectively.

Santana had cited the need for more data when canceling the hearing, but did not object when Murphy requested that the resolution be voted on without a hearing this past June, when it was defeated by the City Council, via a 6-2 vote, falling a vote shy of the seven needed for majority approval.

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City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, whose district includes the Franklin Park Zoo, voted in favor of the Council resolution seeking expansion in June, but spoke favorably of the mayor’s announcement, which she was present for, on Sunday.

Fernandes Anderson said BPS Sundays creates “more equitable solutions where families can afford to participate” and provides a forum for “experiential learning.”

“I think all our institutions should connect with BPS and offer our students opportunities,” Fernandes Anderson said. “I do believe that Mayor Wu had the foresight to be able to do this in a way, pilot it in a small level and then scale it up, and now we’re proving that this is well-needed in the community.”

Amari, the Franklin Park Zoo’s Masai giraffe, sticks out her tongue after eating during a visit by Mayor Michelle Wu and city officials to announce the extension of BPS Sundays.. (Libby O’Neill/Boston Herald)