Chalkbeat

Preschool funding, school food, and other key education issues take center stage at budget hearing

2024-05-15T22:39:24+00:00

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As New York City schools stand to lose nearly $1 billion in the next fiscal year, City Council members pressed Education Department officials on how the looming drop in funding could impact the city’s early childhood system, school cafeteria menus, and other key education programs.

The Wednesday hearing came as City Council members and Mayor Eric Adams continue to negotiate the city’s budget for the next fiscal year, which is due by July 1.

Last month, Adams unveiled a budget proposal that would see the city’s Education Department funding shrink by 2.4%, or $808 million, next year — largely spurred by the expiration of billions of dollars of one-time federal COVID relief funds. Despite that drop in funding, the proposed budget devotes half a billion dollars in city and state funds to preserve several education programs currently propped up by the expiring federal dollars, including money for hundreds of social workers, the city’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds, and new staffers working in homeless shelters.

Other programs that have relied on the federal funds, however, remain at risk.

Education Department officials acknowledged the difficulties presented by the expiring federal funds, noting that they’ve advocated for the continuation of all such programs. Specific decisions about which programs to devote long-term city funding to have been made by the city’s Office of Management and Budget, said Emma Vadehra, the department’s chief operating officer.

Questions also centered on how the city’s schools would be impacted by sweeping cuts that Adams has ordered city agencies to enact over the past year to help cover costs for services to an influx of migrants. Under that separate directive, the Education Department faces more than $700 million in cuts to city funding for specific programs next year, including roughly $170 million slashed from early childhood programs. (The city’s overall contribution to the Education Department’s budget would still rise by nearly $1.6 billion under Adams’ proposal, though it’s not enough to offset the vast drop in federal funding next year.)

Schools Chancellor David Banks told council members it’s been “very challenging” to select certain programs to prioritize.

“I mean, it’s like, ‘Which one is your favorite child?’” he said. “These are all wonderfully, amazing programs. We don’t want to lose any of them.”

Here’s a look at some of the key education issues that arose during the hearing:

Council member clashes with DOE over preschool programs

Though Adams’ proposed budget would replace $92 million of expiring federal funding for 3-K — the city’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds — it does not restore a separate $170 million cut to city funding for early childhood programs. City Council members repeatedly expressed concerns over that cut during the hearing, seeking further details from Education Department officials about the potential impact of reduced funding.

Building up the free prekindergarten system for the city’s 3- and 4-year-olds was a centerpiece of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. Under Adams, the sector has been plagued with problems, including declining enrollment and lengthy payment delays to community organizations running programs.

On Wednesday, Education Department officials contended those issues had been inherited from the prior administration. They pointed to some improving metrics in the city’s early childhood system, stating enrollment in such programs had grown to roughly 114,000 children. That was up from 97,000 children earlier this year, according to city data released in November. Meanwhile, the average processing time for payments for early childhood providers had decreased to roughly 11 days.

Officials added they’ve worked to shift existing seats to neighborhoods with higher demand.

Capacity for the city’s 3-K program is roughly 53,000 seats, with about 44,000 filled, according to figures shared by Education Department officials during the hearing.

In one particularly contentious exchange, Brooklyn Council Member Lincoln Restler questioned why Education Department officials were unable to say definitively how many seats the city’s preschool programs would be able to offer next year after the $170 million cut.

“These are the cuts that the mayor has proposed that he wants to implement to your agency: What would be the impact of them?” he said. “How many fewer seats would you have? This is like the most plain, simple, obvious question that we were going to get all day. I’m a little disappointed that we’re not getting a straight answer.”

Education Department officials said any reductions would be focused in areas where seats aren’t filled.

Restler also pressed department officials for details about the full release of a report on 3-K seats. City officials hired the consulting firm Accenture last year to “map out needs and seats” as the program grappled with thousands of vacancies.

Officials previously said Accenture would be paid $760,000 to compile the report. But on Wednesday, Education Department officials cited a significantly lower figure of “$350,000 or $250,000.” They did not provide a precise timeline for the release.

City officials did not immediately explain the discrepancy between the two figures.

Budget cuts prompt concerns over school food

City Council members also expressed concerns over how budget cuts to school food would affect students next year. A $60 million November cut to the city’s school foods budget sparked outcry earlier this year, as the reduced funding forced cafeterias to remove popular items like chicken dumplings and bean and cheese burritos from their menus.

Though the city later restored some of those menu items, council members questioned whether the lingering cuts would impact cafeteria menus in the coming school year.

“We are monitoring this very closely,” Vadehra said. “We are very invested in making sure all of these food options stay on the menu for students next year.”

City officials express concerns over state funding

Education Department officials noted multiple times during the hearing that although state funding for the city’s schools increased for the coming fiscal year, the city is getting less than expected. A change to the formula determining how much money is sent to districts left New York City schools with $126 million less than anticipated.

Over the coming year, the state’s Education Department will partner with the Rockefeller Institute to conduct a longer term examination of that formula, in hopes of implementing further changes, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last month.

“Our costs do continue to grow each year, which is why it’s important the state’s contribution — which is a lesser proportion of our budget now than it was 20 years ago — continues to increase,” Vadehra said.

City Education Department officials also told council members they had not yet received sufficient funding to fully implement a state law mandating smaller class sizes. But the department will continue to invest in hiring additional teachers and expanding classroom space to remain in compliance with the law, officials said.

An additional $180 million will go to school budgets, with around $135 million explicitly earmarked for compliance with the state class size law, Vadehra said. She estimated those funds would allow for hiring between 1,200 and 2,000 new teachers.

“Assuming those teachers can be found,” she added.

Education programs still at risk as fiscal cliff looms

City Council members drew attention to several education programs that have relied on expiring federal funds and are not included in the mayor’s proposed budget — including $65 million funding roughly 400 contracted school nurses, as well as millions of dollars to support restorative justice programs.

Education Department officials were unable to say during the hearing how many schools would be left without a nurse as that funding dries up later this year. Currently, every public school in the city has at least one nurse in the building.

Meanwhile, restorative justice programs, which aim to resolve conflict through peer mediation and other less punitive methods, are at risk of losing more than half of their current budget as the federal funds expire. Education Department officials said roughly $8 million of the $13.6 million committed to restorative justice programs this year comes from expiring federal dollars.

At the hearing, Banks encouraged council members to advocate for the funding to be restored.

“You all are still engaged in the process,” he said. “You can certainly, as you are engaged in this conversation and negotiations, push to make sure that [restorative justice] gets restored.”

In total, the city’s Education Department faces a gap of more than $200 million in expiring federal funds for education programming next year, officials said.

Alex Zimmerman contributed reporting.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Restorative justice funding could be cut by more than half as fiscal cliff nears

2024-05-14T23:20:47+00:00

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Thanks to an infusion of federal pandemic relief money, city officials bolstered programs that encourage schools to talk through conflicts with students rather than resorting to suspensions.

Federal dollars now represent about $8 million of the program’s roughly $13.6 million budget — funding that is set to expire this summer. Mayor Eric Adams recently allocated more than half a billion dollars to save several other education programs that were financed with one-time federal money. Restorative justice was not included.

Restorative justice initiatives, which prioritize peer mediation and other forms of conflict resolution, have been a key alternative to more punitive forms of discipline, advocates say. If the funding evaporates, they worry schools will increasingly respond to student misbehavior by removing students from their classrooms.

Those programs allow “students to resolve conflicts on their own and it keeps them within the school community,” said Naphtali Moore, a staff attorney at the school justice project at Advocates for Children, a group that has pushed to find new sources of funding for programs that received one-time federal dollars. “You’re also building relationships as well.”

The possible budget cuts come at a precarious moment: Concerns about student behavior have intensified in the wake of the pandemic, and suspension rates are on the rise, returning to pre-pandemic levels last school year. Education Department officials have not released suspension data for the first half of this school year, despite a city law requiring they do so by the end of March and several requests from Chalkbeat for the statistics.

Schools Chancellor David Banks previously said he does not favor “zero tolerance” approaches to school discipline, but has also stressed that misbehavior must be met with consequences. In congressional testimony last week, he said that the city swiftly suspended 30 students who engaged in antisemitic incidents as some campuses grappled with upheaval related to the Israel-Hamas war. The schools chief has faced pressure to address broader safety concerns on many campuses, as the number of weapons confiscated in schools surged in the wake of the pandemic.

Banks has not pursued formal discipline policy changes, but school leaders across the city received training this year that reinforced their discretion to suspend students, three principals said.

“The message was, ‘if you need to suspend students you can do that’,” said one Brooklyn high school principal who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “The tone was kind of different. When we first came back from the pandemic, it was more, ‘focus on restorative justice.’”

Advocates fear that the city may retreat from restorative justice programs. Those efforts gained steam under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who overhauled the city’s discipline code and presided over a significant drop in suspensions. Some educators contend those reforms created more chaotic classrooms in some cases.

This is not the first time restorative justice programs have faced an uncertain future under Banks. City officials threatened to cut the program’s funding in 2022 only to save it at the last minute. A group of student activists pushed the city earlier this year to dramatically increase funding for more holistic approaches to student misbehavior and mental health challenges, including restorative justice.

“Kids need more support than ever, but in terms of the funding, the support is less stable than it ought to be,” said Tala Manassah, deputy executive director of the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, which partners with hundreds of city schools on restorative justice and social-emotional programs.

Uncertainty over funding can make it difficult to offer training earlier in the school year or over the summer when they are more likely to be effective, Manassah added. If the funding is added at the last second, that means training may not ramp up until later in the school year when “folks are already overwhelmed,” she said. “You don’t want initiatives that seem like an add-on or more of a burden.”

Some Education Department staff are already bracing for cuts. “There will be less training, less opportunities for people to form teams and meet after school, less opportunity to pay students” to deliver restorative circles where school community members talk through conflicts, said one central office staff member familiar with the city’s restorative justice programming who spoke on condition of anonymity.

An Education Department spokesperson did not answer questions about the city’s plans for restorative justice funding.

Several advocates noted there’s still time to push the city to find new money, as the city budget must be hashed out with the City Council and finalized by July 1.

“We do have two months to push the negotiations to replace the federal dollars,” said Andrea Ortiz, the membership and campaign director for the Dignity in Schools Campaign, an advocacy group. “The budget’s not done.”

Update: After this story was published, Education Department officials revealed at a City Council hearing that they are spending less federal funding on restorative justice than initially budgeted. Officials allocated $8 million in federal funding for restorative justice this school year, not $12 million.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

To meet class size mandate, NYC officials look to virtual learning

2024-05-09T22:24:48+00:00

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To reduce New York City’s class sizes under a new state mandate, Education Department officials floated one option to help principals comply: virtual learning.

In a plan released this week outlining ways that schools could meet the law’s goals, the Education Department suggested that some students could “receive regular remote instruction, potentially reducing the overall impacts on space in schools.”

Spinning up a virtual learning program would be optional, and the plan does not force principals to choose any specific method for achieving the new caps. It suggests 11 other possible ways principals could free up space, including repurposing rooms not currently used for instruction; boosting the number of classes taught by assistant principals; running student schedules with staggered start times; and ensuring students are spread evenly across classrooms.

Virtual learning could be valuable on campuses that are tight on space as officials scramble to find ways to reduce class sizes, including lengthy and expensive construction projects or capping school enrollment.

Many schools and families struggled with virtual learning amid the chaos of citywide building shutdowns during the pandemic, but city and union officials are betting that more targeted applications can bear fruit. The Education Department now runs two remote schools, and saw success with a remote learning pilot, offering online classes to students who couldn’t take those courses at their schools. And the most recent teachers union contract has expanded schools’ ability to offer virtual learning.

The class size reduction plan is preliminary and subject to approval by the unions representing teachers and school administrators. And it’s unlikely that the state’s class size mandate will directly lead to a big increase in virtual learning in the short term, since only 40% of the city’s classrooms must comply with the new class size caps this September.

“We’re very confident we are going to be in compliance next year,” First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said during a meeting of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council on Thursday.

Under the law, classes must not exceed between 20 and 25 students depending on the grade level, and they also apply to virtual classrooms. Physical education and other classes involving performing groups are limited to 40 students. The law phases in over time, with 20% of classrooms per year required to comply with the new caps. All classrooms must be within those limits by 2028.

The city appears to be on track to meet the state’s requirements, and officials are requiring that all district superintendents increase the percentage of classrooms that are in compliance with the new caps by 3% next year.

“We are looking to make progress in implementing this law across the city, even as we are close to compliance for next year,” wrote Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle. “This includes putting $180 million in new funding into school budgets.”

Few schools signed up to offer virtual learning this year

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew, who has pushed for class size reductions, has said that virtual options could help with space problems.

“You have less of a problem with programming your regular school day because you have less students in the building at any given time,” Mulgrew told Chalkbeat earlier this year. “It also gives you more classroom space to work with.”

The city’s virtual pilot program, allowing students to take classes from teachers on other campuses, was a boon for small schools that may have struggled to offer a full range of electives and advanced placement classes.

Under the expanded version of the program negotiated last year in the union contract, schools can offer classes during the regular school day or on evenings and weekends, allowing students to catch up on credits, pursue accelerated coursework, or go to school on a non-traditional schedule if they are working or have other responsibilities.

The contract said that 25% of high schools and 6-12 schools were eligible to offer virtual schooling this year, with all schools able to participate by the 2027-28 school year. Schools were required to sign up and neither students nor educators can be required to participate in virtual classes.

But a bureaucratic approval process created obstacles for schools to participate, according to union officials. Only 40 high schools are participating this year, though Education Department officials said 80 schools are approved for this fall with additional campuses still under consideration. (This does not include schools that allow students to attend virtual classes offered by teachers at other campuses.)

“Myself and the chancellor are more hands on now,” Mulgrew said, noting that middle and high schools are eligible to participate next year. “We both are frustrated with it.”

Walking back plan to force principals to prioritize teacher hiring

City officials also indicated that, at least for now, they will not require school leaders with vacant roles to prioritize hiring teachers over other positions — a move officials previously floated that would have constrained principals’ freedom to manage their own hiring decisions.

“We’re not eager to restrict principals’ and communities’ ability to hire who they think is most critical until we need to,” Emma Vadehra, the Education Department’s chief operating officer, said during the Thursday parent council meeting.

Some advocates have expressed worry that the city, which pushed back against the class size mandate, will not ultimately comply with the state’s requirements.

“Any plan worth the paper it is printed on must project how many classes will be reduced each year, using which levers, and with what results,” Leonie Haimson, executive director of the advocacy group Class Size Matters, said in a statement. “This document fails on every account.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed reporting.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Hundreds of NYC schools have space to reduce class sizes, teachers union contends

2024-05-07T21:02:49+00:00

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New York City’s teachers union released an analysis Tuesday that contends hundreds of schools have enough space to meet the requirements of a state class size mandate.

About 856 schools have sufficient classroom space in their buildings to reduce class sizes under new state caps that were passed into law in 2022, the analysis shows. The union estimates that the city would need to hire about 3,000 additional teachers to reduce class sizes at these schools.

The union’s report only looked at the 1,300 city schools that receive federal dollars that support low-income students. Union officials said they focused on those schools because the state’s class size law requires the city to prioritize high-need campuses, though the law will apply to all schools once it is fully phased in. (The city operates about 1,600 public schools.)

Under the law, classes may not exceed 20 students from kindergarten through third grade, 23 students in grades 4-8, and 25 students in high school (physical education and other classes involving performing groups are limited to 40 students). The law phases in gradually with 20% of classrooms per year required to comply with the new caps until all classrooms are covered in 2028.

The United Federation of Teachers was a key player pushing for the stricter class size caps, pointing to research that shows students benefit from smaller classes, though the union has raised concerns about whether the city intends to comply with the law.

“For the schools that we know have the space, it should be much easier to do this — it really is just a question of hiring additional teachers,” Michael Mulgrew, the union’s president, said during a press conference on Tuesday outside the Education Department’s Manhattan headquarters.

But education officials and experts stress that complying with the new mandate will be a challenging and expensive undertaking that involves difficult tradeoffs. About 40% of classrooms already meet the caps, meaning dramatic changes aren’t needed to comply with the law during the first two years of implementation. Things get more complicated after that.

The city will need to ramp up teacher recruitment, spending between $1.3 billion to $1.9 billion annually to hire thousands of additional teachers on top of the 3,000 to 6,000 educators who are typically hired each year, according to projections by the city and the Independent Budget Office.

“Hiring teachers, and especially in this labor market, isn’t always the easiest thing to do,” said Matthew Chingos, an Urban Institute researcher who has studied the impact of the class size law. Schools that are forced to spend more of their budgets on teachers may be constrained in funding for other programs or roles such as deans, aides, or counselors, he added.

Plus, city officials say about 500 campuses do not have enough space for additional classrooms to comply with the new caps, forcing tradeoffs such as capping enrollment or constructing new buildings at a cost city officials say could reach between $22 billion and $27 billion.

Experts have also noted that the law requires directing resources to schools with relatively lower poverty rates because high-need schools are already more likely to already have lower class sizes. Last summer, the state’s education commissioner raised concerns about the law’s equity implications.

Mulgrew acknowledged that implementing the law will get more challenging after next school year, but downplayed the notion that schools may have to cap enrollment or cut programs.

“We don’t want students being turned away, we don’t want you closing programs that work,” Mulgrew said. The union chief also waved away equity concerns about the law. “All children in New York City should benefit from this,” he said.

City Education Department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer said officials “have been in constant engagement” with the unions that represent teachers and principals, which must both sign off on the city’s class size reduction plans.

“The law required that 20 percent of classes meet the class size mandate this year, and we met that requirement,” Styer wrote. “We will continue to stay in compliance with the law.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

What to know about the upcoming state tests for grades 3-8

2023-03-23T21:50:12+00:00

It’s testing season in New York once again.

Schools across the state will administer standardized reading and math exams for grades 3-8 in April and May, as well as science exams for eighth graders in June.

With the intense attention on the pandemic’s effect on students, some schools might be ramping up their focus on the state tests. Some districts have signed up their schools for computer-based programs for math and reading, according to Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the city education department. It’s part of a learning “acceleration” initiative launched earlier this year by the education department, Gothamist reported.

There might be more attention on this year’s state tests, following the spotlight on last year’s dip in national test scores, which also showed drops in fourth grade math scores in New York City.

But there’s a big caveat with the state tests: This year, the exams are based on new learning standards and can’t be compared to results from the last school year, when nearly half of students passed reading exams and 38% passed math.

Many educators and families argue that testing takes away classroom time and doesn’t tell the full story of how a student is doing — a viewpoint schools Chancellor David Banks has previously echoed. Others believe it is a useful tool.

State officials said the tests are just “one tool” that helps teachers understand their students’ academic needs.

Here are some things you should know about the upcoming exams:

When are the tests and how will they be administered at schools?

Schools will give the state English test over a consecutive, two-day period between April 19-21. If students are absent those days, they can make up the tests between April 24-28.

Two weeks later, students will take math tests from May 2-4 with make-up dates scheduled for May 5-11.

Eighth graders will take a science laboratory exam between May 23 and June 2 and a written exam on June 3. Make-up tests for the lab exam must happen sometime within that testing window, while make-up dates for the written exam take place between June 6-9. There will be no fourth grade science test as the state prepares to transition to a science test for fifth graders, beginning next spring.

Most New York City schools will give the exams on paper. So far, 130 schools plan to use computer-based testing, Styer said — which has sometimes come with technical issues across the state. For computer-based tests, the window for English exams will be April 19-26 and for math will be May 2-9.

While computer-based testing is currently optional, mandated computer-based state testing will begin next spring for grades 5 and 8. All schools will be required to give the exam on computers in the spring of 2026 for all grades.

How will the tests be different this year?

For the first time, this year’s state tests will be based on the “Next Generation Learning Standards,” a set of grade-level learning standards established in 2017 that were revised from the controversial Common Core standards.

The Next Gen standards, as they’re often called, were meant to clarify previously vague language from the Common Core. For example, whereas Common Core geometry standards simply stated that students must be able to “prove theorems about triangles,” Next Gen’s revisions detailed the specific theorems.

When the state’s Board of Regents adopted the new standards, some groups lauded them for not straying too far from Common Core, while other education organizations said the standards were too rigorous for early grades.

What do the new tests mean for scoring them?

New tests also mean that the state will determine new benchmarks of what makes a student proficient in reading, math, and science. This summer, teachers will participate in a process where they will decide what students need to know in order to demonstrate that they’re meeting grade-level standards – otherwise known as being proficient – on state exams. That process will impact scoring for this spring’s tests.

“It’s a matter of judgment to decide, ‘OK, we think a student who’s proficient should be able to answer this question correctly, say, two-thirds of the time,’” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, giving an example.

Can we compare scores to last year?

No. Because the tests are new, the results can’t be compared to last year’s scores. Studying scores from year to year is helpful for understanding progress students have made — especially amid the pandemic.

But because state officials have warned against comparing results to previous years whenever the test changes, it’s been impossible to consider trends over the better part of a decade.

In 2016, New York allowed students to have unlimited testing time and cut the number of questions. In 2018 the state went from three testing days to two. The exams were canceled due to the pandemic in 2020, and the following school year, a fraction of students took shortened exams with just a quarter in New York City — far less than 2019.

They advised against comparisons with last year’s scores because looking at a student’s performance in 2022 versus 2019 would “ignore the enormous and, in many cases, grievous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students, families, teachers, and entire school communities,” a spokesperson for the state education department said in a statement.

That may be frustrating to some educators, families, and researchers because it makes it impossible to see long-term trends of student performance and growth. These exams, however, are just one indicator of how well students are doing in New York, said Pallas, and should be viewed along with other metrics, such as graduation rates and college acceptance rates.

“The state testing system is just one piece of evidence that has to be put into relation to all the other things that are available,” Pallas said.

How are my child’s scores used?

Schools are federally required to administer these exams, and districts are required to assess 95% of their students.

In New York City, the exams are used to see where students are meeting grade-level expectations “as well as students that need academic intervention in literacy and math,” Styer said.

State officials have said that these scores are just one measure of how a student is doing in school. However, the scores don’t come back until the fall – meaning teachers can’t see them the year that children take the exams.

In New York City, high schools and middle schools that screen students for admission can no longer take state test scores into account.

Can I opt my child out?

Yes. While federal officials require schools to administer these tests, parents can pull their children out. New York City’s education department has previously advised parents to speak with their child’s principal if they’re interested in opting out.

Last year, 10% of students opted out of exams compared with 4% in 2019.

Federal law requires states to give assessments to at least 95% of students. If fewer students participate at a school, it could contribute to the school being labeled as struggling – which state officials define as needing “targeted” or “comprehensive” support. But generally, low test participation may only affect a school’s accountability status if it’s combined with bad results on other measures, such as chronic absenteeism, according to state education officials.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s test opt-out rate doubled in the wake of the pandemic

2024-04-26T17:59:24+00:00

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The epicenter of New York’s test refusal movement has long been outside the five boroughs, taking root in whiter and more affluent school districts, particularly on Long Island.

But since the pandemic, the share of families opting out of the annual state tests has more than doubled in New York City — even as the statewide rate has fallen.

The opt-out rate on the state English language arts exam in New York City grew from about 4% in 2019 to 8% in 2023, the most recent data available.

Across the state, the refusal rate dipped from nearly 19% to just below 14% over the same period, according to a recent analysis of district averages conducted by Olivia Ildefonso. She studied the opt-out movement as a graduate student and is CEO of a company called North Arrow that produced an interactive map that tracks test refusals in New York. (The analysis focuses only on the reading tests, though officials confirmed the New York City trends are similar for both the reading and math tests.)

There does not appear to be a single explanation for why the city and state opt-out rates are trending in different directions. Some educators and observers suggested families may have begun to see tests as optional, or even question their value.

The grades 3-8 exams were canceled entirely in 2020. When they came back in 2021, families had to opt in, a reversal of the traditional policy that students must take them unless they explicitly opt out. Only 20% of New York City families opted in to take the exams that year, compared with about 40% across the state.

“During the pandemic it was like, ‘Wait, my kids don’t have to take these tests?’” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, an East Harlem parent who serves on the Panel for Educational Policy and has opted her son out of state testing for years. “The conversations I’ve been having with families is: ‘Why is it worth it for our kids?’”

Notably, there did not seem to be a larger-than-usual organizing effort in the city to persuade families to sit out the exams, said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who has studied school assessment data.

“I’m kind of puzzling over this,” Pallas said of the higher opt-out rate in the wake of the pandemic.

The opt-out movement initially gained steam a decade ago, when state test scores plunged after they were aligned to the Common Core, part of a national effort to get states to adopt tougher reading and math standards. Many educators were furious about being evaluated based on those scores.

Opt-out rates have historically been highest outside the city, and the movement has long been associated with more affluent suburban districts. Last year, roughly a quarter of Long Island districts had refusal rates above 50%, according to Ildefonso’s analysis.

Test refusal remains lower in New York City, and many campuses with high opt-out rates are in progressive pockets in Brooklyn and Manhattan. But there is also evidence that city families from a wide range of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds are opting out.

In District 4, which covers East Harlem, the opt-out rate more than doubled in the wake of the pandemic to 9.4%. Some families in the neighborhood told Chalkbeat in 2022 that they saw other caregivers opt out at schools where that was not previously the norm, especially in the wake of significant learning disruptions and mental health challenges tied to school closures.

“When compared to the rest of the state, the opt-out movement in NYC is fairly representative of the overall city population,” said Ildefonso. “I imagine that people’s reasons for participating are just as diverse.” (State officials do not release demographic data about which students opt out of exams. Ildefonso compared the demographics of the city’s 32 local districts with their opt-out rates.)

Refusal rates in the city’s charter sector remain low, but ticked up over the past four years from about 1.3% to 3.3%.

At Harlem Link Charter School, where 95% of students are Black or Latino and most come from low-income families, school officials saw a notable increase in families opting out of state tests. More than 13% opted out of the ELA exam in 2023, up nearly 5 percentage points from 2019, state data show.

Dan Steinberg, the school’s co-principal, said families have been probing the school more about how the tests are used, such as whether they play a role in the school’s promotion decisions (they don’t). He also noted that the city’s decision to eliminate the use of state tests for middle school admissions could be contributing, as the school runs through fifth grade and many students apply to district middle schools.

“It feels like a number of factors converging,” he said. “Families seem to just be asking more questions since COVID about the assessment in general.”

Although federal rules require that at least 95% of students in grades 3-8 sit for the exams, state education officials have generally shown little appetite for taking punitive action against schools or districts. A spokesperson for the state’s Education Department did not return multiple requests for comment on the city’s rising test refusal rates.

Long Island City mom Whitney Toussaint said she opted her son out of the fourth grade language arts test last year because of negative experiences with test prep. Her son, who receives special education services and has trouble decoding words, came home in tears after he struggled to finish a practice test.

“I didn’t want to take his confidence from school so I opted him out,” she said, noting that her son still took the math exam. “I’m going to do anything to make my son feel empowered and confident.”

Toussaint said her son’s reading skills have improved thanks to private speech and occupational therapies the family arranged on top of services at school. He felt confident enough to take the state reading tests that were administered this month.

Still, Toussaint, who is also the president of the District 30 parent council in Queens, said she’s noticed more families talking about their right to refuse the exams. “Once people know they have that option, they’re going to take it,” she said.

City Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein emphasized that the state tests offer “valuable insight” into student performance, but the city is “committed to honoring parents’ decisions on participation.” She also noted the city’s opt-out rate dropped slightly last year, though data for this year’s exams is not yet available.

Kemala Karmen, a long-time parent activist with the grassroots group NYC Opt Out, said rising refusal rates could be connected to the city’s decision to deploy additional reading and math assessments to gauge student progress. “People are sick of their children having so much testing,” she said. She also suggested that families may have taken a more active role in their children’s educations during the pandemic and in the aftermath of racial justice protests.

Karmen is hopeful that the momentum continues, but she emphasized her group still receives reports of caregivers facing unwelcome pressure to take the state exams.

“We’re not cracking open the champagne yet,” she said. “It’s still not easy to opt out in New York City.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

560 NYC schools were affected by torrential downpour in September, report finds

2024-04-25T19:24:53+00:00

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About 560 New York City public schools were affected by torrential rainfall last September, far more than previously known, according to a report released this week by the city comptroller.

As Tropical Storm Ophelia pelted some parts of the city with more than 8 inches of rain, public school buildings contended with leaky roofs and flooded basements, cafeterias, and classrooms. One Brooklyn elementary school was evacuated thanks to a smoking boiler.

On the day of the storm, Education Department officials said about 150 schools experienced flooding. That number grew to 336 campuses in the days after the storm, as school staff continued to flag problems. The new report, released by Comptroller Brad Lander, cites city data that indicates 560 schools were affected by the heavy rain in some capacity.

About 350 of those school buildings — or roughly a quarter of all campuses — required cleanup or repairs outside the regular school day, said Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle. The remaining buildings faced problems that were minor, such as open windows that allowed rain to seep in and could be addressed by mopping, she added.

After the Friday storm, “over 95% of all clean up and repairs were completed by the following Monday and all buildings were able to open,” Lyle wrote in a statement. The department did not respond to a question about the cost of the cleanup and repairs.

The comptroller’s report dinged the city’s lackluster communication about the storm, including at the Education Department. The school system did not communicate with families effectively in advance of the storm and “parents were confused about whether school would be in session that day,” the report found. It also noted that guidance about dismissal procedures and after-school activities was posted on the department’s website around 2:30 p.m., after many schools had already let out.

City officials also sent mixed signals to school leaders. At a press conference hours after the school day began, Mayor Eric Adams and Chancellor David Banks said schools were operating under a “shelter in place” order. But as Chalkbeat previously reported, that message was never directly sent to school principals. Banks later acknowledged flaws in his agency’s communication that day.

“Schools, like the rest of the City, must do the work to be more prepared for extreme storms, which are increasing in both frequency and intensity,” Lander said in a statement. “The Department of Education must do better in directly notifying our families before the next weather emergency hits.”

Lyle, the Education Department spokesperson, said the school system has “worked to continually improve our communications to staff and families” pointing to the city’s response to a recent earthquake.

“The safety and wellbeing of our students and staff, particularly during a crisis, is our top priority,” she wrote.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC’s education budget hits a fiscal cliff, Adams saves several school programs

2024-04-24T21:51:44+00:00

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New York City public schools would see its budget shrink by 2.4%, or $808 million, next fiscal year under a more detailed budget presented by Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday.

The smaller budget is largely the result of expiring federal relief dollars, and Adams’ proposal saves a slew of programs that were on the chopping block because they were financed with one-time money that flooded into city coffers in the wake of the pandemic.

Officials announced last week that they will use more than $500 million in city and state funds to keep hundreds of social workers, new staffers working in homeless shelters, and an expansion of preschool for 3-year-olds, among other initiatives.

“We inherited fiscal cliffs,” Adams said during a rally outside City Hall on Wednesday. “We had to continue to fund these programs in a real way.”

Overall, the city’s contribution to the Education Department’s budget would rise by nearly $1.6 billion under Adams’ proposal, though not enough to completely offset the $2.4 billion drop in federal funding next year. The state’s contribution is set to increase by $202 million. The mayor’s proposed operating budget for the department is $32.2 billion.

Advocates and City Council leaders have praised Adams’ efforts to find funding for programs that were operated with one-time money. But he has also faced criticism over the past year for ordering sweeping cuts to city agencies to help finance services for an influx of migrants.

Those reductions have not been fully reversed, and the Education Department faces over $700 million in cuts next year under that directive, including $170 million less for early childhood programs and the elimination of vacant non-classroom positions.

Adams’ budget replaces expiring 3-K funding, but advocates say it’s not enough

Adams has faced significant blowback for scaling back the city’s ambitious plan to offer universal free preschool programs for 3-year-olds, also known as 3-K, a promise made by Mayor Bill de Blasio and financed with the one-time federal dollars.

Adam’s budget replaces $92 million of expiring federal funding for 3-K, but does not restore the broader $170 million cut in city funding for preschool programs. Schools Chancellor David Banks said during a City Council hearing last month that those cuts are “extremely hurtful to the entire enterprise of early childhood” and predicted that they would be restored.

But even without replacing those early childhood cuts, Adams insisted on Wednesday that every family who wants a 3-K seat will have access to one. Officials are now planning to spend $5 million on outreach efforts to get the word out about the program, though Adams previously argued that vacant slots suggested the program needed to be “right-sized.”

“How do you have 23,000 vacant pre-K, 3-K, seats and we see that as a great program?” Adams said. “No. A great program is when we place those babies in those seats.”

Early childhood advocates were skeptical that the mayor’s efforts would be enough to guarantee every child a seat. They pointed out that the $92 million commitment to replace federal funding for 3-K expansion is for one year only, though city officials said they’re looking for longer-term funding sources.

“Without further investments in the child care system, the City will not be able to fulfill the Mayor’s crucial promise,” Gregory Brender, the chief policy and innovation officer at the Day Care Council, wrote in a statement. “The Executive Budget remains a perilous proposal for New York City’s early childhood education system.”

Advocates also pointed out that the city has only partially replaced federal funding that Adams used to bolster special education preschool programs, even as officials acknowledged last month that hundreds of students with disabilities don’t have access to seats to which they’re legally entitled.

The Education Department’s budget could still change

The mayor’s budget is still subject to negotiations with the City Council, which must pass a final budget by July 1.

Advocates and local lawmakers are pushing for Adams to fund a handful of other initiatives whose funding is not guaranteed after this year.

Those include restorative justice initiatives that encourage peer mediation and other methods of resolving conflicts to reduce punitive methods like suspensions; a mental health program for students at 50 high-need high schools; and a program that offers subsidized child care for undocumented families. City Council officials also pointed to the need for more funding for school building upgrades, as fewer than 1 in 3 of the city’s schools are fully accessible to people with physical disabilities.

“We are relieved that many of the education programs supported with federal stimulus funding are no longer in jeopardy,” Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children, an organization that works on behalf of low-income families, wrote in a statement. “We urge City leaders to go further to prevent the loss of other critical supports that students and families need.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

AOC, Bo Dietl, and advocates for selective schools: Here’s who David Banks met as NYC schools chief

2022-10-24T23:06:47+00:00

David Banks became the leader of New York City’s school system in January at a moment of crisis, with the omicron variant fueling an explosion in coronavirus cases that sent student attendance plunging.

Yet aside from a flurry of COVID briefings that tapered off after a few weeks, Banks’ first three months in office were dominated by introductions with key elected officials (34 meetings), school tours (21 visits), media requests (14 interviews), and meetings with other government, corporate, and nonprofit leaders, according to a copy of his calendar provided through a public records request.

He wasted no time setting up meetings with politicians — from city councilors, state legislators, and borough presidents to national figures. Just days after taking office, he seems to have met with Hillary Clinton, an early supporter of the Eagle Academy schools Banks helped launch in 2004. On Feb. 1 he appears to have met with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on Zoom. (Those people are listed on Banks’ schedule as AOC and HRC. A department spokesperson declined to confirm their identities; representatives of the two politicians did not respond.)

Banks also sat down with Bo Dietl, a retired police detective who has worked on behalf of longtime Trump advisor Steve Bannon, former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, and shock radio personality Don Imus. During his unsuccessful run for mayor in 2017, Dietl tweeted that the teachers union has “hijacked our classrooms” and educators should be required to pass drug tests.

The chancellor’s calendar does not explain why Dietl landed a meeting with the schools chief on Feb. 7 at the education department’s downtown Manhattan headquarters, though he is friendly with Banks’ boss, Mayor Eric Adams.

Reached by phone, Dietl declined to say what the two spoke about. “Any business I do is my business,” he said, adding a string of expletives before hanging up. (An education department spokesperson declined to say what they discussed.)

The schedule obtained by Chalkbeat reveals who had the chancellor’s ear as he began navigating his first job running a school system. In his first 89 days, from January through March, he met with union officials representing teachers, cafeteria workers, and crossing guards. He kept in touch with his successor at The Eagle Academy Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the Eagle Academy schools.

The records come with some important caveats. The calendar does not include every conversation the chancellor has, including off-the-cuff or impromptu meetings, or discussions over email. It appears to be heavily redacted, with many pages left blank.

City officials said some information was redacted from the schedule for privacy reasons, including details that could reveal parent or student identities. Information that could reflect deliberations about policy were also excluded. Many of the entries do not include meeting descriptions or even the full names of the people who attended.

The schedule also reveals who isn’t meeting with Banks regularly. The mayor, for instance, does not appear on Banks’ schedule for sit-downs. An education department spokesperson said the mayor and chancellor speak one on one “several times a week” and the chancellor participates in a leadership call every morning with the mayor. Officials did not say why those meetings don’t appear on his schedule.

Banks’ calendar does not include any conversations with advocates for school integration, an issue Banks has not prioritized. (Still, he met with some integration advocates before officially becoming chancellor and a spokesperson said he met with advocates after his first three months.) Representatives of the principals union do not make an appearance on the schedule. Nor do any previous chancellors.

“Chancellor Banks keeps a busy schedule of formal meetings with a diverse group of educators, school leaders, parent leaders, elected officials, and community leaders,” education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer said in a statement. “Additionally, these meetings are augmented with informal calls with leaders from across the city.”

Styer noted that the COVID briefings that appeared didn’t end but were later included as part of a daily call with the mayor.

It also took the agency seven months to respond to Chalkbeat’s request for Bank’s calendar for his first three months in office, longer than it took other agencies to produce the mayor and his chief of staff’s schedules for six months worth of activities.

Still, the records provide some insight into Banks’ early days in office. Here are five other takeaways:

The schedule is a reminder that Adams has elevated members of Banks’ family to key roles. Banks’ fiancé Sheena Wright, who is also deputy mayor for strategic initiatives, appears on the schedule seven times. The reasons for many of Banks’ meetings are not listed, though two meetings with Wright focused on summer school and employment opportunities, which expanded this year to serve thousands more students. Another meeting included Lester Young, the chancellor of the state’s Board of Regents, though the topic is not listed.

Banks met with his brother Phil Banks, the deputy mayor for public safety who was previously named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a corruption case when he was a top police official. The brothers discussed school safety issues at a meeting in January attended by at least one other education department official. They participated in a meeting on “school telehealth” in March with the health commissioner and another deputy mayor — and met to talk about “physical education” in April, according to Phil Banks’ schedule. (David Banks’ calendar does not list any meetings with the police commissioner.)

Parent leaders who favor selective admissions have the chancellor’s ear. On March 10, Banks met virtually with 15 elected community education council members — all of whom were endorsed by Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education or are members of that group. PLACE NYC advocates for policies that sort students by academic ability and Banks recently announced plans to double down on selective admissions at middle and high schools after the city eased up on those policies during the pandemic.

Lucas Liu, president of the parent council in Manhattan’s District 3 who attended the March meeting, said he couldn’t recall what was discussed, but said Banks has generally been more receptive. Banks is “asking for input and what we think the solutions should be,” Liu said, noting that participants attended in their capacity as parent council leaders. “Even getting meetings with [former Chancellor] Carranza’s senior people was a challenge from a PLACE perspective,” he added.

But others haven’t felt as heard. NeQuan McLean, the community education council president in Bedford-Stuyvesant, met with the chancellor on March 30 to pitch a series of community conversations about school and neighborhood violence. Banks has spoken repeatedly about the topic and recently announced an anti-violence initiative, but McLean said the specific community events he envisioned have not come to fruition. “They never followed up on my request,” he said. “I think people need to have a real conversation about safety.”

Banks made an appearance at an exclusive club frequented by the mayor. Adams often spends time at Zero Bond — an exclusive, members-only club in NoHo — and Banks made an appearance there at 7:30 p.m. on March 7. The mayor’s schedule does not show whether he was there that evening and a spokesperson declined to say. The mayor and chancellor were scheduled to visit Adams’ alma mater, Bayside High School, the following morning.

Some union officials are not a regular presence. Banks met with representatives of the teachers union twice, though city and union officials did not say if the union’s chief, Michael Mulgrew, attended. He met twice with Henry Garrido, the head of District Council 37, which represents cafeteria workers, crossing guards, and other school staff.

A notable absence: representatives of the city’s principals union. Mark Cannizzaro, who helms the principals union, wrote that he “talks regularly” with Banks, but wasn’t sure if he had any formal meetings with the chancellor during his first three months in office. A department spokesperson said the chancellor speaks with the principal and teachers union leaders regularly, but did not say why that isn’t reflected on the schedule.

You can find the chancellor’s schedule here. Spot anything interesting on the calendar that we didn’t include? Let us know at ny.tips@chalkbeat.org

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Top NYC education official insists schools won’t get leeway on curriculum mandate due to demographics

2024-04-12T00:33:14+00:00

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A top Education Department official said on Thursday that schools would not have leeway to skirt a new reading curriculum mandate based on student demographics.

“There’s no difference in how we’re implementing based on demographics of kids,” First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said after a Brooklyn superintendent suggested otherwise. “That’s actually a pretty disturbing suggestion.”

New York City is requiring all of its elementary schools to begin using one of three reading curriculums, Chancellor David Banks’ signature education initiative to improve literacy rates.

But Chalkbeat reported Wednesday that District 15 Superintendent Rafael Alvarez recently told families that his district would have more flexibility than District 19, which is also in Brooklyn. Most children in East New York’s District 19 are Black or Hispanic and come from low-income families. About 38% are considered proficient in reading based on state test scores. By contrast, fewer than half of students in District 15 — which runs from Cobble Hill and Red Hook to Park Slope and Sunset Park — are Black or Hispanic or live in poverty. Roughly 63% are proficient readers.

“We have a different community,” Alvarez said in response to parent concerns about the curriculum mandate at a Community Education Council meeting last month. “It’s the reason why there’s flexibility around how we’re using the curriculum — because we don’t have the same demographics where all of our kids need it verbatim with fidelity every day.”

Asked about those comments, top education officials said that there may be certain situations where teachers take different approaches to implementing the curriculum materials but stressed student demographics would not play a role.

“There’s all kinds of areas where we need our educators, our teachers, and our principals to customize for their kids,” said Weisberg, the Education Department’s second-in-command.

Reaction to Alvarez’s comments underscores the tension superintendents are facing, as some parents and educators raise concerns that the new mandates will brush aside materials that make their schools distinctive, including project-based approaches or other teacher-created curriculums.

Superintendents are directly appointed by Banks, who has empowered them to hand down curriculum mandates for the schools they supervise. Some have issued directives in a wider range of grade levels than initially required by Banks’ literacy overhaul.

Alvarez, who attended the press conference, did not directly address his earlier comments about student demographics, but said he is “100% on board” with Banks’ literacy mandate.

The approach in District 15 might look different from District 19 because leaders there began implementing a standardized curriculum before the latest mandate from Banks, Alvarez contended, and it will take teachers time to get used to new materials. He also stressed that district leaders are looking “to find ways to integrate project-based learning” into the newly mandated curriculums.

District 15 Superintendent Rafael Alvarez at the Education Department's Lower Manhattan headquarters.

Banks also did not wade directly into Alvarez’s comments, though he said the superintendent is doing “an amazing job.”

Some families have called for waivers to the new curriculum mandates, and Education Department officials initially suggested that a small slice of schools with high test scores could be exempt.

Although some schools expressed interest in a waiver, officials said school leaders ultimately decided to stick with the mandated reading curriculums. A department spokesperson did not share details about that process, including which schools sought exemptions or what criteria the city might use to grant them.

For his part, Banks said he was disinclined to entertain exemptions, though he hinted he may consider them for the highest-performing schools.

“I don’t take well to principals — anybody else — who will say to me, ‘You know, we want an exception because we’re at 55% [reading proficiency], and our colleagues at 35%,’” Banks said. “You don’t get an award for that. We all need help — we all need to continue to support one another.”

The city is also preparing to launch an advisory group to offer feedback to curriculum companies based on schools’ experience with the materials, Deputy Chancellor Danika Rux said on Thursday, adding superintendents have been meeting regularly to discuss implementing the new curriculums and best practices.

The curriculum providers “make a whole lot of money from New York City public schools — and so we believe that they should listen to us,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC’s literacy mandate expands citywide, some school communities are pushing back

2024-04-10T17:07:34+00:00

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Twelve-year-old Carlo Murray perched on his tiptoes to reach the microphone as he addressed education officials last month. He then unleashed a withering critique of his school’s reading curriculum.

“I love to read all sorts of books,” Carlo told the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, a group that approves contracts and other school policies.

But this year, his teachers are focusing on short passages, leaving him frustrated and bored.

“It feels like I’m getting half an ELA sixth grade experience, half the story, half a piece of writing, only half a curriculum,” Carlo, who attends the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, often called BSI, said to applause.

One by one, Carlo and a handful of his classmates took turns at the microphone to bemoan their experience with the school’s new literacy curriculum. Educators at BSI, along with elementary schools across the city, have been required to adopt one of three reading programs, part of a mandate under schools Chancellor David Banks to boost literacy rates by flushing out popular but increasingly discredited programs.

The BSI students’ strong reactions are notable in part because there has been little organized opposition to the reading curriculum overhaul, as many literacy experts, the city’s teachers union, and several major education advocacy groups have supported it.

But resistance may grow louder as the city has required all local districts to adopt the new reading programs by September, up from just under half this school year. Some parents and educators at schools gearing up to use the new reading materials this fall have started speaking out, arguing the curriculum changes could threaten to upend the project-based learning or teacher-created curriculums that make their schools distinctive.

“Phase two is going to be harder than phase one,” said Susan Neuman, a New York University professor and member of the city’s literacy advisory council. A handful of wealthier districts that also tend to post higher test scores than average — including Districts 2 and 3 in Manhattan and Brooklyn’s District 15 — are all part of the second phase. “It’s going to be very interesting to hear how they respond,” Neuman said.

Most popular curriculum is getting most of the criticism

The reactions at BSI could serve as a preview of worries starting to bubble up elsewhere.

Much of the criticism of the curriculum overhaul has focused on the program that 22 of the city’s 32 local superintendents are requiring in their elementary schools: Into Reading, from the company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, also known as HMH. The remaining districts are either using Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds, or EL Education.

Unlike the other two approved curriculums, HMH is built around an anthology-style textbook that includes passages designed to teach reading skills. Experts say the curriculum may feel easier for educators to quickly unpack than the other options, and it also includes a Spanish-language version. One review faulted the curriculum for not being culturally responsive, which sparked considerable criticism, though HMH has disputed the findings.

To some students at BSI, a gifted K-8 program with competitive admissions and reading proficiency rates that topped 90% last year, their main worry is that the new curriculum feels like dry test prep.

Adding to the concern, the local superintendent that oversees BSI has required middle schools to use HMH, a step further than the citywide requirement to use an approved curriculum in grades K-5 — though more schools may be soon heading in that direction. Banks has pledged to overhaul curriculums across a range of other subjects and grade levels, including high school algebra, a process that is drawing mixed reactions.

Sixth grader Penelope Naidich said her reading classes now draw on shorter texts that come from the HMH workbook rather than teacher-designed classroom conversations of full books. Last year, “we had a whole class discussion, like what happened in the chapter, how did it relate to the theme and the plot,” Naidich said in an interview. “The deeper stuff you’re not getting from these excerpts.”

Still, students and parents at BSI said teachers have recently had more freedom to teach full books, though not as many as in previous years. A representative for HMH wrote in a statement that the curriculum materials for middle school grades includes “numerous complete selections, long reads and novels, in addition to excerpts” and the program “is designed to be flexible so that educators can make decisions that best serve their students.”

The school’s principal did not return a request for comment.

Top education officials contend the curriculum overhaul is essential because the city’s traditional approach of giving schools freedom to pick their own materials has produced meager results: Roughly half of the city’s students in grades 3-8 are not considered proficient in reading, according to state tests.

Banks has laid much of the blame on “balanced literacy” programs, including a popular one created by Teachers College Professor Lucy Calkins. That curriculum encourages students to independently read books at their individual reading levels, an approach meant to foster a love of literature but which experts say is less effective for struggling readers who need systematic instruction. Teachers were also encouraged to use discredited strategies like using pictures to guess at words.

Schools Chancellor David Banks reads to children at P.S. 125 The Ralph Bunche School.

Neuman, the NYU professor, applauded the city’s efforts to move away from balanced literacy and reign in the hodgepodge of approaches schools have used. But she acknowledged some tradeoffs. “The whole idea behind this initiative is to lift the boats of the kids who have been traditionally left behind, and that means some of the advanced students might be subject to a simpler program,” she said. “Right now, that’s the cost.”

City officials initially indicated that a small slice of schools with reading proficiency rates above 85% could be eligible for waivers from the mandate — and some BSI parents have pressed for one. Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said some schools sought waivers, but ultimately chose to use their district’s required curriculum. She declined to elaborate on the process for granting waivers or if the city abandoned plans to consider them for schools with high test scores.

Reading instruction shift worries some parents in next phase

Beyond BSI, some educators and families at schools that are gearing up to implement new reading curriculums in September are also raising alarms.

Alex Estes, the parent association president at The Neighborhood School in Manhattan, said he’s concerned about the new curriculum’s impact. The school, which is in District 1, will be required to use EL Education in September.

With lots of material to cover in the new curriculum, Estes worries educators won’t have time for lessons they’ve prioritized in the past. The school has a particular focus on creating a welcoming environment for LGBTQ students and staff, including a social-emotional curriculum that delves into age-appropriate discussions of gender identity and pronoun use. Estes fears that the school will have to make difficult tradeoffs to make room for the new materials.

“If we take EL’s curriculum 100% and follow it to the T, it is not theoretical that we will lose time for our homegrown curriculum like our identity unit,” Estes said. “There are only so many hours in a school day.”

At a recent Community Education Council meeting in District 15, which stretches across a handful of neighborhoods from Park Slope to Sunset Park, some caregivers echoed that they were happy with their schools’ current approach to instruction.

Students use an EL Education workbook at P.S. 169 Baychester Academy in the Bronx.

District 15 will require schools with dual-language programs to use HMH. All others will use Wit & Wisdom, a curriculum known for building students’ background knowledge and lengthy units on non-fiction topics.

“Mandates in general don’t necessarily acknowledge what’s going well,” said Lauren Monaco, a parent at The Brooklyn New School, a campus that often bucks traditional mandates including state testing in favor of student presentations of deep dives into various topics. “I don’t want the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater.”

In response to families at the meeting, District 15 Superintendent Rafael Alvarez suggested teachers won’t be expected to implement every element of the curriculum right away and said there will still be time for independent reading.

Alvarez also indicated District 15 will have more leeway to implement the curriculum gradually compared with Brooklyn District 19, which includes East New York and used the Wit & Wisdom curriculum districtwide even before the new mandate.

One reason for the added flexibility is their differing demographics, he noted. The vast majority of children in District 19 are Black or Hispanic and from low-income families. About 38% are considered proficient in reading. In District 15, fewer than half of students are Black or Hispanic or live in poverty — and 63% are proficient readers.

“We have a different community,” Alvarez said. “It’s the reason why there’s flexibility around how we’re using the curriculum — because we don’t have the same demographics where all of our kids need it verbatim with fidelity every day.”

Many educators haven’t spoken out

Educators have largely not organized against the curriculum changes. But Emily Haines, a veteran literacy coach at The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology in the Bronx, is trying to change that. She recently launched a petition to drum up support for letting schools pick their own materials.

“Communities should have a voice in choosing a curriculum,” Haines said. Her school covers grades 6-12, but her local superintendent in District 7 has also required that middle schools adopt EL Education, the same program mandated across the district in grades K-5. (An Education Department spokesperson declined to say how many superintendents have issued similar directives for their middle schools.)

Haines said her school currently uses Calkins’ program. She worries the new materials will leave less time for narrative writing, one strategy she uses to get to know her students. And though she acknowledges exposing students to challenging books is important, she’s concerned the new curriculum will force her students to read longer books well beyond their reading levels. About 55% of her school’s students are proficient readers, according to state tests, compared with 32% across District 7.

The Bronx educator said she’s heard from teachers who have privately complained about the changes but, “for some reason it’s not translating into pushback.” So far, her petition has fewer than 100 signatures.

She suspects educators may see little value in speaking out and might be hoping for light enforcement of the mandates. Some principals have indicated plans to sidestep the curriculum requirements.

“I think people are just waiting,” Haines added. “Banks and Adams won’t be around forever and we can go back to what we’re doing before.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NY state education officials unveil 300-page report on mayoral control. Here’s what they found.

2024-04-09T21:29:22+00:00

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State education officials unveiled a highly anticipated report on New York City’s polarizing school governance structure on Tuesday — compiling months of public testimony and decades of the city’s history into a nearly 300-page document.

In the report, state officials did not directly advocate for or against extending Mayor Eric Adams’ control of the city’s schools, instead outlining a series of broader findings and recommendations from the public.

Those findings could have major implications for ongoing negotiations in Albany about mayoral control. The report comes as part of a deal state lawmakers struck in 2022 — extending Adams’ control for two years, while giving Albany time to assess the effectiveness of the long-standing system.

Since September, the state’s Education Department has worked with the CUNY School of Law to conduct a study of school governance models. The department also held a series of public hearings across the five boroughs, soliciting feedback from the public. The results of both efforts were included in the report.

At a press conference hours before the release of the report, Adams questioned the methods employed by the state’s Education Department. He took particular issue with the involvement of the CUNY School of Law, suggesting the school was biased against him due to an incident last year when graduates turned their backs on him during a commencement speech.

“So I’m concerned: Is this more political?” Adams said. “Or is it about the way we have done it and what Chancellor [David] Banks has done?”

He also questioned whether the testimony at public hearings was truly reflective of a city as large as New York.

In response to the mayor’s comments, JP O’Hare, a spokesperson for the state’s Education Department, said “we believe the report speaks for itself.”

“This report is a thorough, research-based presentation of school governance models in New York City and elsewhere that meets the law’s requirements with fidelity,” he said. “As intended by the legislature, the report provides thoughtful information and testimony concerning mayoral control of schools.”

Later in the day, after the release of the report, Education Department First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg called the report “disappointing” and a “missed opportunity” for failing to adequately highlight the city’s progress in closing achievement gaps compared to the rest of the state during the period of mayoral control.

Here are some of the key findings of the state’s report:

NYC model unlike most others in nation, according to report

Mayoral control, which centralizes power over the city’s schools in the hands of the mayor, has been regularly extended since 2002. The system gives the mayor the power to choose a schools chancellor and appoint a majority of members to the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP, a city board that votes on major policy proposals and contracts.

That model is unlike most others in the country, according to the state report.

Nationwide, a majority of public schools are governed by elected school boards or superintendents, rather than those appointed by a mayor. But even among cities with similar school governance structures, New York City’s model grants more power to the mayor, according to the report.

In other U.S. cities with mayoral control systems, appointments are in some cases picked from a list of names designated by a nominating panel, or require the approval of a city council. The report looked at school governance structures in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and Yonkers — finding New York City’s model granted the most power to the mayor, followed closely by Yonkers’ system.

Calls for reform in public testimony

Over the past two decades, mayoral control has faced both fierce critics and ardent defenders.

In the report, state officials noted that a majority of speakers at public hearings sought reforms to the current system — expressing that they felt unheard or excluded by the current school governance structure. Further, speakers felt that centralizing authority in the hands of the mayor and chancellor resulted in an ill-suited “one-size-fits-all” approach to the nation’s largest school system.

Many members of the public pointed to the PEP, arguing that the disproportionate number of mayoral appointees created a system that lacks sufficient “checks and balances.” Others raised concerns over a lack of continuity in programs and policies whenever a new mayor comes into office.

But the report also acknowledged that few people have called for a return to the local school board model that predated mayoral control. Defenders of mayoral control have argued that the current structure allows for more effective and accountable leadership than the previous school board system.

Research ‘inconclusive’ on school governance

Research, meanwhile, remains unclear when it comes to school governance models, according to the report. While some studies suggest that mayoral control can garner more resources for schools and increase efficiency, others found “persistent issues with inefficiency and the misuse of resources.”

The report stated research has found “no conclusive relationship between school governance structures and student achievement,” as well as “little evidence that any governance structure has reduced longstanding inequities in educational access and attainment among students.”

Still, Adams, Banks, and other officials have pointed to test scores and other metrics in defending the current system.

“Clearly, what you see is sustained improvement in graduation rates and proficiency rates for our students,” Weisberg said Tuesday.

He pointed specifically to shrinking gaps between New York City students and the rest of the state on standardized exams over the past two decades and called it a “missed opportunity that the report didn’t compare and contrast.”

The report does, however, have an extensive section on the test score gaps between city students and the rest of the state’s, which have shrunk significantly since 2005, according to data in the report. But researchers were cautious to draw any kind of causal link between mayoral control and the shrinking gaps, noting that there are a number of other factors that influence test scores and that it’s nearly impossible to distinguish the effects of a specific education policy from the effects of mayoral control as a whole.

Weisberg countered that it’s valid to compare the results of city students to kids in the rest of the state taking the same test as long as you take demographics into account.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for City Hall also emphasized graduation rates and test scores had risen in the years since mayoral control was adopted and called the report a “sham.”

After report, debate over mayoral control will continue

In recent weeks, as lawmakers continued deliberations over the state budget, Banks ramped up his arguments for extending mayoral control. In meetings with lawmakers and public comments, he argued that his track record over the past two years warranted an extension.

But lawmakers have repeatedly pushed back on efforts to include an extension in the upcoming state budget. Some had also refrained from weighing in on the future of the city’s school governance structure before the release of the report.

In a statement Tuesday, State Sen. John Liu, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Senate’s New York City education committee, noted the report would be “invaluable in legislative deliberations and decision-making.”

“We are highly appreciative of Commissioner Betty Rosa and her team of educational professionals at the State Education Department and look forward to thoroughly digesting their findings and recommendations as we take up the important matter of school governance in NYC once the state budget is enacted,” he said.

In addition to its findings, the state report highlighted a series of recommendations from the public’s testimony — including potential tweaks to the makeup of the PEP, and to the roles of Community Education Councils and School Leadership Teams, in order to strengthen the input of local communities in the city’s decision-making process. Members of the public also called for a commission to consider longer-term reforms to the city’s school governance structure.

David Bloomfield, a professor of education, law, and public policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, called the report “a mild reprimand of the current system,” adding it “is careful to couch its recommendations as what came out of the hearings, rather than some sort of independent consensus for what should be done.”

Still, “the three-word summary of the report is: ‘We want change,’” he said. “What that change is, is left out.”

Meanwhile, the recommendation to establish a commission to study longer-term reforms could actually offer mayoral control “a reprieve,” Bloomfield said, noting “it has the effect of extending mayoral control in the near term.”

And as discussions over the future of the city’s school governance structure continue, the precise impact of the report remains unclear, said Jonathan Collins, a professor of politics and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

“If you were looking for a clear referendum on the impact of mayoral control, you’re looking for the wrong thing,” he said, adding the report showed widespread feelings of a disconnect between the needs of kids and the city’s decision-making processes. “But, if you read this report as a clear rejection of mayoral control, I would temper expectations. While we can see at-length the issues with public engagement, there isn’t clear evidence that NYC schools are doing poorly as a result of being under mayoral control.

“Ultimately, though, Governor [Kathy] Hochul and the state legislature will have to decide if the juice is worth what’s been a major squeeze,” Collins added.

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed reporting.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

EVENT: Meet the students and adults behind P.S. Weekly, a new podcast from Chalkbeat and The Bell

2024-03-29T19:20:17+00:00

Meet the students and adults behind P.S. Weekly, a new podcast from Chalkbeat and the Bell.

Please join us on Wednesday, April 17, from 5-6 p.m., for a virtual event to learn how the show is made, how it can be used as a teaching tool, and how you can potentially have your voice heard on the show.

Come to share ideas and ask us questions. The event is free with an RSVP.

Each week this spring, 11 New York City high school students are exploring the most pressing issues facing the nation’s largest school system and looking at possible solutions to move the conversation forward.

The show will feature the latest education news, reports from the field, and thoughtful one-on-one conversations with students, educators, and experts. Among the topics you’ll hear this season include migrant students, book bans, career readiness, special education, and school food.

What else should we cover? What issues would you like us to feature in future episodes?

If you want to reach us ahead of time to share a topic or ask a question, email us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org. We want to hear from you!

And please listen to our first episode here, and subscribe to P.S. Weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.

139,000 NYC families submit applications to Summer Rising, far more than available seats

2024-03-28T20:02:52+00:00

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Roughly 139,000 families submitted applications for Summer Rising, New York City’s free summer programming — far more than the number of available seats.

“It’s a testament to this program’s continued popularity with families — and I can’t wait to see what the summer brings,” schools Chancellor David Banks told reporters after revealing the application numbers on Thursday.

The numbers mirror last year when 45,000 families were initially not offered a seat. The program once again has 110,000 slots, though a portion of those are typically reserved for children who are mandated to attend summer school. It’s possible additional seats will open later as not all families will accept an offer.

Launched in 2021 as a response to the pandemic, the Summer Rising program gives students in grades K-8 a mix of academic instruction delivered by Education Department teachers and enrichment activities supported by a network of community-based organizations that partner with schools.

This year, city officials moved the application process up by about a month so families are slated to receive offers in mid-April, leaving more time to plan. Last summer, thousands of families were forced to scramble for child care over the summer after learning in May that they didn’t have a slot.

Several groups of students are supposed to receive priority for Summer Rising seats, including certain children with disabilities, those who attend after-school programs operated by the Department of Youth and Community Development, children who live in temporary housing or foster care, and students applying to a summer school site housed in the school they attend during the regular school year. Still, falling into one of those categories still does not guarantee a spot.

Despite the program’s popularity, its future is murky. Summer Rising was initially funded with one-time federal relief funding that is now expiring. Mayor Eric Adams has infused the program with city dollars to help replace the federal money that has been spent, but he has also reduced its overall budget.

The cuts mean that middle school students will have fewer hours of enrichment, including no programming on Friday, which is when many sites planned field trips. You can find more details about the program’s hours and structure here.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Welcome to P.S. Weekly, a new podcast from Chalkbeat and The Bell: Meet the students behind the mics

2024-03-20T09:00:00+00:00

Get ready to hear the sounds of the New York City school system like never before.

Next week, Chalkbeat and The Bell are launching P.S. Weekly, a student-created podcast exploring the most pressing issues affecting students — and discussing possible solutions.

Episodes will come out Wednesday mornings this spring, starting March 27. Each will tackle a different topic: migrant students, book bans, career readiness, and more. Led by experienced executive producer JoAnn DeLuna, 11 high school interns are the show’s hosts, reporters, producers, and sound engineers. They’re leading its engagement efforts, designing social media posts, and writing episode summaries.

The show teaser is available below. Listeners can subscribe to P.S. Weekly on all major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

For the past 10 years, Chalkbeat has been a leading source of education reporting in the nation’s largest school system. The Bell came on the scene seven years ago, quickly becoming a premier provider of audio journalism internship programs for New York City public high school students from underrepresented backgrounds.

The partnership between the two organizations comes at a crucial time. A 2022 study found that about 1 in 4 New York City public high schools has a student newspaper or news site. For high-poverty schools, only 7% have one. The students who are least supported in the school system are the least likely to have platforms to share their stories.

Through The Bell, the podcast’s high school interns are paired up with Chalkbeat NY’s team of seasoned reporters and editors to create a series that will become a “must-listen” for students, educators, parents, and policymakers. The show will feature the latest education news, reports from the field, and thoughtful one-on-one conversations with students, educators, and experts.

Think of it as your hall pass to issues in the New York City public school system: access and perspectives you won’t get anywhere else.

And we want to hear from you. Tell us what you’d like to hear more about. Drop us a line at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org.

Meet your new guides:

From left, Salma Baksh, a senior at Forest Hills High School, Bernie Carmona, a junior at The Beacon School, and Dorothy Ha, a senior at Stuyvesant High School.

Salma Baksh, senior

Forest Hills High School, Queens

Salma is the editor-in-chief of the school paper The Beacon; co-founder of Youth Informed, a political discussion club; and co-president of Double Up, a peer mentoring club. When Salma isn’t writing emails, she continues her attempt to build a second brain.

Bernie Carmona, junior

The Beacon School, Manhattan

Bernie is an active member of the Bronx Documentary Center and Google’s Code Next Program, which is centered on computer science. When Bernie isn’t focusing on schoolwork, he’s often practicing the guitar, cooking, or photographing the streets of NYC.

Dorothy Ha, senior

Stuyvesant High School, Manhattan

Dorothy holds leadership roles in her school’s yearbook, theater, poetry club, and art history club. In her free time, Dorothy loves visiting art museums and solving crossword puzzles.

From left, Tanvir Kaur, a senior at Academy of American Studies, Shoaa Khan, a senior at Landmark High School, and Marcellino Melika, a junior at Francis Lewis High School.

Tanvir Kaur, senior

Academy of American Studies, Queens

Tanvir is a student voice writer for The Academy Gazette, an editor and producer for the Bronx Documentary Center, and a member of the NYC Youth Journalism Coalition. Outside of the newsroom, Tanvir is an avid singer of Indian classical music and enjoys playing harmonium and mandolin.

Shoaa Khan, senior

Landmark High School, Manhattan

Shoaa is part of her school’s student government and volleyball team. She enjoys painting, watching movies, and trying new cafes with friends.

Marcellino Melika, junior

Francis Lewis High School, Queens

Marcellino began his journalistic work as a part of his school’s journalism academy. He spends his time on his school’s Science Olympiad team and playing cello in the orchestra. Marcellino also loves to help others through his efforts to give back.

From left, Santana Roach, a senior at Frederick Douglass Academy II, Jose Santana, a senior at Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health & Science Charter School, and Christian Rojas Linares, a senior at University Neighborhood High School.

Santana Roach, senior

Frederick Douglass Academy II, Manhattan

At school, Santana enjoys mentoring his peers, conversing and connecting with others, and striving to tackle intellectual challenges. Santana serves as a role model to many students through the extracurriculars he takes on and values the connections he cultivates with those around him. He also spends his time watching cartoons and talking with his friends and family.

Jose Santana, senior

Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health & Science Charter School, Bronx

Jose serves as the president of his graduating class and leads the podcast/YouTube club in his school. Outside of school, he can usually be found reading a book, playing guitar or saxophone, shooting hoops, or messing around with tech.

Christian Rojas Linares, senior

University Neighborhood High School, Manhattan

Christian enjoys partaking in school events and using specialized AI technology to assist him with his assignments. He likes to listen to podcasts — including Science VS, The Daily, and many more.

From left, Sanaa Stokes, a junior at Professional Performing Arts School, Ava Stryker-Robbins, a senior at The Beacon School and JoAnn DeLuna the executive producer.

Sanaa Stokes, junior

Professional Performing Arts School, Manhattan

At her school where she majors in drama, Sanaa participates in the Black Student Union, Global Glimpse, and is the vice president of the Women Advancement and Liberation Club. When she’s not learning her lines, she enjoys watching rom-com movies.

Ava Stryker-Robbins, senior

The Beacon School, Manhattan

Ava is the co-editor-in-chief of her school’s literary magazine, a reporter for the West Side Rag, and an organizer for the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Teen Activist Project. She’s an alumna of The Bell’s Summer Youth Podcast Academy and the City Limits Accountability Reporting Initiative for Youth, orCLARIFY. Ava also loves to read, play classical guitar, and knit.

JoAnn DeLuna, executive producer

JoAnn is an award-winning bilingual journalist/audio producer and poet originally from Texas. She’s produced and managed podcasts for Sony and OTHERTone (Drapetomaniax: Unshackled History), Pushkin (WorkLife with Adam Grant & Am I Normal? With Mona Chalabi), and NPR (Latino USA, Radio Diaries, KALW). Before switching to audio, JoAnn was a print reporter covering the travel industry from Asia, Europe, and the Americas for more than a decade. She was also a crime and education reporter for newspapers on the US-Mexico border. Her English and Spanish poetry is published in anthologies in California, New York, and Texas.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

NYC chancellor said he’d resign without mayoral control. His threat could add fuel to critics.

2024-03-15T20:20:00+00:00

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New York City schools Chancellor David Banks made headlines this week saying he had “no interest” in continuing in his role if state lawmakers enact sweeping changes to the city’s school governance structure.

That statement, some observers say, is likely to harm his cause.

For months, Banks has served as an ardent defender of the polarizing mayoral control system, which centralizes power over the city’s schools in the hands of Mayor Eric Adams and is set to expire on June 30.

The comments represent an escalation of the chancellor’s rhetoric on mayoral control. They come just weeks before the expected March 31 release of a state Education Department report on the city’s current school governance structure that Albany lawmakers say will help inform if and how they extend mayoral control.

Earlier this week, state legislators chose not to include an extension of mayoral control in their budget proposals — an initial rejection of the four-year extension sought by Gov. Kathy Hochul. Lawmakers have argued the city’s school governance structure should be determined outside of budget negotiations.

The school governance structure has been regularly extended over the past two decades and has largely relied on the mayor’s power to choose a schools chancellor and appoint a majority of members to the Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP, a city board that votes on major policy proposals and contracts.

In prior years, lawmakers have tweaked mayoral control to weaken the mayor’s grip on the PEP. In 2022, for example, they adjusted the system so that PEP members could no longer be removed for voting against their appointer’s wishes, making it harder to remove a panelist for opposing proposals from City Hall. At the same time, the board also expanded from 15 to 23 members, with the mayor appointing 13 of them and retaining the majority.

But recent months have seen repeated calls from critics of the school governance structure to go a step further and remove the mayor’s ability to appoint a majority of members.

On Thursday, Banks told reporters that such a change would render his position ineffective.

“If you don’t have the majority of the vote, you don’t have the power, because that means now you have to negotiate for every vote that you’re trying to do,” he said. “That’s politics. I do not think that that would be good for the school system. I certainly did not sign up for that.”

Banks added he had “no interest in serving as a chancellor in a system where you don’t really have the authority to make real decisions.”

Observers expressed surprise at the chancellor’s comments, noting they could very well fuel critics who argue the system excludes community voices.

“His reasoning shot himself and the mayor in the foot, regarding the assumption of autocratic rule,” said David Bloomfield, a professor of education, law, and public policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. “He gave opponents of mayoral control good reason for calling out the lack of openness to other points of view.”

Banks opens himself to criticism from opponents

Banks voiced “the quiet part out loud,” said Jonathan Collins, a professor of politics and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

“What usually attracts superintendents or chancellors into these roles under mayoral control is, of course, the autonomy — the ability to make sweeping reforms without a lot of political barriers,” he said. “But you still see these administrative figures give lip service to the idea of connecting with communities and making reforms that are rooted in understanding the needs of kids across a district.”

In his two years at the helm of the nation’s largest school system, Banks has staked his legacy on overhauling the city’s approach to literacy, requiring all elementary schools use one of three curriculums. His curriculum mandates have also reached prekindergarten and ninth grade algebra and will likely continue to expand.

To Bloomfield, the Thursday comments suggested that Banks “believes the knee jerk reaction of non-mayoral appointees would be in opposition” to proposals from the chancellor.

“The idea that he doesn’t think he could convince a majority of the PEP — no matter how constituted — to buy into his leadership is shocking,” he said.

Some members of the PEP also felt blindsided by the chancellor’s comments.

Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a PEP member appointed by Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, said she’s had productive conversations with Banks, though they don’t always agree. Salas-Ramirez added he should know that she and the other non-mayoral appointees are working with the city’s Education Department to improve its schools.

“What do I believe? Do I believe in the man that sits down and talks to me, or do I believe this person that’s showing up at press conferences and saying the opposite?” she said. “I’m still a little perplexed, and wondering how he believes that after hearing comments like that we can continue to genuinely engage with each other as the state is having these conversations around mayoral control.”

Banks’ comments suggest fears over mayoral control’s future

To Collins, the comments signal the chancellor feels “a high degree of uncertainty” over the fate of mayoral control.

And though Bloomfield does not expect the comments from Banks to significantly influence the decision by lawmakers, he noted they still hurt the case for renewal.

“It’s apparent from his extreme rhetoric that he sees mayoral control in danger,” he said. “But he did the effort for extension a disservice by holding his own chancellorship hostage.”

Meanwhile, Adams doubled down on the chancellor’s opposition to reforming mayoral control during an interview on PIX11 on Friday.

“I am not going to have a pseudo mayoral control. I want to be held accountable for improving our educational system,” he said. “That’s what the chancellor wants. ... Let us continue the good work that we are doing. Don’t let politics get in the way of our pupils.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

As tensions flare in parent councils, NYC sees a surge in misconduct complaints

2024-03-13T19:19:25+00:00

Fierce debates and in-fighting within New York City’s parent education councils are hardly new.

But as tensions escalated during the pandemic, the Education Department created its first formal process to investigate complaints of harassment and discrimination among these parent leaders and issue sanctions.

That process, after getting off to a slow start, is now facing its first major test amid a surge of misconduct allegations against parents on these boards.

A total of 36 grievances have been filed this school year against parents elected to the city’s Community Education Councils, according to the Education Department. That’s up from five such complaints last year.

Debates in the councils have simmered for years over proposals to strip selective admissions criteria in an effort to racially integrate schools. Conflicts exploded during the pandemic, both locally and across the country, over school closures and masking requirements. And sharp divides have continued this year over rhetoric about LGBTQ youth and the Israel-Hamas war.

“I think what we’re seeing now is a national political fight that has found its way into education,” said Tracy Jordan, the president of Community Education Council 22 in southern Brooklyn, who recently faced accusations of antisemitism from a local City Council member and some parents over a decision to hold a meeting on a Friday night. (Jordan said she cleared the meeting time in advance with all the members of the council, including Jewish members, and that it was a special meeting that didn’t have a public comment portion, so no one was excluded from speaking.)

Jordan doesn’t know for sure if any complaints have been filed against her, but said even the threat of them can “cause concern.”

The spike in grievances, called D-210 complaints, is also a sign that parent leaders are finally making use of the disciplinary process, which was rolled out in December 2021, at the height of the pandemic, and met with deeply divided reactions. Some parents at the time shared personal accounts of racism, harassment, and doxxing at the hands of fellow parent leaders, and they argued it was long past time for city officials to take a stronger role in enforcing behavior norms.

But other parents, including members of PLACE NYC, or Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, a group that supports selective school admissions, argued that the regulation is overly broad, could have a chilling effect on political speech, and gives the Education Department too much power to regulate independent parent leaders.

The resolution ultimately passed, but the process has taken years to get up and running.

City has yet to share outcomes of investigations

When the Education Department receives a complaint, an “equity compliance officer” is supposed to investigate, and within 60 days must turn over their findings to a council of parent leaders elected by their fellow CEC members. That council must then issue recommendations to schools Chancellor David Banks.

The Education Department only hired the equity compliance officer in February 2023, more than a year after the position was created.

Education Department officials said parent leaders recently elected representatives from their home boroughs to the council responsible for reviewing the investigations, though a spokesperson declined to name its members.

Many parents didn’t know about the grievance process or trust that it would yield any results, said NeQuan McLean, the president of District 16′s CEC in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and head of the Education Council Consortium, a group of parent leaders who pushed for the regulation.

“Now that those elements are in place, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the number of discrimination complaints increased,” he said. “The fact that people are filing complaints demonstrates that the regulation and civil rights protections were needed.”

But how the disciplinary process will play out in practice largely remains to be seen.

Potential disciplinary outcomes range from an order from the chancellor to stop the behavior in question to immediate removal if the behavior is criminal, poses a danger to students, or “is contrary to the best interest of the New York City school district.” For lower level offenses, sanctioned council members get an opportunity to reconcile with their colleagues.

An Education Department spokesperson declined to share whether any of the probes have led to discipline.

Camille Casaretti, a member of the Citywide Council on High Schools, said the process “takes too long,” adding that she knows of complaints made during the CEC elections last spring that are still pending.

Meanwhile, some parents are losing their patience.

At a February meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy, multiple parents implored Education Department officials to remove members of the CEC on Manhattan’s District 2 who made comments in a private group text chat that denied the existence of transgender kids and referred in graphic terms to the genitalia of a gay state lawmaker, according to The 74. Maud Maron, one of the CEC 2 members in the private chat, declined to answer questions about whether she is the target of any complaints, but told Chalkbeat that “defending the rights of girls and women is not anti-trans.”

Separately, some students and parents at Stuyvesant High School are pushing for Maron to be removed from the School Leadership Team.

Banks, who makes the final call on discipline for elected parent leaders, called the comments “despicable” and “not in line with our values.”

“One of the things I will tell you in the two years I have been chancellor that has been the greatest disappointment to me is to see on a daily basis an example of parents behaving badly,” Banks said. “I’ve tried to give this some time to allow adults to be adults. But when you realize they refuse to do that … we are going to begin to take action.”

Tensions continue to flare in CECs

The conflict in CEC 2 isn’t the only one to draw significant attention this year.

CEC 14 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has been locked in a dispute over whether to resume in-person meetings, following a backlash to CEC President Tajh Sutton’s support for a student walkout calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Sutton and other CEC members say they’ve received violent threats, including a package containing feces mailed to the council’s office, and don’t feel safe meeting in person. Critics have accused CEC members of blocking pro-Israel speakers from participating in online meetings – an allegation the CEC members deny.

Sutton said she’s filed D-210 complaints, and she knows she’s the target of multiple complaints. She was initially supportive of the disciplinary process, but doesn’t believe it’s working as intended. She faulted the Education Department for watering down language in the original proposal that referenced specific forms of discrimination, including against transgender people. She said it also took too long to get the process in motion, which caused some parents to lose trust in the process.

“They’re going to have to contend with the fact that this regulation written by parent leaders under attack at the time is now being weaponized against parent leaders under attack,” she said.

Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull said “parent input has been considered at every stage of developing this process, which helps us ensure an inclusive and respectful environment for all members of our school communities.”

It’s not just the high-profile conflicts garnering media attention that are spurring D-210 complaints. Parent leaders and Education Department officials said the grievances are coming from a wide range of districts.

“In other councils, yes we have D-210 complaints that have been filed, many of which over the last several months,” said Deputy Chancellor Kenita Lloyd in a February meeting. “That process is ongoing.”

In District 22, CEC president Jordan said she’s still managing the fallout from media coverage of her Friday night meeting flap with local City Council member Inna Vernikov, a vocal supporter of Israel who recently made headlines for bringing a gun to a pro-Palestine student rally.

“It was really disappointing and deflating,” Jordan said of the experience. “When you’re accused of something it’s a blemish and doesn’t go away easily.” The whole process has made her question whether getting involved in her CEC was worth it.

She said she supports the idea of a code of conduct for parent leaders, but worries that the Education Department hasn’t done enough to train CEC members on what the code entails and what accountability would look like.

Still, she hopes that the Education Department can distinguish between frivolous complaints and ones that target clearly out-of-bounds behavior.

“At the end of the day, we should be open-minded,” she said. “But when we start causing harm, that is a problem.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Summer Rising will face reduced hours this year. Here’s what NYC families should know.

2024-03-04T22:22:20+00:00

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Applications for New York City’s free summer programming opened Monday to all children in kindergarten through eighth grade.

But in the wake of budget cuts ordered by Mayor Eric Adams, middle schoolers will face significantly fewer hours of enrichment programming this summer.

Launched in 2021 with federal pandemic relief funding, the Summer Rising program was designed to help students readjust to in-person learning and expand summer school opportunities beyond children who were traditionally mandated to attend. The initiative includes a mix of academic instruction provided by Education Department teachers and enrichment activities supported by a network of community-based organizations.

Summer Rising will once again include up to 110,000 slots — and is open to all New York City children currently enrolled in grades K-8, including those who attend charter or private schools.

But there will be a few changes this year. The application process is starting about a month earlier, with placements announced in mid-April, to give caregivers more time to plan for the summer and arrange child care if necessary. And families will now apply using MySchools, the sometimes glitchy website that manages the public school application process from prekindergarten through high school.

The most significant change, however, concerns reduced hours for middle school students.

Here’s what you should know about this year’s Summer Rising program:

How does the Summer Rising 2024 application work?

Using the MySchools portal, families can rank as many different Summer Rising sites as they want — choosing from roughly 360 options across the five boroughs. The seats are not issued on a first-come, first-served basis, so families can apply any time until March 25.

In line with the admissions policy last year, some students will receive priority for summer slots. That includes certain children with disabilities, those who live in temporary housing or foster care, children who are behind academically, and students applying for Summer Rising sites that are housed in their regular school.

What is the schedule for Summer Rising, and when does it start?

For students in grades K-5, Summer Rising operates 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. from July 2 to Aug. 16.

For middle schoolers, Summer Rising will run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. — two fewer hours — and will no longer operate at all on Fridays. The program for those children runs from July 2 to Aug. 8.

Some students with disabilities are entitled to year-round schooling and those programs operate during slightly different times. Children who attend schools in districts 1-32 generally attend summer classes from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. from July 2 to Aug. 12. Those who attend District 75 schools, which are for children with more significant needs, will attend 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. from July 3 to Aug. 13.

And those who attend programs for students with autism — including Nest and Horizon — attend 8 a.m. to noon from July 2 to Aug. 8.

Students with disabilities who attend school year-round have the option to attend the extended day enrichment programs operated by community organizations that run until 6 p.m. (or 4 p.m. for middle school). Interested families must apply through MySchools and students with disabilities in the categories listed above will receive priority for seats.

Why are there fewer hours for middle schoolers?

Summer Rising is one of a slew of programs initially funded with federal pandemic relief money that is now running out, forcing city officials to either find new funding to replace those expiring dollars or make cuts.

So far, Adams has done a bit of both. The mayor chose to keep the Education Department’s contribution to the program, which helps fund the academic portion of the day, using about $80 million in city money to replace federal dollars.

But the afternoon enrichment portion of the program is funded by a different city agency — the Department of Youth and Community Development. Adams cut $20 million of DYCD’s roughly $149 million contribution to Summer Rising, forcing reductions in programming for middle school children.

Some advocates worry that fewer hours, and the elimination of Fridays, will make the program less popular and hurt its quality.

“Friday was usually when they did field trips and things outside of the school building,” said Nora Moran, the director of policy and advocacy at United Neighborhood Houses, which represents community organizations that operate some of the city’s summer programming. She emphasized that community organizations are able to quickly restore hours if the city makes additional funding available.

“We’re certainly hopeful the mayor reverses his decision to shorten the program day,” she said.

How popular is Summer Rising in NYC?

In a city with few affordable child care options, Summer Rising has been quite popular. Last year, there were about 45,000 more applicants than available slots, officials said (though some of those children eventually won a seat).

Students generally spend their mornings on academic work and in the afternoon participate in enrichment activities, including art, science projects, and trips to cultural institutions. For elementary school children, the final week of the program is dedicated to enrichment activities and trips operated by community organizations.

Many parents have praised the program, noting it gives their children something to do other than expensive camps, watching TV, or spending countless hours scrolling the internet. But others have been disappointed and even pulled their children, citing boring assignments during the academic portion of the day, limited time outside, and few opportunities for field trips.

Here’s what parents told us about their Summer Rising experience last year.

What about students with higher needs?

Students with disabilities are supposed to continue receiving the services they need to access summer programming, such as health and behavioral paraprofessionals, and their schools must devise a “Summer Rising Accommodation Plan” before the program begins.

Still, not all services are available for the afternoon enrichment programming — such as paraprofessionals who help manage student behavior — and community organizations are instructed to provide support “as needed.” In practice, some advocates said community organizations aren’t always well-equipped to serve students with special needs, leaving some families to avoid the program entirely.

“The community based-organizations don’t necessarily have the knowledge, and skill, and staff to help support students with behavioral needs,” said Maggie Moroff, a senior policy coordinator at Advocates for Children, which helps students with disabilities navigate the special education system. “A plan from the school that is supposed to be put in place by the [community organization] leaves a whole lot of room for mistakes.”

Officials also noted that English learners will receive “instruction targeting language and literacy development to support them with grade-level content” during the morning sessions, including in small groups or one on one.

What’s the transportation situation?

Students who already receive yellow school bus service during the school year should generally receive bus transportation for Summer Rising. And students with MetroCards during the school year will continue to receive them for the summer.

But for students who ride the bus, there’s a catch: The city’s yellow bus service stops rolling at 3 p.m., so students who participate in the extended enrichment portion of the day until 6 p.m. (or 4 p.m. in middle school) will instead have access to a prepaid rideshare service.

A caregiver must accompany their child in the rideshare to and from the summer school site, which some advocates have criticized as inaccessible for working families who don’t have time to ride to and from a Summer Rising site at the end of the day.

“I think a lot of families opted to forgo the opportunity because they didn’t have a way of getting their child back home,” Moroff said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools bring back chicken dumplings, French toast sticks, burritos after outcry

2024-03-07T18:45:35+00:00

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Facing mounting criticism over cuts to popular school lunch items, New York City officials are reversing course.

School cafeterias will once again feature French toast sticks, bean and cheese burritos, and chicken dumplings, an Education Department spokesperson confirmed Wednesday. Those items should reappear later this month or in early April. Officials eliminated the popular foods from school menus last month as part of a $60 million cut to the school food program, Chalkbeat first reported in January.

At a Thursday event honoring food workers, schools Chancellor David Banks said the decision to reinstate some items was due to backlash from students.

“We heard from the kids loud and clear,” he said. “I encourage every young person to continue to speak up about the changes that they hope to see in their schools.”

Still, some menu items won’t be returning yet, including bagel sticks, chicken drumsticks, guacamole, and cookies. Chris Tricarico, senior executive director of the Office of Food and Nutrition Services, said the city is “planning to look at the future menus” in the coming months to bring back additional food options.

A chorus of students, parents, and food advocates complained the cuts affected popular dishes — potentially leading students to avoid eating school lunches, or throw them in the trash.

Anayolene Denis, a school cook in Brooklyn, said there was a noticeable decrease in the number of students who ate lunch after popular items disappeared from the menu.

“I was mad,” she said. “The kids come in and don’t see what they used to like.”

The cuts also left some of the city’s food suppliers in limbo, with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of food languishing in storage. Some vendors warned of possible worker layoffs.

Food advocates were baffled by the cuts given Mayor Eric Adams’ focus on improving the city’s school food program, including overhauling some cafeterias to make them resemble food courts and expanding plant-based meals.

The reversal comes as city leaders have struggled to provide a clear rationale for the menu changes. Officials first suggested they were related to a series of budget cuts Adams has ordered across city agencies, including the Education Department. But the city’s top budget official on Monday offered a different explanation: The menu cuts were necessary because school lunches were growing more popular.

“They basically cut some of the items from the menu … because more kids are eating,” Jacques Jiha, director of the city’s Office of Management and Budget, said during a City Council hearing.

Those comments earned a fresh round of criticism and confusion, as some of the mayor’s food initiatives were specifically designed to encourage more students to eat. Just two days later, the Education Department backtracked.

Melany Martinez, a school cook at P.S. 84 in Manhattan, said students grumbled about the changes, but she didn’t see much of a dropoff in student meal participation at her school. Nonetheless, she anticipates her students will celebrate the return of one item in particular.

“They love bean burritos,” she said.

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed to this story.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

After technical snafu, NYC says staggered school start times may be necessary for remote snow days

2024-03-06T23:36:26+00:00

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After technical glitches prevented many families from logging in for remote learning during a snowstorm last month, officials on Wednesday presented a temporary fix: staggered start times.

The Education Department no longer cancels classes during inclement weather in part due to a growing number of school holidays and a state mandate to provide 180 days of school. As a snowstorm threatened to upend commutes on Feb. 13, city officials announced schools would operate remotely — the first citywide test of that strategy. But many families and educators encountered error messages when they tried to log in, drawing intense criticism.

During a City Council oversight hearing on Wednesday focused on the technical snafus, Education Department officials said the problem stemmed from too many users logging in at once. The city outsources the login process for its remote learning platforms to IBM, and both Education Department and IBM officials acknowledged the technical specifications in their contract did not guarantee everyone would be able to sign on during a short window.

The city is looking for a long-term solution to avoid spreading out start times, but Education Department officials said it will be necessary for now in the event of another pivot to remote learning.

“If we have a remote learning day tomorrow we should be working to stagger start times, which we agree is not ideal from a student and staff perspective,” Emma Vadehra, the department’s chief operating officer, told city lawmakers. “But it’s pretty important to us that we get it right if we do need to transition.”

Vedehra suggested that start times could be assigned by grade level and would need to be spread over a little more than one hour to ensure the sign-in process goes smoothly. Officials did not provide a timeline for coming up with a more permanent solution and some elected officials raised concerns about the approach.

“I think staggered times will be very confusing to people,” said Gale Brewer, a Manhattan city council member.

Wednesday’s hearing included the most detailed accounting yet of why families had trouble logging on for remote learning on Feb. 13. The core issue was that IBM was only contracted to handle up to 400 “transactions per second” — with one login attempt potentially using multiple “transactions,” said Scott Strickland, the education department’s deputy chief information officer. There are more than 1 million public school students and staff. (Strickland was the acting chief information officer on Feb. 13.)

In September, IBM bumped up the number of transactions per second to 1,400. As login issues mounted on Feb. 13, the day the city switched to remote learning, IBM increased the throughput to 3,000, which made the problem worse, Strickland said. The company ultimately landed on 2,000 transactions per second, which was still not enough to accommodate everyone who was trying to log in.

City officials said they did not have data on how many students and staff were unable to log in, though IBM officials said the system was “stable” by 10:15 a.m. and there were more than a million successful login attempts that day. The company has since recommended a more customized system, at an unspecified cost, that will automatically adjust based on demand.

In the aftermath of the tech glitches, city officials largely blamed IBM, a characterization the company pushed back against on Wednesday.

“We really had done everything we can to make sure that this technology was working above and beyond what it was contracted to do,” Vanessa Hunt, IBM’s senior state executive for New York, said Wednesday. “Hearing it be summarized as an IBM technology problem was, of course, frustrating.”

City officials had previously conducted practice sessions to make sure students could log in and prepared schools to distribute devices. But they did not involve IBM in those tests, Hunt said.

Hunt said she wished the city gave IBM more lead time to plan; city officials gave IBM a heads up that they planned to pivot to remote instruction at 1 p.m. the previous day, city officials said.

“Ideally, we would have been planning way before the day before,” Hunt said, adding the company now has a communication plan in place with the Education Department. “I think we would have been a part of the simulations, a part of the planning, and we would have been able to better advise the DOE on potentially staggering start times.”

Several City Council members expressed frustration that there hadn’t been more rigorous testing of IBM’s systems before the switch to remote instruction, with some casting blame on the city.

“If you have an elevator, and the elevator can only hold 1,000 pounds, and you put 7,000 pounds in the elevator, and the elevator gets stuck, is it fair to blame the elevator company in that situation?” said Queens City Council member Shekar Krishnan. “There seems to be a lot of blame, or at least passing the buck to IBM.”

At another point in the hearing, Intekhab Shakil, the Education Department’s chief information officer, seemed to acknowledge some responsibility for the technical problems. “We did not pay enough attention” to ensure that the company could quickly ramp up to meet demand during a sudden switch to remote learning, he said.

“We will work with IBM,” he added, “to ensure this does not happen again.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Most NYC school safety agents are now wearing bulletproof vests. The change is unsettling for some.

2024-02-14T19:30:13+00:00

Most of the school safety agents working in New York City schools have quietly added a new item to their uniforms: bulletproof vests.

A NYPD spokesperson confirmed that about 3,000 of the roughly 4,100 school safety agents across the city are now wearing “bullet resistant” vests since the department began distributing them this school year, with the rest on the way.

The police department is rolling out the vests citywide as a safety measure for the agents amid elevated levels of neighborhood youth gun violence and a spike in guns turning up at city schools in recent years. School safety agents don’t carry guns.

But the arrival of the vests has often come with little warning or explanation to school communities, stirring mixed reactions from families, educators, and school safety agents themselves.

Alex Estes, the president of the Parent Teacher Association at the Neighborhood School in the East Village, was caught off guard when he noticed the safety agent at his son’s school wearing a vest last month.

“You’re not going to find a better-informed parent,” he said of his level of involvement, yet he had no idea about the change.

He worried about how the children at the elementary school where his son is in first grade might respond — or whether the youngest children might understand the change, hear things from older kids about the vests, or even be able to articulate their concerns. The children feel like the school is their home, and many hug their school safety agent, Estes said.

“They see her. They hug her. They care about her. Then all of a sudden … this hug has a bulletproof vest,” he said. “Five-year-olds, 7-year-olds, 8-year-olds aren’t fantastic about reporting what it is that’s making them uncomfortable, and the way this is rolling out is not taking that into account at all.”

An NYPD spokesperson didn’t respond to a question about what the department has done to prepare schools, aside from saying, “NYC Public Schools … have been notified.”

An Education Department spokesperson referred questions to the NYPD.

One Manhattan principal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the school was given “zero warning” that safety agents would be showing up in vests, even though administrators had met with school safety agents just days earlier.

“The first people we see are school safety … to walk in and be greeted by bulletproof vests is alarming for students and staff,” the principal said. “Your immediate thought is, ‘What happened?’”

Some school safety agents feel conflicted about their new apparel

One Manhattan high school safety agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she appreciated the extra layer of protection, but worried about the “message” it communicated to students.

“I think we should have had a whole conversation with the schools first to prepare them,” the agent said. Though she believes that “kids can adapt” to the changes, some concerned parents asked whether there was a threat they should know about, the agent said. She feared that wearing a vest made it seem like safety agents weren’t succeeding at their jobs of keeping schools safe.

The plan to outfit school safety agents with vests, first reported last summer by the New York Daily News, follows a pilot program last year, and multiple years of lobbying from the union representing school safety agents. NYPD officials said the pilot program “aided in the safety of our School Safety Agents,” but didn’t provide further details, including where the pilot took place or how they determined its success.

The terms “bulletproof” and “bullet resistant” are often used interchangeably for vests, but some experts have said the former is a misnomer because vests aren’t impervious to all bullets.

No guns have been fired in city schools in decades, but multiple shootings have occurred right outside schools around dismissal time, including one in Williamsburg last February that injured two students and a security guard.

More than 20 guns were confiscated from students at city schools during the 2021-22 school year, a marked increase since before the pandemic. So far this school year, seven guns have been seized at schools, compared to nine during the same period last school year, according to the NYPD.

The distribution of the vests is one of several changes school and police officials have made in response to the concerns about gun violence. Last school year, the NYPD changed the frequency of school safety agents’ radios to connect them more directly to NYPD precincts, and city schools are rolling out door locking and camera systems at all elementary schools this year.

Officials previously indicated that the door locking upgrades would cost around $78 million total. An NYPD spokesperson didn’t respond to a question about the cost of the vests.

One Brooklyn elementary school principal said he appreciated some of those recent safety upgrades. But the transition to bulletproof vests for school safety agents felt extreme.

“I would want her [the School Safety Agent] to be safe in all situations, but it seems like it’s going from zero to a hundred given that the door wasn’t even secured three months ago,” said the principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The agent has complained the vest is bulky and uncomfortable to wear all day, and “she doesn’t feel like there’s an active threat to her safety that [the vest] would protect her from.”

Bulletproof vests not supposed to be visible to students

The new vests are supposed to fly under the radar. An NYPD spokesperson said in a statement they are supposed to be “worn underneath the uniform shirt and may never be the outer most garment.”

But school safety agents who spoke to Chalkbeat said that their uniform shirts aren’t tailored to fit over the vests, and that they still haven’t received new shirts. They were wearing their vests outside their uniform shirts, though one was covering it with a sweater, and others wore their uniform-issued jackets over the vests.

The vests, which NYPD officials said are “durable and lightweight,” are supposed to be worn at all times when safety agents are on duty, including when they’re staffing “safe corridors” outside of schools to help students on their commutes.

Many families and educators still haven’t noticed the vests. For those who have, they’ve often come as a surprise.

Some schools are making their own efforts to inform their communities and answer any questions.

After their safety agent got her vest, the Neighborhood School administrators sent a note to families letting them know they would be paying attention to whether children bring up the issue, and they asked parents to encourage their children to talk to trusted adults at the school if they needed to.

Estes, the PTA president, feels frustrated overall with various moves to “harden” schools, believing the focus instead should be on reforming gun laws.

“We want to keep the security officers safe,” Estes said, “but the other problem I have with this is that every time we’re talking about school security measures, we are taking up the slack of the gun laws.”

Alex Zimmerman contributed to this story.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Technical meltdown prevents NYC students from logging onto virtual classes during remote snow day

2024-02-13T23:56:39+00:00

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Teachers and students across New York City were shut out of their virtual classes Tuesday morning, a major glitch as city officials ordered schools to offer remote instruction because of the snowstorm.

The tech problems prevented many — though not all — teachers and students from logging into Zoom, Google Classroom, school email accounts, and even attendance tracking tools.

City officials largely blamed the technical snafu on IBM, which helps manage the login process for the city’s remote learning platforms. During a midday press conference, Chancellor David Banks said IBM was not prepared for the crush of users logging in at once but problems were being ironed out.

More than one million students and staff had successfully signed on, officials said. Still, student attendance fell to 78% down from 87% on Monday, according to preliminary data that does not yet include all schools.

“To say that I am disappointed, frustrated, and angry is an understatement,” Banks said, adding the department would conduct a “full analysis” of what went wrong. “This was a test. I don’t think that we passed this test.”

Tuesday represented the first time the entire school system was expected to go virtual during a snowstorm — a major test of the city’s strategy to switch to remote learning instead of canceling classes due to inclement weather. To give schools and families time to prepare, officials announced nearly a full day in advance their plans to close school buildings. Banks vowed teachers would be ready to deliver live lessons that mirror a traditional school day.

But as students and teachers tried to log on Tuesday morning, many encountered an error message that displayed a digital image of a lone teacher standing on a podium. On some campuses, tech problems derailed much of the morning’s lessons. Other schools didn’t seem to be affected, making the scale of the outage unclear. An IBM spokesperson said Tuesday afternoon the issues had been “largely resolved” and “we regret the inconvenience to students and parents across the city.”

Some parents and educators said the technical difficulties reminded them of the early days of the pandemic. The damage could reverberate, some worry.

One Manhattan elementary school leader who had to cancel morning classes because of the tech problems, said, “The bigger impact is … the intangible piece: the trust, the perception of competence, which was a major issue during COVID.”

Adam Schwartz, a teacher at Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, said his second grade daughter’s morning class was disrupted, though she was able to successfully login around 9 a.m.

Schwartz, who teaches English to students who are new to the country, said he was dreading remote instruction on Tuesday, as his students often shy away from participating during in-person classes. But they seemed more comfortable in the virtual environment, regularly chiming in with emojis. His classes weren’t affected by the outage because they started later in the day.

“It was kind of a slight remove from the normal social pressures of school that make it so difficult for kids to communicate,” Schwartz said. “And it allowed me to be a little silly.” Due to back problems, he logged into his classes sprawled on his belly on his kitchen floor. Still, only about half of his students showed up.

Remote learning practice runs didn’t help

City officials had previously conducted practice runs with students and families so the system would be prepared in the event of a remote snow day. But Michael Mulgrew, head of the city’s teachers union, said only smaller groups of students and teachers logged on at once.

“When we did the citywide test in October, we assumed it was a stress test. It turns out that’s not what the DOE did,” he said in an interview.

Some schools weathered the glitches better than others because they’ve held onto their school-specific websites and email accounts despite the Education Department asking them to do otherwise. Because of security concerns, the Education Department has been pushing schools to move to a centrally run domain, which no longer lets schools control the login process. But that central login system failed on Tuesday.

”If we still ran everything through our Gmail, today would have been fine,” one high school principal said.

Despite Banks’ assurance that schools would be ready to offer plenty of live teaching, some students and educators said there was less than usual.

Christian Rojas Linares, a senior at Manhattan’s University Neighborhood High School, said his teachers posted assignments online and, with a couple exceptions, were on hand to help students work through them. But some of his classes felt more like office hours than typical periods of instruction, and in certain cases there were just a handful of students in attendance, he said.

“When it comes to remote learning, you often tend to not get stuff done for the most part,” Rojas Linares said.

Still, he appreciated that the remote atmosphere was less stressful than a regular school day and noted his AP environmental science teacher used class time to help prepare for a test scheduled for Wednesday. “Even though it didn’t feel like a real class, I was still able to get work done,” he said.

Matthew Willie, the school’s principal, said his teachers were well prepared to switch to remote learning and did not contend with major glitches. Willie said he dropped into 15 to 20 virtual classrooms throughout the day and “there was good attendance and direct instruction taking place,” he said.

Willie said Rojas Linares’ experience may be unusual because he’s enrolled in a slew of advanced classes that tend to enroll a smaller number of students. “I really think the day went well for us,” he said.

Decisions about whether to call a snow day are typically contentious and come with tradeoffs, as many families rely on school for meals and may struggle to line up child care. Though some called on the city to cancel classes entirely, there is little room in the school calendar thanks to a growing number of holidays and a state requirement to hold 180 school days.

By afternoon, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park was a mix of slush and snow. Some parents expressed disappointment at the paltry amount of powder covering the ground, but kids were making the most of it, sledding down any hill they could find, sometimes wearing down the snow enough to see patches of mud and grass sticking out.

After an hour of online school, Christine Joyce, mom of a second grader and kindergartener at P.S. 321, made the executive decision to take her kids to the park.

“Zoom this morning was a little rough,” she said, noting that her kids were ultimately able to access their virtual classrooms, but she called it quits shortly after for a real snow day because she wanted her kids to experience some joy in the snow. They spent several hours building snowmen and forts, having snowball fights and sledding.

Kids were out in full force to sled in Brooklyn's Prospect Park even though the snow wasn't deep.

Abby Loomis, a fourth grade teacher at P.S. 414 in Brooklyn, said she appreciated the city’s early decision to pivot to remote instruction.

The vast majority of her students were able to log in, but challenges remained. During a math lesson, her students struggled to input fractions on their keyboards. Some children filled the virtual chat room with messages about wanting to play outside in the snow. And she opted to avoid continuing a social studies unit on slavery, a topic that felt too difficult to discuss in an online format.

Instead, she leaned more heavily on work students could complete on their own, such as editing biographies they’re writing about figures including Taylor Swift and Simone Biles. She devised a fun snow day checklist, including finding hot chocolate and throwing a snowball.

“It should just not be a rigorous rigid day,” Loomis said.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Education Department announced this week’s experiment with remote learning will be brief. Traditional in-person classes will resume Wednesday.

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed to this story.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC overhauls literacy approach, one public school gets phonics help from nearby private school

2024-02-08T21:38:36+00:00

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Clasping a deck of pale yellow flash cards, Sloan Shapiro delivered a phonics lesson she’s taught countless times at her Manhattan private school for children with reading challenges.

“Q — U — Queen — Kwuh,” Shapiro chanted, pointing at the letters “Qu” printed on a card above a cartoon drawing of a queen. A chorus of students mimicked her sounds, tracing invisible letters on their hands.

Without missing a beat, Shapiro ticked off a spelling rule. “Q is always followed by a…”

“U!” the group responded in unison.

The chorus of students responding to Shapiro on a recent Monday afternoon at the Stephen Gaynor School, however, weren’t children. They were teachers from P.S. 84, an Upper West Side public school around the corner.

For the first time, Gaynor is offering a free 15-week course to nine public school educators to help refine their lessons on phonics, which explicitly teaches the relationship between sounds and letters. The small pilot program comes as elementary schools across the city are under a new mandate to emphasize phonics, part of a sweeping plan to overhaul the way New York City public schools teach reading.

Schools Chancellor David Banks has embraced partnerships with private schools that cater to students with reading challenges, though an Education Department spokesperson could not say how prevalent such arrangements are. Banks has also expressed interest in improving public programs to reduce the ballooning costs associated with paying for private school tuition. About 80% of families at Gaynor, which charges nearly $80,000 a year, seek tuition payments from the government, arguing the public schools can’t adequately educate their children.

For the past 17 years, Gaynor has partnered with P.S. 84 and nearby P.S. 166, offering free after-school help for about two dozen students each year who are behind in reading. But it didn’t make sense previously to directly train their teachers because the public schools’ approach to literacy was so different, according to head of school Scott Gaynor, who is the grandson of the school’s co-founder.

P.S. 84 has long deployed “Units of Study,” a curriculum created by Teachers College Professor Lucy Calkins. That program, which has been used by hundreds of city elementary schools in recent years, has been criticized by experts in part because it does not include as much emphasis on phonics. With the city’s new phonics push and curriculum mandate, schools are no longer allowed to use Calkins’ program, and Gaynor is considering expanding their training efforts to schools beyond P.S. 84.

But even as the city moves away from Calkins’ approach, that’s only a first step.

“The harder part of the equation is the training,” Gaynor said. “That doesn’t happen from a one-day or even a one-week workshop.”

Going deeper than previous phonics trainings

Teachers at P.S. 84 said their own experiences with phonics training have been mixed.

“We have been through many different [phonics] programs, so it was a little bit all over the place,” said Johana Talbot, a first grade teacher who said she appreciated the training program at Gaynor. (The principal of P.S. 84 declined an interview request.)

The pilot program at Gaynor involves 45 minutes a week of training in a method called Orton-Gillingham that has historically been used for children with dyslexia, but is increasingly deployed with a wider range of students.

That approach is designed to break down the building blocks of language, teaching children basic spelling rules and sound-letter relationships, building in complexity over time. It also incorporates sight, touch, and movement to help make the ideas stick. Students may tap their fingers as they sound out words or move their arms to represent certain sounds.

Though officials at Gaynor said the approach has worked for their students, the evidence of Orton-Gillingham’s effectiveness more broadly is limited.

Talbot has practiced some of the lessons she’s learned at Gaynor in her classroom at P.S. 84. She encouraged students to tap out sounds with their non-dominant hand instead of their dominant hand, a small tweak that helps them use that strategy during writing exercises.

“The movements for every sound [and] chanting the rules — they feel very empowered by that,” said Talbot. About 10 of her students are recent migrants and some of them have proudly shown off some of those strategies with their parents.

P.S. 84′s Carla Murray-Bolling moved this year from preschool to kindergarten, where she is teaching phonics for the first time. “I was basically just thrown in and told: ‘swim.’”

One practice she’s learned is how to encourage students to blend different sounds of a word together. “It’s been helping them by dragging the sounds out instead of breaking them down one letter at a time,” she said.

For Shapiro and her co-teacher, Kristi Evans, the goal is to help teachers understand the reading principles behind the lessons and determine whether students have actually mastered them.

“If you teach teachers the underlying structure of the language, they can really pick up anything,” Shapiro said.

During a recent training session, Murray-Bolling and Talbot paired up to practice testing each other on “nonsense” words that still follow normal spelling rules, giggling as they teased each other with words like “jetch.”

Students who struggle with reading often develop strategies to compensate by using context clues and pictures, Evans said. That often helps them advance to higher grade levels even if they’re behind in reading. By presenting nonsense words, Murray-Bolling and Talbot were learning a quick assessment to help identify whether any of their students had come up with ways to correctly guess a word’s meaning.

“We get those students,” Evans said, referring to students who enroll at Gaynor. “We’re hoping that in the public school we can catch those kids earlier.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

10,000 NYC students are shut out of programs for children with autism. Adding 160 seats is a start.

2024-01-31T23:30:01+00:00

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New York City is expanding programs for students with autism, part of a broader pledge top Education Department officials announced Wednesday to create special education programming closer to where students live.

Beginning next school year, the city will guarantee that rising kindergartners in three local districts won’t have to leave their neighborhoods to access some of the city’s most popular programs for kids with autism.

Children with disabilities often must travel outside their neighborhoods to attend schools with smaller class sizes staffed by teachers with specialized training. Those trips can stretch over an hour each way, thanks in part to the city’s notoriously unreliable yellow bus system. Lengthy commutes can make it difficult to attend after-school programs or build friendships with children in their neighborhood who attend local schools.

“Many of our kids, we’ve got to send them way out of the neighborhood at great expense to the system and at great inconvenience to the families and to the kids themselves,” schools Chancellor David Banks said during a press conference at Brooklyn’s P.S. 958, which opened last school year as a model for serving local students with a broad range of abilities.

“We’ve got to fix this,” Banks said. “Today really is the beginning of that work.”

Children with autism who are entering kindergarten in Districts 5, 12, and 14 will be guaranteed a spot in a specialized program in their home district. (Those districts cover Harlem, Crotona Park in the Bronx, and Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods, respectively.) To accomplish that, the city is adding 160 total seats in those neighborhoods across three existing programs: ASD Nest, Horizon, and AIMS, which is short for Acquisition, Integrated Services, Meaningful Communication, and Social Skills.

Although Banks previously expanded Nest and Horizon programs, the addition of 160 new slots represents a drop in the bucket given the growing number of children who are classified with autism and who qualify for them. More than 10,000 children with autism could benefit from a seat in a Nest or Horizon program but are placed elsewhere, according to Education Department figures.

City officials acknowledged that they’re starting small and characterized the effort as a pilot program. Christina Foti, the department’s special education chief, said Wednesday’s announcement is “a ripple that will eventually turn into a tidal wave.”

Special education advocates largely cheered the expansion of Nest, Horizon, and AIMS programs, which are in high demand. City officials said 95% of children who attend Nest and Horizon programs graduate from high school, more than 30 percentage points higher than students with disabilities overall.

The city also released a report with a series of recommendations for improving the special education system, after collecting input from parent leaders, policy experts, and educators.

“I think it is a really important first step,” said Maggie Moroff, a member of the advisory group that produced recommendations and a policy coordinator at Advocates for Children, a group that helps families navigate the special education system.

Moroff was glad to hear city officials reiterate their commitment to including students with disabilities alongside general education students when possible and creating more programs in their home neighborhoods. And she also appreciated a new glossary released by the Education Department that aims to help schools use more inclusive language when referring to children with disabilities and the programs that serve them.

But questions remained about the city’s plans, including whether it will scale up special education programming beyond the autism-focused initiative reaching just three of 32 local districts. Multiple advocates also noted there was little mention of the city’s vision for District 75, a network of schools that educate more than 26,000 students with more significant disabilities. Those children are largely separated from students without disabilities.

“Like so many things, the devil is going to be in the details about how it plays out,” Moroff said.

Peer support for parents trying to get special education services

City officials also pledged to beef up recruitment of caregivers trained to help others navigate the meetings where families and schools create individualized education programs, or IEPs. These legal documents spell out what services each child should receive.

Advocates say caregivers often don’t know the ins and outs of the IEP process, what their rights are, or even what services their children may need.

“It’s scary – and that’s universal,” said Lori Podvesker, a parent and director of disability and education policy at INCLUDEnyc, an organization that trains parent advocates and supports families who have children with disabilities.

The parent advocates, who also have children with disabilities, are trained to help other families understand the process. They attend IEP meetings alongside their peers — earning as much as $50 per meeting.

Special education advocate and parent Paullette Healy said she signed up to be a parent member years ago and completed the training, but the city never responded to her request to complete a fingerprinting requirement. She has still shown up to hundreds of IEP meetings to advocate on behalf of families, though not in an official paid role.

“It’s always existed, but wasn’t really utilized,” Healy said.

City officials said they’re working with INCLUDEnyc to bolster recruitment and spread awareness that families can request a parent advocate to attend their IEP meetings. Education Department officials declined to provide any tangible goals for the new effort, including how many parent advocates they hope to train.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Educators railed against mayoral control at hearings. What comes next?

2024-01-30T23:26:05+00:00

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As the state’s Education Department studies the effectiveness of New York City’s 20-year-old system of mayoral control, locals aired their views at five hearings held across the boroughs over the past two months.

Over the hours of testimony, a clear theme emerged: Most of the educators, parents, and other community members wanted to see it revised or overturned.

Many voiced grievances against the educational policies of Mayor Eric Adams and his predecessors, arguing the current system places too much power in the hands of the mayor and diminishes the voice of local communities. Meanwhile, defenders of the system, like schools Chancellor David Banks, contended that centralizing decision-making allows for a more effective and accountable system than the fractured school board approach that the city once relied on.

Mayoral control is set to expire on June 30, and the speakers hope their words might influence lawmakers who will soon determine who gets control over city schools. Some observers remain skeptical about whether the hearings will sway negotiations over the city’s school governance structure — particularly as Gov. Kathy Hochul has already called for a four-year extension of the current system.

Troy McGhie, a teacher at Curtis High School in Staten Island, called for further limitations on the mayor’s power over schools during a Monday night hearing in Staten Island. He cited Adams’ recent education budget cuts and his pushback on the state’s mandate to reduce class sizes in New York City schools.

“It’s become quite evident over the years that mayoral control — the way that it is now — is out of control,” McGhie said.

But though dissatisfaction with the current system has been consistent across the hearings, speakers have voiced a range of opinions on how state lawmakers should alter it.

“There’s lots of folks who don’t like some aspects of the current system,” said Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “But there’s way less consensus about what the alternative should be.”

Future of mayoral control remains unclear

Adams questioned whether the testimony was representative while speaking to reporters on Tuesday.

“I’m not a mathematical genius, but having five testimonies or hearings and at most you got 500 people, that’s not a reflection of our school system,” he said. “We have a public school-reared chancellor, public school-reared mayor. We have transformed the school system in what we are doing, and I think we need to continue the success.”

The current school governance system — and critiques of it — predate Adams by decades. Driven by feelings of dissatisfaction with elected school boards in the 1990s, the push to establish mayoral control took hold in a handful of major cities across the country, including New York and Chicago.

In New York City, the system began under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2002, and has been regularly extended in the years since. In Chicago, where mayoral control of schools was established in 1995, the city will transition to a fully elected school board by 2027.

But even with years to look back upon, it can be difficult to determine the impact of the school governance structure.

“That’s been very difficult to decipher empirically,” Henig said. “Partly because of the variation in forms it takes, partly because it’s been hard to separate mayoral control from the particular individuals who had mayoral control.”

There are an enormous number of factors influencing how students perform in school, said Sandra Vergari, a professor of education policy at the University at Albany.

“I would question anybody who claims mayoral control doesn’t work, or traditional school boards don’t work,” she said. “How do you isolate governance as being the thing that really explains student achievement?”

The governance system has largely relied on the mayor’s power to choose a schools chancellor and appoint a majority of members to the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP, a city board that votes on major policy proposals and contracts.

Over time, tweaks to the system have lessened the mayor’s degree of control. When lawmakers extended it in 2022, for example, they adjusted the system so that PEP members could no longer be removed for voting against their appointer’s wishes, making it harder to remove a panelist for opposing proposals from City Hall. At the same time, the board also expanded from 15 to 23 members, with the mayor appointing 13 of them and retaining the majority.

Calling for deeper changes in school governance

A number of the speakers at the recent public hearings have called for adjusting the PEP’s makeup so the mayor no longer appoints a majority of its members — alleging the panel has served as a “rubber stamp” for the mayor and schools chancellor.

Having a system where a board has “an oppositional mindset to the chancellor,” however, might not be most effective, said David Bloomfield, a professor of education, law, and public policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

“There will always be a substantial number of opponents to controversial decisions,” he said. “You do want an effective and broadly representational decision-making process, but how that plays out in terms of the decisions themselves is, I think, wholly based on individual circumstances and not predictable through the governance system.”

Bloomfield has instead advocated for the City Council to take on an oversight role in the city’s school governance system.

Some have called for a longer term approach to changing the city’s school governance structure. The Education Council Consortium, a grassroots group of parents, advocates, and other community members, has urged the state to form a commission made up of parents, students, educators, researchers, and advocates to develop recommendations for a new system.

“It’s a very complicated system, and those who have been involved in this work for a long time know that sometimes changes are made, and there are unintended consequences,” said Jonathan Greenberg, a parent leader who serves on the group’s board. “It’s really important to get a wide swath of people in the room over time to see what we can do to balance out the various needs that different stakeholders have, and learn from the mistakes of the past.

“But the one guiding principle for us is this idea of a more democratic system,” he added.

A school governance overhaul may be unlikely, some observers say

Though Monday marked the conclusion of the public hearings, it will still be some time before the state’s findings are released. The state Education Department’s forthcoming report is expected to be finished in March — and in the meantime, some lawmakers have stressed deliberations should wait until after the release of the report.

State Sen. John Liu, a Queens Democrat who chairs the senate’s New York City education committee, said the study would examine 20 years of mayoral control in the city, as well as the experiences of other school systems that have reversed course.

“I heard a tremendous amount of opinion and insight from a wide range of stakeholders about how to improve our system of school governance at the public hearings, and look forward to receiving SED’s final report in the Spring,” he said in a statement.

Some observers remain skeptical that lawmakers will implement sweeping changes.

Bloomfield said he expects mayoral control to persist largely as it exists now, with potential tweaks to lessen the mayor’s degree of control.

“I don’t see the appetite in the legislature for any massive change in school governance,” Bloomfield said. “Certainly nothing that the governor says shows that she wants any large change.”

Regardless of which governance structure the city adopts moving forward, Henig noted a longer-term system could benefit the city’s schools.

“No matter how you feel about the existing structure or its earlier iterations in New York, the fact that the rules of the game are constantly up in the air and awaiting what the legislature is going to do this time,” he said, “I think there’s a cost to that kind of uncertainty.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

How well is your school teaching your child to read? Some parents feel in the dark, report finds.

2024-01-25T14:31:10+00:00

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Mayor Eric Adams’ sweeping effort to improve reading instruction has focused on educators, but a report released Thursday makes the case that caregivers are crucial to boosting reading instruction and the city should do more to include them.

The report focused on parent perceptions of how well their schools are communicating about reading instruction and is based on focus group interviews with 19 New York City mothers conducted by Advocates for Children, a nonprofit group that has pushed the city to adopt stronger approaches to reading instruction.

In many cases, caregivers reported that their schools brushed off concerns about their child’s reading challenges, and they were unsure how to get the help they needed. Some said they heard little from their schools about the city’s new curriculum overhaul.

“The message needs to come from the top that family engagement requires more than just passing along information,” according to the report, which offers a series of recommendations for improving communication between parents and schools. “It means valuing parents’ expertise about their children.”

Parents who participated in the focus groups last summer were not randomly selected and all but one of them has at least one child with a disability. Still, their interviews reveal common roadblocks — and some bright spots.

Here are three takeaways from the report:

Parents struggle to be heard

Several parents said they noticed their child’s reading challenges early on but schools insisted they’d outgrow it. And in cases where a child was already receiving special education services, caregivers said schools seemed reluctant to provide help targeted at specific reading problems or acknowledge the possibility that they might also have dyslexia, a language-based learning disability.

In other cases, parents said educators flagged reading issues, but the school never came up with a solid plan for addressing them. Bronx mom Shy Washington said her son repeatedly did not meet the goals listed on his special education learning plan, falling further behind in reading. But she felt like she never got a clear explanation about the school’s strategy and why it wasn’t working.

“I wanted a roadmap — I wanted some direction,” Washington said in an interview with Chalkbeat. “I looked to them for the answers, and I ended up having to search for my own because they had none for me.”

Caregivers crave more information about instruction and how they can help at home

Parents said they often felt in the dark about how their child’s school approaches reading instruction, including the city’s sweeping curriculum overhaul.

“Most had heard little to nothing about NYC Reads [the city’s new reading curriculum mandate] or about the literacy curriculum being used at their children’s schools,” the report notes. “More than one wished there were more opportunities to discuss their child’s performance and individual needs in depth.”

Some parents said they wanted more guidance about how they could help at home, beyond standard advice to read to their child for 15-20 minutes each night.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein emphasized that the city is working with schools to inform parents about the curriculum changes, including how parents could support their child’s reading. She added that the focus group interviews were conducted before schools were required to change their instructional approaches, and the city is now prioritizing outreach to families.

“As always, family engagement and involvement is critical to fostering a strong and supportive school community,” Brownstein said in a statement.

Some parents welcomed regular communication about classroom instruction. One mom received emails throughout the week from her child’s kindergarten teacher about what they’re working on and provided optional worksheets to work on if a student needed to catch up from an absence.

“I felt so empowered by that, because I felt like I had some direction, some guidance,” the parent said in a focus group interview.

The process for getting extra help is murky

Parents often feel unsure what to do next if their child is struggling with reading and isn’t getting the help they need.

“The difficulty of navigating the public school system and getting answers to their questions came up in nearly every one of our conversations,” according to the Advocates for Children report.

Washington, the mother of an eighth grader who is behind in reading, said she struggled to navigate the city’s notoriously complex special education system, requesting multiple evaluations when her son was in elementary school. After years of feeling like her son’s services weren’t making a big dent, she ultimately sought outside evaluations with assistance from The Legal Aid Society to create more pressure for the city to offer extra help. She also looked for tutoring support outside of her son’s school.

Her main advice to parents: Be prepared to chart your own path.

This story has been updated with a response from the Education Department.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Adams reverses cuts to community schools program, finds city funds for Summer Rising

2024-01-12T18:42:40+00:00

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New York City is backing down from millions in proposed funding cuts for its community schools program, while committing more permanent funding to Summer Rising, Mayor Eric Adams said Friday.

The announcement reverses a fraction of the steep cuts Adams ordered in the fall, as he blamed the city’s bleak financial picture largely on the ongoing influx of asylum seekers and other migrants — an assessment other elected officials have pushed back on.

At the time, Adams directed the city’s Education Department to slash nearly $550 million from its budget, with more cuts anticipated this month and in the spring.

The November cuts included about $10 million from community schools that support families with out-of-school needs. Separately, nearly $20 million for Summer Rising — a pandemic-era, free summer school program that served roughly 110,000 students last year — was cut from the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development budget, which jointly runs the program.

Both programs had been largely propped up by federal COVID relief funds.

Though officials referred to the investments in both programs as “restorations” on Friday, only community schools will see a reversal of the November budget cuts. The $20 million cut from the DYCD budget still remains in place, officials clarified after the announcement.

For Summer Rising, though, the Education Department will now use city funds to cover its roughly $80 million portion of the program’s tab, which had previously been supported by federal stimulus dollars. In past years, the program cost about $350 million to operate, according to estimates at the time.

Officials previously said the November cuts would mean reduced hours and no Friday programs for some middle-schoolers. Asked during the press conference whether the announcement meant a reversal of those potential reductions, schools Chancellor David Banks said, “That is certainly our expectation,” though added they were “still engaged in the planning process.”

Education Department officials later clarified they were “working towards trying to restore that.”

Adams said the $80 million in Summer Rising funding, as well as restorations to roughly 170 community schools, came thanks to “strong fiscal management.”

“We want to be extremely, extremely clear: We know it takes an entire city to raise a child,” Adams said. “Through community schools and the Summer Rising program, we’re giving our young people a chance to learn and grow.”

But despite the restoration to community schools, the bulk of the cuts to the city’s Education Department will remain.

Adams’ cuts to education funding have garnered fierce pushback, including a lawsuit by the city’s teachers union, which referred to them as “draconian.”

In a statement Friday, United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew called the mayor’s decision to reverse some of the cuts “a step in the right direction.”

“Now, the city needs to walk back the other proposed education cuts,” he said.

Budget analysts have previously said the cuts are greater than the expected costs to serve asylum seekers, and an analysis by Comptroller Brad Lander found the city collected nearly $8 billion more in revenue last fiscal year than anticipated.

Scores of educators also flocked to public hearings on mayoral control in recent weeks to decry the cuts to education, citing them as evidence against the city’s school governance structure and urging state officials to revise or overturn it.

On Friday, Banks credited the funding changes to what he called “mayoral accountability,” a term frequently used by supporters of the current school governance structure — arguing again that the city should retain its system.

The Friday announcement — first reported by the New York Daily News — follows a reversal of other budget cuts in recent days, including to the NYPD, FDNY, and the Sanitation Department.

The city’s schools still face steep budget cuts and looming fiscal challenges. Since the start of the pandemic, the federal government has provided the Education Department with about $7.7 billion in one-time pandemic aid — but those funds will dry up in September.

Adams, who is expected to unveil his preliminary budget on Tuesday, was careful to temper expectations.

“We do not want it to be taken as a signal that the city is out of the woods,” he said. “We are not.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: This story initially said the potential reduction in Summer Rising hours for some middle-schoolers would no longer be necessary, and that the November budget cuts to the program had been restored. City officials clarified after the press conference that the cuts remained in place and hours could still be reduced.

$9.6 million headed to NYC schools serving homeless students after funding formula change

2023-12-18T23:01:36+00:00

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New York City will send more than $9 million in additional funding to schools serving high shares of homeless students, after updating its policy for how students living in temporary housing are counted, according to the city’s Education Department.

The change comes after Comptroller Brad Lander sent a letter last month warning roughly 21,000 students were at risk of being left out of the city’s school funding formula.

The formula sends additional money to schools that serve a disproportionate share of students with disabilities, English language learners, and students who live in temporary housing. Schools saw their budgets adjusted based on how many students with disabilities and English language learners they served as of December this year. But for students living in temporary housing, the formula previously relied on data from Dec. 31, 2022.

With an influx of asylum-seeking and other migrant families entering the city’s shelter system over the past year, that meant schools serving higher shares of homeless students could miss out on millions in additional funding, Lander said.

But at a town hall in Brooklyn last week, officials from the city’s Education Department said the formula had been tweaked to allocate about $9.6 million in additional school funding.

“Folks should start seeing that,” said schools Chancellor David Banks. “That is happening in real time.”

The city’s Education Department confirmed it had updated school funding allocations for students in temporary housing to use enrollment figures as of Oct. 31.

“Due to the influx of newcomers, we’ve taken a hard look at our policy and revised it so we can more quickly provide resources to our schools to support our newly arriving students,” said Nicole Brownstein, a spokesperson for the city’s Education Department “We are pleased to say the funding was allocated to schools in early December.”

In a statement Monday, Lander praised the decision.

“This will reduce resource scarcity in schools with new arrivals and help ensure all students get the support they need,” he said.

Education Department officials also noted that prior to midyear budget adjustments, $17 million had also been distributed to schools experiencing higher than anticipated enrollment growth.

Officials did not immediately say how many additional students living in temporary housing were included in the school funding formula as a result of the change.

Though the city’s population of homeless students has long remained high, it surged to nearly 120,000 with the influx of asylum-seeking families last year — a record high for the city.

Concerns over the funding formula came as the city experienced broad financial challenges. The Education Department has been forced to cut nearly $550 million from its budget, as the city prepares for the looming expiration of federal pandemic aid next year. Schools where enrollment numbers fell short of projections also faced midyear budget cuts for the first time in four years.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Mayoral control comes under fire at Bronx public hearing

2023-12-06T17:24:44+00:00

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Parents, educators, and others at a Bronx public hearing voiced their concerns about New York City’s long-standing mayoral control system with a resounding message: the system should end or be revised.

Common themes emerged among the more than 40 speakers during Tuesday night’s hearing at DeWitt Clinton High School. Many pointed to the instability of hinging major education policies on an elected official who can change as often as every four years, while also criticizing sweeping school initiatives helmed by current and former mayors.

The hearing was the first of five that state officials are hosting in each borough through January, offering families, educators, school staff, and others an opportunity to weigh in on the city’s mayoral control system. (The hearings are in-person and live-streamed.) It comes as part of a comprehensive state review of New York City’s school governance structure, which is set to expire on June 30.

That means that Mayor Eric Adams will need to return to Albany in the next legislative session if he hopes to retain control of the nation’s largest school system.

Christina Cover, a Bronx special education teacher and literacy coordinator, spoke at the hearing in praise of the city’s ongoing literacy curriculum overhaul — one of the Adams administration’s most significant educational policies. But despite feeling that initiative was important, she urged the city to adopt a community-based school governance model.

“This initiative — like the many initiatives before — risks being stopped completely with the start of a new mayoral administration,” she said. “Mayoral control, for better or for worse, ties educational initiatives to wide scale and massively funded mayoral campaign cycles.”

She continued: “Not everyone votes for a mayor on educational issues. School accountability during mayoral elections is hardly accountability at all.”

Speakers criticize Bloomberg, Adams educational policies

In arguing against the current system, other speakers pointed to what they saw as harmful mayoral decisions.

Sandy Wong, a kindergarten teacher at P.S. 30 in the Bronx, said her community suffered under the policies of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who in 2002 became the first chief executive to gain full control of the school system. She decried Bloomberg’s decisions to close many low-performing schools and champion charter school alternatives, and worries now that Adams’ call to cut nearly $550 million from the city’s schools budget will further harm her students.

“The teachers and parents in our school district are always putting their hands in their pockets to pay for basic school supplies like pencils, erasers, erasable markers, glue sticks, and paper,” she said. “My students, particularly those from marginalized communities, are disproportionately affected, falling behind their peers and other school districts.”

Students in the Bronx scored the lowest rates of proficiency among the five boroughs on the most recent state reading and math exams, according to city data.

Mayoral control has been regularly extended over the past two decades, though often with tweaks. It has relied on the mayor’s power to choose the schools chancellor and appoint a majority of members to the city’s Panel on Educational Policy, or PEP, which votes on major policy proposals and contracts.

Adams retained both in a deal state lawmakers struck in 2022, but some changes weakened his level of control. One change, for example, meant PEP members could no longer be removed for voting against their appointer’s wishes, making it harder to remove a panelist for opposing proposals from City Hall. At the same time, the board also expanded from 15 to 23 members, with the mayor appointing 13 of them and keeping the majority.

Speakers who wanted the current system amended repeatedly called for further checks and balances to be placed on the mayor’s power, particularly when it comes to the PEP.

At the hearing, Naveed Hasan, one of five PEP members elected by the city’s parent councils, alleged his own role on the panel was “a farce.”

“The majority of the members on the PEP are appointed by the mayor and never act independently, always approving whatever City Hall finds politically expedient,” said Hasan, who represents Manhattan. “My role on the PEP is rendered meaningless under a rubber-stamp panel under mayoral control.”

Schools Chancellor defends mayoral control system

One of Tuesday night’s few defenders of the status quo came from the Adams’ administration: schools Chancellor David Banks.

Banks, who referred to the current system only as “mayoral accountability,” admitted there was “no perfect governance system.” As someone who has worked in New York City public schools for decades — as a school safety agent, teacher, and principal — he said he’s seen improvements under the current structure.

“I know from firsthand experience the flaws of the previous system and the ways that our students suffered as a result,” he said. “Mayoral accountability, in contrast, is as close as we can get to a system that is the most manageable, least politicized, and most impactful.”

As the chancellor’s time expired, an audience member loudly booed.

Rebukes of the city’s mayoral control system long predate the Bronx hearing. Ahead of the public testimony, some used their positions on parent councils to voice their opposition.

In a resolution passed last week by the Citywide Council on Special Education, members called on the state legislature to end mayoral control, citing “a lack of checks and balances that would otherwise be provided by a democratically elected school board,” among other concerns.

New York City isn’t the only large school system grappling with its centralized school governance structure. In Chicago, where mayoral control of schools was established in 1995, the city will transition to a fully elected school board by 2027.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Help us report on youth mental health in NYC

2023-11-28T23:30:10+00:00

Two weeks ago, New York City launched a new effort to address the ongoing youth mental health crisis: free online therapy for city teenagers.

The statistics illustrating the depth of that crisis are sobering. Nationwide, three-quarters of high school students experienced at least one “adverse childhood experience” – traumatic events linked with long-term mental health challenges – during the pandemic. In New York City, 9% of teenagers reported attempting suicide in 2021, according to the city’s Health Department.

As the city’s efforts roll out, we want to better understand the mental health picture for young people, and how it’s affecting schools.

Educators, parents, and especially students: We want to hear directly from you. If you have something to share, please fill out our brief survey – and thank you.

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NYC withholding $11 million from schools serving homeless students, comptroller says

2023-11-21T23:19:11+00:00

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Just months after New York City changed its school funding formula to funnel more aid to homeless students, Comptroller Brad Lander warned roughly 21,000 students are at risk of being left out.

The city’s school funding formula also sends additional money to schools that serve a disproportionate share of students with disabilities and English language learners. But while schools will see their budgets adjusted based on how many students from those groups they are serving as of this December, data on the city’s homeless students will not be updated the same way.

In a letter last week, the city’s chief financial officer urged schools Chancellor David Banks to reverse a decision that would calculate funding allocations based on homeless student populations as of Dec. 31, 2022.

With a persistent influx of asylum-seeking families entering the city’s shelter system over the past year, using those figures would mean schools serving higher shares of homeless students could miss out on nearly $11 million in additional funding, Lander said.

Since last December, roughly 21,000 students in temporary housing have enrolled in New York City schools, with many enrolling in schools near shelters that will need additional resources, Lander said. He added the city already uses midyear enrollment data to adjust funding based on other student populations.

“So what is the educational policy reason for DOE uniquely denying funding to schools with new students in temporary housing?” Lander said. “Without other explanation, it appears that you are purposely creating resource scarcity in schools with new arrivals.”

The city’s Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A guide explaining the school funding formula notes that although funds for students in temporary housing aren’t part of the midyear adjustment of school budgets, the city’s Education Department “remains committed to supporting schools experiencing financial hardship due to the increase in new [students in temporary housing] admits.”

Concerns over school funding come amid the city’s broader financial woes, as the Education Department is set to cut nearly $550 million from its budget, and the expiration of federal pandemic aid looms over the next year. More than 650 schools also saw midyear budget cuts after enrollment numbers fell short of projections, though a majority of schools received extra funds after citywide enrollment ticked up for the first time in eight years.

The additional funds for students in temporary housing followed a task force recommendation to revise the city’s Fair Student Funding formula, which accounts for about two-thirds of school budgets. Under the formula, schools typically receive a baseline amount per student, with extra dollars added on top for students with additional needs.

Though the city’s population of homeless students has remained high for more than a decade, it surged to nearly 120,000 with an influx of asylum-seeking families last year. That was a 14% increase from the year before and a record high for the city, according to Advocates for Children, a group that supports the city’s most vulnerable students.

Roughly 1 in 9 students were living in shelters, “doubled up” with relatives or friends, or otherwise without permanent housing at some point in the school year, the data showed.

Using more recent enrollment numbers would help account for asylum-seeking students who arrive in the city and then transfer between schools, Lander said in the letter.

Advocates fear that school transfers could become even more common under a city rule implemented by Mayor Eric Adams last month. The rule requires families in some shelters to exit the system every 60 days, meaning they will need to find alternative housing or re-apply for shelter.

Adams later insisted the rule would not force children to change schools.

Students living in shelters were more than four times as likely as kids with permanent housing to transfer schools, according to data from the 2021-22 school year.

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Participation in parent conferences has plunged 40%. Is Zoom to blame?

2023-11-09T23:04:04+00:00

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Remote parent-teacher conferences, a holdover from the height of the pandemic, continue to elicit mixed feelings among families and educators alike.

For some parents, these virtual meetings — which were enshrined in the most recent teachers union contract — have been a boon. They can Zoom with teachers during their work day. They no longer need child care to travel to and from schools for the meetings. For those with multiple kids, it can be easier to juggle meetings at different schools.

But just as remote learning exacerbated New York City’s gaping digital divide, these virtual meetings also leave out families with less tech access and those with language barriers. Faced with an array of teachers with different sign-up methods, joining the meetings can feel insurmountable to some.

Schools Chancellor David Banks has repeatedly said parent engagement is among his top priorities. But participation in parent-teacher conferences was down 40% last year compared with the most recent school year before the pandemic hit, according to city data.

One Manhattan middle school principal expressed deep frustration with the remote conferences. The school leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said attendance at the virtual sessions is significantly lower than the in-person conferences before the pandemic.

It’s especially difficult for the school’s growing number of migrant families to participate, as they often don’t have easy access to technology or reliable Wi-Fi at their shelters.

The school’s 10- to 15-minute student-led conferences, where kids show off their work and share plans for improvement, have been tricky to transition virtually.

“There’s something important about physically coming to the school, seeing where your child sits, seeing their work displayed on the bulletin board, and actually having a heart- to-heart conversation,” the principal said. “What we need more than ever is people back in the building and people being a part of the community.”

Education Department officials defended the virtual meetings, saying they “expanded opportunities” for families to meet with teachers.

“We support remote parent/teacher conferences to accommodate guardians who have disabilities and are more comfortable in a controlled environment, guardians who cannot take time away from work, guardians who are caregivers to additional children/family members,” said Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull.

She added, “Parent/teacher conferences can also occur in person, upon request, at a mutually agreed upon time.”

Many parents, however, were not aware of that provision in the teachers union contract.

Amy Clow, the parent association president at Manhattan's P.S. 51, with her children.

Amy Clow, the parent association president at P.S. 51 in Hell’s Kitchen, echoed that in-person conferences helped build a sense of community.

“Maybe you’d see another family waiting,” she said, “we could actually talk to other parents and get to know them.”

Although she said the school’s teachers have tried to make the virtual conferences work, there are limits to the approach. A recent conference that was scheduled for 10 minutes wound up feeling more like five, given that her kids were at home interrupting her.

“Nothing’s as good as in person,” she said. “We learned that during COVID.”

Brooklyn mom Tamra Dixon also believes she got more out of the in-person meetings.

“By the time you exchange greetings — “Yeah, he’s great” — then they log off before you even get a chance to really talk,” said Dixon, whose fifth grader attends P.S. 282 in Park Slope. “It’s a little more difficult to do that when someone is sitting in front of you, so you have a better chance of getting all your questions answered in person.”

At her recent parent conference, all of her son’s teachers were together on the Zoom, each giving their assessments, which was “not bad,” Dixon said since that meant she didn’t have to log in to various Zooms. Still, one of the teachers kept her camera off and didn’t chime in, leaving the mom feeling confused.

Mike Robles, with his 8-year-old daughter, who attends P94M in Hell's Kitchen.

On the other hand, Manhattan dad Mike Robles said he appreciated the virtual conferences in part because they were set up with each teacher individually instead of conferencing with multiple teachers at once.

The feedback “feels a little bit more specific,” said Robles, whose daughter attends P94M, a school in District 75 that exclusively serves students with disabilities. “They’re not like five in a room [at] the same time.”

Ean Pimentel, a dad at P.S. 51, said the online setup was helpful since two of his children attend schools in different neighborhoods. Plus, he didn’t have to scramble for child care.

“You got to pay somebody to come watch the other kids, so [remote] is easier,” he said.

For Brendan Gillett, a teacher at International High School at Prospect Heights, which serves recently arrived immigrants, getting families to log on isn’t the biggest hurdle. The school makes a big effort to get families to come to the conferences. But the quality of the meetings are different than they were when they were in person, Gillett said.

“They feel shallower than in the past,” Gillett said. “It’s harder to go over documents. Parents will Zoom from their car or work or somewhere so they seem distracted, and generally, I just don’t think it’s as meaningful.”

Most elementary schools held parent-teacher conferences last week. Most middle schools hosted them on Thursday, and high schools have them on Nov. 16.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Influx of asylum seekers pushes NYC’s homeless student population to record high

2023-11-01T10:00:00+00:00

The number of homeless students attending New York City schools reached a record high last year after thousands of asylum-seeking families entered the city’s shelter system, a new analysis shows.

Roughly 1 in 9 students were living in shelters, “doubled up” with relatives or friends, or otherwise without permanent housing at some point in the school year, according to state data compiled by Advocates for Children, a group that supports the city’s most vulnerable students.

The city’s population of homeless students was astronomical even before the recent influx, with the number of kids lacking permanent housing exceeding 100,000 for each of the past eight years – a stark indication of the city’s ongoing housing crisis.

But the sudden arrival of thousands of families fleeing dire conditions in Latin America and other parts of the world pushed the figure to nearly 120,000 last school year — a 14% increase over the previous school year. It’s an all-time high, even as the city’s overall student enrollment has plummeted, according to Advocates for Children, which has been crunching this number annually for more than a decade.

The number is likely to be even higher by the end of this school year. Roughly 12,500 new students in temporary housing have enrolled in city schools since July, according to an Education Department spokesperson.

“Our young people experiencing homelessness are some of our most vulnerable students, and it is our on-going priority to provide them with every support and resource at our disposal,” spokesperson Jenna Lyle said in a statement.

The increase has profound implications for city schools.

Homeless students face significant educational roadblocks, from the added logistical challenges of getting to school from distant shelters to the trauma that comes with losing permanent housing.

An astounding 72% of students living in homeless shelters were marked chronically absent last year — meaning they missed at least 18 days of school, according to data compiled by Advocates for Children. For all students in temporary housing, including those living doubled up, the rate was 54%, and for kids in permanent housing, it was 39%.

Students living in shelters were also more than four times as likely as kids with permanent housing to transfer schools last year, and less than half as likely to score proficient on state reading exams, according to the data.

Advocates fear the number of school transfers will spike even higher this year due to a new city rule that requires families in some shelters to exit the system every 60 days and either find alternative housing or re-apply for shelter. Families that re-apply would have no guarantee of ending up in the same shelter or even the same borough.

Mayor Eric Adams said the new policy is necessary to relieve severe overcrowding in shelters and free up space for new arrivals. He promised the city would work to ensure that students don’t have to transfer schools whenever possible.

Students who end up in homeless shelters far from their schools are entitled under federal law to transportation so they don’t have to transfer, but given the difficulty of coordinating the rides and the stress of the long commutes on families, that often amounts to “a right in name only,” said Jennifer Pringle, the director of Advocates for Children’s Learners in Temporary Housing project.

An Education Department spokesperson said district superintendents will ensure that transportation requests from homeless students are prioritized.

Schools go all out to help homeless students

Schools often devote considerable resources to supporting families in temporary housing with everything from transportation to basic needs like laundry.

At VOICE charter school in Long Island City, Queens, a sudden explosion of enrollment of students in shelters transformed educators’ approach to working with families.

Historically, the K-8 school enrolled no more than 20 homeless students in a year, said Principal Franklin Headley. But last year, given the school’s proximity to a cluster of recently converted shelters housing asylum-seeking families and an effective outreach strategy, the school enrolled hundreds of newly arrived families. It now serves roughly 270 students in temporary housing, Headley said.

The school’s 15-person operations team pivoted to focus almost exclusively on supporting the newly arrived families, fanning out to shelters to survey families’ needs and establish relationships with shelter staff, said Director of Operations Karina Chalas.

That work yielded several new school initiatives, including an after-school program to help parents who needed child care (because of shelter rules prohibiting them from leaving kids alone) and a laundry room for families without washers and dryers in their shelters.

Staff worked hard to keep attendance tabs on the new arrivals, even as families moved to new cities and states or transferred to shelters in other parts of the city. The school helped arrange bus or train transportation when possible for families who moved to different neighborhoods so kids didn’t have to transfer schools.

“They built a community here already,” Chalas said. “We try as hard as we can to give them any option of ‘here’s what we can do.’ After a while, if it becomes too much, we know as a school we tried everything we can do.”

Budget woes could unleash more instability for homeless students

All that support requires additional resources and expertise – and advocates say the city is still not providing enough help.

A city Education Department initiative last year that hired 100 new staffers, called community coordinators, to work directly in shelters to support families with educational needs is funded by one-time federal pandemic aid that expires at the end of this year.

Meanwhile, a plan to hire an additional 12 staffers this year to support homeless students is on hold because of a hiring freeze related to city budget cuts, advocates said.

“Losing the shelter-based Community Coordinators would almost certainly increase the already sky-high rates of chronic absenteeism and make it even more difficult for students in shelter to succeed in school,” said Kim Sweet, the executive director of Advocates for Children, said in a statement.

City officials have rolled out some new investments, including revamping the Education Department’s school funding formula to give extra dollars to schools for every student in temporary housing. The Education Department also employs 100 school-based social workers devoted to supporting homeless students.

Lyle, the Department spokesperson, said the agency plans to “work with our partners at the city and state levels to identify and establish supports for our students in temporary housing, while contending with the city’s financial reality.”

Staffers at schools serving large numbers of asylum-seekers remain worried about how the new 60-day shelter rules will affect their families. Chalas, the staffer at the Queens charter school, said she’s heard many families at her school talking about cramming into shared apartments together rather than re-enter the shelter system.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC families push for special education open houses as high school admissions season heats up

2023-10-31T19:24:47+00:00

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Manhattan dad Tom Fiorella wanted a public high school that could challenge his child and accommodate learning disabilities. He spent countless hours scouring websites, attending open houses, and emailing parent coordinators in search of answers.

Does the school integrate students with disabilities alongside typically developing children in classes at all grade levels? Is support available for students who could handle advanced coursework but, like his child, also have a language-based learning disability? Would the environment feel welcoming?

“It’s complex – it’s a lot of work,” said Fiorella, whose child began ninth grade this year. “It was hard to get solid information.”

Now, a group of parent advocates is pushing for more high schools to offer open houses specifically geared toward students with disabilities. They’ve sent a flurry of messages to school leaders to persuade them to roll out the information sessions more widely.

That advocacy effort, which began last year, is already starting to bear fruit, said Jenn Choi, a special education advocate who created an email template and encouraged parents to send it to school leaders and superintendents.

The Brooklyn North high school superintendent has required all of the 47 campuses under her supervision to offer special education information sessions. And two other district leaders have been receptive or encouraged principals to offer them, including those who represent Queens North as well as the superintendent responsible for schools that use alternate graduation assessments, international schools serving recently arrived immigrants, and Outward Bound schools, messages sent to parents show.

Open houses are an important way for families to narrow down which 12 high schools to list on their application out of more than 400 options. All families, including those with disabilities, are welcome to attend those sessions. But parents and advocates say the traditional open houses may fill up quickly, gloss over special education, or wind up with little time for families to ask questions about whether the school is prepared to offer the services their child needs.

The city’s online high school directory makes it simple to filter schools by a wide range of categories — from sports teams to uniform requirements. Still, clear information about what types of special education classes are typically offered, what types of therapists are on staff, and even information about school building accessibility for those with mobility issues can be difficult to come by. Officials have improved access to information about physical building accessibility in recent years.

Using the city’s directory, “a parent can find the 30 high schools with girls’ golf teams in NYC in under 8 seconds,” Choi wrote in a guide for school leaders who want to offer special education open houses. If a parent wants to find schools that regularly provide a certain type of special education class, “they will have to pick up the phone and start calling over 500 schools, one school at a time.”

Although some schools have offered special education open houses for years, it’s unclear how common they are. An Education Department spokesperson could not say how many schools offer them now or in recent years.

Choi, who runs a special education consulting business and also navigated the admissions process as a parent of two children with disabilities, said they are relatively rare. Requiring all schools to offer them would help make the high school process friendlier to students with disabilities, she argues. Plus, they can serve an important accountability purpose, as school officials may commit to providing a range of services during the sessions.

“Parents are going to expect that promises are going to be kept,” Choi said. “And that’s how change happens.”

Even as some schools are embracing special education open houses, it can still be tricky to find basic information about them. For some schools, the city’s centralized directory lists whether a school offers such a session. In other cases, that information appears to be missing and individual school websites don’t always list them.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein emphasized that “open houses are organized at the school level” and did not indicate whether the city would consider requiring all high schools to offer them. She also did not respond to a question about how families can find out about them given some of the inconsistencies in where they’re posted.

Maggie Moroff, a special education policy expert at Advocates for Children, said she felt torn about special education open houses. In an ideal world, information about specialized services should be woven into traditional sessions, she said, though that can be a challenge.

“You don’t want it to be siloed, but you want to make sure the right attention gets paid” to students with disabilities, Moroff said, adding that in practice she supports more special education open houses.

Specialized open houses can also make it more difficult for schools to hide that they’re not actually set up to support students with a variety of news, advocates said.

“You can have a school that can check off all the right boxes on paper,” Moroff said, “but when a family gets there, the way they are welcomed is quite different. You can glean a lot from that.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC teens rethink college and career options, counselors are trying to adapt

2023-10-30T16:44:21+00:00

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When students come into Danielle Insel’s college and career advising office with their sights set on higher education, she has a checklist of next steps ready. For years, around nine out of 10 kids fell into that camp, she estimates.

But recently, a growing number of seniors — upwards of 30%, she guesses — have told her they have no intention of going to college. And more kids than ever are considering ways to make money without a college degree, Insel said – driven in part by people and jobs they’ve encountered on social media. For those students, there’s no equivalent checklist.

Insel has one student this year determined to be a tattoo artist. But after researching potential trade school options and finding nothing affordable, Insel — the postsecondary readiness counselor at Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in downtown Brooklyn — said they came up with a plan for the student to visit tattoo parlors and ask if they’d take her on as an apprentice. So far, one has invited her back for a more in-depth conversation.

The shift in Insel’s office is not an isolated case.

The pandemic profoundly reshaped the college and career landscape for high school graduates in New York City and across the country. And the counselors who advise them have had to change their approach in response.

The rate of city students enrolling in some form of higher education within six months of graduation fell from 81% in 2019 to 71% in 2021 — the lowest rate since at least 2007, according to city data. Nationwide, 62% of recent high school graduates enrolled in college in 2022, down from 66% in 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That drop combined with the increasing interest in non-college options has spurred counselors like Insel who have historically focused primarily on pushing students toward college to spend more time and effort helping students navigate the world of work and trade school.

“I’ve changed my language to, ‘I’m not here to push college on anyone, there are plenty of different pathways,’” said Insel.

That shift in language mirrors one across the entire New York City Education Department, which went from touting a program called “College Access For All” several years ago, to pushing a new initiative focused on “career-connected learning” and multiple “pathways.”

Danielle Insel, the postsecondary readiness counselor at Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in Brooklyn, said she’s changed how she talks to students about their options after graduating high school.

Roughly 100 high schools across the city are getting money through the new FutureReadyNYC initiative to roll out career and technical education courses, and thousands of students are participating in paid internships or apprenticeships.

“What you’re seeing all across the nation, this idea that everybody’s just promoting college, college, college … There’s got to be another way and another track and another pathway for kids to be successful,” schools Chancellor David Banks previously told Chalkbeat.

Helping students with detailed post-graduation plans

In many ways, that’s a welcome change, counselors said. Previously, Insel sometimes felt the singular focus on college could be alienating and make some students “upset and scared and confused.” It could also push some students who weren’t ready into college, leading them to drop out and wind up with debt, not degrees.

Even as many counselors welcome the new acceptance of non-college pathways, it presents some challenges.

Some counselors still worry about the availability of long-term, economically-secure life paths for their non-college bound kids.

The majority of new jobs posted in New York City require a bachelor’s degree, and there are still stubborn disparities across a range of life outcomes – including a growing gap in life expectancy – between Americans with a college education and those without.

Moreover, the roadmap for how to best support kids uninterested in college is often less clear than for their college-bound peers, counselors said.

Educators in New York City feel “overwhelmed” by keeping track of the many programs across the five boroughs for students looking to enter the workforce without a college degree, according to a September report from College Access: Research and Action, which conducted in-depth interviews with educators from nine city schools.

Multiple counselors who spoke to Chalkbeat lamented the lack of affordable, quality trade school options for recent high school graduates, and said the few programs they’ve traditionally relied on, like the Coop Tech program run by the city Education Department, have gotten harder for students to get into as demand has grown.

For Adeola Alexander, a veteran college counselor at Kurt Hahn Expeditionary Learning High School in Flatbush, Brooklyn, the challenge lies in striking the right balance between supporting students’ immediate goals, interests and economic needs, and looking out for their long-term prospects.

“Once young people start to work, that’s a good thing,” she said. “But the money you make at 16 is not sustainable for you when you’re 26. … I just want to ensure that when students are being exposed to careers and jobs that there’s a long-term plan for them.”

Education Department officials say they’re planning to ensure by 2030 that every high school graduate – college-bound or not – leaves school with a detailed plan of their next steps.

“If you think about how fast the world is changing, and the different kinds of occupations and careers,” Jade Grieve, the Education Department’s Chief of Student Pathways, recently told reporters, “that’s deep, hard work.”

Students facing a new college reality

Counselors said a number of factors drove down college enrollment during the pandemic.

Many students disengaged from school during remote learning, and came back “a little bit disillusioned with college-going,” said Alexander.

Other teens had family members who lost jobs, and felt additional pressure to make money – putting the idea of college temporarily out of the question, counselors said.

Still others were frightened by the prospect of attending any in-person classes while COVID-19 was spreading, or were deterred by vaccine mandates at colleges, counselors said.

It’s clear that the pandemic wasn’t the only force driving the decline in college enrollment.

Adeola Alexander, a college counselor at Brooklyn’s Kurt Hahn Expeditionary Learning High School, said she works to ensure students have a long-term plan for their careers.

Students in New York City, like those across the country, have long been concerned about the potential risks of student debt and whether investments in higher education will pay off, counselors said. And some educators said they saw those worries escalate in recent years as the national conversation on the student debt crisis intensified.

“Absolutely I have noticed more students talking about debt and talking about either people they know or people they’ve seen on social media who have taken out a lot of debt and couldn’t pay it,” said Alexander.

The kids most likely to fall off the college track were those who might’ve in past years attended community colleges, which offer two-year programs and enroll higher shares of Black, Latino and students from low-income backgrounds, data suggests.

There are signs of a modest rebound this year. After years of enrollment declines, the City University of New York, by far the most popular destination for New York City public high school graduates, saw a slight uptick in this year’s freshman class compared with last year.

Some schools like Insel’s require all students, even those certain they won’t attend, to submit applications for CUNY.

The city Education Department launched an initiative this year to deliver a CUNY acceptance letter to every high school graduate in the hopes that having a physical letter in hand may give students who were on the fence the extra boost they need to enroll.

Alexander, the counselor in Flatbush, patiently walks her students through a thicket of misconceptions about the economics of college, explaining that it’s often feasible to work and attend school at the same time, like she did. Most students who attend CUNY, moreover, graduate with no debt, and in some cases, taking on a small amount of debt can be a responsible financial decision, when it’s likely to reap long-term gains, she tells students.

Alexander’s work with students often continues after they graduate. Every year, she gets a trickle of students returning to her office because they’re interested in restarting college after dropping out or enrolling for the first time.

Counselors navigate the world of work

Postsecondary counselors seeking to advise students who don’t plan on attending college often have to navigate a world of work where the steps are less clear, and the resources more scattered, than they are for students pursuing higher education.

For many students, trade school can seem like a logical first step. But finding trade schools that are affordable and vetted for quality is often a challenge, counselors said.

“I do struggle still with helping students find what I want to say is viable trade school options,” said Alexander.

Many trade programs don’t offer their own financial aid, and may not accept the same state and federal aid as colleges, counselors said.

And while colleges are required to provide public information on costs, completion rates, and long-term work outcomes for their graduates, that information can be harder to find for trade and vocational programs.

In this vein, the September report from College Access: Research and Action stated that “educators are rightfully asking about the return on investment of the alternatives that are being offered.”

Counselors guiding a student directly into a specific line of work can feel additional pressure to understand the economics of that industry, since the student won’t have the flexibility that comes with a college degree.

Jasmine Benzvi, a counselor at Queens Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School in Forest Hills, said it’s part of her job to keep up with “what’s happening in the job market, where the jobs are going, and which fields pay well.” But she acknowledged it’s “not possible to be an expert on all of those things.”

Several counselors pointed to another factor that may be swaying students’ views on whether they need higher education.

“I honestly believe TikTok and social media has shown our students can earn money in a variety of ways without a college degree,” said Insel.

Students interested in cosmetology, for example, who see online influencers making money from hair and makeup tutorials, may see it as a more viable path, Insel said.

Insel said she’s started looking into the economics of a career as a social media influencer so she can have more concrete information to share with kids.

“I’ve definitely had to learn along the way,” she said.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYPD plans to launch a school hotline for safety and mental health issues. Advocates are wary.

2023-10-26T20:40:52+00:00

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New York City’s Police Department is launching a tip line that would allow all members of school communities to report concerns about safety and mental health, though the idea has raised concerns about how law enforcement officials will use the information.

In addition to reports of potential threats against schools or other safety issues, the tip line “will also help support mental health concerns, bullying, cyberbullying, and self-harm concerns” said Inspector Kevin Taylor, head of the Police Department’s school safety division, during a City Council hearing Wednesday.

Police officials previously indicated plans to roll out the tip line this fall. A department spokesperson did not offer a more specific timeline for when it will go live.

Taylor said anyone connected to school communities, or members of the general public, will be able to report campus safety concerns 24 hours a day for any public school, including charters. Tips will be collected by phone, text message, or through an app called SaferWatch.

The move comes as concerns about school safety and mental health have intensified. Even as violent crime has trended down, the number of shooting victims under age 18 has spiked. The number of weapons confiscated on school grounds also ticked up about 9% last school year, and suspensions also trended up, though data for the full year is not yet available. Meanwhile, the number of school safety agents remains far below pre-pandemic levels.

One Bronx school administrator said she would welcome an anonymous school safety tip line. In one instance, she said a student resorted to creating a fake social media account to discreetly alert her about a screenshot that showed students with weapons in the building.

“Having a way they could report anonymously and feel comfortable would be so good,” she wrote.

But multiple advocates raised concerns about the Police Department soliciting information related to bullying and students’ mental health, and state law indicates discipline issues should be handled by school staff rather than law enforcement.

“The police should not deal with students’ mental health or behavioral issues at all, including bullying,” said Andrea Ortiz, the membership and campaign director at the Dignity in Schools Campaign New York, a group that advocates against punitive discipline. “Police are not equipped to help them in that process, so why would they be the ones to collect that information except to use it in criminalizing ways?”

A police spokesperson declined to elaborate on how information collected through the tip line will be used or why the department would gather information on bullying given that there is an existing process for reporting those issues.

Meanwhile, the union that represents school safety agents was not enthusiastic about the new reporting tools and pressed the city to hire more agents instead. “Other ideas and initiatives to stem well documented school related violence cannot substitute for more dedicated school safety agents,” Hank Sheinkopf, a spokesperson for Teamsters Local 237, wrote in a text message.

Separately, Taylor said that the city is piloting an app called SaferWatch that could function as a “panic button” that allows school safety agents to more quickly report emergencies, including shootings near or on school grounds.

He indicated using the technology was inspired by a visit to Parkland, Florida, where 17 students and staff were killed in a 2018 school shooting. In response, New York passed a law encouraging schools to adopt silent panic alarm systems.

Eventually, the app will be available to students and parents and may notify them about “serious situations that are happening in school,” Taylor said.

The app is currently being piloted at five schools: Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Technical High School, Hillcrest High School in Queens, Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, and P.S. 78 on Staten Island. Taylor said the city plans to expand the app citywide, but didn’t offer a timeline.

Students and staff at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science said they hadn’t heard much about the new app and weren’t sure how it was being used on campus.

Vanessa Chen, a senior at Stuyvesant, said being able to quickly report an incident through a smartphone app could be helpful, but she also wondered if it could lead to lots of false alarms. “A lot of these threats that come to our school aren’t real,” she said. “I think there comes a question of whether there’s any secondary fact-check.”

During the hearing on Wednesday, City Councilperson Jennifer Gutiérrez also raised questions how students would use it in an emergency since some schools require that students turn in their phones during the day.

“I’ve seen this administration move forward with a number of …these new apps, and there’s a lot of holes missing,” Gutiérrez said.

Taylor indicated the priority would be to install the app on school safety agents’ phones, but hoped it could be adopted more widely among families and staff.

A police spokesperson didn’t respond to a question about how the app would enable a faster emergency response compared with school safety agents radioing for help or dialing 911. They also declined to say how much the new initiatives would cost.

Given that every school has police department safety agents stationed in them, some advocates said there was little reason to invest in additional technologies that they worry could further expand the police department’s role in schools, especially as City Hall is ordering city agencies to cut their budgets.

“We’re taking more resources from schools while the NYPD is announcing ways they can get more involved in schools,” said Johanna Miller, director of the education policy center at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “That’s absolutely the wrong direction.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools with enrollment shortfalls face cuts; more budget losses loom

2023-10-25T23:00:06+00:00

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New York City schools with lower than projected enrollments will see their budgets slashed midyear for the first time in four years.

School and Education Department staffers said the move comes as little surprise given the city’s bleak fiscal situation and dwindling federal COVID relief funds. City officials had used federal funding the past three school years to avert the midyear cuts and hold schools “harmless” if their student rosters fell short of the Education Department’s estimates.

“As NYCPS navigates the current fiscal landscape, we’ve made the necessary decision to revert to our pre-COVID-19 budgeting process,” said Education Department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer.

Schools get money in the summer based on the city’s projections of how many students are expected to fill their seats. After the final tallies are taken on Oct. 31, the Education Department adjusts school budgets, clawing back money from schools that enroll fewer students than anticipated. Schools with higher than projected enrollment will still get additional money, similar to past years, though administrators have said it can be difficult to spend the sudden influx of cash effectively in the middle of the school year.

Calee Prindle, an assistant principal at the Facing History School in Manhattan, said her school stands to lose about $160,000 if no more students enroll before Oct. 31.

“Losing that money, it sucks, but for us it’s not going to be wildly detrimental,” she said. “For me, it’s always about the communication, and I’m glad we know now.”

Still, the return to midyear cuts deals a significant blow to schools that may already be reeling from years of shrinking budgets due to enrollment losses and heightened needs in the wake of the pandemic.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew argued that the increase in state funding in recent years should be enough to continue the policy of propping budgets up even if schools miss their enrollment projections.

“It is unacceptable for NYC to cut funding to its public schools especially when the state has made such a strong financial commitment to our students,” he said in a statement.

Education Department faces major budget strain

Even with an increase in state aid, it’s a particularly precarious financial moment for the Education Department and the city as a whole.

More than $7 billion in federal relief funds that the Education Department has received since the beginning of the pandemic expires next September. The city has used that money to fund summer programming and social workers, along with propping up school budgets amid enrollment losses.

On top of that, Mayor Eric Adams earlier this fall ordered all city agencies to cut 5% of their budgets in November, an additional 5% in January, and another 5% in April in response to rising costs as the city faces an influx of asylum-seekers.

The three rounds of cuts would slash a total of $2.1 billion from the Education Department’s budget, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute. It’s an enormous sum that schools Chancellor David Banks has said will likely “affect every aspect of what we do.”

The Education Department has not made final decisions about what to cut in the first round, and the decision to reinstate the midyear adjustment was not related to the budget cut mandate, Styer said.

Officials didn’t say how much the Education Department will save in the cost-cutting move. Last year, the Education Department spent $200 million to avert the midyear cut.

Fiscal belt-tightening plays out in other ways

As part of the Adams administration’s budget cut mandate, the city’s Office of Management and Budget imposed a hiring freeze, according to Education Department staffers and budget documents.

The hiring freeze doesn’t apply to school-based staff, but affects many other positions, including central personnel tasked with supporting schools and specific student populations, such as those who live in temporary housing and children with disabilities, according to staffers and advocates.

“Hiring for each position is going under a lot more scrutiny, and we realize that some may end up getting delayed for some period of time — and we don’t know for how long,” said one central staffer familiar with the budget, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A plan to hire more than a dozen temporary staffers to support kids in shelters with educational needs was delayed because of the freeze, and vacant positions on the teams that ensure students with disabilities get necessary services have gone unfilled, according to Advocates for Children, a group that supports vulnerable students.

“We have seen significant delays in students in shelter receiving the school placements and transportation they need,” said Randi Levine, the policy director at Advocates for Children. She noted that some of the Education Department’s federal relief money is earmarked to support students in temporary housing and can’t be spent on other things.

“We don’t want the DOE to squander the resources it has available given the huge need we’re seeing on the ground,” she added.

The worst is likely yet to come. Another central staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity said teams in central offices have been asked to start preparing for significant cuts – far deeper than in past years.

And while the cuts to the Education Department’s central offices are likely to be the steepest, that division only accounts for between 1-2 % of the Education Department’s overall budget, meaning cuts outside of central offices will almost certainly be necessary.

Two areas likely to get spared: Banks’s signature NYC Reads initiative, which seeks to revamp elementary school literacy instruction by forcing districts to adopt one of three pre-selected reading curricula, and his FutureReadyNYC program, which funds schools to expand career-connected learning, according to the chancellor.

“The reading work that we’re doing and the pathways work that we’re doing is going to be prioritized,” Banks recently told reporters. “That’s where we’re going to be making sure that the investments are still there.”

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC eyes middle and high school literacy overhaul. It’s asking families to weigh in.

2023-10-19T21:42:25+00:00

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On the heels of a sweeping mandate to overhaul elementary school reading programs, New York City officials now have their eyes on middle and high school — and they’re asking families to weigh in.

The city’s Education Department is launching focus groups for parents and students this month with the goal of “evaluating ELA curriculum for grades 6 to 12,” according to a notice sent to parent leaders.

The online focus groups, which will take place on Oct. 25 and 30, are the latest sign that city officials are interested in standardizing curriculums at the middle and high school level even though they have not announced concrete plans and appear to be keeping the public engagement process fairly quiet.

Education Department officials declined to answer questions about the sessions. After Chalkbeat inquired about the online registration form — which initially included a list of possible curriculums under consideration — those names were removed.

“We’ll delve into the ELA curriculum options under consideration,” the notice initially stated. The post indicated that families would have a chance to discuss curriculum options, review materials, and provide feedback. But that language was also removed and a department spokesperson did not explain why.

New York City principals have long had wide leeway to select their own curriculums. Schools Chancellor David Banks is pushing against that approach, concerned that it can lead to inconsistency in the quality of instructional materials educators use in their classrooms.

In Banks’ “State of Our Schools” speech last month, he said the department “will announce new approaches to instruction across all our core subject areas, in all grade levels, just as we have for early literacy” — though he indicated the process will take years.

Some high school superintendents have already begun mandating specific reading programs, though there is no centralized directive for them to do so. The city has also begun rolling out a standardized algebra curriculum at a subset of high schools.

One education department official familiar with the city’s literacy efforts said budget cuts ordered by Mayor Eric Adams could complicate the Education Department’s efforts to swiftly move forward with broader curriculum changes beyond elementary school.

“It costs a good amount of money to add curriculum to schools across the board,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. The department “probably doesn’t want to promise that … and then not be able to do it.”

Creating focus groups for middle and high school families represents a shift from the Education Department’s strategy for choosing elementary school reading curriculums. That ambitious change, which began in about half of districts this year and will reach all districts next year, involved little input from the public. (An Education Department spokesperson did not say whether there will be similar input sessions for middle and high school educators and school leaders.)

Susan Neuman, a New York University literacy expert and former federal education official, said it’s a “promising trend” that the city is considering strengthening schools’ curriculum choices at the middle and high school level.

“We’ve ignored them completely,” she said.

But Neuman also expressed concern about whether the Education Department would take input from focus groups seriously. The city did not solicit input on the mandated elementary school curriculums from its own Literacy Advisory Council, composed of outside experts and advocates, according to multiple participants.

“There was really a good deal of frustration on that,” said Neuman, a member of the council.

Dannielle Darbee, principal of the Brooklyn Academy of Global Finance, said a more standardized curriculum could have benefits at the high school level, exposing students to rigorous texts consistently and ensuring teachers have more free time for other activities.

“Part of me welcomes the change because teachers spend a lot of time trying to build curriculum and tailor curriculum,” Darbee said.

Still, she said any curriculum mandate should include a long runway for training on the new materials. And, more importantly, she hopes high school teachers receive training to reach students who arrive significantly behind in their reading skills.

“High school teachers are not really trained at all to teach reading or assess reading levels,” Darbee said, “which brings me to the concern: What would professional development for high school teachers look like?”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC revises mandated reporter training to reduce unnecessary child welfare investigations

2023-10-19T21:07:53+00:00

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New York City has revised its training for educators on when to report suspected cases of child abuse and neglect in an effort to cut down on unwarranted investigations that disproportionately target Black and Latino families, officials said Thursday.

Educators are “mandated reporters” under state law, and, for years, the prevailing message in their training was to err on the side of caution by reporting whenever in doubt, officials said.

But that guidance has led to an overreliance on child welfare reports, officials argued, prompting thousands of investigations each year. Few of those investigations lead to confirmed findings of maltreatment, while dragging families — mostly Black and Latino — through a process that can be invasive and traumatic, officials said.

The revised training, which has already reached thousands of Education Department staffers, is an effort to get educators to think twice before defaulting to a child welfare report, and give them a set of alternatives to try first, officials said.

“Today our new mantra is you do not have to report a family to support a family,” said Gail Geohagen-Pratt, deputy commissioner in the state’s Office of Children and Family Services at a press conference Thursday at Education Department headquarters in Manhattan.

The city’s Administration for Children’s Services looked into a total of 59,000 reports of suspected child abuse and neglect last year, and found maltreatment in 25% of those cases, said commissioner Jess Dannhauser.

About 12,000 of those reports came from school personnel, and they yielded an even lower rate of findings of maltreatment, at 16%, a spokesperson said.

Black and Latino families were far more likely to get ensnared in child welfare investigations, with Black families reported at seven times the rate as white families, and Latino families reported four times as often, Dannhauser said.

Too often, he added, families are subjected to child welfare investigations simply for being poor.

“If a family just needs help, such as access to child care assistance, mental health counseling, or concrete resources … there are ways to provide that support without making a call that will lead to a child welfare investigation,” he said.

The new training for educators has rolled out on several fronts.

First, the state’s Office of Children and Family Services, which runs training for all mandated reporters, updated its baseline training to include sections on how mandated reporters can be swayed by implicit bias, and the potential harms of child welfare investigations for families.

The training includes a “decision-making tree” to help educators work through their options when they suspect abuse or neglect.

Dannhauser pointed to the example of a child who comes into school with poor hygiene — noting that the new training would encourage educators to look into whether the parent is providing a “minimum level of care” and ensuring they have access to resources such as running water and a washing machine before considering a call to child welfare authorities.

Similarly, a more in-depth training from the city’s Education Department and Administration for Children’s Services for the designated mandated reporting liaison at each school emphasizes the importance of relying on objective facts over subjective impressions, and offer a refresher on the resources available to schools before they turn to a child welfare report.

Dr. Jessica Chock-Goldman, a school social worker at Bard Early College High School in Manhattan and a professor at New York University, has long had concerns about the role of mandated reporters in schools – and is a member of a group called “Mandated Reporters Against Mandated Reporting.” But she was impressed by the city’s new training.

“They did a beautiful job on this,” she said. “It seems like the movement they started is about how to do these other interventions … to make ACS the last call rather than the first call.”

City officials also introduced a “prevention support hotline” at the Administration of Children’s Services that educators can call for help getting resources to families in need.

Dannhauser acknowledged that the city and state are still bound by laws governing mandated reporting that were written in the 1960s and ‘70s.

“There are a lot of calls for reform … and we think a full-scale look at that would be appropriate,” he said. Dannhauser said he’s not aware of any mandated reporters being prosecuted for failing to lodge a report of suspected maltreatment, but acknowledged it’s still a fear for some.

Changing the practice of mandated reporting in schools could also take a cultural shift that goes beyond training.

“It’s changing but it’s a slow change,” said Chock-Goldman, the school social worker, who suggested that all principals should also get in-depth training on mandated reporting.

Some advocates and parents have urged the state to scrap mandated reporting altogether, and forego the federal funding that comes with it.

But state officials were clear that they still see a role for mandated reporting.

“I wish we lived in a world where we did not have to have this because children are not being abused or maltreated,” said Geohagen-Pratt. “But we know that we are, so we have to have a mechanism in place to be able to respond to that.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC vowed more school contracts for businesses owned by women, people of color. It hasn’t been easy.

2023-10-12T23:35:35+00:00

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Last spring, New York City’s Education Department unveiled its most aggressive step yet to increase spending on businesses owned by women or people of color.

The new directive required all vendors with new contracts to subcontract out a portion of their business to Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises — a significant commitment for an agency that spends roughly $10 billion a year on contracts.

But the implementation of that promise has proved far more complicated. Late last week, the Education Department began quietly rolling back the requirements for some pending contracts, Chalkbeat has learned.

And the implementation challenges in the new push to increase spending on such businesses — a major priority of Mayor Eric Adams — are even causing problems for companies involved with another top Adams priority — his NYC Reads literacy initiative.

Education Department officials confirmed that certain contracts are now being given the green light to move forward without meeting the new requirements — at least for now. But a spokesperson said the agency still intends to enforce the rules for future contracts.

The subcontracting requirement was introduced in late March, one of a series of changes approved last November as a way to address the department’s abysmal record of doing business with Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises, or MWBEs.

Effective immediately, officials said in a press release, the department would require vendors to subcontract out at least 30% of the value of any new contracts to businesses owned by minorities or women.

Schools Chancellor David Banks heralded the move. “We are providing these businesses and their owners with the opportunity to build generational wealth and create a more fair and equal city,” he said in a statement at the time.

Figuring out how to put that mandate into practice threw the contracting system into disarray, interviews and documents show. It touched off months of uncertainty and disruption for vendors and Education Department staff, as top agency officials deliberated behind the scenes over whether and how to insert the new language in recently approved contracts, according to communications reviewed by Chalkbeat.

The process for finalizing new textbook, curriculum, and professional development contracts — including a deal with Great Minds, the company that publishes Wit & Wisdom, one of the three mandated curriculums for Adams’s signature literacy initiative — was essentially at a standstill, according to multiple vendors and Education Department staffers.

Also held up in the logjam were two multiyear professional development contracts for math and literacy instructional support with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the publisher of the most widely used curriculum in the NYC Reads initiative.

“Until leadership can make a decision on this we do not expect any contracts to be circulated for signatures,” according to a notice earlier this month from an Education Department official to a vendor obtained by Chalkbeat.

Then, in recent days, the department appeared to backpedal, sending some vendors notice of “shifts in our implementation strategy” and alerting them that they would no longer be required to adhere to the subcontracting goals.

Education Department officials said certain contracts approved by the Panel for Educational Policy after June were given a pass on the new rules during this “transition” period, but did not say how many got a reprieve.

Spokesperson Jenna Lyle added that “all future solicitations and contracts will include these [subcontracting] goals moving forward.”

But the rocky implementation with the recent round of contracts has left some vendors wondering whether the agency has laid the necessary groundwork to implement such a sweeping change and how it will manage the process going forward.

“To me, it seems like they just didn’t do their research to begin with,” said one vendor who said their contract was frozen for months as a result of the standstill. The vendor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize relationships with the Education Department, said they recently received a notice that they would no longer have to adhere to the new subcontracting requirements.

Adams zeroes in on MWBE contracting

The Education Department subcontracting goals are one piece of a larger effort to increase city spending on MWBEs, both in the department and across all city agencies.

Adams appointed a citywide Chief Business Diversity Officer, and Banks named Karine Appollon, a former executive at the nonprofit Reading Partners and educational publishing giant Scholastic, to the newly created role of chief diversity officer to oversee the department’s MWBE efforts.

In November, the Panel for Educational Policy approved a suite of changes to the agency’s procurement rules to ease the process for MWBEs to win large contracts with the Education Department. A parallel change that would incentivize individual schools to hire MWBEs for smaller deals is up for a vote before the panel next week.

The efforts are showing some signs of progress: The Education Department increased its spending on MWBEs from $224 million in fiscal year 2021, to $535 million dollars in fiscal year 2022, Banks said recently. That amounts to 5.6% of contract spending on MWBEs, still last among all city agencies, according to a February report from Comptroller Brad Lander.

That figure is a long way off from the city’s overall goal of directing 30% of all vendor spending to MWBEs. That’s where the subcontracting directive came in.

The directive would guarantee that, even if the primary vendor on the contract wasn’t an MWBE itself, 30% of the value of the contract would end up in the hands of MWBEs through subcontracting.

Companies can subcontract out for all sorts of services, including distribution of print products, technology and software infrastructure, and customer service.

But the directive presented significant challenges for both small and large vendors, according to one person familiar with the Education Department’s contracts processes, who spoke anonymously so as not to jeopardize relationships.

Some smaller companies spend the majority of their contracts on their own staff, while many large companies operate mostly in other parts of the country or world, making it difficult to switch over to MWBEs certified by New York City, who are more likely to be located in and around New York.

“You look at some of the bigger publishers out there, they don’t have distribution or transportation housed in New York City, they wouldn’t be profitable,” the person said. “Most of these companies are now struggling to find an entity to support this.”

Vendors can win an exemption from the subcontracting requirements if there are not enough certified MWBE companies to perform the necessary services, or if they have “legitimate business reasons” for not complying, according to a contract obtained by Chalkbeat. But it wasn’t immediately clear how the Education Department would decide on those exemptions.

New contracts grind to a halt

While officials were debating internally about if and how to implement the thorny requirements, the process for finalizing new contracts effectively ground to a halt.

Typically, contracts are approved by the city’s Panel for Educational Policy and then handed over to the DOE’s legal team, where they are finalized and delivered to the city comptroller for registration. But for several months, contracts for textbooks, professional development and other services that cleared the Panel for Educational Policy made it no further, according to communications reviewed by Chalkbeat.

When vendors don’t have finalized contracts, they have no guarantee of payment. Some larger companies may opt to continue offering their product without payment, but for smaller operators, that can be too much of a financial risk.

For one professional development vendor whose contract was held up, the delay has meant less money flowing in and fewer schools getting instructional support they’ve relied on for years.

“Some of these schools have had these services for many years, and it’s grinding to a halt now,” said a representative from the vendor, who spoke anonymously so as not to jeopardize relationships with the Education Department. “Principals are getting very frustrated…[and] it’s a little bit of a worry for our employees.”

Another contract caught up in the standstill was the one for Great Minds, the company that produces Wit & Wisdom.

As a result, the company’s print materials were temporarily unavailable through ShopDOE, the website where schools buy materials from companies that have contracts with the Education Department, a company spokesperson said. If materials aren’t listed on ShopDOE, schools have to go through a more complicated and labor-intensive process to obtain them.

Wit & Wisdom print materials were added back to ShopDOE in early October, but the contract still isn’t finalized, according to CheckbookNYC.

“Once again the Wit & Wisdom curriculum can be ordered through ShopDOE after a brief delay that occurred when the Great Minds textbook contract was being renewed,” said Great Minds spokesperson Nancy Zuckerbrod.

Among the other contracts approved by the Panel for Educational Policy over the summer but not yet finalized or delivered to the city comptroller is a three-year, $10.6 million textbook deal with McGraw Hill, which publishes widely used textbooks.

Two contracts with publishing giant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to provide literacy and math coaching and professional development that cleared the PEP over the summer also are not yet finalized, according to Checkbook NYC.

Lyle, the Education Department spokesperson, didn’t say exactly how long it would take to get the pending contracts finalized, but said “we are working with vendors currently going through our procurement process on how they can best support this work as we finalize outstanding contracts.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

CUNY sees slight enrollment uptick, but big challenges remain

2023-10-03T22:49:28+00:00

A yearslong pandemic-fueled enrollment decline at the City University of New York may finally be starting to level off, according to preliminary figures released Tuesday.

Enrollment in the city’s network of public colleges — like that at many colleges across the country — had been in freefall since the start of the COVID pandemic, dropping 17% from roughly 271,000 in 2019-20 to about 226,000 last school year, according to city figures.

The losses in CUNY’s community colleges, which enroll greater shares of low-income, Black and Latino students, have been even steeper, falling by 26% over four years.

But that trend may finally be tapering off. Overall undergraduate student enrollment is up about 2% from last year, with the new freshmen classes bigger than last year’s counterparts, according to preliminary enrollment data from CUNY.

“Enrollment might just sound like a lot of numbers, but it’s fundamental,” said Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez during his State of CUNY address Tuesday. “It’s a tangible measure of how well we’re delivering on our core mission of providing access to a first-rate education to everyone in our city.”

He added: “We have a reason to believe we have turned a corner.”

But even with the modest increases this year, CUNY’s enrollment remains far below pre-pandemic numbers, reflecting a seismic shift in recent years in college enrollment across the country.

The economic pressures of the pandemic, the ongoing burdens of student debt, and shifting perspectives on the value of college have combined to take a massive bite out of college enrollment nationwide.

New York City hasn’t escaped that pattern.

After a decade of rising college enrollment rates, the percentage of New York City public high school graduates entering college or other postsecondary programs dropped from nearly 81% in 2019 to 71% in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available.

The declines were even steeper for Black, Latino, and male students, who enrolled in college at a lower rate to begin with.

“I’m definitely also noticing a rise in interest in non-college options,” said Danielle Insel, the director of postsecondary readiness at Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in Brooklyn. “I definitely think there’s economic pressure, and I do think there’s some kind of societal shift in what their futures can look like… I think they’re so exhausted by school, so drained that the idea of more college is overwhelming to them.”

Enrollment in the city’s public universities is an important indicator of the city’s overall economic health. CUNY’s colleges are unusually effective at lifting students from low-income families into middle class jobs, and the majority of jobs posted in New York City still require a bachelor’s degree.

More than 80% of CUNY freshmen are New York City public high school graduates, making the relationship between the two systems a critical part of any effort to boost college enrollment.

CUNY, NYC’s Education Department seek to strengthen partnership

The day before his speech, Matos Rodriguez and Banks touted a joint initiative to send each senior expected to graduate from a New York City public high school a personalized acceptance letter indicating they had a spot at CUNY if they wanted it and inviting them to apply.

That’s not a change in admissions policy — CUNY’s community colleges have long had open admissions for high school graduates — but it could help give a recent graduate waffling about starting college an extra bit of motivation, the two leaders argued.

Multiple experts who have studied similar interventions said the effort will likely have a small impact, at best. But given the ease of distributing the letters, even a tiny bump could be worthwhile. Guidance counselors began handing them out this week, and students may also receive them via email.

“A lot of these types of nudges are cost effective not because they’re hugely effective but because they’re low on cost,” said Philip Oreopoulos, an economics professor at the University of Toronto who has studied similar efforts. “I think for some [students] it’s likely to make a difference.”

Other experts noted that the effectiveness of the letters hinge on the specific barriers students face.

“Maybe a small piece of information can be really motivating, particularly for families who are unaware this [admissions] guarantee already exists for them,” said Oded Gurantz, a professor at the University of Colorado–Boulder who studied an unsuccessful effort by the College Board to reduce roadblocks in the college application process. “If the barrier is costs, then sending the letter is unlikely to produce a big benefit.”

CUNY is also waiving application fees for New York City high school seniors, a move that is immensely helpful in convincing reticent students to submit CUNY applications, said Insel, from the Brooklyn high school.

Affordability takes center stage

For students who do decide to enroll in CUNY, the system’s affordability often takes center stage in their calculations.

CUNY’s tuition runs just under $3,500 a semester for state residents at four-year colleges and $2,400 a semester for New Yorkers at community colleges. Roughly two-thirds of CUNY students pay no tuition because of a combination of state and federal financial aid, and 75% graduate with no debt, according to the university. CUNY forgave roughly $100 million in debt accrued during the pandemic.

For recent Queens high school graduate Paul Blake, enrolling at CUNY’s Queensborough Community College was a way to enter a nursing program while avoiding the extra costs of room and board.

“I always knew I didn’t want to go out of state, it costs a lot and I felt with CUNY, I’d be closer to home,” said Blake, who hopes to either transfer to a four-year college or transition directly into work after completing his nursing program.

Elizabeth Nicotra, who graduated from Tottenville High School in Staten Island last spring, got into SUNY Cortland — the school that was initially her top choice — but ended up choosing Macaulay Honors College at CUNY’s College of Staten Island because it offers free tuition.

“Why would you choose debt over free college, especially when the program at Macaulay is so amazing,” said Nicotra, who hopes to be a physical education teacher or physical therapist.

CUNY officials are trying to spread the word about the affordability of their programs, and recently launched an ad campaign called “Degrees Without the Debt.”

CUNY’s recent expansion of online programs could also be a helpful way to lure in students not ready for a traditional college experience, Insel believes.

“I think now they’re recognizing that people want to do college in different way,” she said.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Torrential downpour floods 150 NYC schools, throws commutes into disarray

2023-09-29T17:36:02+00:00

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Torrential rainfall sowed chaos for many New York City schools Friday morning, flooding 150 school buildings and throwing commutes into disarray for thousands of students and staff.

Mayor Eric Adams announced a shelter-in-place order for schools around noon. An Education Department spokesperson said it would lift with dismissal.

“If you are at work or school, shelter in place for now. Some of our subways are flooded and it is extremely difficult to move around the city,” Adams said at a media briefing on the storm.

The downpour, which dumped 5 inches in some parts of New York City by early Friday morning, affected service on every subway line, delayed dozens of school buses, and prompted both Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul to issue a state of emergency. Friday’s attendance rate of 77% was significantly down from about 90% the day before.

Schools Chancellor David Banks said a total of 150 school buildings took on water Friday morning, and that one school, Brooklyn’s P.S. 312, was forced to evacuate because of a smoking boiler. Another Brooklyn school, I.S. 228 sent out a message asking parents to pick up students early, but Banks said the communication was premature.

The extreme weather led some parents and educators to question whether the city should have canceled in-person classes. Banks reassured families that schools were prepared to handle the storm.

“We have folks in our schools trained annually to prepare for days just like this,” Banks said, noting that schools were activating Building Response Teams in response to flooding. “While this was a tough day in terms of the rain, our kids are not in danger,” he added.

Many parents and educators reported that the rainwater had seeped into school buildings, flooding cafeterias and basements and leaking in through roofs, forcing students to move classrooms. On some campuses, children were soaked on their commutes to school, school staff reported.

“Some schools are being flooded from the basement up, and some are being flooded from the rooftop down,” said Paullette Healy, a parent leader in Brooklyn who said she’d heard from nine schools that experienced flooding. Several classrooms had to evacuate students, she added.

At P.S. 84 in Williamsburg, the school kitchen flooded, “which is a problem for our cafeteria workers and our kids,” said parent Jessamyn Lee. Fortunately, the custodial staff, she said, seemed to be able to “get the water intrusion under control.”

Meanwhile, at one Manhattan high school, rainwater leaking through a faulty roof forced students to move classrooms, complicating efforts to make up testing that had already been postponed because of tech glitches last week, according to a teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“My school is doing the best they can,” the teacher wrote. “This is just weather and issues out of our control and I feel for the kids.”

Principals received dismissal guidance shortly before 2 p.m., suggesting they make sure that staff and students were aware of alternate exit routes in case of flooding and that they communicate alternative exits to families. Most schools dismiss between 2:20 p.m. and 2:50 p.m.

Public School Athletic League activities were canceled, and principals could decide whether to hold Saturday programs, according to the email.

Concerns about commutes home from school

Meanwhile, for the hundreds of thousands of students and staff trying to get to school Friday morning, the commute was messy and in some cases harrowing.

“The street leading up to my school is completely flooded,” said Leah Ali, a student at Bard Early College High School in Manhattan. “As cars drive past, water reaches their headlights, and waves of water crash over students trying to make it inside.”

Alan Sun, a senior at The Bronx High School of Science, said the school has been affected by the storm. “The ceilings have been leaking water and the cafeteria is flooded,” he wrote in a text message. “Lunch is now being served in the auditorium.” Sun opted to eat in the hallway instead, as the auditorium was too crowded.

This is the corner of my school’s block.

Cafeteria and basement classrooms are flooded with this water. Families literally have to wade through toxic water to drop off their kids and pick them up.

Why does @NYCMayor never plan for emergencies that affect schools??? https://t.co/trhjCjFrsu
— Sarah Allen (@Mssarahmssarah) September 29, 2023

Morning disruptions on nearly every subway line left many students wondering how they’d safely get home.

“With train service suspensions, track fires, and stations flooded, commuting back home to Queens is a serious concern for me,” Ali had said in the morning.

At dismissal, she was still trying to figure out how to get home since her trains were delayed.

“I might be waiting at the station for a while,” she said. “Unfortunately, my school is a 15-minute walk away from the station, and buses aren’t working at the moment, so I’ll be taking an Uber there.”

Sun, who commutes to Bronx Science by subway, also said he was worried about the trek back to Flushing, Queens, at the end of the day. “I’m hoping the flooding in the subway stations won’t be too bad,” he wrote.

In her guidance to principals sent at the end of the day, Deputy Chancellor of School Leadership Danika Rux wrote, “Please ensure that your students who use public transportation have secured routes home.”

State and transportation officials said that getting the subways back up and running was a top priority, but that MTA buses were in operation and that the agency would deploy extra buses as a backup in case train service wasn’t restored by dismissal time.

The disruptions also affected students traveling by road.

The city’s Office of Pupil Transportation reported roughly 140 weather-related school bus delays as of 1 p.m. Friday afternoon.

Major roadways including FDR Drive were closed Friday morning, adding to concerns about disrupted afternoon commutes.

Banks said that the Education Department dispatched school buses early for the afternoon pickup, so they would be ready by dismissal time. School buses sit high enough off the ground that they are less likely to get stalled by roadway flooding, he said.

Mayor Adams defends NYC’s response

The city’s Education Department first addressed the weather conditions late Thursday night in a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, advising that schools would remain open Friday and suggesting that families and educators leave extra time for their commutes, take major roads, and not enter flooded subway stations.

No systemwide emails had gone out to teachers or parents as of 1 p.m. on Friday.

Several parents and educators said Friday that the city should have closed school buildings on Friday and pivoted to remote learning, similar to snow days, or at the very least improved communication about the risks.

“It’s quite a lapse in safety and concern when our phones send us messages about life threatening flooding and not to travel,” said the Manhattan teacher. “New York City is unprepared for major flooding as a result of climate change and this is more of the same examples we’re seeing.”

Adams defended the decision to keep schools open.

“This was the right call. Our children are safe in schools,” he said. “There is a big inconvenience when you close the schools.”

Climate change fears prompt worries for school infrastructure

The intensity of the flooding caught some parents by surprise. Avery Cole, whose 5-year-old daughter attends P.S. 11, said she wasn’t aware that the weather was going to be so severe until her phone started blaring with emergency alerts after she dropped her child off.

She also received a message from the school pleading for volunteers to help dry and disinfect its ground-floor classrooms “to prevent mold and save as much furniture as possible.”

Cole said she worries that school buildings aren’t prepared for more intense storms and wildfire smoke stoked by climate change.

“These storms are going to be more dramatic and frequent and schools are bearing the brunt of it,” she said.

Rohit Aggarwala, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, was blunt about the increasing threat of climate change to New York City.

“This changing weather pattern is the result of climate change,” he said, “and the sad reality is our climate is changing faster than our infrastructure can respond.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

To boost public school enrollment, NYC proposes $21 million ad campaign

2023-09-27T22:32:13+00:00

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New York City’s Education Department is seeking approval to spend $21 million over the next two years on an ad campaign to give families information about enrolling in public schools amid a steep decline in student headcount, according to city records.

The proposed contracts, which the city’s Panel for Educational Policy is expected to vote on Thursday, would pay an estimated $10.6 million a year over the next two years to four separate companies to create ads posted in buses and subways, bus shelters, phone kiosks, and small businesses.

The contract proposal cites systemwide enrollment losses due to the COVID pandemic and says “the advertising campaign aims to ensure that families are fully aware of the available enrollment options from 3K through High School.”

Paid ads also provide critical information to families about free meals programs, Summer Rising, and how to access information in languages other than English, said Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull.

The city’s K-12 public school enrollment fell by more than 120,000 over the past five years, according to city figures. Enrollment in pre-kindergarten classes is also down significantly, and the city’s program for 3-year-olds has thousands of empty seats.

Schools Chancellor David Banks has repeatedly said that “winning back” families is a priority of his administration, and an Education Department spokesperson said “our communities called on us to do more marketing to get more families back into New York City Public Schools.” But some members of the Panel for Educational Policy are raising concerns about the effectiveness of ad campaigns as an enrollment strategy — and whether they’re the best use of city funds.

“I think it’s outrageously wasteful in terms of the money,” said panel member Effi Zakary at a Sept. 18 meeting of the contracts committee. “We need to at the very least see what was the effectiveness of previous advertisement efforts.”

Ad campaigns have been a staple of the city Education Department’s outreach efforts for years. Many private schools and charter schools, which have also struggled with enrollment during the pandemic, also aggressively advertise.

The department previously inked upwards of $13 million in contracts with the same four companies between 2019 and 2021, according to a review of city contracts. An Education Department spokesperson didn’t say exactly how much the city spent on the previous round of ad campaigns.

When the Education Department began rolling out its universal pre-K program in 2014, ads for the new program were ubiquitous, recalled Gregory Brender, the chief policy and innovation officer at the Day Care Council.

Education Department officials say ad campaigns are “both cost-effective in their outreach” and “quantifiable” in their impact, according to the contract proposal.

But they didn’t share such data publicly, and panel members said they’ve received few concrete details to indicate how effective those campaigns were.

“I have a hard time with the fact we’ve never really reviewed what our marketing, communication, advertising, has actually impacted in results,” said Sherée Gibson, a Queens panel member with a background in marketing, at the contract committee hearing.

Education Department officials told the panel members they would offer a special briefing on the contract before Thursday’s meeting, panel members said.

Jasmine Lake, a representative from the Education Department’s Family and Community Engagement office, or FACE, said the agency receives some high-level data from vendors on metrics like how many people walk by a given bus shelter where an ad is placed. The department is working on getting more granular data, including how many people used a QR code from a specific ad, as a way to target the ads more effectively, she said.

The goal of the upcoming ad campaign is to “increase in-person and digital traffic at enrollment centers and continue to provide greater admissions transparency,” according to the proposal.

FACE, the office that will largely coordinate the ad campaigns, has been roiled by internal tensions following its administration of the recent elections for Community Education Councils, which yielded a voter turnout of roughly 2%.

The enrollment challenges facing the city’s public schools are stark: in addition to the K-12 roster declines, enrollment in the widely lauded free pre-K program has shrunk by roughly 11,000 students over the course of the pandemic, and the recently expanded 3-K program had roughly 16,000 unfilled seats as of last year, according to Education Department estimates.

Many of the forces driving the enrollment declines are likely outside of the Education Department’s control.

The city’s birth rate began dropping long before the pandemic. Nearly 60,000 public school students left New York City altogether during the 2021-22 school year, a far greater number than in previous years. Many of those families departed for areas with far lower cost-of-living, according to Education Department data.

The agency’s official account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, sent out a message Tuesday warning that “if people can’t afford to live in New York City, they can’t send their kids to New York City Public Schools.”

Still, spreading the word about how to enroll in city schools can be a helpful first step, especially at the early childhood level where some families may still not know about the city’s free options. The city is also receiving an influx of asylum-seeking families, some of whom may not know they have the option to enroll their kids in school or how to do it.

“Generally, I think you need to approach it in multiple ways and advertising is one of them,” said Brender of efforts to boost enrollment in early childhood programs.

But he cautioned that the city will need to expand its efforts far beyond advertising in order to improve the enrollment process. Brender’s organization has recommended empowering community-based organizations that have existing relationships with families to enroll children in pre-K, rather than managing the process centrally.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

How to shrink class sizes in NYC? A working group shares its recommendations

2023-09-26T23:29:44+00:00

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Capping enrollment at high-demand schools. Merging schools located in the same buildings. Moving some 3-K and prekindergarten programs out of K-12 schools. Paying extra to bring more teachers to hard-to-staff schools.

Those are some of the steps New York City may have to consider in the coming years to comply with a new state law requiring schools to shrink class sizes for hundreds of thousands of students, according to preliminary recommendations from an Education Department working group.

The recommendations, unveiled at a public hearing Tuesday night, are in the early stages and haven’t been adopted by the Education Department. The group is set to deliver its final recommendations Oct. 31. But the initial recommendations give the most detailed look yet of some of the complicated tradeoffs and challenges ahead as the city attempts to shrink class sizes across hundreds of schools in accordance with the state legislation.

Under the law, K-3 classes must have fewer than 20 students, 4-8 classes must be under 23, and high school classes can have no more than 25 students. The caps will phase in gradually over the next five years before fully taking effect.

Currently, more than half of the classes across the city’s 1,600 public schools are out of compliance — over 73,000 classes, according to the 48-member working group, which includes parents, teachers, administrators, union representatives, advocates, and education department officials. Bringing all of those classes under the legal limits will likely require creating thousands of new classes –- and a multi-pronged effort that involves shifting enrollment policies, moving around existing programming to maximize physical space, significantly boosting teacher hiring, and building some new facilities, according to the recommendations.

The recommendations didn’t come with a specific price tag, but included a suggestion that the city should “aggressively pursue new opportunities for potential funding” to cover the costs of implementation.

Previous estimates from the Independent Budget Office have put the cost of the additional staffing alone at between $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion a year.

“We tried to take on a challenging and vexing problem of, ‘How are we going to do this,’” said Patrick Sprinkle, a history teacher at the Lab School for Collaborative Studies in Manhattan and chair of the working group’s staffing sub-committee.

Deborah Alexander, a Queens parent and working group member, added, “we were really focused on … how to use our diverse perspectives to guide the [Education Department] in ways we are hopeful… will not have too many costs along with the benefit of smaller class sizes.”

Since its passage last year, the law has drawn fervent praise from many educators, union officials, and parents, along with criticism from city officials, and some parent groups and experts.

Research has consistently shown that lowering class sizes can increase student achievement, and lowering class sizes is a major priority for educators and many parents.

Mark Henderson, an English teacher at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, often has classes of 34 students, which is the limit outlined in the teachers union’s contract. Bringing the number down to 25 would mean “the classes, the teaching, every element of the school experience would be better,” he said.

But city officials contend that the state hasn’t provided sufficient resources to meet the new mandate, and that it will require shifting resources away from other critical programs. Several analyses, moreover, suggest that the highest-poverty schools will benefit less from the law because they are already more likely to have classes under the legal cap.

Working group eyes enrollment changes

One method the city can use to control class sizes is shifting its enrollment policies. The working group acknowledges that the Education Department will likely have to “limit enrollment at overcrowded schools that do not have the space to comply with the new class size caps.”

Working group co-chair Johanna Garcia, the chief of staff for state Sen. Robert Jackson, explained that many oversubscribed schools sit right next to under-enrolled ones. Spreading out enrollment across nearby schools “could lead to benefits at both sets of schools, creating more space for smaller classes and less chaos at the overcrowded schools” while saving the city the cost of building new facilities.

Many of the city’s most oversubscribed schools are among its most popular, and multiple parents voiced vehement objections in Tuesday’s public forum to any efforts to cap or reduce enrollment at overcrowded schools.

“For high schools, in particular, cutting seats” at the most in-demand schools “would have a devastating, cascading impact” resulting in fewer students getting their top choice schools, said Shane Harrison, a parent of a seventh grader.

There is a provision in the law that would temporarily exempt schools from the class size requirements when a lack of space, overenrollment, a shortage of teachers, or “severe economic distress” make it impossible to comply, but the law offers no specifics about the thresholds for qualifying for an exemption.

Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, a parent advocacy group that supports selective schools and programs, has called for legislators to amend the law to exempt “high-performing” schools and programs from the class size law.

But Tom Sheppard, a Bronx parent and member of the Panel for Educational Policy who also served on the working group, countered that offering a blanket exemption to high-performing schools would “allow schools that people ‘want to go to’ to stay bursting at the seams while schools where you have issues with enrollment, it perpetuates that.”

The working group also recommends instituting multiple shifts at overcrowded schools — so that not all students would be in the school building at the same time — as a temporary stopgap in place of capping enrollments. Some of the city’s large high schools already have multiple overlapping shifts of students.

Some schools will need more space and teachers

The working group suggests shifting school programming in order to maximize all available space to create additional classes. That could involve moving 3-K and pre-K programs out of district school buildings to free up space and merging separate schools co-located in the same buildings to streamline operations, according to the recommendations.

Garcia said relocating pre-K classes from district schools to community-based organizations with “thousands of unfilled seats” in their city-funded pre-K programs could open space in elementary schools without sacrificing quality of the preschool programs.

But Martina Meijer, a Brooklyn public school teacher, raised a concern that such a move would make staffers from those programs ineligible to be members of the United Federation of Teachers.

The group cautioned that spaces for physical education, art, or elective classes shouldn’t be taken over to create more space for core classes.

Opening new facilities should be a last resort — and in cases where the city does need additional school space, it should prioritize leasing existing buildings like shuttered parochial and charter schools, rather than building new schools, according to the preliminary recommendations.

The city’s School Construction Authority recently estimated that between 400 and 500 schools will need additional space in order to comply with the class size law. An estimated 40% of those schools — between 160 and 200 — would likely need entirely new facilities, according to the estimates.

Finding enough physical space, however, is only one part of the equation. The city will also need enough teachers to staff newly opened classes. Education Department officials have estimated that the city’s teaching force, currently at around 76,000, will need to grow by 9,000 by the time the law takes full effect.

Suggestions for boosting teacher hiring include easing the process for paraprofessionals and teacher aides to earn their teacher license and offering pay incentives for teachers who work in hard-to-staff schools and subject areas — an idea the city has experimented with before.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

More NYC teachers are frequently out sick following COVID-19 pandemic

2023-09-25T20:29:17+00:00

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New York City teachers are calling out sick more frequently in the wake of the pandemic, following a national trend of increased educator absences as COVID-19 and other illnesses continue to swirl, city data shows.

During the six years prior to the pandemic, about 14% of teachers each school year used more than their 10 allotted sick days on average. That percentage sank to historic lows during the two school years in which classes were fully or partially remote, according to city numbers.

But when full-time, in-person classes resumed in the 2021-2022 school year, the number of teachers using 11 or more sick days jumped to 16% and continued climbing to nearly 19% last school year, according to the most recent Mayor’s Management Report.

Teachers along with union and Education Department officials attribute the rise in teacher absences to the ongoing impact of COVID-19 and other illnesses — including the surge of the highly contagious omicron variant in winter 2021 and the “tripledemic” of COVID-19, flu, and RSV cases last winter.

“Since the onset of the COVID pandemic, everyone, including teachers, have been encouraged to take the time that they need to recover when sick and stop the spread of communicable diseases,” said Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull. “This can lead to an increase in the rates at which teachers are absent.”

Elevated teacher absences can have a “tremendous effect” on school operations, said Roony Vizcaino, the principal of the Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce in Harlem, which has seen an increase in teacher absences over the past two school years.

“You don’t have that continuity of instruction, of relationship building,” Vizcaino said, and for students already dealing with disruption and uncertainty on a daily basis, the absence of a trusted adult can “derail” the rest of the school day.

Higher rates of chronically absent teachers are correlated with lower student achievement.

Substitutes are often difficult to find, and when they do come, can rarely replace full-time classroom teachers, Vizcaino added. Turning to other teachers to cover vacant classes can increase stress and burnout for those educators — forcing them to take time off to recover.

“It becomes this sort of domino effect in the school where adults are taking time off and there’s a collective complaint about, ‘Why am I covering classes every day,’” he said.

Calling out sick is rarely a full respite even for the teachers who do it, several educators noted, given the amount of work it can take to prepare plans for a substitute or colleague and catch students up when they return.

The city’s tally of teacher absenteeism looks at the number of sick days used but not vacation days, according to an education department spokesperson.

The uptick in New York City mirrors a national trend. During the 2021-2022 school year, nearly three-quarters of schools across the country reported more teacher absences than in a typical pre-pandemic school year, according to a survey from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Student chronic absenteeism has also spiked in New York City and across the country over the past two school years.

Brooklyn elementary school teacher Sarah Allen said COVID was “definitely the biggest thing” causing her and colleagues to miss more school in recent years.

“It can go on for weeks with just one case of COVID in your family,” Allen added, noting many teachers also had to stay home to care for sick family members.

Teachers were granted additional days off that weren’t drawn from their normal 10 sick days to recover from COVID-19 or the effects of vaccinations.

This school year, teachers who test positive for COVID will get five days off to recover before dipping into their sick days, and will get four hours of leave to recover from a COVID booster shot, according to guidance from the union.

Many educators are also now more cautious about showing up to work with symptoms, union officials said.

“Like the rest of the working public, educators and school staff are less likely to go to work with a cough or a cold now than pre-Covid,” said a spokesperson for the United Federation of Teachers.

Allen also said that she saw more colleagues taking mental health days, as educators confront mounting levels of stress and burnout.

“People I know who don’t usually take them, we were just extra beaten down last year,” she said. “It feels like for many of us [there are] more behavior issues, greater needs, money given to families is ending. There’s more on our plates, and everybody is exhausted.”

Caroline Shepard, a teacher and union chapter leader at Simon Baruch Middle School in Manhattan, said educators are more willing to enforce work-life balance in the wake of the pandemic.

“Personal boundaries are just stronger, and I think it’s a good thing,” she said.

Vizcaino said he’s tried both positive incentives for strong teacher attendance and disciplinary measures for especially high rates of absence, but neither has made much of a difference in recent years.

The increase in teacher absenteeism comes as rates of teachers leaving the profession have gone up in New York City and across the country. Vizcaino sees the two as related.

“Folks want to preserve themselves as much as possible,” he said. “I think for teachers, they’re saying, ‘This is a marathon. If I have to pause in this marathon once or twice… that’s okay, then I can finish the race.’”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Instagram accounts shut down after NYC principal threatens to suspend student followers

2023-09-20T00:40:41+00:00

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After a Queens principal threatened to suspend students who followed Instagram accounts with anonymous posts about their classmates — igniting a fierce debate about how to respond to students’ online behavior — the social media pages were removed.

One student was behind the two Instagram accounts, Francis Lewis High School Principal David Marmor said Tuesday afternoon during a meeting of the School Leadership Team.

He said the school was in the process of suspending the student. Marmor and an education department spokesperson declined to say if any of the Instagram account followers faced disciplinary action.

“Over the past few days the entire school community came together to condemn the online bullying and hate found on the two previously highlighted Instagram accounts,” Marmor wrote in a letter posted on the school’s website on Monday. “I am very proud to announce that the account owners have been identified, and BOTH ACCOUNTS ARE GONE!”

A range of “celebratory extracurricular activities” that had been canceled in response to the Instagram accounts — including a senior trip, prom, and an upcoming pep rally — would be allowed to resume, the principal wrote.

Francis Lewis High School is not alone in struggling to manage students’ online behavior, including social media accounts that allow kids to publicly post messages without identifying themselves.

But Marmor’s threat last week to suspend any student who followed two specific Instagram accounts — and withhold recommendation letters for college or work — represented a striking crackdown against students regardless of whether they had posted any harmful or bullying content. The move prompted criticism from civil rights groups and legal experts who said such discipline would violate students’ constitutional right to free speech.

The city’s Education Department stood by the policy, however, signaling to other school leaders that aggressive measures to curb students’ online posts may be tolerated on other campuses. The threat of harsh discipline also won backing from some members of the school community, including Shirley Aubin, president of the school’s parent association, who said the school has long wrestled with social media accounts that serve as platforms for bullying.

“This is not the first time that this situation arose, and I expect more to come, but the way he handled it met our expectations,” she said.

Principal dangles future discipline threats for other Instagram accounts

In his letter last week to the school’s more than 4,000 students, Marmor explicitly named two Instagram accounts that he characterized as “horrifying” and including “graphic and direct threats to specific children with bullying comments.”

One of them included videos of student fights that took place on and off campus, according to school officials and students who viewed them. That account was shut down by Instagram after students complained, according to an Education Department spokesperson.

The second account circulated anonymous posts that included gossip, criticism of the school’s bell schedule, and students revealing their crushes.

But it also amplified more troubling material. Some posts repeatedly bullied specific students. Others included racist language. One identified a student who allegedly had a sexually transmitted infection. A small number of posts targeted Marmor in vulgar or offensive ways.

Francis Lewis High School Principal David Marmor updated the School Leadership Team about the school’s response to the Instagram accounts on Tuesday.

The student responsible for the account voluntarily shut it down after getting caught, a department spokesperson said. The two accounts each had over 1,000 followers, school officials said.

Marmor indicated that several similar social media accounts were still active, but had far fewer followers. He warned that if they gained traction, he might once again cancel student activities — and he said the school might still discipline students who followed them.

Preston Green, a professor of educational leadership and law at the University of Connecticut, said schools can punish students for speech that disrupts the school’s learning environment or for conduct that occurs on school grounds. But he said suspending kids for following certain Instagram accounts would likely violate their First Amendment rights.

“Mere ‘following’ can’t be sufficient,” he said. “That’s going too far.”

Letter prompts swift action from students

As students streamed out of the campus on Tuesday afternoon, several said they thought the principal had overreacted. Although they acknowledged some of the Instagram posts may have been hurtful or offensive to some of their peers, they said the accounts didn’t seem to be causing major disruptions to the community.

“I don’t think anyone was talking about it that much,” said one sophomore. “Since he sent those emails to everyone, it became more of a well-known thing.” (Chalkbeat is withholding student names because of the threat of discipline.)

The sophomore acknowledged that the principal’s threat was effective. But “just because a problem was fixed doesn’t mean it was a good fix.” Punishing students who had nothing to do with the more hurtful posts by canceling student activities seemed unfair, he said.

Another student said she’d followed the two Instagram accounts and noted that the vast majority of posts weren’t geared toward bullying or naming specific students.

“They were just posting like weird content … weird fantasy stuff,” she said. “I just don’t feel like it was that serious.”

But after Marmor’s letter last week, she said she swiftly unfollowed them.

Another 10th grader also said he unfollowed the accounts after Marmor’s letter last week, partly at the urging of his mother who worried about him losing a recommendation letter for college.

This student thought that his peers should have the right to follow Instagram accounts without fear of reprisal, but the risk didn’t seem worth it. “I don’t really know too much about laws and what [the principal] can do legally,” he said.

A smaller number of students said they were glad the principal responded to the accounts. One said a lot of her peers were angry about canceling student activities. But if students are being bullied online or embarrassed by the posts “then I feel like he has to take some kind of action.” A stricter response, she said, is preferable to no response.

During the School Leadership Team meeting on Tuesday, Marmor acknowledged that most of the posts on the anonymous Instagram page did not name specific students or constitute bullying. But he emphasized that even a small number of posts can have an outsized effect, especially for the students who are targets.

“If you go to the random page and start pursuing it might take a little while to find them,” he said. “But if it’s about you, you know where it is.”

He noted that some of the accounts focus more directly on him — “I’ve got memes of me all over the internet doing horrifying things” — but he insisted that that wasn’t a motivation for the harsh response.

“I don’t care what anybody thinks about what I’m doing,” he said. “In the end, the only thing I care about is the safety and security of the kids in the building.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools are tightening cybersecurity. Some educators fear unintended consequences.

2023-09-18T20:50:57+00:00

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Following two high-profile data breaches, New York City’s Education Department has moved to shore up its cybersecurity protocols, increasing its vetting of software vendors and tightening email access for schools and parent leaders.

Because of the new protocols, the school year has started without approvals for scores of programs, including popular ones like Class Dojo, technology teachers told Chalkbeat.

Meanwhile, roughly 1,000 of the city’s 1,600 or so schools have abandoned school-specific websites and email addresses, and moved their communications under a centrally managed Education Department domain — a move an Education Department spokesperson said was “critical in ensuring the security of students’ personally identifiable information.”

Department officials also notified parent leaders last week of a plan to shut down shared email accounts for parent groups to reduce the chances they could be breached.

Experts say it’s good that school systems — which have increasingly become targets of cyberattacks — are taking data security more seriously, even if it’s still unclear how effective some of the new steps will be.

But some parent leaders and educators are raising concerns about unintended consequences of the new restrictions. They argue that the changes could hamper access to critical digital tools.

“Parent leader accounts had nothing to do with the data breach and should not be the scapegoat for that issue,” Randi Garay, a member of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Committee and Brooklyn parent, said at a meeting last week about the plan to close shared email accounts used by some parent organizations. “It’s honestly a poor excuse to change these accounts to keep us separated and excluded from accessing information.”

The backlog of approvals for outside software vendors has some technology teachers worried about lost educational opportunities.

“Thousands of NYC kids won’t be allowed to use websites that help them,” said a technology teacher who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “This also means that instruction will be stifled, as everything is digital these days.”

Education Department officials say the safety of student data is paramount, and all the new restrictions are working towards that goal. Outside vendors were targeted in both of the city’s recent data breaches, making them a top priority for additional protections.

“Every vendor’s participation is critical to keeping our students and their families’ data safe and secure,” said department spokesperson Jenna Lyle.

School districts scramble to respond to cyberattacks

In recent years, a growing number of cyberattacks have targeted school districts. School districts store reams of student data, which can be especially valuable for hackers, and often don’t have the same level of cybersecurity as other sectors.

New York City’s public schools have been no exception.

In early 2022, Illuminate Education, the company behind the widely used grading and attendance platform Skedula, suffered a hack that breached personal data for an estimated 820,000 current and former students. Experts said it was likely the largest single school system data breach to date.

Then, earlier this year, officials revealed that roughly 45,000 city students had data compromised during the hack of MOVEIt, a file-sharing program.

After those attacks, school systems across the country are recognizing the need to vet all of their suppliers for privacy and security, said Doug Levin, the national director of the K12 Security Information eXchange, which tracks cyberattacks against school systems.

But figuring out how to do that can be tricky.

New York City’s Education Department has asked vendors to sign data privacy agreements for years, but in the case of Illuminate, department officials alleged that the company misrepresented its data security practices, promising that it was encrypting all student data when it was not.

In general, Levin said, many school districts are “not well equipped to be making those judgments” about software vendors’ data security practices, especially without more help from the state and federal governments and other groups with more expertise and resources.

New York City’s vetting process for vendors has been in place for several years, but officials say they added new steps to the process last spring and began enforcing it more tightly. The process now includes signing a data privacy agreement, filling out questionnaires about their data security practices, and undergoing a review by the city’s Office of Technology and Innovation.

An Education Department spokesperson acknowledged the process can take months, and Levin said that particularly for smaller companies, the vetting process can be a “very heavy lift … and potentially a very expensive one.”

In the past, schools were largely bound by an honor system not to use vendors before they’d completed approval, according to one tech teacher. But now, the DOE’s website tells school staff they are not permitted to use vendors that have not completed the approval process, and the department has disabled the “Sign in with Google” function on unapproved platforms, making it harder for schools to access those programs.

According to tech teachers, there are scores of platforms still listed as in the process of receiving approval, including ClassDojo, a widely used classroom management and messaging program.

A spokesperson for ClassDojo said the company supports the DOE’s vetting process and has been working with the agency to complete it. “We don’t anticipate any challenges,” the spokesperson said.

Educators, parents question email changes

Another part of the city’s efforts to fortify its data security is tightening access on school and parent email accounts.

Historically, many city schools have operated independent websites outside of the schools.nyc.gov domain, and have used email addresses tied to those independent websites.

That practice continued during the pandemic, as the Education Department helped schools set up their own Google accounts that would give them access to features like Google Classroom and Google Drive for use in remote instruction.

Now, the city is pushing schools to abandon those local domains and move their emails and Google activity back under the Education Department’s central domain to ensure that data stored on those servers is well-protected.

That means transferring years worth of data — a process one principal said has been “laborious” and has required multiple meetings with the tech division.

The principal is also leery of bringing all of the school’s homemade curriculum materials under central Education Department control, and said some of the Google settings under the centralized domain, including the prohibition on students sending emails outside the department’s domain, didn’t make sense for their students.

“How do they email people for research and interviews?” the principal asked.

The move to shut down shared parent leader email addresses has also upset some parent leaders.

At last week’s meeting of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Committee, the leaders argued that the shared email addresses are helpful for transferring information when parent leadership changes, and that it’s important to have generic addresses for the group not tied to specific parent names. Parents are already familiar with those addresses, they noted.

An official with the Education Department’s tech division said the new Education Department external accounts would function just like the old accounts, and would give parents access to all Google Suite features.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC principal threatens to suspend students who follow specific Instagram accounts

2023-09-15T21:37:31+00:00

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A New York City principal issued an unusual threat this week: All students who follow anonymous social media accounts connected to the school community could face suspension and lose out on a recommendation letter for college or work.

In a Wednesday letter to more than 4,000 students at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, Principal David Marmor identified the handles of two Instagram accounts he said are posting “horrifying content” including “graphic and direct threats to specific children with bullying comments,” according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat.

Beginning Sept. 18, “any student still following either of the two sites or any other [similar] ‘confession’ type site, will be disciplined,” he wrote. “This will likely include suspension.”

He added: “The ability to use social media anonymously is the most destructive and dangerous challenge that society has faced, possibly ever, in my opinion.”

The threat of disciplinary action immediately drew fierce criticism from civil rights advocates who say punishing students based on the social media accounts they follow is a violation of their free speech rights.

“It’s unconstitutional in a number of ways,” said Justin Harrison, a senior policy counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “The right to speak anonymously and the right to receive information anonymously — without having to identify yourself to the government — is one of the oldest First Amendment protections there is.”

Plus, there are a number of logistical complications in disciplining students for following specific accounts. It’s unclear how the school could prove the identities of all the students who follow the Instagram accounts and then discipline them in a consistent way, since many students don’t use their real names on Instagram.

Marmor also vowed to cancel a range of “celebratory extracurricular activities” until the accounts are shut down or lose all of their followers, including a senior trip, prom, and an upcoming pep rally. Any students with information about who runs the Instagram accounts will “receive an appropriate award,” the letter notes.

Education department spokesperson Chyann Tull defended Marmor’s threat to suspend students. She noted the department’s policy allows for disciplining students who access or post hateful, discriminatory, harassing, or inflammatory material while on school premises or using school resources, such as WiFi.

“Our school leaders are empowered to take action against matters that threaten [the] wellbeing of the school community, and the principal’s actions are in line with the New York city Public Schools’ Internet Acceptable Use Policy and Discipline Code,” she wrote in an email. “We encourage our students to be upstanders and not bystanders, which includes upholding the values of their school communities.”

Marmor did not respond to an interview request.

One of the Instagram accounts identified in the letter had already been shut down by Friday, and Marmor indicated that the other site had already lost hundreds of followers in a note to school staff.

Chalkbeat reviewed hundreds of posts connected to one of the Instagram accounts Marmor cited. It solicits anonymous comments that are then republished. Many of the posts include musings, gossip, and crushes. “I lowkey miss my ex,” one post reads. “Being special Ed is embarrassing I hate it,” another said. One post links to a petition to change the school’s bell schedule.

Still, many others are sexually explicit, single out specific students, or include racist language. One post declares: “I dont like black people” and is signed with a first name. Another names a student who allegedly had a sexually transmitted infection. A handful of posts mention Marmor in vulgar or offensive ways.

Harrison noted that the school may be within its rights to discipline students who specifically target other students or school officials, though the anonymous nature of the messages makes that challenging.

“I’m not unsympathetic to the principal’s situation here,” he said. “The better responses are positive ones. You can’t threaten your way into a good school climate.”

One student at the school, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the principal’s reaction seemed extreme given that the Instagram accounts didn’t appear to be causing major disruptions.

“I haven’t heard much about the account at all,” the student said. “I think the big deal he’s making of it actually made it more popular.” Canceling events, the student added, made students angrier with the principal than whomever is behind the Instagram accounts.

The student said it’s not the first time the school has grappled with anonymous social media accounts, noting that school administrators have raised concerns about them in the past.

Shirley Aubin, president of the school’s parent association, said she supports the principal’s crackdown on students who follow the social media accounts.

“He can’t prevent them from following [the accounts] but he can create deterrents,” Aubin said. “It is a reasonable response,” she added. “The reality is there are consequences for your actions.”

Still, Marmor hinted in his letter that some members of the community may perceive the new disciplinary measures as draconian and he invited those with concerns to set up an appointment to speak with him.

“I am aware that the above steps are serious and dramatic,” he wrote. “The problem warrants it; this is a matter of life and death to me.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

5 things we’re watching this school year in NYC

2023-09-07T10:00:00+00:00

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More than 900,000 New York City public school students are slated to resume classes on Thursday with the customary mix of excitement, jitters, and joy.

In recent years, one acute crisis after another has overshadowed the start of classes, from chaotic efforts to restart in-person classes during the height of the pandemic to a bruising battle over budget cuts and an influx of asylum seekers that began last summer.

This year is proving to be no exception in the nation’s largest district: Families and educators are bracing for a school bus driver strike that could affect some 80,000 students, including many of the city’s most vulnerable. Union officials promised that the first week of service would not be interrupted, but the threat of a strike still looms.

Climate-related issues also affected this year’s start, just as they impacted the end of last school year. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for Thursday, forcing schools to limit outdoor activities between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m, school officials said.

But it’s not just acute challenges facing the city as the school year resumes.

Thorny long-term enrollment and budget issues that have been simmering for years could also come to a head this year with a fiscal cliff looming.

It will also be a pivotal school year for schools Chancellor David Banks, as his signature initiative to overhaul literacy instruction starts rolling out.

Here are five big issues we’ll be watching closely as this critical school year begins:

Asylum seekers continue arriving

The influx of asylum seekers to New York City that began last summer has shown no signs of abating. The Education Department has enrolled an estimated 21,000 newly arrived students since last summer, including 2,500 since this July.

There’s plenty of room in city schools: K-12 enrollment has fallen by more than 120,000 over the past five years.

And educators and families across the city have mobilized over the last year to welcome the newcomers with everything from basic needs to language support.

But lingering challenges continue to undercut the city’s efforts to support the newcomers, starting with gaps in the process for quickly enrolling them in school.

And once they arrive, many won’t attend schools with bilingual teachers. A report last year from the Independent Budget Office found that under half of the schools that enrolled asylum seekers last year had a certified bilingual teacher on staff, reflecting a long-running shortage.

Banks has said new efforts are in the works to step up recruitment of bilingual teachers.

A fiscal cliff looms

New York City schools have been profoundly reshaped by an infusion of $7 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds meant to help school districts climb out from under the shadow of the pandemic. Among the big ticket items entirely or largely funded by that money are:

Summer Rising, the city’s free summer school program combining recreation and academics for roughly 100,000 kids each of the last three summers. The program has proven so popular that 45,000 families were turned away this year.
500 new social workers spread across the city to help address mounting mental health challenges.
A program to shore up school budgets after enrollment losses. Prior to the pandemic, when schools lost students, their budgets were slashed accordingly. But the city has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid to blunt the impact of those budget cuts.

All of those programs and more will be on the chopping block next school year, since the federal relief money must be spent by October 2024. That will likely spur some fierce and thorny battles over prioritizing existing money, or finding new sources of funding.

Banks’ signature initiative takes off

Banks has largely defined his tenure around a single goal: improving the teaching of literacy.

At the center of that goal is a sweeping initiative to overhaul the curriculum that schools use to teach reading in an effort to standardize practices across schools and abandon approaches that have been increasingly discredited. Fifteen of the city’s 32 community school districts will start this year using one of the three new pre-approved curriculum options, with the rest following next year.

But mandating new curriculums is just the first step. Changing something as deeply ingrained as how schools teach reading will require buy-in from staff and ongoing supervision and training. Officials have promised a robust training plan, but recently scrapped the department’s large in-house literacy coaching program and have so far largely outsourced professional development to curriculum publishers and other outside groups.

It’s not just elementary literacy in Banks’ crosshairs: the Education Department is also mandating a ninth-grade algebra curriculum at some high schools, as well as an early childhood curriculum, and First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said Wednesday that the agency plans to look “very, very closely” at the curriculums used in all core classes across all grades in the coming years.

Teachers: We want to hear from you about what kind of training you are receiving — and need — to effectively use the new curriculum.

Enrollment and attendance challenges linger

The influx of asylum seekers over the past year helped slow the enrollment bleeding, but the long-term trends are unmistakable: New York City’s public schools are losing students.

The reasons are complex, including a drop in young students entering school during the pandemic, and a surge in families leaving New York City for more affordable destinations.

But the impact for the school system is profound. As of last year, the Education Department had 201 schools with fewer than 200 students. That’s more than twice the number of tiny schools 15 years earlier.

Since school budgets are largely tied to enrollment, ultra-small schools often struggle to offer enough courses and extracurricular variety to function. In the long run, there will likely be increasing pressure on the city to consider closures or mergers.

It’s not just enrollment patterns reducing the number of children in city schools on any given day: Chronic absenteeism has also spiked, jumping from an average of around 25% before the pandemic to 36% last school year (down slightly from 41% the year before), officials said. Chronic absenteeism is closely linked to adverse academic outcomes, and the city’s efforts to improve attendance could be a core part of efforts to recover from pandemic losses.

NYC students, staff face ongoing academic, emotional challenges

The ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and disrupted years of schooling continue to reverberate, touching everything from standardized test scores, to elevated levels of absenteeism, to teachers’ and students’ mental health, to spikes in youth violence.

The city has launched a grab bag of both big ticket and smaller scale programs to address those sweeping challenges, some of which will be at risk when federal stimulus money expires next year.

But others are still getting off the ground, including a telehealth initiative to expand therapy access to teenagers. Banks said Wednesday that the program will roll out by the end of 2023 and will be free and open to all city teenagers ages 13 to 17.

In many ways, all of the city’s big educational initiatives, from the literacy curriculum overhaul to efforts to preempt and prevent youth violence can be seen through the lens of addressing the lingering scars of the pandemic — and recovery remains a core challenge for the school system.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

36% of NYC public school students were chronically absent last school year

2023-09-06T22:32:05+00:00

Thirty-six percent of New York City public school students were chronically absent last school year, missing at least 10% of the school year, according to figures released by Education Department officials on Wednesday.

That represents a modest improvement compared with the 2021-2022 school year, which saw chronic absenteeism exceed 40%, the highest rate in decades.

Despite a year-over-year reduction, the figures are a stark reminder that absenteeism remains a stubborn challenge that will continue to complicate efforts to catch students up from years of pandemic-fueled disruptions.

Before the coronavirus forced school buildings to shutter, chronic absenteeism rates typically hovered closer to 25%. But absenteeism has surged in recent years, reaching 30% during the 2020-2021 school year, when students were allowed to learn virtually or in person.

Absenteeism exploded to roughly 4 in 10 students — or nearly 353,000 children — during the 2021-22 school year, the first time all children were required to attend school in person since March 2020. Coronavirus-related illnesses likely played a role, as hundreds of thousands of students and staff tested positive that year.

But even as there were fewer spikes in coronavirus cases last school year, the effects of the pandemic still reverberated. With student mental health concerns on the rise, some families struggled to coax their children to attend school. School staffers said caregivers were more likely to keep their children home at any sign of illness. And schools may also have struggled to re-engage students who grew accustomed to long stretches of remote learning and relaxed attendance expectations.

Whatever the cause, chronic absenteeism is often seen as a key metric of school performance, as missed school typically means missed learning. Absences can also hurt student achievement in the long run.

One Manhattan middle school principal said he was surprised to see persistent chronic absenteeism at his school last year, even as staff made an effort to reach out to families and offer prizes for high attendance.

“I was thinking [attendance] would come back, and it didn’t,” said the principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There’s a much more pervasive sense that if my kid doesn’t go to school they can still do the work at home.”

The principal wished he had more resources available to hire additional social workers, conduct more home visits, or even fund for outside-of-the-box ideas like financial incentives for student attendance.

During a press briefing on Wednesday, city officials said they’ve made a few district-level tweaks to address chronic absenteeism, including giving superintendents authority over a cadre of attendance teachers deployed to schools with more acute absenteeism problems. They credited those efforts with helping to ease absenteeism last year.

Education Department officials also pointed to new high school programs that allow a small number of students to attend school virtually or on a hybrid schedule that includes some in-person learning.

First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said those schools were created specifically for students who might struggle in more traditional settings or who work jobs during the day and can benefit from additional flexibility. He said those programs are part of the city’s strategy to address chronic absenteeism, but also acknowledged the challenge is much broader.

“Chronic absenteeism is not just a problem in New York City,” he said. “This is a national problem in every large urban district — and many of the small ones.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s what NYC’s teacher workforce looks like as a new school year begins

2023-09-06T22:05:44+00:00

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New York City hasn’t seen the kinds of severe post-pandemic teacher shortages plaguing other parts of the country.

But the teaching force in the nation’s largest school system hasn’t emerged from the pandemic unscathed.

Last year, New York City public schools saw a higher rate of teacher attrition than any time in the last decade, and the pool of educators shrunk by roughly 2,000, mirroring the yearslong decline in student enrollment, according to Education Department data.

Hiring for certain hard-to-fill positions also remains a big challenge, with bilingual educators and high school special education teachers near the top of the list of shortage areas.

Efforts to diversify the disproportionately white teaching force continue making slow progress, with recent classes of new teachers that are far more representative of the city’s student body than the teaching force as a whole, which was 55% white in 2022, according to city data. The student body is just 16% white.

City officials say the teaching workforce is still in a strong position for now, and that both hiring and attrition are trending in better directions than last year, though numbers aren’t finalized until October.

“We should be thankful that we are in a better position than a lot of districts, including some large urban districts,” said First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg.

More help is also on the way. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday that New York state is investing $30 million in a teacher residency program that subsidizes the cost of master’s degrees and certification requirements for new teachers. The state will also award funds to districts that come up with promising plans to diversify their teaching forces.

But there are big challenges on the horizon as the city struggles to continue hiring bilingual educators to keep pace with a historic influx of English language learners and prepares to comply with a new state class size law that could ultimately force the city to increase its teaching force by an estimated 9,000.

Here’s a look at how the disruptions of the past few years have reshaped New York City’s teaching force, and some of the changes that lie ahead:

The teacher workforce has shrunk

In the years prior to the pandemic, and even during its height, the city’s teaching force stayed at a relatively stable number, usually hovering between 78,000 and 79,000, according to Education Department data shared earlier this summer.

But that number dropped below 76,000 last fall – the biggest reduction in recent years.

That’s not altogether surprising: The city’s K-12 enrollment has fallen by more than 120,000 over the past five years. Schools that lost enrollment faced budget cuts last year after the city began phasing out federal pandemic relief funds. And the percentage of unfilled teaching positions in city schools remains low, under 2% citywide in the 2021-2022 school year, with the highest vacancy rates at the poorest schools.

But it’s worth understanding the forces behind the drop.

The reduction was due to an unusually high rate of teachers leaving between fall 2021 and 2022, and a comparatively small hiring class last fall.

More than 8% of the city’s teachers left the Education Department between fall 2021 and fall 2022, the highest rate of attrition in at least the past decade.

Much of that higher-than-usual attrition likely came from an exodus of teachers who refused to comply with the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for school staff. But educators are also confronting mounting levels of burnout and stress.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew sounded the alarm this week, warning that New York City is not immune from the national teacher staffing challenges.

“For years, everybody said, ‘Well New York City would never deal with it.’ Well, we are,” Mulgrew said at a press conference Wednesday. “It was always, ‘People will come from all over the country to live in New York City and teach.’ Well, that’s no longer true, and this is a big problem.”

On top of the higher attrition, the Education Department hired fewer than 3,900 new teachers last fall – down from 4,500 in 2019. Officials have pointed to national trends including low percentages of teacher certification candidates completing their programs as part of the problem.

A spokesperson said the Education Department is anticipating 4,500 new teachers this year, but won’t have a final count on new hires or attrition until October.

Shortage areas persist

The overall numbers don’t tell the whole picture of teacher hiring in New York City.

Specific teaching roles have long been harder to fill – what education officials call “shortage areas.”

The number of candidates per open position fluctuates wildly depending on the specific teaching role. At one end, the position of early childhood educator got about 30 applicants for every hire last year. At the other, applications for the role of high school special education teacher fell hundreds short of the number of open positions.

Math and bilingual education are also among the areas for which the Education Department gets the fewest applicants per job.

The shortage areas can create staffing crunches for schools and even threaten to put schools out of compliance with laws governing staffing ratios for students with disabilities and English language learners.

The citywide teacher workforce numbers also mask significant differences between schools. In general, higher-poverty schools see more teachers leave every year and have more open positions at the start of each school year.

In the highest poverty schools, more than 1 in 6 who started at the school in fall 2021 had left by fall 2022, either to go to another New York City public school, or out of the system. In the wealthiest schools, by comparison, just 1 in 10 teachers left last year. The constant churn at high-poverty schools means less continuity for kids and higher proportions of inexperienced teachers at schools with the highest levels of need.

It also translates to more vacant positions at high-poverty schools when the year starts – forcing some schools to scramble to find substitutes or even ask teachers to cover courses outside of teaching license.

Challenges are on the horizon

Even as New York City seeks to regain some of its footing with teacher recruitment this year, there are big challenges ahead.

In the immediate term, an influx of roughly 21,000 asylum seeking students since last summer has increased the need for bilingual teachers, both in Spanish and other languages.

The Education Department made some small-scale efforts last year, including a program to bring in 25 teachers from the Dominican Republic that was soon mired in controversy. Currently, the city has roughly 1,700 bilingual teachers — and just half of the schools that enrolled asylum seekers last fall had a bilingual educator on staff, according to an analysis from the Independent Budget Office.

Schools Chancellor David Banks said in a press conference last week that the city has been in conversations with the teachers union and the state about ways to bring in more bilingual teachers, but he declined to share details.

Mulgrew said some teachers who speak multiple languages have certificates to work as bilingual teachers, but opt not to because the “state requires them to go back into a probationary status if they want to switch… we don’t feel that should be there any more.”

In the longer-term, city officials are already sounding the alarm about the teacher recruitment implications of the new state law capping class sizes across the city.

Education Department officials are estimating the law will eventually require the city to increase its teaching workforce by 9,000 members in order to shrink class sizes.

That means hiring significantly more teachers in the coming years, on top of the normal 4,000 to 5,000 the city has to hire every year to replace those who left. That’s sparked concerns among some experts that the quality of new teachers could fall, offsetting some of the educational benefits of the lower class sizes.

Education Department officials pointed to some homegrown efforts to expand the new teacher pipeline, including a program that allows paraprofessionals to get their teaching license, and vocational classes to help high school students prepare to become teachers.

But Weisberg said a big part of the pipeline problem is that “particularly in New York state, it’s really expensive to become a teacher.” A “big chunk” of would-be teachers can’t afford to get their credentials, he added.

The program Hochul announced Wednesday could help with that — and send additional teachers into the pipeline right as the city needs to up its hiring, Mulgrew argued. New York City was not among the first round of districts to receive the state grant money, but the city has an application in and expects to be approved, according to a union spokesperson.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Educators: Do you feel prepared for NYC’s new reading curriculum mandate?

2023-09-05T10:00:00+00:00

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A sweeping new curriculum mandate is rolling out to hundreds of New York City elementary schools this fall, requiring thousands of teachers to deploy new reading programs.

The mandate has won praise from many literacy experts, as schools have long had freedom to use a wide range of materials — with uneven results. But they note its success hinges on how strong the new materials are and how well they’re implemented.

Education department officials say they have a rigorous training plan and that all teachers using new reading curriculums will receive introductory training by the first day of school, including planning their first lessons. More intensive support and coaching is expected this fall.

If you’re an educator or school leader who is switching reading curriculums this year under the new mandate, Chalkbeat wants to hear from you. We’re interested in learning about whether you feel prepared to make the transition, what training you’ve received so far, and how you feel about the new curriculum materials your school is using.

If you teach reading in the first phase of schools to be covered by the mandate this fall — which includes districts 5, 11, 12, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, and some schools in District 75 — please let us know using the form below.

Nearly all of the schools in the districts mentioned above are required to use one of three programs: Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds; Into Reading from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; and Expeditionary Learning, from EL Education. Superintendents were given the authority to pick the reading curriculum for all of the schools under their purview — all but two have selected Into Reading.

Even if you’re not an educator, you can still fill out the form below to let us know what questions you have about the big changes underway.

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

As asylum seekers continue arriving in NYC, some face school enrollment delays

2023-08-29T23:06:57+00:00

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As scores of asylum-seeking families continue arriving in New York City, the city’s efforts to quickly enroll their children in public schools are often failing to keep pace, according to families, advocates, and education department staffers.

The mammoth task of managing the new arrivals’ school enrollment has been hampered by insufficient staffing, inexperienced shelter operators, and gaps in language access, people familiar with the process said.

That’s left some families waiting weeks for school placements or without seats at all yet, sparking concerns that some kids won’t have their school plans finalized by the start of classes on Sept. 7, and that schools won’t have adequate time to prepare for new students before the year begins.

“Even prior to all this there was a tremendous need” for education department staffers working directly in homeless shelters to help families with school-related issues, said Jennifer Pringle, a project director at Advocates for Children, an organization that advocates for children in shelters, among other groups.

Advocates for Children had pushed the education department to hire 150 full-time shelter-based staffers before the influx of asylum seekers began, and last year, the city committed to hiring 100. But advocates say that number is insufficient to address the current needs.

“You’ve opened dozens and dozens of new shelters with no additional staff,” Pringle said. “To me, it’s utterly not surprising that there are enrollment delays, and in fact, I would be shocked if there weren’t.”

New shelters spark staffing concerns

More than 100,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City since last summer, with many taking residence in a rapidly expanding network of homeless shelters. An estimated 19,000 children so far have enrolled in the city’s public schools, with around 500 registering since July, according to an Education Department spokesperson.

The volume of the influx has sparked dire warnings from Mayor Eric Adams, who has said that city services are strained to capacity and that the city needs additional help from the state and federal governments.

Job one for the Education Department is identifying the new arrivals and getting them appropriate school placements – meaning, among other things, that the family has a way to get there and the school offers the necessary language support.

Staffers from the department’s division of students in temporary housing, including the 100 community coordinators hired last year, are tasked with fanning out to shelters, talking to the new arrivals about school enrollment, and helping them fill out registration forms, which are then delivered to the Education Department’s family welcome centers.

But a staffer involved with the process said employees are struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing number of shelters and new arrivals.

“They don’t have enough staff, they’re working like dogs, and it’s a bit of a disaster,” the staffer said.

In some cases, single employees are covering multiple shelters at once, handling case loads of between 250 and 500 kids, the employee said.

“The number of people is outrageous,” the staffer said. “There are so many children. If you go into a shelter … and the family is out that day, you don’t get registered. … Those kids are getting missed.”

Another roadblock is that many of the new emergency shelters the city has opened to accommodate the influx are operated by relatively new providers without experience helping families with school sign-ups.

“I just think everyone is stretched really thin, there’s a lot of new kids on the block … and in the meantime, children and families are not going to have the experience we believe they should,” said Catherine Trapani, the executive director of Homeless Services United, a coalition of 50 of the city’s long-running homeless shelter operators.

Dan Weisberg, the first deputy chancellor of the Education Department, said enrollment for the new arrivals has generally “gone smoothly.”

But he acknowledged the speed at which the city has had to open new family shelters has been “challenging. It means that we then have to scramble to assign somebody to go talk to the families about enrollment. So as long as that dynamic is happening … it will take a little longer for us to get help there.”

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said “Project Open Arms,” a blueprint released last year for educating migrant children that emphasized interagency communication, remains in effect.

Families face waits for school placements

Norberto Priceño arrived from Venezuela in June with his wife and three children, and the family has been living in a shelter in Far Rockaway, Queens. Priceño said he’s received virtually no information from the shelter staff about how to access city services, and only found out how to enroll his kids in school from other families in the shelter.

He took his kids to a family welcome center last month and was told he’d hear back about school placements in 15 days, but so far has only gotten confirmation that one of his kids is registered.

“School starts next week, and we only have one confirmed to start school, we haven’t gotten an answer for the other two,” he said. “I’m worried for their education,” he added, noting that he doesn’t want any of his kids to miss class time.

One staffer at a family welcome center, who declined to give her name, said that enrollment with the new arrivals is proceeding as normal and that families generally only have to wait 24-48 hours.

But another agency staffer involved with enrollment said the wait times for the newly arrived families have been significantly longer this summer than in past years, sometimes taking several weeks.

An Education Department spokesperson said that the average turnaround time is about a week, and that the agency makes sure enrollment letters are sent directly to families at shelters, so they don’t have to return to the family welcome centers.

Deputy Chancellor Carolyne Quintana said staffers from the Education Department’s multilingual division and other central offices have been posted at family welcome centers throughout the summer to lend additional support.

Even after enrollment assignments are confirmed, some newly arrived families are still struggling to figure out how to make the school placements work.

Jenny Lozano and Andres Yara are Colombian immigrants who arrived earlier this summer and have been living at a shelter in midtown Manhattan — where the family of four is currently sharing one queen-sized bed. They said they had to wait about a month after first handing in their form to get a school placement for their 12-year-old daughter.

When they finally got their daughter’s school assignment, it was a school in Harlem roughly 80 blocks away from their shelter. Lozano said she was told that because of all the new arrivals, schools closer to her shelter were all full.

Younger students living in shelters are eligible for yellow buses if their schools are far enough away, but that access ends after sixth grade, just shy of covering Lozano’s daughter. Lozano is fretting about sending her daughter on the subway in a new city and country.

“She’s too small to send her alone on the train,” Lozano said.

Language gaps persist

Some advocates say the city is especially ill-equipped to work with the increasing number of families whose languages aren’t as commonly spoken in the city as Spanish.

Arash Azizzada, the founder of Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, which supports Afghan immigrants and refugees, said many of the Farsi- and Pashto-speaking families he works with have lots of questions about how to enroll kids in school, and are often going weeks without support at shelters.

“They aren’t pivoting fast enough to accommodate this population,” he said.

Trapani said staffers in her coalition of shelter operators use a city-contracted translation phone service, but often experience long waits and don’t have printed materials they can distribute to families who speak languages not included in the city’s list of the 10 most-spoken dialects.

It’s not just families affected by enrollment delays. Schools need as much lead time as possible to plan for students, especially if they want to take advantage of the precious few days with staff in school before students arrive. Any lags in the enrollment process could undermine schools’ planning efforts, advocates warned.

“We need clear data about where the asylum seekers are going to be concentrated so that those schools can get ready now,” said Dia Bryant, the executive director of Ed Trust-New York. “It’s not going to be enough in two weeks to say, ‘Oh no, this school has 60 asylum seekers.’ We need support with actually assessing their strengths and thinking about how to support their families.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

This Manhattan adult learning center is seeing a surge in African asylum seekers

2023-08-25T16:28:02+00:00

The case manager’s office at Harlem’s Mid-Manhattan Adult Learning Center was crowded, primarily with Senegalese men in their late 20s and 30s.

Fatou Kane, the school’s community coordinator, picked up the student sign-in sheet that February afternoon, and with the aid of Patrick Duff, the case manager, started triaging the students’ problems.

Some of the men had received a blue New York benefits card in the mail and had questions about it. They thought it was an immigration document. Another student wanted a school identification card. Others were there to register.

The men were among the 101,200 asylum seekers who have arrived in New York City since spring of 2022. They found their way to the adult learning center, mostly by word-of-mouth and community outreach by the school. But the center is straining to help them: They’re funded by headcount, not the vast and complicated needs of the newly arrived asylum seeking-students. The school is scrambling to provide them with clothing, child care, health insurance, and meals, while also helping them navigate the complicated immigration and legal system.

The center’s principal, Gloria Williams, has been pleading for more assistance. At a Harlem town hall on asylum seekers last year, she described how her school has seen a dramatic increase in recently arrived migrants. She described their desperation, and how students would fight over applesauce thrown out by the day care program the school hosted for students’ children.

“If you are feeding a 3-year-old, it’s what we will call ‘mooshie’ food, you know, stews and applesauce and all of that,” Williams said. “But my students, they eat it because they’re hungry, and they’re not in secure food situations.”

The Mid-Manhattan Adult Learning Center, which is part of the Education Department’s Alternative School District 79, provides free classes for students 21 years and older who don’t have a high school diploma.

There are eight adult learning centers across the five boroughs with numerous satellite sites. The school is one of two adult education centers in Manhattan and offers programs, such as English language classes, GED prep, and numerous technical certification courses. Mid Manhattan’s zone is 119th Street and above.

This year, Mid-Manhattan Adult Learning Center saw a 40% increase in student enrollment, jumping to nearly 3,700 students compared to about 2,600 the year before. The biggest registration jump was for English as a second language courses, according to enrollment data.

The school staff members have learned to be multilingual and multifaceted in their knowledge of NYC social services, becoming the bridge for thousands of new asylum seekers.

According to school officials, about a decade ago, 75% of the students were enrolled in the GED program and 25% were learning English as a new language. Since 2020, that demographic has flipped. Now three-quarters are in the program learning English as a new language. Students arrive at the school speaking only Wolof, French, Portuguese or their ethnic language.

Just as K-12 schools are seeing a surge of needs in schools serving asylum-seeking families, so are the city’s adult learning centers. But unlike K-12 schools, these centers aren’t getting additional support for their needier students.

The Mid-Manhattan Adult Learning Center photographed in New York City.

Adult learning centers like Mid-Manhattan are funded through the New York Employment Preparation Education program. The program retroactively reimburses school systems for services provided based on the number of hours staff spend with a student, but some school officials believe it underestimates the needs of the students.

The city’s Open Arms Project last school year sent an additional $26.7 million to K-12 public schools enrolling asylum-seeking students, according to a May report from the New York City Independent Budget Office. The report did not include schools in special districts like Mid-Manhattan Center’s. Education Department officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment about this.

The center’s employees also wish the city would extend some of the benefits that K-12 students receive, such as free lunch. Employees saw how much it helped this summer when the Education Department provided meals for students for six weeks, Duff said.

“It just never occurred to anyone here that there was that need,” Duff said.

The Education Department said free meals in the city’s K-12 public schools are paid for through federal funds for low-income children, and adult programs aren’t included. Department officials didn’t respond to questions about the summer meals.

To help, the school began giving students food two years ago. The students would come to class hungry, some had not eaten sometimes for days, but they were ashamed to admit their situation — especially the men, Duff said.

The initiative to feed students was started by the school’s principal, Duff said.

In the beginning, Williams paid for the food and toiletries with her own money, according to the center’s staff. Now the school partners with food pantries in Brooklyn and Manhattan. To ensure there is food every week for the students, the pantries alternate on a two-week schedule.

On Tuesdays, the school’s cafeteria is lined with blue bags. Inside is a small bag of rice, potatoes, fruits, juice, and some canned vegetables.

The school hands out an average 150 prepared bags of food each week. They set aside a few bags to be taken to their satellite locations. The school purchased about 100 two-way MetroCards to give to students when they send them to pantries for food.

Center sees needs in African migrant community

Roughly 43% of the school’s students identify as Black or African American, according to demographic data. The school continues to see an increase of African migrants.

There are five case managers, including Duff, and one other community coordinator in addition to Kane.

Kane, 40, is the go-to staffer for African students. She speaks English, French, and Wolof. She is often called upon by other case managers to be a translator.

Kane migrated from Senegal to the United States in 2018 with her two kids while pregnant with her third child. Her husband had been living in the U.S. and had become a citizen. She signed up for the Certified Nursing Assistant Program at the Mid-Manhattan Adult Learning Center and never left.

Williams, the school principal, noticed how Kane assisted other students and hired her as a community coordinator.

“I like to help them. Because I know they need help. It is difficult for them, because they don’t speak English,’’ Kane said about the students.

For Kane, each interaction feels like an urgent call for help.

“When you welcome them, and you say things like ‘Bonjour’ or ‘As-salamu alaykum’ they are so happy,” she said. “Their first reaction is, ‘Do you speak French? You speak Wolof? Oh my God, thank God.’”

Former students seek her out too. Daniel, 35, had been a student at the school, but stopped attending classes to focus on work. He immigrated from Senegal after winning a green card lottery. He had worked in IT security services at the airport in Dakar before coming to the U.S. In New York, he has a job as a CVS store associate restocking shelves and assisting customers, and he lamented his new station in the U.S.

“When you come here, it is like you never went to school. People treat you like you are not educated,” he said. (Daniel did not want his full name used for fear it might impact his immigration status.)

He came to the school to inquire how best to translate his master’s degree from Senegal to the American equivalent. Kane explained the process, but she cautioned him too.

“If you are patient, step-by-step you can reach your goal, first you learn English,” she said.

She understands the joy and easiness the students experience from interacting with her without the language barrier. That is why she emphasizes to students the importance of learning English above all else.

“First go to school and learn English, second follow the rules,” Kane told Daniel.

Students also get help with immigration hearings

Asylum-seeking students often arrive at the adult learning center with no form of identification. The only documents they carry are a collection of forms given to them by the U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, such as immigration court-ordered appearance dates.

The school staff uses these documents to register the students for classes and create their first official photo form of identification: a school ID.

They also help the students complete applications for the city’s free IDNYC, a local government-issued card for residents that can be used to access numerous city services regardless of immigration status.

Ousmane completes his English test by identifying what he sees in the image on the computer screen at the Mid-Manhattan Adult Learning Center in New York City.

One of those students was 42-year-old Ousmane. Ousmane fled Senegal after it was uncovered that he was gay. Homosexuality is illegal in Senegal, punishable up to five years of imprisonment. (Ousmane did not want his full name included because of fear it might impact his immigration case.)

“Je suis venu ici vivre mieux en paix. Je me sentais bien ici” Ousmane said in French.

I came here to live better in peace. I feel good here.

Ousmane’s first immigration court appointment was in February, and he did not have a lawyer, nor did he speak English. The school doesn’t directly provide legal services, but they scrambled to help him anyway.

Duff explained to Ousmane that at his first hearing, the goal is to tell the judge he needs an extension to get a lawyer.

Duff created two cue cards for Ousmane. The first, written with a sharpie in capital letters said “I SPEAK ONLY FRENCH/WOLOF” and on the second, “I need more time to process my application. This is my first time here.”

District 79 partnered with Sanctuary for Families, a New York City-based nonprofit, to provide free immigration legal consultation. The adult learning center coordinates with an immigration advocacy manager in helping students find legal immigration services.

Kane and Duff have seen migrants, many of them Africans, give all of their earnings to lawyers who promise to get them working permits and asylum status, but then don’t follow through. Other asylum-seeking students come to see case managers for help because their employer takes advantage of their immigration status by not paying them.

As a case manager, Duff said no day is ever the same and you don’t know what to expect.

“It’s like we’re all putting out fires. We started helping people with issues like this, even if we’re not trained to, you just gotta jump in and help,” he said.

Churchill Ndonwie is a freelance immigration reporter based in New York City. He reported this as a student at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Only 1 in 3 NYC schools are fully accessible to students with physical disabilities, report says

2023-08-23T10:00:00+00:00

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Fewer than one in three New York City public schools are fully accessible to students with physical disabilities, according to a report released Wednesday by Advocates for Children that calls on the city to ramp up funding for building upgrades.

With the city expected to release its initial five-year capital plan for schools in November, the group is pushing for $1.25 billion to more quickly address major gaps in building accessibility.

That funding, which would run from 2025 through 2029, would allow roughly half of the city’s schools to be fully accessible according to the report, addressing a longstanding problem that has drawn criticism from parents and federal prosecutors alike. The City Council is slated to approve the capital plan in June, though it is typically amended twice a year thereafter.

Officials have made some strides in recent years, in part due to pressure from advocates who successfully lobbied the city to devote $750 million to the effort in the current capital plan, which runs from 2020 through 2024.

The city is on track to boost the share of fully accessible programs from about one in five schools to one in three under the current capital program, according to the Advocates for Children analysis. (The figures do not include certain alternative schools, prekindergarten programs, or charter schools. Nor do they include satellite campuses, as schools may have more than one location.)

“That represents a huge amount of progress, which really shows that when you commit to making schools accessible, you can make a huge difference,” said Sarah Part, a policy analyst at Advocates for Children. “The current lack of accessibility isn’t inevitable.”

Inaccessible school buildings have long represented a barrier for students with physical disabilities, leaving children with few — or even zero — nearby school options. They can also limit students’ ability to take advantage of New York City’s extensive choice system, which allows children to apply for schools outside their home neighborhoods. Nearly 39% of schools have no accessible classrooms for students with mobility needs, according to the Advocates for Children report.

Abraham Weitzman, a rising junior at Columbia University who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, took the bus more than an hour each way to private school through eighth grade.

“This was while I lived across the street from an inaccessible elementary school,” Weitzman wrote in an email. “I didn’t get the chance to find community in my neighborhood.”

Weitzman eventually attended Bard High School Early College Queens, a fully accessible public school, though the process of navigating the high school admissions process was a challenge. The staff and students on many campuses were welcoming, but he quickly found the buildings weren’t as accommodating.

In one case, he visited a school he liked, only to find his wheelchair didn’t fit in the bathroom, leaving his mother to carry him into a stall.

Although he had a positive experience at Bard, access for students with physical disabilities across the public school system “is disgraceful,” Weitzman wrote. “We must put our efforts into making it better for future students.”

Obstacles for students remain despite building accessibility gains

Federal officials have also spotlighted dire accessibility problems.

In 2015, then-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara released findings from an investigation that found elementary school accessibility problems in New York City were so severe they amounted to a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Even though many of the city’s school buildings are more than 100 years old, Bharara found city officials failed to improve accessibility even when renovating older buildings.

Part said the city has taken accessibility improvements more seriously in recent years. But the scale of the problem — and the massive amount of funding required to fully address it — means even if the city heeds Advocates for Children’s call for more funding, about half of schools will still not be fully accessible by 2029, nearly four decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act passed.

Asked about their accessibility goals, city officials declined to say whether they hope to make all schools fully accessible, though they pointed to improvements over the past five years.

“This report acknowledges how far we have come, and the ongoing $750 million commitment in our current capital plan towards our shared goal of making school buildings more accessible,” Kevin Ortiz, a spokesperson for the School Construction Authority, said in a statement, referring to Advocates Children’s analysis.

City officials have made incremental gains, including improvements that render some buildings “partially accessible.” About 20% of the city’s school buildings meet that definition, which means some — but not all — classrooms and facilities can accommodate students with physical disabilities.

In recent years, the city began releasing more granular school-level reports that outline which areas students with physical disabilities can access. Advocates for Children also created a map alongside their report with school-level accessibility information.

Partially accessible buildings can still present significant obstacles. Manhattan mom Yuvania Espino sent her daughter Mia Simpson, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, to a partially accessible elementary school in East Harlem that specializes in serving students with disabilities.

But the front entrance was above a small set of stairs, which forced the family to stand by a separate accessible entrance, sometimes in the rain, as they waited for a staff member to unlock the door each day.

Mia took classes on the school’s first floor, but didn’t have access to certain classrooms or support on other levels, including a second-floor gym that helped students with sensory difficulties. Over time, many of her friends moved to classrooms on other floors, which distressed Mia and made her act out, Espino said.

Mia Simpson, left, poses for a photo with her little sister, Kira. Mia lacked access to certain classrooms during her time at a New York City public school, and wasn’t able to use the school’s front entrance.

“We don’t know to this day what an elevator would have done for Mia’s academic performance at that school,” Espinso said. The family ultimately decided to send Mia to an accessible private school, where her tuition is covered by the city.

Mia, now 14, is still affected by accessibility problems. She often has to miss performances and other events at her younger sister’s public school because the auditorium is on the second floor and there is no elevator.

“When enrolling your kids in school, no parents should have to think about accessing the building,” Espino said. “I’m thrilled that we’ve taken some baby steps, but we need to buckle up and take some giant leaps.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Betty Rosa, New York’s top education official, raises equity concerns over class size law

2023-08-17T21:07:14+00:00

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State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa raised fresh concerns Thursday about a new law that will require New York City to slash class sizes, responding to a Chalkbeat analysis that found that the highest-poverty schools are least likely to benefit.

Rosa said the equity implications of the law are “a problem,” as lower-need schools are more likely to have larger class sizes that violate the new caps and will therefore disproportionately benefit from the policy.

The law does not come with new funding earmarked to reduce class sizes, raising the possibility of difficult tradeoffs, such as cuts to other schools or programs.

“You’re gonna have to take it from Peter to give it to Paul,” Rosa said during an education conference hosted by the news organization City & State.

As the state’s highest-ranking education official and staunch advocate of equity in education, Rosa’s critique of the policy is noteworthy, though she has no direct power to alter it. The law, passed overwhelmingly by the state legislature and signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, represented one of the biggest changes in state education policy last year. It was widely celebrated by educators and advocates who point to research that shows smaller class sizes often boost student learning and argue that small classes are a basic necessity that all students should enjoy.

But because higher-poverty schools already have smaller class sizes, those schools are least likely to benefit from the influx of resources that will be required to comply with the mandate.

Experts have warned that city officials could be forced to funnel more resources to some of the city’s better-off schools — funding that could have otherwise been spent on social workers, tutoring, or other support at higher-need campuses.

Rosa suggested that tradeoff is at the heart of her worry about the new policy.

She said education policy ought to be driven “by needs — not driven by trying to give everybody the same thing.”

A spokesperson for Hochul did not respond to a request for comment about Rosa’s critique of the class size policy or answer questions about the law’s equity implications. (The governor does not appoint the state’s education commissioner.)

Implementing the law will require the city to hire thousands of new teachers at a cost of between $1.3 billion and 1.9 billion a year, according to projections from the New York City Department of Education and the city’s Independent Budget Office.

Experts have warned the hiring spree could prompt more affluent schools to poach educators from higher-need schools, which have long struggled to attract qualified staff and are more likely to have high turnover rates.

Still, the class size law’s backers said those concerns are outweighed by the need to reduce class sizes across all schools, as the current caps allow classes as large as 34 students. Under the new law, most classes won’t be allowed to exceed 25 children. Supporters also note that the majority of the students who will see their class sizes shrink come from low-income families, as most of the city’s students fall into that category.

State Sen. John Liu, who sponsored the state legislation and also attended the City & State event, was unwavering in his support for the law. He argued that the city should direct recent increases in state funding to the effort, noting that he believes small classes are a necessary ingredient for a quality education.

“You cannot provide a sound basic education when class sizes are still excessively large,” he said during a panel discussion at the conference. “It’s as simple as that.”

Matt Barnum contributed.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC must slash class sizes under a new law. The neediest schools stand to benefit least.

2023-08-17T10:00:00+00:00

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When Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a new law last year that would slash class sizes in New York City, praise came in from many quarters.

Teachers, along with their union, hailed the move as a victory that would improve classroom conditions and boost learning. Education activists said smaller class sizes would benefit the most vulnerable students. Lawmakers in Albany, who overwhelmingly passed the bill, rejoiced.

There are good reasons for this enthusiasm. Studies have found that students often learn more in smaller classes. Some research suggests that children from low-income families, who constitute a majority of New York City students, benefit the most. Plus, smaller classes are popular with parents and teachers alike.

But in recent months, some of the new law’s costs and tradeoffs have come into sharper focus. A Chalkbeat analysis shows that because the city’s highest-poverty schools already have smaller classes, they stand to benefit the least from the state’s class size cap. This aligns with recent reports from the New York City Department of Education, the city’s Independent Budget Office, and The Urban Institute.

Researchers who have studied class size say that these findings raise troubling equity concerns. The class size cap could mean that new resources will be funneled not to the schools that have the greatest needs or lowest test scores but to some of the city’s better-off schools.

The cap could exacerbate teacher shortages in high-poverty communities by creating a hiring spree that encourages more advantaged schools to poach teachers. And city officials, including Mayor Eric Adams, said they’ll be hard pressed to afford the class size mandate absent additional state money.

“Some of the less advantaged schools already have smaller class sizes — in that way, it’s not putting the additional money you have into the schools that probably need it the most,” said Susanna Loeb, a Stanford University researcher who has studied New York City schools.

Highest-needs schools already have smallest class sizes

The new cap dramatically reduces the number of students allowed in a single classroom.

Under the previous rules, classes were generally capped at 30 to 34 students, depending on the grade, with 25 students in kindergarten. Under the new law, classes may not exceed 20 students in kindergarten through third grade, 23 students for grades 4-8, and 25 students in high school. Physical education and classes involving “performing groups” are limited to 40 children.

But the reductions in class size will not be shared evenly once the law is fully implemented over five years.

At the city’s highest poverty schools, only 38% of classrooms are larger than the new caps allow, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of city data from last school year. By contrast, at low- to mid-poverty schools, 69% of classrooms are above the caps.

To bring schools into compliance with the law, which will take full effect in 2028, the city will need thousands of new teachers at an annual cost of $1.3 billion to $1.9 billion, according to projections from the Education Department and the city’s Independent Budget Office. That’s at least 4% of the department’s operating budget.

At overcrowded schools that need more classroom space to reduce class sizes, the School Construction Authority estimated the costs could run tens of billions of dollars.

But since the state has not earmarked new funding attached to the class size law, it remains unclear how the city will pay for it. Experts warn of difficult tradeoffs. Additional dollars spent reducing class sizes on lower-need campuses could instead be directed to the city’s highest-need schools — to, say, hire more tutors to combat pandemic learning loss or additional social workers to address student mental health challenges.

In Brooklyn’s District 16, which includes much of Bedford-Stuyvesant and where the vast majority of students come from low-income families, 36% of classrooms were above the new class size caps. That’s the second-lowest rate of the city’s 32 districts.

NeQuan McLean, the president of District 16’s local parent council, said he wasn’t aware that higher-need districts are less likely to benefit from the new law, noting there wasn’t much public debate of that issue when the law passed.

“I would definitely have a problem with resources being pulled from low-income districts to go to high-income districts when investments need to be made in underserved districts,” McLean said. “We can’t use the method of robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

He said additional investments in his district are sorely needed, from upgraded gyms and bathrooms, to additional wraparound services in schools to combat food insecurity. He also wants more on-campus health services and dental clinics, as students often miss school to go to those appointments.

There will be tradeoffs at lower-need schools, too, as school leaders may be required to direct more resources to staff smaller classes, potentially forcing cuts to other programs. City officials may also have to cap enrollment at some schools.

“Maybe principals have decided they want slightly larger class sizes [in exchange] for a math coach,” said Matthew Chingos, an Urban Institute researcher who recently published a report about the impact of the class size caps and serves on a city advisory group on the issue. “It may force some tradeoffs that people didn’t fully appreciate.”

Supporters point to advantages of small classes

The law’s backers contend that small classes are a basic necessity with broad benefits to students.

Jake Jacobs, a Bronx art teacher, said it is difficult to offer individual support when his classes exceed 30 students. “Those classes were nightmares because of it,” he said. Despite some of the tradeoffs of the law, “as a teacher I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.”

As for concerns about equity, supporters point out that most students in New York City are from low-income families, so much of the class size cuts will still redound to their benefit.

“The law actually lowers class sizes for a higher number of high-need kids compared to lower-need kids,” said Christina Collins, the director of education policy at the United Federation of Teachers, which pushed for the new caps.

Collins and other supporters emphasize that the law also requires the Education Department to prioritize higher-need campuses first as the new caps phase in. (However, experts note this doesn’t address the key equity issue, since all schools regardless of poverty level will be required to meet the new class size limits within five years.)

Asked about concerns that the law would still require the city to funnel resources to schools with fewer high-need students, Collins pointed to education programs that give students access to the same resources regardless of family income, such prekindergarten or free meals.

Proponents also contend that there is funding available to cut class sizes, pointing to recent boosts in state education dollars that stem from a decades-old lawsuit that argued New York’s schools were not properly funded.

“The courts mandated that every kid get a sound, basic education. And their mandate cannot be achieved when kids are still in excessively large class sizes,” said state Sen. John Liu, who sponsored the class size legislation.

The city’s Education Department may use increases in state funding to reduce class sizes. But officials note the department has already committed the money to other priorities, including for the first time fully funding the city’s own school budget formula, which channels more resources to schools that enroll higher-need children.

Mayor Adams has warned that complying with the class size mandate will restrict city officials from spending education dollars as they see fit.

“Clearly we should use taxpayers’ dollars to focus on equity — not equality, equity,” Adams said at a press conference last September. “There are certain school districts that need more,” he added. “We’re taking away the chancellor’s ability to focus on where the problem is, and the governor made the decision to sign it.”

A spokesperson for Gov. Hochul did not respond to questions about the equity implications of the law.

Unintended consequences loom large

Hiring thousands of new teachers in New York City could prove a particular challenge, especially at a moment of rising teacher turnover. A hiring spree might force schools to bring on less skilled or less qualified educators, which could limit the gains from smaller classes.

In one study of New York City, Michael Gilraine, an economist at New York University, found that when schools reduced class size without having to hire a new teacher, there were large improvements in student test scores. But when they had to add a teacher to get class sizes down, the benefits from smaller classes were swamped by a decline in teacher quality.

“The results indicate that smaller class sizes do improve student achievement,” wrote Gilraine. “Policy makers and school administrators need to be mindful, however, that these gains can be offset by changes in teacher quality.”

Research in California has highlighted a similar tradeoff, though it suggests that the problem dissipates over the longer term.

Higher-need schools typically bear the brunt of teacher shortages. For instance, an older study in New York City found that better teachers were more likely to migrate from lower-performing schools to high-performing ones, a concern echoed in the city’s working group on class size reduction.

One leader of a Manhattan middle school, where most classes already met the new class size caps last school year, said he’s concerned that higher-performing schools in the district may poach quality educators.

“How many teachers from the lower-performing schools are going to go [to higher-performing schools] because they can get paid the same amount and have an easier life?” said the principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak frankly about the class size cap’s impact on their campus. “That’s my bigger worry honestly.”

New York City does not offer additional pay to teachers working in higher-needs schools to potentially counteract this effect.

“It’s hard to recruit teachers right now” and high-poverty schools typically have a harder time doing so, said Loeb, the Stanford professor. “Adding class size reduction may in fact escalate that.”

Collins, of the UFT, says there should be efforts to expand the pipeline of new teachers to meet rising demand.

For now, officials don’t have clear answers to these challenges and much remains uncertain about how the city will implement the new law. The Education Department has convened a task force that includes advocates and policy experts to gather input.

The law also includes a handful of exemptions to the class size mandate, including for schools that are overenrolled, would face significant economic hardship to comply, or or have insufficient teachers in subjects that are difficult to staff. The Education Department and the unions representing teachers and school administrators must all agree to those waivers. If they don’t, the decision falls to an arbitrator.

“It’s not clear how those decisions are going to be made — and school communities that wind up losing valuable dollars are going to be up in arms,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who has studied New York City schools.“I would like that process to be as open and transparent as possible.”

Regardless of the challenges, Liu, the state senator who championed the law, remains sanguine. “I don’t think anybody will say 10 years from now that, ‘Oh, this was the wrong thing to do,’” he said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Matt Barnum is interim national editor, overseeing and contributing to Chalkbeat’s coverage of national education issues. Contact him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s famed LaGuardia High School taps alum as new principal

2023-08-11T16:30:00+00:00

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LaGuardia High School, New York City’s premier performing arts school, is getting a new principal after five months without a permanent leader.

Deepak Marwah, an alum and former teacher at LaGuardia, is set to take the helm at the Upper West Side institution later this month, the school announced Friday. Marwah most recently oversaw arts education for the New Rochelle school district.

The appointment comes on the heels of a turbulent stretch at LaGuardia, which commands outsize attention because of its star-studded list of alumni and its global reputation as the inspiration for the movies and TV show Fame. The school has long attracted fierce debates over the appropriate balance between arts and academics.

Principal Yeou-Jey Vasconcelos left in March after a drama-filled three-year tenure that included shepherding the school through the pandemic and high-profile clashes with some parents over Advanced Placement offerings and the length of the school day.

Since then, the school has gone without a permanent principal, leaving many staffers and families yearning for stability.

Marwah said his experience as a student at LaGuardia in the mid-1990s “changed his life” — and he hopes he can provide that for others.

But before developing his long-term vision for the school, Marwah wants to “go in and really understand what works right now.” It’s important to take his time, he said, given the school’s leadership transitions over the past decade.

LaGuardia has history of fierce debates

Principals at LaGuardia have often found themselves at the center of heated debates over the mission and priorities of the school.

Lisa Mars, who took the helm in 2013, prioritized boosting the school’s academic reputation by expanding AP offerings and raising the academic threshold for admission. Those changes sparked furious backlash that culminated in widespread student and staff protests that led to her ouster in 2019.

Vasconcelos, a former principal of another performing arts high school and trained pianist, took over with plans to restore a focus on the arts and reduce academic pressure.

Under her tenure, the Education Department lowered the academic threshold for admissions, a move staffers say has mildly increased the diversity of the student body. The COVID pandemic started shortly after she took over, touching off battles at LaGuardia and other large high schools between parents and administrators over the availability of in-person learning.

Vasconcelos also floated plans to swap out Advanced Placement courses for other types of high-level classes and shorten the school day, which ended after 4 p.m. Both proposals met fierce backlash from some parents.

Marwah, born in the Bronx and raised in Queens by immigrant parents, said he’s prepared to step into the swirling pressure and expectations of the role, and is committed to maintaining the school’s dual mission of fostering both world-class arts and high-level academics.

His own background as a singer and vocal performance teacher, as well as an administrator for several district-level arts programs, gives him a first-hand appreciation of the power of arts education, he believes.

“I think it’s really important for the leader of LaGuardia High School to understand that students are there to create art, and to ensure that they’re getting the absolute best arts and academic education that they could possibly get,” he said.

But Jamie McShane, the parent of a rising senior and former president of the parent association, said it was Marwah’s commitment to maintaining academic rigor that was most appealing to some parents.

“There was a lot of concern I think around the school getting away from that dual mission,” said McShane, who was a member of the parent group that interviewed candidates. “I think he really sees not everyone wants to go to an arts conservatory, and that some folks want to be able to pursue AP classes and academic excellence.”

But Marwah cautioned that it’s “not reasonable” for LaGuardia parents to expect that the school “will have everything that Stuyvesant or Bronx Science or Brooklyn Tech may be able to offer them academically in addition to the arts.”

For all of his experience with arts education, Marwah hasn’t previously held a position as a school-level administrator, a resume that worried one veteran LaGuardia educator who said leading the school is a notoriously complex job that stumped even experienced administrators.

“Not only is it going to be his first principal job…he’s never been an assistant principal, and you’re putting him in one of the highest profile jobs in the system,” said the staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “You wonder if a person is being set up for success.”

Marwah acknowledged that there will be a learning curve. But he said that many aspects of his current role leading districtwide arts programming, which includes supervising 50 staffers, would translate to his new position. He also noted that he served as a department chair at New Rochelle High School.

LaGuardia grapples with ongoing challenges

Parents, students, and educators say LaGuardia is grappling with its share of ongoing challenges. Some are shared widely across a school system still emerging from the pandemic and facing looming budget cuts, while others are unique to the school.

School staffers said that multiple colleagues received excess notices in the spring, when the school was without a permanent principal. The excess notices, which keep employees on the Education Department payroll but remove them from their school positions, went out to five assistant principals, along with several guidance counselors, and a crisis social worker, according to one staffer who received such a notice.

An Education Department spokesperson denied that the assistant principals were excessed, saying the school was “in the process of transitioning some into specific content areas.” The guidance department was “overstaffed,” but remains within the recommended counselor to student ratio, the spokesperson added.

High school students across the city are dealing with elevated levels of stress and mental health challenges in the wake of the pandemic.

Marwah said he sees student mental health as a priority, and he thinks that arts education can be a powerful vehicle for social and emotional learning.

And while he supports continuing to offer a robust range of Advanced Placement classes, he said he’s also interested in reviewing students’ schedules to see if they are “overloading” on the advanced courses, and whether that may be contributing to mental health challenges.

But perhaps the biggest challenge facing the new principal will be managing the kinds of clashes with parents that consumed the tenures of previous principals.

Natasha Labovitz, the parent of a rising senior and a recent alum at the school, said she’s concerned that a “small group of very vocal parents who did not seem happy” with the school’s “emphasis on the arts” gained undue influence on school policy in recent years.

“I think the majority of the parent body is happy at the school,” she said.

She hopes Marwah will be “less challenged” by parent pushback, and advised that he listen most closely to staff and students — the people who are on the ground and “working 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. to create magic in a dilapidated old DOE building.”

McShane, the former parent association president, countered that “hundreds” of parents attended parent association meetings over contentious proposals under Vasconcelos’s tenure about the bell schedule and AP courses.

Marwah’s selection, he said, is evidence that Manhattan High Schools Superintendent Gary Beidleman, who oversees the school, “heard parent concerns, and he was responsive.”

Marwah said that “when it comes up to parents, teachers, or students having conflict, I think the best thing is for me to spend the year taking all the stuff that I’ve listened to, and all the stuff that I’ve learned, to develop a vision for the school that we can all buy into.”

Josh, a 2023 LaGuardia graduate and student leader who worked closely with the previous administration — who asked to use only his first name — encouraged the new principal to make himself available to students and promote more opportunities for student leadership.

“It’s important to consider how student leadership is going to be further fostered,” he said. “Students don’t feel like their interests and concerns were being properly represented.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC school bus strike could disrupt start of year, Chancellor Banks warns

2023-08-11T15:53:36+00:00

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A school bus driver strike could disrupt the beginning of the school year, Chancellor David Banks warned parent leaders this week.

“We’re currently negotiating with the [Amalgamated Transit Union] around buses and there’s some real concerns around a potential bus strike,” Banks told members of his parent advisory council on Thursday.

“Certainly hopeful that we can avoid it, but just wanted to start to plant a seed to let people know about the possibility,” he added. “You’ll hear more in the coming days.”

A school bus strike would disproportionately affect the city’s youngest students as well as students with disabilities. Banks said a strike could affect between 85,000 and 150,000 students.

Carolyn Rinaldi, the chief of staff for Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents many school bus drivers, said the union had no comment. A recent union newsletter indicated that workers at a handful of school bus companies that contract with the city overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike.

“The Union is fighting to get back what members previously had and everything they lost,” officials wrote in the newsletter. “A fair contract for all senior and new members is the answer to making school bus a career again.”

The city’s yellow buses have often been the source of angst among families. The school bus system especially falters at the beginning of the year, and families routinely complain of late or no-show buses, which contribute to chronic absenteeism as working families may struggle to make other transportation arrangements. More recently, parents reported that buses without air conditioning topped 100 degrees.

A bus strike would represent a disruption far beyond the glitches that parents often experience during the opening weeks of a typical school year. And it would come just as schools are regaining their footing after years of pandemic-related disruptions.

Banks said parents would have “clear direction” on alternative transportation options in the event of a strike.

Education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer said the city’s contingency plans include giving students MetroCards and “reimbursement for use of alternative transportation.” In some cases, he said, it could include “free ride-share.”

City officials have previously used ride-share services to help fill transportation gaps at no cost to families. But those services typically require that caregivers accompany their children to and from school, which can be hard for working parents.

“These negotiations are unlike most involving the city because they are between bus companies, who contract with the DOE, and their employees, who are not city employees,” Styer added. “The city encourages the parties to remain at the bargaining table until they reach a voluntary agreement.”

The city contracts with more than 50 bus companies who crisscross the city on about 9,000 routes. It’s not clear how many routes a strike would affect.

New York City’s school bus drivers last went on strike in January 2013 over job protection issues, pushing for senior drivers to get priority over newcomers. Roughly 8,000 drivers walked off the job for a month, according to reports. Since then some bus companies have voted to authorize strikes, including in 2016 and 2020, but ultimately reached agreements before taking any labor actions.

The city’s school bus system has faced serious disruptions since the pandemic when thousands of drivers were furloughed after school buildings shut down. Officials have since warned about driver shortages and have also acknowledged challenges getting drivers back on the job.

“They were laid off, in a worldwide pandemic, with no wages, no pension contributions, and, above all else, no health care,” Kevin Moran, the education department’s chief school operations officer, previously said. “And so when we talk about the driver shortage and trying to bring people back into the system, we have a fair bit of work to do to re-establish trust.”

Randi Levine, the policy director at Advocates for Children, said the organization is “deeply concerned about the impact of a potential bus strike.”

“Many students with disabilities, as well as students living in shelter, and students in foster care, rely on school bus service to get to school and we want to ensure they have a way of getting to school from the first day,” she said.

Parent leaders also expressed worry about a possible strike.

“Parents are watching these negotiations because the transportation of our children depends on having a stable workforce,” Sara Catalinotto, founder of Parents to Improve School Transportation, wrote in a text message.

If the bus companies “don’t make moves to restore the living standards of drivers and attendants, our families will keep having delays and hardship.”

Amy Zimmer contributed.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC is expanding a violence prevention program called Project Pivot. Tell us how it’s going.

2023-07-31T21:09:35+00:00

A violence prevention program that forges partnerships between schools and community groups will expand this coming school year, part of a broader plan to improve neighborhood safety that city officials released on Monday.

Known as Project Pivot, the program connects schools with community organizations that provide everything from mentorship and counseling to violence interruption — which aims to prevent conflict by bringing in neighborhood leaders.

Beginning this school year Project Pivot will expand to 200 schools, from 144, reaching between 6,000 and 10,000 students, according to the city’s “Blueprint for Community Safety.” Before the latest expansion, officials had said they expected to reach 10,000 students; a City Hall spokesperson did not explain why that goal has remained the same even as the number of participating schools is growing.

Mayor Eric Adams touted the program, which launched last year, as one of the most significant strategies in the new blueprint for keeping young people safe.

“It was about, ‘how do we get into the schools and engage young people at an early age,’” Adams said. “There has to be some real results.”

Project Pivot’s expansion comes as young people are increasingly affected by violence, even as violent crime is trending down and New York City remains relatively safe. Since 2019, the number of shooting victims under age 18 has doubled, city officials said, incidents that have sometimes devastated school communities.

The number of weapons confiscated at public schools has also spiked since the pandemic hit. Nearly 7,000 weapons were recovered last school year, up nearly 9% over the previous year, according to police department data. In the school year before the pandemic, about 2,600 weapons were confiscated. Some students said they carried pepper spray or tasers to protect themselves on their commutes.

The blueprint announced Monday includes a broad range of policies across city agencies and targets six police precincts across Brooklyn and the Bronx that experience a disproportionate share of shootings. The plan calls for expanding after-school programming in those precincts, for instance, though it does not specify how many schools or children may benefit. First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright told reporters that more detailed community-level plans would be available in the coming weeks.

Officials did not immediately say which schools will be included in the Project Pivot expansion, but noted they will be spread across the city. The program is expected to cost $15 million under the expansion, up from $9 million, officials said. It is funded with federal relief money, raising questions about its long-term sustainability as those dollars begin to run dry.

Chalkbeat is interested in learning more about how students, parents, and community organizations feel about Project Pivot and its expansion. To let us know, take our very brief survey here.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Nonbinary students are now included in NYC school enrollment data

2023-07-25T18:15:01+00:00

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After New York City cleared the way for families to list their child’s gender as “X” instead of “M” or “F,” officials released statistics for the first time on how many families selected that designation for their child’s school records.

The numbers are small for now: Just 108 nonbinary, gender fluid, or gender expansive students used the “X” designation last school year out of more than a million children in the city’s public schools, including charters.

But advocates say the new statistics represent an important milestone, given the increase in reported gender nonconformity among young people, and as Republicans are ramping up attacks on schools’ support of LGBTQ students and gender diversity.

“The first step to making sure a school is meeting the needs of its student body is knowing who is in the student body,” said Allie Bohm, an attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union who focuses on LGBTQ issues. “It’s really important that they’re collecting these data.”

City and state officials have recently ramped up their efforts to make schools more welcoming for transgender, nonbinary, intersex, and gender expansive children — populations that often experience an outsized share of bullying, harassment, and mental health challenges.

Beginning last fall, city officials began allowing families to select the “X” designation on official school records in lieu of “female” or “male” — an option already available on city birth certificates. The state education department requires districts across New York to report the number of nonbinary students who are enrolled and now lists those statistics publicly. The federal education department is also beginning to collect similar data.

The number of city public school children who don’t identify as male or female may be an undercount, as changing a student’s gender on official paperwork generally requires parental consent and students may not be comfortable broaching the topic with their family. Some caregivers also may not know they can request a change to their child’s gender on official paperwork to the “X” marker.

In New York City, student- and school-facing records — such as transcripts, report cards, and attendance rosters — generally do not include a student’s gender. And education department policy requires teachers to call students by the names and pronouns they assert at school, even without explicit parental consent or changes to legal documents.

“New York City Public Schools is committed to providing a safe, equitable and affirming school environment for every student in our school building,” education department spokesperson Jenna Lyle wrote in a statement. “Affirming students’ gender identities is of paramount importance.”

School to school, experiences may vary

The degree to which a school is welcoming to LGBTQ students may also affect how comfortable families feel changing their students’ records. At Brooklyn Collaborative Studies in Cobble Hill, educators were not surprised that their school reported enrolling four nonbinary or gender expansive students — the most of any public school in the city.

“We do work really hard to have an open, welcoming, communicatory school space,” said Diana Roffman, a sixth grade English teacher and co-advisor of the school’s joint gender and sexuality alliance and Black Lives Matter club (known as the GSA BLM Collective).

Students and staff at the grades 6-12 school have access to all-gender bathrooms, the GSA BLM Collective has invited LGBTQ authors to speak with students, and teachers often help review each other’s lessons to make sure they are culturally responsive — including diversity in religious experiences, racial identities, and family structures. The school previously set up its own processes to track students’ preferred pronouns and names.

“Within our electronic gradebook there were notes so that students didn’t have to come out to like seven different teachers,” said Devon Shanley, a seventh grade English teacher and co-advisor of the GSA BLM Collective.

But even as city and state officials are making efforts to be more inclusive, students’ actual experiences may vary significantly from campus to campus — and gaps in policy can emerge.

When schools pivoted to remote instruction during the pandemic, for instance, some nonbinary students said their online learning platforms automatically displayed their names assigned at birth, often referred to as deadnames, and which may not match their gender identity. That led to anguish for those who already used chosen names in their daily interactions with their teachers and peers.

“For all the Zoom meetings, I see my dead name,” one city high school sophomore told the news organization THE CITY in 2020. “It’s distressing.”

Facing pressure from the city comptroller, the education department made it easier for families to alter their children’s school records with a chosen name — which can be displayed on report cards, attendance rosters, and other records — even if it differs from what appears on legal documents.

But schools do not always swiftly adhere to the policy.

Brooklyn mom Eliza Hittman said it took months for her child’s elementary school to process a name change request last year, with school officials using the student’s deadname in the meantime. The experience was emotionally fraught for her child, a rising fourth grader who identifies as gender diverse, and contributed to the family’s decision to transfer them to a different public school.

“Schools aren’t necessarily aware of the importance of things like a name change form and the level of distress it can cause a student who is transitioning to have a legal name called out,” Hittman said. “There are DOE guidelines that are clear but they’re not implemented unless you have families who are fighting for them.”

Bohm, the New York Civil Liberties Union attorney, said swiftly processing requests to change students’ names and genders is essential, noting that feelings of discrimination can affect school performance. Adapting to new policies and norms may require culture shifts at some schools, which can take time, Bohm added.

“I wish I could say guidance comes out or regulations come out and everything is great now,” she said. “There’s no silver bullet.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Federal judge orders NYC to fix special education service and payment delays

2023-07-19T21:56:41+00:00

This is part of an ongoing collaborative series between Chalkbeat and THE CITY investigating learning differences, special education, and other education challenges in city schools.

A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Department of Education to take 40 specific steps to address decades-old delays in providing special education services to families who have won legal battles to secure them.

This includes a mandate that the department assign additional staffers within six months to address the thousands of cases that are currently overdue.

When parents of students with disabilities believe their child is not getting the supportive services they’re entitled to, they can file a complaint that leads to a hearing in front of an administrative judge, known as an impartial hearing officer.

Advocates and eight parents of kids with disabilities sued the department in federal court two decades ago because families were often forced to wait months to obtain services or payments for special education services even after they were awarded them in administrative hearings.

Those services can include transportation to and from school, physical therapy, and tuition payments to private schools when families can demonstrate the district can’t properly serve their children in a public school.

Over the years those delays have stretched for months or even years, forcing parents to forgo crucial services or pay for them out of their own pocket — which can be untenable for some families. Those with means sometimes take extreme measures, such as taking out second mortgages on their homes.

While the original lawsuit was settled in 2007, the case has continued for more than a decade longer because of the education department’s inability to meet the settlement terms, which require that it speed up services and payments considerably.

Wednesday’s order is the latest move, with the most detailed remedy to date, for fixing the issue. Many of the steps delineated by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska require the education department to act within three to six months, while a number extend beyond a year.

“We are here today to take a massive step toward getting families reimbursed for the costs of services,” Preska said during a court hearing on Wednesday. She referred to the changes required by her order as a “wholesale streamlining of the payment system.”

The ruling also requires the Education Department to set up a hotline from which parents can get updates on the status of their complaints seeking special education services for their children, and to set up a mobile app that allows providers of services to enter their hours worked by phone — rather than through a paper invoice that’s required currently.

“It’s huge and very impactful for students — especially the families that don’t have the resources to put money out and essentially give the DOE a loan until the DOE pays them back,” said Rebecca Shore, the litigation director at the group Advocates for Children, which filed the federal lawsuit in 2003. “Parents, families and students have been harmed because of the DOE’s failure for decades to timely implement [hearing officers’] orders.”

City officials said on Wednesday that they support the changes mandated by the court order. In an unusual move, schools Chancellor David Banks attended Wednesday’s court hearing, shaking Preska’s hand and posing for photographs. Though he did not take questions from reporters, he released a written statement after the order was issued.

“The new requirements are stringent because we, too, believe that change is long overdue,” Banks said. “While case volume and challenges increased over the past decade, we are moving aggressively to set a new course.”

Banks’ statement is notable because he previously cast doubt about the legitimacy of the complaint process, arguing that families have tried to “game this system,” referring to reimbursements for private special education that have ballooned to nearly $1 billion. Education officials later walked those comments back.

Delays are commonplace

Unless hearing officers set different timelines, the education department has 35 days to implement orders for services or payments, under a prior settlement in the federal lawsuit reached in 2007.

That agreement sought to push the education department to comply with the required timelines in more than 90% of the cases, and required the department to pay for an independent auditor to monitor its performance.

The education department utterly failed to meet that standard. The latest numbers supplied by that auditor, covering January to April 2022, show that the department met the deadlines for enacting orders for special education services in just 5.8% of cases, and met payment deadlines in just 2.3% of orders.

There were about 2,800 orders for services and nearly 4,000 orders for payment issued by hearing officers during that three-month quarter. It was the auditor’s 51st report since the settlement, which has come with a price tag for the Department of Education of over $25 million.

Wednesday’s ruling followed the installation of a special master in 2021 to analyze the Department of Education’s challenges in complying with hearing officer decisions in a timely manner, and it mandates most of his recommendations for addressing them.

Earlier this year, special master David Irwin, of Thru Consulting LLC, found that the education department office responsible for ensuring services are provided or payments made is operating with severely outdated methods and technology.

This includes using handwritten forms, paper-based invoices, and relying on “heavy” levels of data entry that involve “simply copying text from one place to another.”

“These outdated processes require more human staff time as the volume of cases increases,” Irwin wrote in a summary of his findings in March. “This is essentially the root cause of backlogs and delays.”

David Irwin worked as a federally appointed special master who recommended the changes ordered on Wednesday.

Irwin also pointed to staffing shortages that are exacerbated by the laborious need for manual data entry and by the administration’s unwillingness to make the positions more desirable by allowing staffers the flexibility to work from home.

“Simply put, kids are not getting services because there are not enough qualified staff to support this work, and the regular means of attracting and retaining staff has not worked,” he wrote.

John Farago, a hearing officer who adjudicates special education cases, said he’s skeptical the court order will transform the process. The problem, he argues, is more systemic and can’t be fixed with a series of technological and workflow changes.

“The culture of the district is to resist its obligation to pay providers,” he said, noting that culture extends to the department responsible for issuing payments to providers and private schools that receive tuition reimbursements from the city.

One solution, he said, could be to take the responsibility for breaking down hearing officers’ orders into specific payments and services out of the education department’s hands and giving it to an independent entity.

“What’s wrong with the order in my view is that it treats a large deep systemic problem as though it’s a series of small technical problems,” Farago added. “When you’re being eaten alive by piranhas it’s a mistake to focus on them individually.”

Irwin, the court appointed special master who came up with the recommendations adopted in the court order, said the education department “hardly pushed back” on any of his recommendations.

It will take time to see results, Irwin said, adding that he hopes that within a year a much larger share of services and payments are delivered within the required timeframe. He suggested that the main reason the education department has struggled to meet the legal timelines is that they have not understood what reforms are needed to fix the process.

“I’m an optimist,” he said. “This order tells them exactly what they need to do.”

Long-running ‘crisis’

But the court order does not address a much larger issue: The entire process disproportionately benefits families with time, resources, and access to legal help. Some families may simply go without services rather than facing a daunting bureaucratic system.

And the order focuses on the final phase of the complaint process, even as many other elements of it have been in crisis for years because of an explosion in cases. The number of complaints filed grew by the thousands between 2014 and 2018, according to a report commissioned by the New York State Education Department in 2019 — which found there were also too few hearing officers and too little space to handle the flood of cases.

At one point in 2019 there were just nine hearing officers on rotation to hear nearly 10,000 cases, and a single hearing officer had more than 1,700 cases on his plate.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s interruption to instruction made things even worse for many special education students, particularly those who relied on in-person services or whose disabilities made remote learning all but impossible.

In early 2021, the special master was appointed to get to the bottom of the education department’s difficulties in implementing the orders of hearing officers.

By the end of 2021, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio put the hearing process under the umbrella of the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings — a shift away from a contracted system that struggled for years to identify enough willing and knowledgeable hearing officers.

In the last school year under de Blasio, parents and attorneys filed nearly 18,000 requests for impartial hearings, according to The New York Times — almost double the number from 2018.

Shore, the attorney at Advocates for Children, said what’s significant about Wednesday’s order is the level of detail in the mandated action steps and the requirement that the Department of Education provide regular updates to the court about its progress.

“Those steps must be taken,” she said. “This is an actual order with teeth.”

Still, any fixes will be too late for many families, including the students involved in the original lawsuit who have since aged out of the public school system.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Yoav Gonen is a reporter for THE CITY. Contact Yoav at ygonen@thecity.nyc.

NYC disbands literacy coaches amid reading curriculum overhaul

2023-07-13T15:25:15+00:00

Hundreds of literacy coaches hired under a program to help improve literacy instruction need to find new roles, even as many elementary schools are working to adopt new reading programs.

The literacy coaches, originally part of the city’s Universal Literacy Program, must apply for other jobs, according to education department officials familiar with the city’s efforts and emails sent to coaches and school leaders obtained by Chalkbeat.

The move represents a shift in the way educators who teach reading are trained and supported at a key moment. Education officials are mandating that all elementary schools use one of three reading curriculums, beginning with 15 of the city’s 32 districts this September, with the rest to follow in 2024-25. In the past, school leaders had wide leeway to pick their own programs, with many choosing materials that city officials now say are inadequate.

To help get teachers up to speed on new curriculums, the city plans to use the three publishing companies to provide initial training and then create partnerships with outside professional learning organizations, officials said.

The city’s new literacy approach scraps the remaining elements of the Universal Literacy program, launched by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2016 to ensure that all third graders were reading proficiently by 2026. About half of third graders are meeting that benchmark, according to the most recent state tests. At its peak, the program sent about 500 literacy coaches to work with teachers in more than 600 schools, largely focusing on grades K-2.

Mayor Eric Adams has chipped away at the program, cutting the number of coaches this past school year to about 200 for grades K-5, with an estimated 60 coaches for middle and high schools. A separate Bloomberg-era program known as the Middle School Quality Initiative, which supported literacy efforts, is also coming to an end, two eduction department sources said.

Publishers of the three mandated curriculums have already begun training educators, said Nicole Brownstein, an education department spokesperson. The training includes various instructional routines and planning for their first unit.

During the school year, districts will be paired with an “external professional learning partner” to provide “shoulder-to-shoulder” training to educators, including monthly coaching, Brownstein said. Officials estimate the first phase of training will cost about $30-35 million for the initial group of schools.

The city had previously budgeted nearly $69 million annually over the next three years for the Universal Literacy Program, according to the Independent Budget Office.

“It’s been an expensive proposition to have centralized coaches,” said an education department official familiar with the city’s literacy efforts, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But it’s bad timing.”

‘They won’t be there now’

Some observers contend that the impact of the Universal Literacy program has been modest and a reset could be beneficial, giving the city a chance to deploy a new suite of training options that are more consistent for teachers. But others said the coaches, who already have relationships with educators, are a valuable resource as schools work to navigate a new set of curriculum materials.

“They could have been the folks on the ground supporting the [new curriculum mandate],” the education department employee said. “They won’t be there now.”

The official expressed concern that schools will have less coaching support overall, including significantly fewer days of on-site support, even if the new training efforts are high-quality. They believe that ending the program could be an effort to cut costs.

Brownstein did not dispute that cost was a factor but also did not offer a detailed explanation of why the coaching program is ending. She emphasized that the coaches could apply for other roles that will support the city’s new reading curriculum mandate.

According to job descriptions sent to coaches, some of the new roles they’re encouraged to apply for involve helping struggling readers directly, rather than focusing on training other teachers. Another recommended job involves supporting superintendents’ offices, a role that department sources said would likely involve working with a much wider group of schools than the coaches currently support.

“This group is being offered roles in making the implementation of NYC Reads a success,” Brownstein said in a statement, referring to the curriculum mandate. “Ensuring every student grows as a strong and confident reader is priority one for this administration.”

Coaching program’s impact is mixed

Brian Blough, who served as principal of P.S. 161 in the Bronx, said his experience with the coaching program was uneven, but the program grew on him. The first coach he worked with didn’t seem to have much direction or training, making it difficult to deploy the coach effectively. But after the school received two new coaches last year, Blough found the program more useful.

“The coaches we got this year were effective and came with a real depth of knowledge about what they’re doing,” said Blough, who left P.S. 161 and will lead a charter school this fall. The coaches helped P.S. 161 teachers implement and interpret reading assessments and deploy a new program for phonics, which teaches the relationships between sounds and letters. On other campuses, coaches helped teachers learn to implement new curriculums and reading strategies.

Blough said he is disappointed that P.S. 161 won’t have access to coaches going forward. “They had purpose and direction in making the teachers successful. It’s unfortunate that now they’re trying to pull them.”

The city’s own evaluations of the program showed modest evidence of success. A 2022 progress report obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request described the program’s impact as promising, according to assessment data, but also concluded that “the initiative had not yet achieved impact at scale before the onset of the pandemic.”

Most principals believed the coaches were helping their schools improve reading instruction, according to education department surveys, though some also said there were disconnects between what their schools needed and what the coaches could offer.

Susan Neuman, an early literacy expert at New York University and member of the education department’s advisory council, said little information has been shared with the council about how the city plans to train teachers on the new reading curriculums, making it difficult to assess whether those efforts will be more effective than the coaching program.

Still, Neuman said it could make sense to “start anew and bring in people who might all have the same basic training. I think that’s not a bad idea.”

But she emphasized that effective training requires building trust, something that coaches said they worked hard to build.

“If you don’t like that coach you’re going to resist what that coach might suggest,” she said. “These new people need to know that relationships really matter.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s rising graduation rates bucked national trends. A little-known grading policy may hold clues.

2023-07-10T10:00:00+00:00

When high school teacher Rachel King welcomed a new cohort of 10th graders to her classroom in the fall of 2021, she made a discovery: a number of her students had never completed their coursework from the previous year.

At the time, the 36-year-old taught English at The Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in downtown Brooklyn. It was her 13th year teaching and her third at the all-girls middle and high school, which serves predominantly Black and Latino children from low-income households.

When schools first shifted to remote learning in March 2020, it quickly became clear that students were struggling to log on to their classes and complete assignments. Thousands lacked access to devices, WiFi, or a quiet place to work. As worry spread that many could get left behind, education department officials announced new academic guidelines. Attendance and testing requirements would be waived for the remainder of the year. No student would fail a course.

If a high schooler was not on track to pass a course by the end of a marking period, they would receive a grade of “NX”— equivalent to a “course in progress”— on their transcripts rather than an “F.” The NX would serve as a placeholder, giving them additional time to make up missing assignments and demonstrate mastery of the course material. In the meantime, they would progress to the next semester or grade. Once they completed missing work, their NX would be retroactively converted into a passing grade.

The education department promised that this would provide greater flexibility and extend empathy to students who were struggling in the face of a major public health crisis.

Reflecting back on the policy, many educators worry it misleadingly inflated graduation rates and left some kids academically unprepared. Many teachers felt their hands were tied and that the system — which they were a part of — failed to support the most vulnerable students.

King initially felt torn about the policy. She wanted to give her students every possible chance to succeed. But she was nervous it would give students a reason not to turn in their work.

In June of 2020, almost 30% of all New York City high schoolers had received an NX in at least one class, according to previously unreported Department of Education data obtained by Chalkbeat and the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism. With the city’s problematic rollout of its remote summer school program — where a large swath of students never logged on at all — only 3.6% of NXs were converted into passing grades citywide.

According to King, though, her school had successfully supported students through the summer. So that first year most— if not all—of her students were able to clear their NXs.

But as the policy was extended through June of 2021, what was supposed to be a temporary fix eventually became a problematic fixture.

So in the fall of 2021, King and many other teachers greeted thousands of students who had yet to pass their previous year’s classes.

By the end of that school year, at least 95,000 high schoolers across the city – just over 33% – had received at least one NX, according to data received through a Freedom of Information Act request. Disproportionately these were students of color, students in temporary housing, and students with disabilities. About 40% of all Black and Latino high schoolers received at least one incomplete, a rate about twice as high as white students. And almost half of all students with disabilities did not pass at least one class.

Of roughly two dozen teachers across 17 schools in all five boroughs surveyed by Chalkbeat/Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, the majority said that the work required to convert NXs into passing credits was often minimal and low in rigor. Support from the education department never came, many educators said.

Ultimately, many of the city’s most vulnerable students were pushed through to the next grade level with few supports, no direct instruction, and little work completed, according to the teachers who were surveyed.

A number of teachers said the NX policy preserved the perception that students were doing okay academically. For instance, while graduation rates across the country generally stagnated between 2019 and 2021, New York City’s improved by six points. For students with disabilities, the rate jumped even more: just over nine points.

Yet, as New York City’s graduation rates climbed, so too did the rate of chronic absenteeism. In the 2020-21 school year, nearly 33% of students missed 10% or more school days. Typically, chronic absenteeism is a predictor of poor academic performance since missed school means missed learning time.

Nathaniel Styer, education department spokesperson, said that students still had to meet state graduation requirements. “The NX grades had nothing to do with graduation rates,” he said.

But changes to those requirements gave the NX policy more power.

Pre-pandemic, high school students in New York State had to pass four required exams and accumulate 22 units of academic credit to receive a Regents diploma. During the pandemic, these statewide requirements were loosened with the temporary lifting of Regents testing. Instead, students just needed a passing grade in the course that would have culminated in a Regents. With the NX policy, New York City made it easier to accumulate credits and graduate. While graduation rates across the state climbed, the city’s did so at a faster rate.

“They lowered an already low bar,” said David Bloomfield, an education professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Bloomfield acknowledged that students needed flexibility during a time when families’ lives were in upheaval. But he said the city’s actions were tantamount to “turning its back on all of these students and saying ‘We’ve got too much to handle during this pandemic. We’re just going to put our heads down on the desk and wave our arms forward for you to just get through.’”

Teachers felt pressure to keep passing rates up

The NX, or “course in progress,” policy was not new, even though few teachers had ever heard of it. It was intended to be for a small population of students experiencing an acute crisis, such as a health emergency. The education department expanded its use to unprecedented levels during the pandemic.

Suddenly, many teachers were responsible not only for their new course loads, but also for all of the students who had not passed the previous year. Students, too, were responsible for their current course loads while also trying to make up past work.

Education department officials had pledged to provide schools with the resources necessary to support students through this unprecedented time, such as staffing and devices. Of the 25 teachers surveyed, only three were aware of support provided to their school regarding implementation of the NX policy, other than electronics.

Officials did not respond to questions regarding what support the education department had provided to schools. They did not answer questions about what was required of students to recover these credits.

The majority of teachers surveyed said their students only had to complete independent work, such as packets or brief online assignments, in order to pass. A few teachers said they did not know what work was assigned to their students who did not pass courses; once they assigned the NX they never received updates about their students’ progress.

Over half of the respondents reported that the students who received NXs did not receive direct instruction from a teacher or complete meaningful work in order to receive their credits.

It appears that once a student with an NX completed the work necessary to pass the course, any record of that NX was cleared from the transcript, making it difficult for future teachers or professors to know which students might need additional support.

Some teachers described tacit pressure from school administrators to keep their passing rates up, despite the lack of completed work. One Brooklyn science teacher alleged that his principal explicitly told staff to pass all middle schoolers outright, discouraging them from giving out NXs in the first place, even if the students had never attended class.

A number of teachers also reported that, while they did not like the policy outcomes, they were not sure what other options existed for the city. One administrator said that the city provided him with policy updates, superintendent check-ins, and support with use of resources that students and teachers could use to make up work. His school relied largely on an online learning platform to recover credits.

A Staten Island history teacher reported that her department was asked to create a packet of work for all high school students with NXs. Once these packets were distributed, she never saw them again. Students were asked, instead, to give them to the school administrators. They then graded the students’ work, rather than returning it to the teachers. Administrators either instructed teachers to change the NXs to a passing grade or went into grade books and did so themselves.

Many teachers acknowledged lowering their own expectations, feeling like they had no other choice given the circumstances. More than 8,700 New York City children lost a parent or caregiver to the coronavirus, according to the COVID Collective.

A high school history teacher in Queens said that when she gave her students NX grades they returned to her for an additional class the next year. But the coursework this time, she said, was “a joke.” Because the course asked for no student-teacher engagement, she said she never even met some of her students.

“They didn’t come to class. I could bump into them on the street. Unless you told me their name I wouldn’t know them,” she said.

Despite her discomfort with the policy, she said it did work for some students who really struggled. The “course in progress” work allowed the students to move on and gave them a chance to finish high school, even if the work was not comparable to a real course.

Will Ehrenfeld, a high school history teacher at P-Tech, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, serving predominantly students from low-income backgrounds, said that by the spring of 2021, in a class of 30, only two or three students typically attended live Zoom sessions.

More than a quarter of his students received an NX, he said. Ehrenfeld put a lot of pressure on himself to help kids pass to the next grade level. He wanted them to get the chance to move forward with their lives.

“I don’t want to hold kids back,” Ehrenfeld said, “but I do think it’s worth learning history and learning how to write… A lot of our kids went off to college and really struggled.”

P-Tech teacher Will Ehrenfeld (left) talks with Devin Ballesteros (right), a student at the Brooklyn high school.

Even with the flexibility of the NX policy, more than 1 in 5 high school students did not reconcile their NXs from June 2021 to passing marks.

When asked about what happened to these 61,000 students who failed to convert their NX into a passing grade, an education department spokesperson said, “They might have just taken the ‘F’ and moved forward.” (Not all courses are required for graduation.)

King, the teacher at the Institute of Math and Science, became increasingly frustrated as the year wore on, and she watched the requirements for her students continue to plummet. The city’s expectations fell first, then her school’s, and finally her own, she said.

King said at one point she was told by her school’s administration to use students’ grades on a single assignment as their grade for the entire year. Students quickly caught on. “They knew if they just turned something in, they would pass.” King had six students who never showed up and never completed make-up work. They still passed, she said.

For the first time in her 13-year career, she began toying with the idea of leaving. “I can say this isn’t good for kids one thousand times and nobody is going to care,” she said.

Some students benefited from grading policy, others struggled

Kenneth Johnson, a high school senior at P-Tech, was a strong student before schools were shuttered in the spring of 2020.

He successfully balanced his course load and his love for track and football. His favorite class was math. After the transition to remote learning, he struggled to keep up. He finished out the year with multiple NXs.

Kenneth Johnson.

In the fall of 2020, Johnson moved to New Jersey to live with his father and play football at the local high school. Because the NX policy did not exist there, he was unable to recover his missing credits. After moving back, he returned to P-Tech. “That’s where the NX portion came in,” he said. “It really helped me to get back on track.”

He said the work he completed was not equivalent to an entire year’s worth of course material, but it was still challenging. “You had to be on point with it, still like a regular class,” he said. “It was a cool concept. Allowing the kids who didn’t take the remote [learning] as seriously as they should have to redeem themself.”

Earlier this year, Johnson enlisted in the Army. Because of test scores, he qualified for a math-based job, and was able to move up a rank.

For other students, though, it was more detrimental.

TJ Kor had a number of NXs by fall of 2020 when he was a sophomore at William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens. While the make-up work was not rigorous, it required his attention on the weekends and after school. He became overwhelmed.

Kor was so behind from all of the missed instruction, he would benefit from repeating the entire grade, his mother argued. The school disagreed, which frustrated his mother, Helen Kor. She wondered, does an NX really satisfy the needs of students? The school told her that when students are forced to repeat grades they suffer, she said. Some studies support that idea.

Kor’s mother eventually transferred him to an independent school for his junior year. “He recognizes he’s not alone. There’s lots of people who are trying to make up the credits they lost during the pandemic.”

For one teacher, the final straw

From the start, the 2021-22 school year was atypical for King. One of her normal teaching duties had been replaced with a course exclusively for students who had received an NX the previous spring. She was on the books as their teacher of record, but she had never met a number of them. “I didn’t know what they looked like, what they sounded like, had not seen any work from them. Nothing. The NXs were truly the ones who were like, I forgot this person was on my roll.”

King struggled to get her students to show up for the first period make-up course. She created assignments, such as paragraphs analyzing TedTalks, that students could do independently. She sent them end-of-unit projects from the year before and asked them to at least complete those. Some did, others did not. As time went on, the tacit pressure to pass them mounted.

Her regular classes felt more challenging too. “I had 10th graders who could not, in an entire hour, produce four to six sentences.”

Then, one morning while biking to school, King was hit by a car. For the many days she could not be in school because of her injuries, another teacher covered her NX course. Her students continued to miss the class. As time went on, she felt that if she did not pass them, the next teacher would. The entire operation was built to fail, she said.

By winter break, King thought, “I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this.” And that, she said, was when she cleared her NXs and passed all of her students. The move felt unethical, but she was defeated and unsure of what other option she had.

Looking back, King felt empathy for the decision makers, for the city, for those who were making policy choices throughout the pandemic. She recognized what a difficult time this was, filled with confusion and uncertainty. But, it also exposed the deeper systemic fissures that had gone unchecked for so many years. For her, it was the final straw.

By March 2022, she had quit.

Amanda Geduld reported this story as a Stabile Investigative Fellow while at Columbia’s Journalism School. She was previously an English teacher in New York City.

NYC’s budget deal restores some education programs

2023-06-30T19:16:58+00:00

This story has been updated to reflect new information.

A tentative New York City budget agreement announced Thursday restores funding to a handful of initiatives that Mayor Eric Adams initially nixed, including one focused on student mental health and another that provides child care subsidies to undocumented families.

The final agreement, which is being voted on Friday, holds the education department’s budget roughly steady at $31.5 billion. That’s a significant shift from the mayor’s April budget proposal, which called for a $30.6 billion budget for the city’s schools, nearly a $1 billion cut.

Officials said the final budget reflects several sources of funding that were not accounted for in the mayor’s April proposal, including $416 million in additional money from the state and $246 million in federal stimulus money that was initially set to be spent in a subsequent year. The budget deal also added $275 million for holding initial school budgets steady even if their enrollment drops and to pay for a slew of other “new needs.”

City officials did not immediately provide a full explanation of what the funding shifts will cover and official budget documents were not yet available.

Still, officials touted a number of programs that were spared from the chopping block. After an unusually chilly “handshake” agreement Thursday, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams expressed frustration that negotiations centered on saving various initiatives.

“The council’s focus this year was to restore cuts to essential services,” she said, calling the mayor’s approach counterproductive and the result bittersweet.

The mayor downplayed the tension, saying negotiations are often contentious and the resulting budget is a “win for working-class New Yorkers.” The city’s overall spending has grown in recent years, with the latest agreement reaching about $107 billion.

Negotiators agreed to maintain funding to a few education-related programs, including one that connects students to mental health support and another that subsidizes child care for undocumented families. City officials credited higher-than-expected revenue, but cautioned that they believe tax growth may slow in the coming years.

The City Council must pass the budget by Saturday, the first day of the new fiscal year.

Here’s what to know:

Still unclear how individual school budgets will be affected

Although the education department’s overall budget is dipping, city officials pledged to keep individual school budgets steady — at least at first. Typically, funding depends on campus enrollment, which has been declining systemwide. But in recent years city officials have plugged school budget holes with federal funding.

Still, some schools’ budgets may shrink or grow, as the city takes back or adds money to campuses in the middle of the school year if their actual enrollment differs from projections. City officials have not made midyear cuts since the onset of the pandemic but have declined to say what they will do in the upcoming school year.

In response to a question Thursday, Mayor Adams said there is “no desire” to surprise school communities with midyear cuts but added, “there’s no guarantees in life.”

That uncertainty may lead some school leaders to tighten their belts if they anticipate anemic enrollment. Overall, the city is projecting a relatively small enrollment drop of 0.6%, suggesting deep cuts are unlikely on most campuses.

Funding restored to child care for undocumented families

The budget will include $16 million for Promise NYC, which covers up to $700 a week in child care for hundreds of low-income undocumented immigrant families. Adams had proposed cutting Promise NYC despite touting it in December when it launched.

The program used $10 million in six months to fully cover child care for about 600 children. Hundreds of more families are on waitlists, according to organizations running the program. Some newly arrived mothers told Chalkbeat that Promise NYC has allowed them to work and pursue education.

The $16 million included in the budget deal falls $4 million short of what immigration advocates and elected officials had sought. But it’s expected to continue covering the 600 children currently enrolled, city officials said.

Mental health support program saved at last moment

The budget includes $5 million for partnerships between schools and mental health clinics, creating a streamlined process for referring students to counseling. The money was initially left out of the mayor’s budget proposal.

The program, known as the Mental Health Continuum, includes just 50 schools. But amid growing concern about a slide in student mental health, advocates had pressed to save it and pointed out that the mayor’s own mental health plan highlighted the initiative.

The Mental Health Continuum is also meant to reduce 911 calls from school staff by training them to address students experiencing emotional crises. Those calls disproportionately affect Black students, and can result in handcuffing or unwarranted trips to the emergency room for psychiatric evaluation.

City to pilot extended hours for pre-kindergarten

The budget will include $15 million to change 1,800 to 1,900 seats for 3-year-olds so that they offer extended hours.

Many working parents need child care beyond 3 p.m. A survey by the Citizens’ Committee for Children, found one-third of more than 1,000 respondents said they were looking for child care from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. However, there were 11,000 unfilled pre-K seats that had longer hours year-round, education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer told Chalkbeat in May.

The pilot program will also extend beyond the school year, according to Speaker Adams’ office.

Caregivers “need preschool programs that align with their work days,” Mayor Adams said.

No plans to expand pre-K for 3-year-olds

The final budget reflects the mayor’s decision to halt a two-year $568 million expansion of preschool seats for 3-year-olds, instead opting to move seats to places with more demand, city officials confirmed.

Education officials have pointed to vacant seats: nearly 23,500 3-K seats are so far unfilled for next school year, according to department figures. The mayor’s decision has drawn backlash from City Council members and advocates, who say the city is not effectively recruiting families or funding early childhood education programs.

Questions remain about the mayor’s savings plan

As broad reductions to city agencies, the mayor required the education department to find hundreds of millions in cuts. It found $305 million, one of the largest savings, by recalculating spending on fringe benefits, such as health insurance for teachers. City officials have said those cuts would not reduce benefits to educators but reflected lower-than-expected growth in those costs.

But advocates worry that the city had already been using those savings to pay for other things, such as transportation, special education services, and charter school costs.

“We are concerned about where the DOE will find funding to pay for these expenses in the coming year and the impact on other programs and services that students need,” Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children, wrote in an email.

City officials did not say whether other programs will face cuts.

Looking ahead: Concerns loom as federal dollars dry up

Future budget cycles are likely to be even more contentious, as federal relief funding dries up and city officials have to make difficult decisions about whether and how to continue programs that depend on those dollars.

Perhaps the most contentious decision will be whether to slash school budgets on campuses that have seen enrollment plunge but have been kept steady by temporary relief money. Mayor Adams had previously argued that school budgets need to be incrementally reduced to be brought in line with their current enrollment, but after instituting one round of cuts he faced intense criticism and has since backed away from making further reductions — for now.

The federal money supports a slew of other efforts including hiring more social workers and psychologists; expanding summer school programs; adding preschool seats for students with disabilities, a chronic shortage area; and increasing the number of schools that host wraparound services such as food pantries and health clinics. It’s not certain how these programs will be funded after this year.

Correction (Friday, June 30): A previous version of this story said the education department’s budget would likely decline by roughly $1 billion, a cut that was included in the mayor’s budget proposal in April. A City Hall spokesperson initially indicated that there were no major changes in the final budget deal. But after this story was published, officials said the final budget includes several funding streams that were not initially accounted for in the mayor’s earlier proposal, meaning the overall education budget will hold steady rather than face a cut. The headline has also been changed to reflect that.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering NYC public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Salary disparity: Teachers, directors in NYC’s free pre-K program push for more money

2023-06-28T21:23:17+00:00

In her own words, Joanne Derwin was “not a runner.”

Then last year, as Derwin embarked on her annual quest to raise money for the preschool she oversees in Brooklyn’s Windsor Terrace neighborhood, a parent persuaded her to train for the Brooklyn Half Marathon with a large group. Since then, they’ve used the race to raise tens of thousands of dollars that are crucial, in part, for covering teacher salaries.

Derwin’s center is one of hundreds that contract with New York City for its free prekindergarten programs, expected to serve roughly 63,000 3- and 4-year-olds this fall. But these centers — which have offered seats to about 60% of the children in the city’s program — have faced a long-standing issue that is gaining renewed attention: Their city funding covers the salaries for their veteran teachers at the same rate as new teachers in city-run public schools. That makes it tough to retain staff, providers say, unless directors like Derwin find a way to close the salary gap.

“We literally have to run the Brooklyn Half Marathon to be able to have our program,” Derwin said.

Boosting wages for teachers, directors and other support staff will be a central sticking point in upcoming contract negotiations between the city and unions who represent community-based preschool staffers, with the hope that the city extends benefits to non-unionized staffers, too.

On the campaign trail, Mayor Eric Adams said he wanted to pay these teachers for their years of experience, and he promised a path to salary parity within two years of his first term.

“It’s almost humiliating what we are paying these professionals,” he said at the time.

Whether he follows through on those promises remains uncertain. Spokespeople for City Hall referred Chalkbeat to the city’s labor relations office, which did not immediately respond for comment.

The brewing battle comes four years after the city boosted teacher pay in community-based programs to match their public-school counterparts, eventually including non-unionized employees, in what was heralded as a huge achievement. Pay grew to $61,070 by 2021 for teachers with bachelor’s degrees and $68,652 for those with master’s degrees, with a one-time 2.75% raise for other staff.

That agreement, however, didn’t pay teachers according to their years of experience, nor did it address salary parity for directors or other support staff, such as assistant teachers or custodians — all issues that unions and providers plan to advocate for.

The negotiations will happen against the backdrop of a chaotic year for the city’s early childhood education system, including late payments to providers and a controversial decision by Adams to not expand preschool seats for 3-year-olds. The City Council has called for $46 million to address pay parity issues. It’s unclear if that will meet the unions’ demands, as the Day Care Council said it does not yet have cost estimates.

Preschool workers eye contract set by teachers union

Wage increases could make the difference between keeping workers or losing them in an industry that’s already burned out from the pandemic, said Nora Moran, director of policy and advocacy at United Neighborhood Houses, which represents many providers.

Community-based preschool programs, like many industries, have faced hiring shortages since COVID, leaving them scrambling to find staff, Moran said. Programs are not just struggling to hold onto teachers; directors are also leaving. Many of these employees work longer hours and throughout the summer.

Acknowledging a need for better pay, Gov. Kathy Hochul recently announced up to $3,000 in retention bonuses for 150,000 childcare workers, with unused federal stimulus dollars.

Without better pay, Moran said providers will be in a “dire situation,” ultimately impacting families who need preschool but can’t afford private programs.

“That sounds dramatic, but it’s true,” Moran said. “The compensation has become such a sticking point for folks.”

DC 37, which represents 7,900 early childhood workers, and the Day Care Council, which represents providers, are expected to begin negotiations with the city once their contract expires this fall. DC 37 also represents workers at federally funded Head Start programs, whose contract expired last January.

Separately, the city’s Council for Supervisors and Administrators, or CSA, is expected to restart their push to raise salaries for the 180 community-based preschool directors they represent. Pressure will likely mount in July, when the union begins court proceedings in a lawsuit that alleges the city is discriminating against community-based preschool directors, who are largely women of color, by not paying them at the same rate as directors of city-run sites.

Unions will be looking to the tentative contract deal reached between the city and the United Federation of Teachers, or UFT, which represents educators and other workers inside of public schools. Under that tentative agreement, starting salaries for new teachers with bachelor’s degrees will jump from $61,070 to $72,349 by November 2027.

Pay gap angers teachers and other support staff

Veteran teachers in New York City’s community-run preschool programs can make 53% of their counterparts with similar years of service in public schools, according to the Day Care Council.

To close such gaps, Derwin’s school, called One World Project, relies on multiple fundraising events, as well as income from their other programs that charge tuition, such as after school.

Derwin said she’s proud to pay her teaching staff as well as teachers who are covered by the teachers union. But that also means her teachers must receive raises annually as they gain more experience and with new contracts, leaving Derwin to close a larger gap every year without any additional help from the city.

“Every year, it’s a more precarious situation for us,” Derwin said.

About 10 miles east at the Howard Beach Judea Center Preschool in Queens, site director Lisa Pearlman-Mason said they struggle annually with enrollment, leading to tight budgets. Their two teachers each make just under $69,000 annually, or the same as a first-year teacher in public schools, as required by the 2019 agreement, even though one has about 15 years of experience and the other about 10.

They host an annual fundraiser, but the proceeds aren’t enough to cover salary bumps. (Last year, they used the money to buy an outdoor toy for their playground.)

Their teaching assistants make roughly $25,000 a year. The starting salary for the comparable title of a paraprofessional will be $34,257 by 2027, according to the tentative teachers union agreement.

“I don’t get to keep them for more than a couple of years because they realize what’s going on and they leave,” Pearlman-Mason said.

Salary disparity for directors pushes them out

Separate from teachers, the CSA is hoping to see pay boosted for about 180 directors of community-run preschools over a three-year period, for a total cost of $16.7 million, according to union officials.

Pre-K directors with master’s degrees at city-run programs make at least $133,375 with one year of experience, according to CSA. Under the expired contract for directors at private programs that are publicly funded, however, the city is only required to pay $63,287 to directors with master’s degrees.

Henry Rubio, the CSA’s president, said directors will sometimes take other jobs to make ends meet, or their centers might raise money to pay staff more. Still, the union sees directors leave their jobs “on a weekly basis” for better paying positions, including within the education department.

The union’s plea for raises traces back to at least 2019. At the time, when New York City agreed to boost teacher pay under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, officials promised to negotiate a similar “path to parity” for preschool directors, Rubio said. But since then, he said, the city has declined to do so.

Negotiations over a new contract stalled in 2021. That December, CSA filed its discrimination lawsuit, which states that community-run programs are overseen by directors who are 92% women of color, compared with the 31% at city-run sites who are Black or Latino.

“I think this is an opportunity for the mayor to really right a stark wrong here,” Rubio said. “For Black and brown women who have been dedicating their lives to the city, I think it’s an opportune time for both the City Council and the mayor to make a statement about his values.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Mayor Adams touts deep breathing as advocates press to restore school counseling program

2023-06-27T20:11:55+00:00

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As students face severe mental health challenges in the wake of the pandemic, New York City officials touted a new effort on Tuesday to help students regulate themselves: two to five minutes of breathing exercises every day beginning next school year.

But the last-day-of-school announcement left some advocates scratching their heads, arguing the mayor has neglected some other elements of his own broader mental health plan and has offered few details about others.

City officials previously floated the breathing exercises in January and Mayor Eric Adams framed them as just one piece of “low-hanging fruit” in a larger mental health push. “It is going to give them a tool that they can use for the rest of their lives,” the mayor said on Tuesday at P.S. 5 in Brooklyn, before participating in a student-led breathing exercise.

Student mental health concerns have grown since the coronavirus pandemic upended nearly all aspects of students’ lives. Many children lost access to the social circles and sense of community that schools offer. Thousands experienced the deaths of loved ones. A growing number of students have struggled to make it to school at all, leading to a spike in chronic absenteeism. And some educators have seen a rise in behavioral issues, including getting high during the school day.

But as the city heads into the summer it has yet to reveal much about a major effort to connect high school students to teletherapy, despite announcing it six months ago. And the mayor’s budget does not include funding for a $5 million program that establishes partnerships between schools and mental health clinics and offers a streamlined process for referring students to counseling.

Adams touted the program, known as the Mental Health Continuum, in his own mental health blueprint. But it is now the subject of a battle with the City Council, whose leaders have pledged to fight to restore the money in the city budget due this month.

“Five million will evaporate at the end of this week if the city doesn’t restore it in the final budget,” said Dawn Yuster, director of the School Justice Project at Advocates for Children. “They have already hired clinicians,” she added. “To rip them away from students and schools would be really devastating.”

Though the Mental Health Continuum has started small with about 50 schools in Brooklyn and the Bronx, advocates say the approach is promising. Participating schools receive training to help staff calm students who are in crisis and connect them to mobile crisis teams and mental health clinics, a partnership between the health and education departments as well as the city’s public hospital system.

One goal is to reduce schools’ reliance on dialing 911 when students are struggling to regulate their emotions, a practice that can be traumatic and counterproductive.

Under a legal settlement, schools are only supposed to use 911 as a last resort when students are in imminent danger, though a recent investigation by ProPublica and THE CITY found schools continue to call safety agents and police thousands of times a year to deal with students in distress, often tangling students up with law enforcement and needless emergency room visits. Those incidents disproportionately involve Black students, who are also more likely to be handcuffed.

Nelson Mar, an attorney at Bronx Legal Services who supports the Mental Health Continuum, said it has previously been subject to budget uncertainty and hopes the money is ultimately restored.

“The Mental Health Continuum has been funded largely by City Council putting it back in the budget in the last two years,” he said, adding he was puzzled by the omission from the mayor’s budget.

A City Hall spokesperson said the mental health program has been funded one year at a time but didn’t say if the city plans to restore it.

Mar and others said deep-breathing exercises could be a useful part of the city’s approach to student well-being. And some educators previously told Chalkbeat they can help students regulate their mood, decrease anxiety, and help them feel ready to learn — though experts said there is little evidence about how the routines affect student achievement.

But more broadly, Mar said, “we need a more systematic approach toward improving emotional health, behavioral health, and mental health within the school setting. It is going to take more than just deep-breathing exercises.”

Some advocates are also still waiting for more details about the mayor’s plan to connect high schools students to teletherapy services, something Adams described in January as “the biggest student mental health program in the country.”

Schools Chancellor David Banks said on Tuesday that high school students will have access to an app that allows them to “be in touch with mental health counselors in real time from their phones.” But city officials have not said how the platform will work, what type of mental health services will be available, who will be eligible, and how it will be monitored.

Dr. Elisa English, the chief program officer at Counseling in Schools, said she is eager for more information about what those services will look like, including how frequently students will have access to counselors.

“How that will roll out — it remains to be seen,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

45,000 NYC students among the victims of MOVEit global data breach, DOE officials say

2023-06-23T23:00:08+00:00

Tens of thousands of New York City students were among the millions of victims who have had their personal information compromised through the recent MOVEit data breach, education officials said Friday.

A security vulnerability in the file-sharing software MOVEit — widely used by private companies and governments to safely transfer documents and data — has wreaked havoc in recent weeks as hackers accessed sensitive information across the globe.

Officials estimated roughly 45,000 students, as well as education department staff and service providers, were impacted by the data breach. For those affected, that could mean social security numbers, OSIS numbers, dates of birth, and employee IDs were stolen.

Roughly 19,000 documents were also accessed without authorization, including student evaluations and related services progress reports, Medicaid reports for students receiving services, as well as internal records related to DOE employees’ leave status.

City officials said they would notify individuals whose data was compromised “this summer,” though they did not specify a date. The kind of data impacted could vary from person to person, officials said. Those affected will be offered access to an identity monitoring service, which helps people track if their information is being used illicitly.

The department patched the software within hours of learning about the vulnerability and is working with local and federal law enforcement agencies to investigate the breach, officials said.

“Working with NYC Cyber Command, we immediately took steps to remediate, and an internal investigation revealed that certain DOE files were affected,” said Nathaniel Styer, an education department spokesperson, in an emailed statement. “Currently, we have no reason to believe there is any ongoing unauthorized access to DOE systems. We will provide impacted members of the DOE community with more information as soon as we are able.”

Nationally, the data breach has affected millions — as financial institutions and government agencies were impacted by the sweeping cyberattack.

It’s not the first time New York City students have been subject to a cyberattack. Roughly 820,000 current and former students had their information compromised last year after a security breach of a company used by schools for tracking attendance and grading.

In the aftermath, experts told Chalkbeat that families should change passwords associated with their child’s school accounts, monitor their credit, and watch out for scam calls and emails.

City officials said the DOE has not been subject to any threat or ransom, and none of its information has been published.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

New York wants to revamp how schools are evaluated. Here’s what could change for now.

2023-06-22T16:45:25+00:00

How does the state determine whether schools are doing well or if they are struggling and need extra support?

Before the pandemic, state officials relied on standardized tests and high school Regents exams to figure out how well students were doing, along with other factors, such as graduation rates. But the public health crisis paused state testing and affected school performance metrics in other ways.

Now, education department officials are seeking a new, temporary evaluation system for the next two school years, with the hopes of creating something more permanent for the 2025-26 school year.

If a school is found to be struggling, it is required to develop an improvement plan that must be approved by local and state officials. Schools that don’t make progress for five years could face state takeover or closure — but it’s a route that state officials rarely took even before developing the current accountability system, which is meant to be less punitive for schools.

In the short term, over the next two years, state officials want to exclude certain science and social studies exams, as well as measures for student growth and college and career readiness, when deciding which schools need improvement. These changes are necessary, officials say, because schools are still missing a trove of data, such as enough student participation in state tests, because of the pandemic.

Already, the conversation is sparking some controversy. Some groups focused on education reform believe the move represents a step backward just as schools need more help as they recover from the pandemic. Other observers believe the state’s proposed plan is reasonable.

Ultimately, the federal government must sign off on these proposed changes, since the state’s accountability system is required by federal law and is written into New York’s federally required Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, plan.

“They’re doing a decent job of balancing what’s of interest in the state and the federal ESSA requirements, and incorporating all the instability and uncertainty that came with the slowdown of testing during the pandemic,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Teachers College and an expert in testing.

But Education-Trust New York, an advocacy organization focused on equity issues, worried that several of the proposed changes could mean masking “bright spots and disparities,” according to their written public feedback to the state.

“I think these next two school years are incredibly important for kids coming out of the pandemic,” said Jeff Smink, the group’s deputy director, in an interview with Chalkbeat. “We have to both give them all the support they need but also hold them to high standards, and I just don’t feel like we’re doing that right now.”

What metrics would still be used?

Under the state’s proposal, schools will still be measured on English language proficiency (based on a state language exam for English learners), graduation rates, how well students are doing in core subjects based on Regents and state test scores, and chronic absenteeism. In New York City, chronic absenteeism has been a pressing issue, with 41% of students last school year absent for at least 10 school days.

What do state officials want to ditch (for now)?

The state wants to put a pause on measuring academic progress based on certain goals for student scores on state English and math tests.

State officials say they want to update these goals — first set in the 2017-18 school year — before they use them to determine whether schools are struggling.

The state’s proposed plan would also pause the use of “Measures of Interim Progress,” which more broadly measures whether schools are meeting goals for academics and other things, like their graduation rates.

For elementary and middle schools, officials want to pause how they’ve been measuring student growth, largely because of the lack of testing data. Typically, they calculated student growth using three years of testing data, but the pandemic caused big disruptions: For example, just one in five New York City children took state exams in the 2020-21 school year, when most children chose to learn from home.

For high schools, officials won’t consider college, career, and civic readiness metrics, which include advanced coursework or extra credentials in specialized jobs-based courses. That’s because the pandemic may have hampered students’ access to some of these programs or courses, officials said. They also worried that the pandemic’s impact on learning may have caused students to perform worse academically than they otherwise would have, such as on AP exams.

What will the state do with data, even if it’s not being used to evaluate schools?

State officials still plan to provide all of this data to schools for “informational purposes only” for the next two school years, they said.

Why do state officials want to exclude elementary school science exams and high school social studies assessments?

Science tests would be excluded because the state has changed who must take those exams. Traditionally, students in fourth and eighth grades take the state science test. However, only eighth graders took the test this school year, as the state prepares to offer the exam next year to fifth graders instead of fourth graders. That means they won’t be able to compare results equitably across elementary and middle schools that have different grade configurations.

Fifth graders will take the exam next spring. Asked why those scores won’t be taken into account for the 2024-25 school year, a spokesperson said that it allows districts to have “consistency and predictability” for now, as they attempt to rebuild the accountability system.

While calling it a “logical” move, Ed-Trust argued that excluding science tests “undermines the importance of science education” and worried schools will have less reason to focus on it. The organization suggested that the state should instead work with local districts to “ensure a smooth transition” to the new science assessments without entirely removing it as one way to measure student performance.

On the high school level, officials want to pause using social studies tests because of multiple exam cancellations in recent years. The state looks at cohorts of students, such as the graduating class of 2023, when considering how they performed on these tests, namely the Regents exams for Global History and Geography and U.S. History and Government.

But students who will graduate this year couldn’t take Regents exams in 2021, when they were in 10th grade, because of the pandemic. U.S. History and Government exams were also canceled last year, when these students were juniors, in the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, with the state education department claiming there was material on the exam that could “compound student trauma.”

State officials have emphasized that this plan “in no way diminishes” the importance of science or social studies instruction.

How will schools be labeled if they need support?

The lowest performing schools are known as schools in need of Comprehensive Support and Improvement, or CSI. But the state won’t list new CSI schools until the 2025-26 school year because they identified a group of such schools this year under a tweaked system, and that process only happens every three years, officials said.

A total of 139 New York City schools were identified this year as in need of some level of improvement, with 83% of them listed as CSI schools, according to state data.

However, New York will identify schools for Targeted Support and Intervention, or TSI, next year, which must happen annually per federal law. Those are schools that aren’t meeting goals set for specific student groups, such as by race, economic status, and those with disabilities.

In one recent — and perhaps confusing — change, schools that are meeting or exceeding their goals are no longer called “Schools in Good Standing” and instead are now labeled by the state as schools identified for Local Support and Improvement, or LSI.

What will happen for the 2025-26 school year?

State officials plan to revamp the accountability system for the 2025-26 school year after collecting feedback from the public. The new plan will also incorporate any changes to the state’s graduation requirements, which could come as soon as the end of this year. The education department is rethinking the role of Regents exams in graduation, among other considerations.

Pallas said that the plan for the 2025-26 school year and beyond would still have to meet federal ESSA requirements and earn the buy-in of school district leaders — meaning that it likely won’t be “a dramatic break from the past.”

“It’s gotta be something that feels progressive but also comfortable,” Pallas said.

Thomas Wilburn contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC often segregates students with significant disabilities. This new school aims to change that.

2023-06-20T16:41:26+00:00

Outfitted with paper chef hats, a group of students at Brooklyn’s P.S. 958 were getting ready on a recent afternoon to launch a mock restaurant, wiggling on the classroom carpet in anticipation of their first wave of customers.

The students had been preparing since February, touring their surrounding Sunset Park neighborhood to learn what types of food were most prevalent before settling on a Mexican theme. The 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds also studied different roles within a restaurant — including chef, host, server, and manager — before assuming one of those positions themselves.

It was no traditional end-of-year project for the school, which is wrapping up its inaugural year. As the students scampered to their stations and loaded up plastic trays of popcorn and water, the moment represented a test of the new school’s unusual mission: to serve any student in the surrounding neighborhood — ranging from typically developing children to those with more significant disabilities — and meaningfully integrate them in classrooms and other activities whenever possible.

All of the mock restaurant’s customers, who soon began trickling in, were students with autism from a neighboring classroom whose needs would have otherwise landed them in a separate school for students with more complex disabilities.

All city elementary schools are required to accommodate students with disabilities, but some 26,000 children attend District 75 programs, a citywide network of schools that exclusively serve students with more serious needs. Inconsistent or inadequate special education services have also helped drive thousands of additional families to private schools with tuition financed by the city, which involves a complex legal process that favors those with time and resources.

P.S. 958, however, is trying to keep children who may have higher needs closer to home, something a group of caregivers in Sunset Park have long pushed for. The school’s mission is in line with an effort by schools Chancellor David Banks to expand programs designed to include students with disabilities alongside their typically developing peers, part of a push to keep families from exploring private options.

P.S. 958 is wrapping up its first school year — serving 3- and 4-year-olds in prekindergarten, as well as kindergarten, in its own gleaming new building on Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue. It will gradually expand to fifth grade in the coming years.

About half the school’s students have disabilities, more than double the citywide rate. A majority of the school’s students come from the surrounding neighborhood, and the school prioritizes local applicants in its admissions process, officials said, though some local parents said they hope the city does more to get the word out.

Emily Shapiro, the principal of P.S. 958, spent 20 years working in District 75, starting as a paraprofessional right out of high school. Those schools often provide crucial support that traditional elementary schools don’t offer, she said. But the students who attend often have to travel far outside their neighborhoods, which can make it difficult to forge bonds with other children in the neighborhood and attend after-school programs, and it can lead to lost instructional time thanks to the city’s notoriously unreliable yellow bus system.

“Once the kids leave the school building, they don’t see each other at the playground, or at the grocery store. Parents aren’t building relationships,” Shapiro said, adding that siblings typically can’t attend school together if one of them is placed in District 75. “The idea of being able to go to school in your neighborhood, that’s the number one most important piece of all of this.”

A new model for integrating students of all abilities

One way the school is working to include a more diverse group of students is by hosting programs that are more typically found in schools that only cater to students with disabilities. P.S. 958, for instance, is the first elementary school outside District 75 to host an AIMS program, short for Acquisition, Integrated Services, Meaningful Communication, and Social Skills.

The AIMS program is designed for students with autism who have significant behavioral, communication, or social delays. It involves small group instruction and a bevy of dedicated staff, including a certified behavior specialist, special education teacher, speech teacher, and paraprofessional.

In a traditional District 75 program, those students might have more limited contact with their typically developing peers. At P.S. 958, they were the first set of customers to test out the mock restaurant their classmates next door were setting up.

As they filtered into the classroom, the AIMS students largely needed assistance from classroom aides and iPads with picture-to-speech software to communicate snack orders. But the interactions let them practice conveying their needs, and the students running the restaurant were also learning how to work with peers who may not pick up on typical social cues, such as making eye contact.

P.S. 958 is starting small, enrolling 59 students in its first year — including six in the AIMS classroom. As the school grows to serve students from 3-K through fifth grade in the coming years, the school plans to grow the AIMS program, too.

To be sure, some District 75 schools, which often share buildings with other schools, also give students opportunities to interact with their typically developing peers, such as shared physical education classes or sports teams.

But frequent opportunities for meaningful inclusion are rare, especially when it comes to academics, according to educators and advocates. There are often signals that inclusion isn’t a priority: District 75 students can be forced to use separate entrances to school buildings or may struggle with equal access to school facilities.

There can also be downsides to segregating children with more intensive needs. Some families and educators say those programs can be chaotic or may represent little more than holding grounds, especially for children with more intense emotional or behavioral issues. Still, it can be difficult to tease out the impact of inclusive classrooms and it may not always be effective for students with disabilities to learn in general education classrooms.

Some observers said the P.S. 958 model is promising and stressed that the city should do more to get the word out about schools that have inclusion programs.

“What you really want is [P.S.] 958’s everywhere,” said Jenn Choi, an advocate who helps families navigate the city’s special education system, noting that meaningful inclusion is rare.

“Inclusive doesn’t mean ‘I let you in here.’ Inclusive means ‘I’m going to help you when you’re here,’” she said. “I don’t hear that message very often.”

P.S. 958 Principal Emily Shapiro.

So far, about 15% of students enrolled at P.S. 958 likely were initially recommended for more restrictive settings than what the school offered — such as those with very small class sizes and intensive support that can be offered through District 75. And while Shapiro said the school is not yet equipped to handle any student who might want to enroll, they’ve had success working with families who were initially slated for more specialized programs but wanted to give P.S. 958 a shot.

Commitment to inclusion runs throughout the school

Fahyolah Antoine, a special education teacher who helped plan the mock restaurant project, said she’s been impressed with the school’s commitment to inclusion. “What I really appreciate is how special education is put on the forefront, rather than the backburner,” she said. “Sometimes it can just feel like it doesn’t get the attention it needs and deserves.”

For example, students from the AIMS program may participate in academic programs with their peers in other classrooms. In one instance, the school placed a less verbal student in a classroom with more verbal students for phonics — lessons that teach children the relationships between sounds and letters.

“Because the other students are saying, ‘A-Apple-Ah,’ and using their voice, he’s starting to do it,” Shapiro said. “Putting him in a classroom with other peer models, who are using those skills is more motivating, I think, than having a speech therapist sitting next to you” practicing the same lesson.

Staff are also intentional about grouping students of different ability levels for other activities, like recess and music. Students also do not sit with their regular classes during lunch, giving students of a wider range of ability levels the chance to interact with each other.

Parent Ivelisse Castro said those types of interactions have been a big help for her daughter, Chloe. The 3-year-old, who has a learning disability, struggled to coordinate her movements without falling down, and she often screamed or whined rather than using words to articulate her feelings.

P.S. 958 parent Ivelisse Castro and her daughter, Chloe.

In Chloe’s pre-K classroom, which includes children with and without disabilities, “she’s picking up habits from them, how to express herself better, how to speak better,” Castro said. “She can have a conversation with you now — it’s an amazing feeling.” She was relieved to find a school that could meet Chloe’s needs just down the block from her home.

The school also makes time for service providers such as speech and occupational therapists to regularly consult with teachers. Through a creative scheduling arrangement, therapists conference with educators multiple times a week, eventually discussing each of the school’s students — including those without disabilities.

They’ve collaborated on issues such as deploying adaptive seating for students who struggle to focus in traditional classroom chairs. (The school also has a dedicated space where students with sensory issues can receive extra help.)

“In other schools, there isn’t structured time for this,” said Cara Kantrowitz, an occupational therapist. “Here, it’s built into everyone’s schedule.”

A P.S. 958 student played the role of “manager” in their mock restaurant.

Back at the mock restaurant, the mood at times resembled the frenetic energy of a professional kitchen, as one child was momentarily overwhelmed with orders.

“I need servers! I need servers!” he shouted. “I need their popcorn!” With plenty of adults on hand to keep students on track, the popcorn orders made their way back to the tables on small paper plates.

Antoine, the special education teacher, noted that the students running the mock restaurant also include a mix of students with and without disabilities. The teachers worked to let students tap into their strengths and interests in deciding what roles to take on.

After students had a chance for seconds, it was time for the next class period. As a handful students from the AIMS classroom filed out, the children running the mock restaurant offered a sendoff.

“Thank you — come again!”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

PLACE-endorsed candidates win nearly 40% of seats on NYC’s parent councils

2023-06-17T00:26:37+00:00

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Candidates endorsed by a polarizing group that advocates for screened school admissions won the majority of seats on about half a dozen parent councils this year, according to election results released Friday by the New York City education department.

Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, endorsed 147 candidates across the city for local district council seats, with 115 of them winning their races. The group’s preferred candidates will make up nearly 40% of the Community Education Council members across the five boroughs, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

Established in 2019, PLACE supports the status quo when it comes to academic screening policies that have resulted in one of the nation’s most segregated school systems. That includes keeping the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT, and expanding gifted and talented programs. The group generally opposes lottery-based admissions and paring back screened admissions to the city’s middle and high schools.

The Community Education Councils, or CECs, have the power to approve or reject school rezoning plans, pass resolutions about various school-related issues, and work with district superintendents. The 32 councils, which each have 10 elected members and two appointed by the local borough president, hold monthly public meetings.

There are also citywide councils for high school students, English learners, students with disabilities, and those enrolled in the city’s District 75 programs, which serve children with the most challenging disabilities.

This was the second CEC election where voting was open to parents citywide. To many watching races across the city, this year’s elections seemed more divisive than ever, with some candidates localizing culture wars playing out across the nation. CEC 2 winner Maud Maron, who co-founded PLACE and was previously on the District 2 parent council, told THE CITY, “Land acknowledgements don’t teach anybody more math,” referring to lessons about Indigenous people who inhabited land before European colonialism.

With her victory Friday, Maron will again sit on a CEC that represents one of the most affluent swaths of Manhattan.

Some of PLACE’s ideas have found favor with schools Chancellor David Banks, such as expanding gifted and talented seats. The organization had Banks’ ear at the very start of his tenure, appearing on his schedule last March.

Some education advocates have grown concerned about PLACE’s influence, pointing to the views of some of their members, including comparing critical race theory, an academic framework about systemic racism, to Nazi ideology, as reported by THE CITY. Several candidates endorsed by the group backed away from that support during the election season.

PLACE wasn’t alone in endorsing candidates. A group called Parents for Middle School Equity, based in Brooklyn’s District 15 (which includes Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook, and part of Sunset Park), appears to be ideologically opposed to PLACE. The group’s interest is in preserving the district’s middle school integration plan. But its influence fell far below PLACE’s: Less than a quarter of its endorsed candidates won seats across the city, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

A few districts appeared to be PLACE strongholds: Every person elected to the CEC in Brooklyn’s District 20, which spans Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Borough Park, and part of Sunset Park, was endorsed by PLACE. All of the group’s preferred candidates also won seats on the CECs representing two large Queens districts — nine people in District 26 (which covers northeast Queens, including Bayside) and seven in District 28, where a controversial push to integrate its middle schools from Forest Hills to Jamaica was derailed by the pandemic.

Still, the Equity group’s preferred candidates outnumbered PLACE’s endorsed candidates in a handful of districts, including East Harlem’s District 4, Harlem’s District 5, Williamsburg’s District 14, and District 15.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that District 26 includes northeast Queens, including Bayside.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

College felt impossible to this student in foster care. Then NYC offered to pay.

2023-06-15T16:14:05+00:00

At the age of 16, Marowa, a Bangladeshi immigrant, entered New York City’s foster care system, after her parents had physically abused her for much of her life.

Two years and five foster homes later, Marowa fled to California to build a new life but returned to New York City by the age of 19, in search of stable housing and a familiar community. (Marowa said she does not have a legal last name.)

After she reluctantly re-entered foster care, a social worker asked Marowa if she knew that Administration for Children’s Services, or ACS, could help her pay for college and other expenses.

“I was just thinking about surviving,” Marowa said. “I wasn’t really thinking about college.”

Last week — five years after that conversation — Marowa graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Brooklyn College, with the help of the financial assistance that her social worker had described.

Marowa is one of 300 students who used the College Choice program this year to fund up to $15,000 of tuition, room and board, and $60 in daily stipends, according to ACS officials, who said that no eligible student who applied on time was turned away.

The program, announced in October, combined with other state and federal grants, covers all tuition and living expenses for these students. It was similar to other programs that preceded it when Marowa first entered college with some updates that aim to ease the burden on participants: College Choice doubles the daily student stipend and allows them to live on the same campus as where they go to school.

For the 2023-24 school year, the Adams administration has proposed keeping this $10 million initiative.

A more stable future for students in foster care

The program attempts to set up a stable future for students like Marowa, who might otherwise be unable to pay for college or incur student loan debt, even with federal and state grants. In New York City, the cost of higher education is not the only barrier: Last school year, 45% of students in foster care graduated from high school on time, compared with 84% of students not in foster care, according to state data. In 2019, before the pandemic and the loosening of certain graduation requirements, just one-quarter of youth in foster care graduated on time.

The city’s Fair Futures program, which advocates pushed the city to create in recent years, attempts to improve those graduation rates by linking students in foster care ages 11 to 26 with academic, career, and life coaching.

Even children who make it to college can find it financially impossible to stay enrolled, said Jess Dannhauser, commissioner for ACS. Dannhauser, who previously oversaw foster care agency Graham Windam, said he’d hear about students who dropped out of college because they couldn’t afford pricey textbooks or even doing laundry regularly.

“The things that came up both were expensive, and it was hard to be nimble to meet all those needs,” Dannhauser said of students’ experiences. “And it sends a message that they don’t belong there.”

In order to be eligible for College Choice, young people must currently be in foster care, earn a minimum GPA of 2.0, and apply for financial aid grants, such as the federal Pell Grant and New York State’s Tuition Assistance Program, or TAP.

Larger stipends and more places to live

Before Marowa used College Choice this year, there was “The Dorm Project,” which used a total of about $7 million to provide housing and tuition help to about 200 students in foster care last year who attended CUNY schools. ACS also provided $31 daily stipends to college students in foster care.

Marowa pictured on her graduation day at Brooklyn College.

College Choice ironed out a few wrinkles with the previous program, officials said. Unlike previous years, the program helps cover costs for students who attend any college, not just CUNY. Students also receive a $60 daily stipend — and will now receive that money for six months after graduation.

The old program provided year-round housing at certain CUNY dorms where the city had purchased space but not necessarily where students were attending school. In what felt like a particularly important change for children, College Choice allows them to live on the same campus where they’re enrolled.

“We heard from young people that they really wanted to live and go to school in the same place, that they wanted that choice, that they wanted to have the opportunity to go out of state,” said ACS Commissioner Jess Dannhauser in an interview. “And the College Choice program allows for that.”

The program is a positive start at helping students access college, but broadening the eligibility requirements would help many more students in need, said Chantal Hinds, a researcher focused on students in foster care at the Next100, a policy think tank based in New York City. Hinds noted that the program doesn’t benefit students who aren’t in foster care anymore but might still be struggling financially and mentally from their experience in the system.

She noted that Marowa could have been one of those teens had she not re-entered the foster care system after her time in California.

“If you’re in the foster system for a month or 12 years, you’re still impacted,” said Hinds, who was once an attorney for ACS. “There was still a significant portion of your life that was changed because of this experience.”

Marowa began receiving financial support through the old college aid programs and then switched over to College Choice this past school year, which meant her daily stipend doubled in size.

In college, Marowa changed majors twice before landing on English literature, which she fell in love with after being forced as a newcomer immigrant years ago to learn the language.

Marowa was one of the students who pushed ACS for better college assistance, and she continues to advocate on behalf of foster youth, both she and an ACS spokesperson said. She’s considering a teaching job offer, and has qualified for subsidized housing.

Once she becomes more financially stable, she’s hoping to fulfill a longtime dream: to become a foster mom.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC teachers union and Adams administration reach tentative deal on 5-year contract

2023-06-13T20:12:43+00:00

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New York City reached a deal with the teachers union for a five-year contract that includes annual raises, expands opportunities for virtual learning, and allows some remote work for certain employees, Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday.

The tentative deal for the United Federation of Teachers’ 115,000 full-time and 5,000 part-time education department employees includes 3% wage increases for the first three years, followed by a 3.25% increase in the fourth year, and 3.5% in the fifth year. The full contract would cost the city $6.4 billion, city officials said.

Starting salary for new teachers will jump from $61,070 to $72,349 by the end of the contract. In five years, the most experienced teachers will earn $151,271. The deal also proposes to cut in half the amount of time it takes teachers to reach a $100,000 salary — from 15 to eight years.

It also includes annual retention bonuses that will grow to $1,000 in 2026, for as long as an employee is an education department employee, and will be built into the system going forward. It’s the first time the union has negotiated such a payment, said Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, during a press conference announcing the deal.

“We’re saying to all of our titles and every member, whether you’re in the first year or your 25th year, New York City is saying that we appreciate you, we recognize the challenges that you take on every day and you will receive $1,000 every [year] for that,” Mulgrew said. [Mulgrew initially misspoke, and his statement has been clarified.]

The retention bonus is “a good strategy” for keeping teachers, said Melissa Arnold Lyon, assistant professor of politics and policy at the University of Albany, who has been following the UFT’s contract negotiations. Teacher turnover rates in New York City and elsewhere hit an unusual high after last school year, potentially exacerbated by the stresses of the pandemic.

“There are a lot of costs of trying to find and hire new teachers,” Lyon said. “If $1,000 helps you to keep a teacher, at least on the micro level, that’s worth it.”

The agreement is retroactive to Sept. 14, 2022, and runs through Nov. 28, 2027, city officials said. The wage increases follow the pattern of raises set by the February agreement with District Council 37, which includes cafeteria workers, parent coordinators, and crossing guards.

Many teachers expected that their union would follow suit and had expressed concerns given that the previous deals were not keeping pace with inflation, which has moderated somewhat in recent months but reached 6.5% last year. Teachers had complained that their responsibilities have only increased since the pandemic, as they continue to catch up students academically and socially from years of interrupted learning.

A virtual learning program to expand

The contract would expand a pilot remote learning project that allowed small schools to offer virtual courses — such as AP Chemistry — that they otherwise couldn’t because of staffing issues. This year, the program used federal funding to grow, reaching about 1,500 students across 58 schools, with 23 separate online courses outside traditional school hours.

Under the tentative deal, high schools, as well as schools that serve grades 6-12, could offer virtual courses after school and on the weekends starting in the next academic year, union officials said, though nothing would bar schools from creating tutoring programs, too. Those programs would be available to students who volunteer to participate, and would be staffed by volunteer teachers. A quarter of high schools would be allowed to participate next year, growing to all high schools by the 2027-28 school year. High schools must apply to participate, education officials said.

Courses might be offered at individual schools or through the central education department, and high schools must apply to participate, education officials said. Part-time remote teachers can apply to be part of their school-based remote program and work before or after the school day; there will also be full-time, centrally hired teachers for the other program.

Programs could vary, Gendar said. For example, a school could offer evening courses, from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., for students who are missing classes because they’re working day jobs, she said.

Schools could offer non-traditional schedules for students and teachers who want them. If a teacher volunteers to work a virtual program in addition to their regular work day, they will be paid overtime, Gendar said.

During a press conference, schools Chancellor David Banks said the virtual learning agreement gives students more flexibility, noting that some benefited from remote learning during the pandemic.

“Students who were at risk of dropping out were able to continue their coursework on a schedule that works best for them,” Banks said of remote learning during the start of the pandemic. “This expands those types of opportunities across the entire system.”

The contract would also allow some employees, who don’t work directly in schools, to work remotely for up to two days a week. It was not immediately clear which employees that would include.

Another sticking point was over how teachers would get to spend an extra 155 minutes each week after school. The deal would allow them, as they did this year, to do professional development and parent outreach, and it added a new option for teachers to do other classroom work of their choice in that time.

Teachers have mixed feelings

The contract is not yet final. First, the union’s negotiating committee, composed of 500 members, along with its executive board and delegate assembly will decide whether to send the tentative deal to all union members for a vote. Union officials did not immediately provide dates for those votes.

Some teachers took to social media to criticize the deal, but pushing back against it could be an uphill battle. The union cannot easily pull off a work stoppage because a teachers strike would violate New York’s Taylor Law, which imposes significant financial penalties for public sector unions that strike.

Robert Effinger, a union chapter leader at the Bronx High School of Business, said the pay increases surpassed his expectations.

Although some educators hoped that the salary increases would exceed inflation, the union was hemmed in by the pattern set by unions that negotiated contracts earlier this year. But Effinger said he was glad to see the union negotiate a quicker path to higher pay, an issue he hopes will help retain more educators.

“One of the reasons people burn out in education is they feel like they’re doing a lot of labor that is not appropriately compensated,” he said. “Having an accelerated early track is better for keeping people in.”

Still, he said he’s eager to hear more details about other elements of the contract including increased teacher autonomy, a major part of the union’s campaign, which focused on burdensome paperwork requirements educators face.

The union plans to hold a virtual town hall for members on Thursday at 4 p.m.

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC public schools go remote Friday due to pollution from wildfire smoke

2023-06-08T17:27:32+00:00

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New York City public school students will shift to remote learning on Friday, as wildfire smoke prompted a third straight day of disruption to school operations.

Most students — including those in preschool, elementary, and middle school — were already scheduled to be off for “Clerical Day.” But high school students, and children who attend schools that run from grades 6-12, were slated to attend school in person on Friday. Those students, about 290,000 total, will now shift to remote instruction, city officials said Thursday.

Educators may conduct their lessons remotely, but some staff members — including custodians and some food workers — will be required to report to their buildings.

Early childhood programs that contract with the city have the option of switching to remote instruction on Friday, according to education department officials. Charter schools make their own decisions about whether to switch to remote instruction.

The decision to pivot to remote learning was considerably less fraught than for a typical school day, since the city’s youngest students were not part of the calculation. Switching to remote instruction can create significant burdens for working families who may struggle to arrange child care at the last minute, but that is less of a concern with older students.

It is also likely that in-person attendance would have been low tomorrow since students were already off on Thursday due to a previously scheduled staff training day.

The wildfire smoke wafting from Canada has disrupted school operations since Wednesday, when city officials canceled all outdoor activities, including recess and field trips. Students were not scheduled to attend school on Thursday because it was a previously scheduled staff training day. The education department pivoted to deploy those teacher training programs virtually instead.

City officials stressed during a press conference on Friday that the intensity of wildfire smoke can be difficult to predict days in advance, but they suggested that conditions are likely to improve.

“There’s a chance for significant improvement by tomorrow morning and throughout the day tomorrow,” Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday morning.

New York City registered some of the worst air pollution on record Wednesday, raising questions from some observers about whether the city adequately prepared students and schools to contend with intense air pollution.

Local health officials continued to recommend staying indoors, including people who are more susceptible to air pollution such as children, the elderly, and those with existing health and breathing problems. People who must go outside should wear high-quality N95 or KN95 masks, officials said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools go remote Thursday for staff training as wildfire smoke engulfs region

2023-06-07T22:12:02+00:00

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New York City educators will not be expected to report to their buildings in person on Thursday, as wildfire smoke from Canada engulfed the region in a thick haze leading to the worst air pollution on record.

They will instead participate virtually in staff training on what’s known on the school calendar as “Anniversary Day/Chancellor’s Conference Day,” according to a text message the teachers union sent to its members on Wednesday.

Students were already scheduled to be off from school.

“The DOE, with our encouragement, is making Chancellor’s Conference Day tomorrow fully remote for all staff,” the text message said. (The union sends texts to teachers to let them know about cancellations and snow days.)

New York City schools Chancellor David Banks confirmed the move at a press conference alongside Mayor Eric Adams Wednesday evening.

The air quality index hit 484 at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Adams said. It was believed to be the highest index level since the 1960s.

Anything above 300 is considered hazardous, officials said. The index tops out at 500.

Adams encouraged all New Yorkers to remain indoors, if possible, especially elderly and younger children.

The decision to switch to remote staff training came after pressure from educators, who launched a petition, and Rita Joseph, a former teacher and leader of City Council’s education committee. City officials signaled earlier on Wednesday afternoon to prepare for a remote pivot, telling staff to bring materials and laptops home with them.

Still, some schools operate programs for children in partnership with community organizations on staff development days. Whether Department of Youth and Community Services-funded programs such as COMPASS, Beacon, and Cornerstone open on Thursday is up to the program’s discretion, city officials said. If they’re running, all activities should be indoors. The programs should check with their school partners about whether the building will be open. If it’s closed, these programs may offer remote activities, if they elect to do so.

Gov. Kathy Hochul indicated on Wednesday that the smoke could continue for days and described the situation as an “emergency crisis.”

Officials said they would make a decision on Thursday about Friday’s school schedules.

“We’re taking it day-by-day,” Banks said.

Elementary and middle school students were already scheduled to be off from school on Friday for “Clerical Day.” Students attending standalone District 75 schools, which serve children with more complex disabilities, also have the day off.

But thousands of students attending high school are scheduled to report to buildings on Friday.

The wildfire smoke has already disrupted some school programming. On Wednesday, city officials canceled outdoor school activities, including athletic competitions, recess, and field trips — a decision that was announced on Twitter just before midnight on Tuesday. Banks also postponed a town hall meeting in the Bronx.

Health officials have warned that the polluted air poses greater risks to young people, the elderly, and those with pre-existing breathing issues, such as asthma. Nearly 1 in 10 public school students in grades K-8 have “active asthma,” according to the city’s health department, though the rates are higher among Black and Latino students and disproportionately affect children living in low-income neighborhoods.

The city’s health commissioner, Ashwin Vasan, said children may be susceptible to air pollution because their lungs are still developing. Officials urged residents to stay indoors.

“Right now, our health guidance to all New Yorkers is to limit outdoor activity as much as possible,” Vasan said. “For people who must be outdoors, a high quality mask like an N95, a KN95 or a KF94 is recommended.”

Vasan expressed concern for New Yorkers who were feeling rattled by the air pollution.

“If you feel anxious, if you feel worried, that’s totally understandable,” he said. He encouraged New Yorkers to call the 988 crisis hotline for help, if needed.

Amy Zimmer contributed.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC failed to provide full services to 9,800 preschool children with disabilities last year: report

2023-06-06T09:30:00+00:00

More than one-third of New York City’s preschool children with disabilities did not receive all of the extra support they’re entitled to in the last school year, according to a report released Tuesday morning.

The report, by advocacy organization Advocates for Children New York, analyzes the most recently available city data for the 2021-22 school year. The figure represents an increase from the 2020-21 school year, when 30% of children, or about 7,800, didn’t receive all of their required services.

The data means that a child may have received some of their required speech therapy, for example, but no required physical therapy — services that are spelled out in an individualized education program, or IEP.

Among the 9,800 children — or close to 37% — who didn’t receive all of their required services:

About 6,500 children who required speech therapy — or about a quarter of children who needed monolingual speech therapy and a third of children who required bilingual services.
Nearly 28%, or 5,300 children, who required occupational therapy.
About 2,000 children, or nearly 26%, who needed physical therapy.

The report showcases a yearslong problem with the city’s public preschool system, which serves 3- and 4-year-olds: Programs struggle to provide all children with the services they need, as they are legally required to do. Young children’s access to these services might be more crucial now, since some of these students may have missed out on necessary services as infants and toddlers early in the pandemic, like tens of thousands of kids nationally.

The greatest disparity in who received services was based on language: Sixty-nine percent of children who required only English instruction received their services, versus 53.5% of those who needed to be taught in another language.

The racial and socioeconomic disparities were smaller. While 69% of white students fully received services, the same was true for 67% of Hispanic children, 65.5% of Black children, and 62% of Asian children. Sixty-seven percent of permanently housed students received services, versus 61% of homeless children.

The city’s data might actually “significantly” underreport the problem, the report said. The education department considers a child “fully served” if they received at least one session of all of their required services, the report said.

“A child whose occupational therapist quits in November and is never replaced, or a preschooler who waits six months for mandated speech therapy to begin because the DOE is unable to find a provider, is not fully served from the perspective of their parents and teachers, but they are left out of the counts above,” the report said.

In December, Mayor Eric Adams vowed to open hundreds of additional seats for preschool children with disabilities to ensure that all children get the seats that they’re entitled to. Advocates have praised that commitment, but it already is being tested. While the city has opened 700 new seats this school year for students with more challenging disabilities, about 300 preschoolers are still waiting for a spot, the report noted.

Having access to seats is a perennial issue. Last year, just over 1,000 preschool children who required a small special education class did not have access to those seats by the end of last school year, according to the report.

“We agree with the concerns of our parents and advocates that for far too long students with disabilities were excluded from programming and services,” Nicole Brownstein, a spokesperson for the city’s education department, said in a statement. “This administration is committed to righting this wrong.”

But the city’s commitment to open more seats doesn’t address the ongoing shortage of staff who can provide extra required services for these children, one significant reason why children are missing out on services, said Betty Baez Melo, director of the Early Childhood Education Project at Advocates For Children. The city contracts with outside organizations to provide many of these services, so Advocates For Children is calling on Adams to spend another $50 million to increase pay for those service providers and hire their own staffers.

Brownstein noted that the education department has expanded its own teams who provide services to preschool children, including hiring an additional 24 speech therapists, 23 occupational itinerant therapists, and 12 physical therapists.

The $50 million request from Advocates For Children would also go toward speeding up evaluations for children, another weak area the report cited. Nearly 16% of children, or 1,974, who were eligible for preschool special education services waited more than 60 days — the legal deadline — for a meeting to determine what extra services they should receive, according to the organization. That’s a similar rate to last school year.

Over the last three years, the education department has opened 21 Preschool Regional Assessment (PRAC) teams, which provide evaluations in addition to state-approved agencies that the city contracts with. This school year, staffers on PRAC teams had the option of working overtime, allowing more students to get evaluated — something they plan to do again next school year, officials said.

Still, education department officials said there are not enough agencies to meet the evaluation needs of preschool students, as more children have been referred for services since the pandemic. They plan to work with city, state, and federal government officials to ensure there’s enough funding to link students with necessary services.

While data for this school year is not yet available, the organization reported that it’s received many calls from families who have struggled to access services for their young children. One of those calls was from Terese, a mother in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn who asked to use her first name only for privacy reasons.

Her 4-year-old son required the help of a special education itinerant teacher, or an SEIT, who helps children like hers with disabilities inside of a general education preschool class. But in February, that teacher left her son’s preschool with no replacement.

Terese spent a month emailing the main special education contact in her district about a replacement teacher with no response, even taking days off work to deal with the issue, she said. Meanwhile, her son was talking less at home.

“The teacher started reporting to me that he was not communicating in the classroom,” Terese said.

Terese’s problem was not unique. According to the report, roughly 1,300 preschoolers, or nearly one in five children did not have an SEIT all last school year, even though their IEP required one.

Eventually Terese contacted Advocates For Children, which advised her to lodge a complaint through 311. After that, a special education official with her district responded, blaming the lack of a teacher on a staffing shortage. By mid-May, her son once again had an SEIT, she said.

“I felt all alone,” Terese said. “The DOE just left me to fend for myself with my child with special needs.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s literacy mandate: Why one reading program is gaining the most traction

2023-05-31T10:00:00+00:00

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Under NYC’s aggressive literacy push announced earlier this month, officials are mandating all elementary schools use one of three reading curriculums.

One is proving to be far more popular than the others.

Thirteen of 15 local superintendents charged with selecting their districts’ reading curriculum in this first phase of the rollout picked Into Reading, a program published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

The education department vetted all three of the mandated reading programs, including Wit & Wisdom and EL Education, officials said. And all three received high marks from the independent curriculum reviewer EdReports.

So why is Into Reading far and away the most popular option among superintendents?

Curriculum experts and department insiders pointed to a series of interlocking factors that may have helped Into Reading elbow out the competition. The program is widely perceived as easier for teachers to implement, especially with little time remaining before deploying it in September. Plus, Into Reading has a Spanish version, which may appeal to superintendents who oversee many dual-language and bilingual programs.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt may have also benefited from a savvy marketing strategy, current and former department employees said. When the pandemic forced school buildings to shutter in March 2020, the company quickly made a slew of free digital materials available to the city’s public schools, including Into Reading and its Spanish counterpart.

“It was a huge help. We were able to make sure that schools had the digital resources they needed during remote learning and hybrid learning,” said a current education department employee familiar with the city’s literacy efforts who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Within two years, the education department had added Into Reading to its approved list of curriculum offerings. That meant if principals choose Into Reading, the cost was subsidized, though they were still free to use their own budgets to purchase other curriculums.

“Houghton Mifflin made a strategic decision during the pandemic and they hoped it would pay off,” the official said. “And it did.”

EL Education, one of the other programs included in the new mandate, was also on the approved list at the time. All three curriculums covered by the new curriculum mandate, including Wit & Wisdom, will be similarly subsidized.

A spokesperson for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt downplayed its decision to make materials free as a key driver of superintendents’ decisions to mandate their product. “There were already hundreds of schools across the city using HMH reading resources,” Bianca Olson, a company spokesperson, wrote in an email. “These partners have seen strong results and they want to continue that momentum in support of student achievement.”

A city education department spokesperson noted that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt was one of more than a dozen vendors that provided free digital resources during the pandemic. But officials have generally not collected or published comprehensive curriculum data over time, making it difficult to ascertain the full impact of the company’s strategy.

The education department also declined to say how much they are projected to spend on Houghton Mifflin Harcourt materials and training now that Into Reading is being widely mandated, saying they are still working on creating cost estimates.

Focus turns to ‘science of reading’

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s move to make its materials free came at an opportune moment. Before the pandemic struck, many schools were already in the process of reconsidering their reading curriculum choices, multiple curriculum experts said, pressured in part by a small army of literacy coaches dispatched to schools.

A growing movement backed by years of research, known as the “science of reading,” was persuading more school leaders to back away from “balanced literacy” — an approach that sought to foster a love of literature by allowing students ample time to independently read books of their choosing. It also sometimes included dubious methods, such as encouraging students to use pictures to guess at a word’s meaning instead of focusing on the letters and sounds themselves.

“Every school that I was in was in the midst of changing,” said Heidi Donohue, an early literacy expert at Teaching Matters, an organization that works with city schools to improve reading and math instruction. “They were really talking about, ‘Is the curriculum high-quality? Is it meeting the needs of our kids?’”

More recently, schools Chancellor David Banks has declared that balanced literacy is not an effective approach, often singling out a curriculum developed by Lucy Calkins at Columbia University’s Teachers College — one of the most popular reading curriculums in the city’s public schools. (Heinemann, the publisher of Calkins’ curriculum, is also a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.)

NYC Chancellor David Banks stands at a podium, with Mayor Eric Adams standing off to the left at Tweed Courthouse on June 27, 2022.

Some observers said they were not surprised that Into Reading has become a popular choice in New York City, since it is also widely used elsewhere. An Education Week survey found that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s reading offerings are among the five most popular early reading programs in the country, in large and small districts alike.

Others emphasized that its lessons may seem easier to unpack: Donohue noted that many lesson plans from the teachers manual can fit on two pages. Experts also said Into Reading has common DNA with curriculums that schools have used for years that are structured as anthology-style textbooks with passages written specifically to teach reading skills. (In education jargon, those programs are often referred to as “basals.”)

“A basal-type program is going to have much more structure in the teaching, in the lesson plan itself,” said Esther Friedman, who directed the city education department’s literacy efforts until 2020. Although Friedman said the other two programs also have detailed teacher guides, Into Reading may feel “a little bit more manageable.”

In Brooklyn’s District 16, which covers a large chunk of Bedford-Stuyvesant, teachers got a head start. About two years ago, nearly all of the district’s elementary schools adopted Into Reading, and the new superintendent, Brendan Mims, plans to keep the program in place.

Even though the district’s schools have already used Into Reading, Mims said there’s still room for improvement. “We haven’t hit that bar yet,” he said, in terms of implementing it as effectively as he thinks is possible. He’s hopeful that a more centralized approach to training will help. “Now, teachers and principals and district staff can work together to make sure that they’re getting what they need,” he said.

No curriculum checks every box

Into Reading has the potential to reshape reading instruction across hundreds of elementary school classrooms. That number could grow as more than half of superintendents aren’t implementing the curriculum mandate until September 2024.

Curriculum experts offered mixed feelings about the popularity of Into Reading. Nearly all said that it has many strong elements, including challenging readings, and a broad array of lessons that build vocabulary, spelling, and grammar skills.

But some also said in an effort to sell the curriculum to the widest array of districts, Into Reading is jam-packed with different strategies and resources, similar to other anthology-style programs. That will require teachers to be selective about which lessons to teach.

“Teachers really have to plan for this, and they have to understand that they’re not going to use all of the resources,” Merryl Casanova, a literacy coach who works with schools in the Bronx, previously told Chalkbeat.

Donohue, of Teaching Matters, said the program can be used effectively, but there are also elements of it that feel “watered down.” She said the texts and vocabulary tend to be slightly less challenging, and the other two curriculums include deeper student discussions and units with more sophisticated themes.

The other two programs “bring a higher quality of text and expectation for kids,” Donohue said. A New York University report also found that Into Reading materials are not culturally responsive, though Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has disputed that characterization and some educators told Chalkbeat the materials do speak to the diversity of New York City’s student body.

Other observers said that EL Education and Wit & Wisdom are somewhat more focused on exposing students to nonfiction in an effort to boost their background knowledge of topics they’re likely to encounter in the future, a strategy meant to boost students’ ability to understand texts about a wide range of subjects.

Still, experts emphasized that all three curriculums come with tradeoffs. And much of the success of the literacy mandate may rest on whether educators buy into the changes — which can be tricky given there was not a public input process. The quality of the training they receive is also critical to the program’s success.

“Really none of the three [curriculums] give a teacher all of the tools for teaching what needs to be taught,” Friedman said. “That has to come from the professional development.”

With just over three months until the next school year begins, there is limited time to fully prepare.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Diwali gains support to become a school holiday in New York and across the U.S.

2023-05-26T19:30:03+00:00

Efforts to make Diwali a New York state and federal holiday gained traction this week.

Such a change, which many of New York’s Indian Americans have hoped for, would impact school calendars every fall.

On Thursday, New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said his chamber plans to pass legislation that would make Diwali a state holiday. Also known as the “festival of lights,” Diwali is observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and some Buddhists as a celebration of light over darkness and good over evil.

Heastie said he expects the bill to pass before the end of the legislative session on June 8. The legislation also designates Lunar New Year as a holiday. (New York City schools already recognize Lunar New Year, though schools did not observe the holiday this year because it fell on a weekend. Absences were excused for children who celebrated on the following Monday, the education department told NY1.)

There is no set annual date for Diwali; it is dictated by a lunar calendar and falls in October or November. (The holiday falls on Sunday, Nov. 12 this year.)

“It is important to recognize New York’s rich and diverse culture,” Heastie, a Democrat from the Bronx, wrote in a tweet.

And on Friday, U.S. Rep. Grace Meng, a Democrat who represents Queens, announced legislation that would make Diwali the nation’s 12th federal holiday. She was joined by many local officials, including New York City Council member Shekar Krishnan, the council’s first Indian American legislator, and schools Chancellor David Banks, who called the effort a “righteous fight.”

“The diversity of our city and country is what strengthens us, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the members of our community who are Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhists,” Banks said during Meng’s press conference. “And I think it’s really important that we show them through our actions that we value their heritage, not just with words and lip service.”

New Yorkers have pushed for years to make Diwali a school holiday along with other religious holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah and Eid al-Fitr. While the U.S. Census Bureau does not ask people what religion they practice, the agency estimated in 2021 that roughly 262,000 Indian Americans lived in the five boroughs. (That figure may include people who practice religions that don’t recognize Diwali and, inversely, could be missing people without Indian heritage who celebrate Diwali.)

Officials have so far declined to recognize Diwali. One complicating factor: The state requires districts to offer at least 180 days a year of instruction.

Mayor Eric Adams vowed on the campaign trail to make Diwali an official school holiday. Once in office, however, Adams and Banks decided in October to support state legislation that would make Diwali a school holiday in New York City by getting rid of Anniversary Day, or Brooklyn-Queens Day, which children get off in June.

It’s still unclear how state legislation would impact school calendars and whether it would compel employers to add it to their list of company holidays.

Heastie said the Assembly is still talking to “stakeholders as to how this affects the school year calendar.” A spokesperson for his office did not immediately respond to offer more information about the legislation they plan to pass or whether they expect the Senate to approve.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s Summer Rising program rejected 45,000 applicants, launching scramble for child care

2023-05-24T21:50:38+00:00

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Roughly 45,000 children have been shut out of New York City’s free, popular summer program, education department officials said this week.

The program, which runs between six to seven weeks for most students, provides academics during the morning and enrichment activities in the afternoon for children in grades K-8 across the five boroughs from July to August.

Like last year, a total of 110,000 seats were available this year, with a portion held open for students mandated to attend summer school. During a City Council hearing this week, the education department’s Chief Operating Officer Emma Vadehra said there are 94,000 seats available for 139,000 applicants. Officials initially reported that 30,000 families did not receive spots.

It’s possible that some of the rejected applicants will have to attend the program anyway for academic reasons and will get a seat that has been set aside. Still, many of those families, who were notified earlier this month that they didn’t get seats, are likely scrambling to find summer programs for their children before the school year ends on June 27.

“The basic challenge is that demand outstripped supply pretty dramatically,” Vadehra told City Council members. “And so there’s different ways that could have looked, but we just didn’t have enough seats in the program for the number of kids and families that really wanted this program despite the fact that it is the largest summer program we’ve had – and the largest in the country.”

Two of those unsuccessful applicants were Alejandra Perez’s 5- and 10-year-old sons, who should have been prioritized for seats because they attend an after-school program run by the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development, through a community-based organization that helps oversee Summer Rising.

Perez, a lifelong East Harlemite, paid $2,250 last summer for six weeks of child care, which she can barely afford again this year.

But in mid-May, about three weeks after applying, she was informed via email that her sons, who attend a charter school in East Harlem, didn’t get in. While she can probably rely on a relative to care for her older son, she is scrambling to find free or affordable care for her 5-year-old.

“I am still trying to find a program,” she said. “By the act of God, maybe I’ll get an email like, ‘Hey, we found you a spot!’”

Some children with priority did not get spots

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio established the program two years ago with federal relief dollars as the city clawed its way out of the pandemic, attempting to provide children with a bridge back to school after remote learning. It differs from summer programs in the past: It’s open to any child, including those in charters and private school, not just those who are mandated to attend summer school.

The program, though bumpy with its initial roll out, has grown in popularity. This year, city officials made a couple of key changes to the application process. While still open to the same number of children, applicants were allowed to rank choices for Summer Rising sites instead of the first come, first served process last year. Additionally, students who attend after-school programs subsidized through the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development, or DYCD, were supposed to be prioritized for seats, like Perez’s children. That’s in addition to students living in temporary housing, children in foster care, and children with disabilities who must have services year round.

Perez had ranked three Summer Rising sites close to her home. Perez said the application did not ask if her kids were in an after-school program. According to an education department spokesperson, Perez’s children didn’t receive a spot because there was likely a lot of demand at the sites she chose.

When she asked someone from the after-school program why her sons didn’t get into Summer Rising, they didn’t have an answer — except that none of the kids in the program who applied got in, Perez said. (A representative for their SCAN-Harbor Beacon after-school program did not return a request for comment.)

During the City Council hearing this week, officials said that just over half of the seats that have been filled went to students in the priority groups. Of those, 29,000 spots went to students who were in DYCD-run after-school programs, 16,000 went to students in temporary housing, 3,000 seats to children with 12-month individualized education programs, or IEPs, and another 1,000 to students in foster care. (Last year, Summer Rising had 12,000 students in temporary housing, 2,700 students with 12-month IEPs and 1,000 students in foster care.)

New seats won’t be added, but filled seats might open up

Vadehra said they’re not planning to add seats — emphasizing that this program is being supported by federal dollars that are set to run out next year — and there is no wait list for seats. But they are expecting an unspecified number of spots to open up, either because fewer students will be mandated to attend summer school or because families may decline a seat they’ve been offered. The education department is working with DYCD to figure out how to make families aware of empty seats in June and how they can apply for those, she said.

In the meantime, parents are scrambling to find options that seem few and far between — and too pricey.

Perez’s rejection email from the education department included a link to other DYCD programs that might be available. She said she has called every local community-based organization near her home for some type of programming with no luck.

“At this point I am just emailing everyone,” she said.

Tia Jackson, who lives in Central Harlem, knew she would potentially need to scramble for summer options if her son didn’t get into Summer Rising, so she signed him up for a YMCA program near her home. Her planning came in handy: Her son did not get a Summer Rising seat.

While he doesn’t fall into any of the priority groups, her son, who is autistic, also has an individualized education program. The YMCA program has staff who can assist him if he needs extra support, Jackson said. She will be reimbursed up to $2,250 for summer care expenses through the state’s Office of People With Developmental Disabilities, but that only ensures four weeks of summer programming for her son. He’s planning to visit his aunt in Florida for one week, and she will pay out of pocket for child care for an additional week.

She feels thankful for having a “Plan A and Plan B.”

“I feel like the way they rolled out the program to start was very late, and it wasn’t the best for working parents, typically because when you think about summer camps most applications for summer camp start in February and March,” she said. “We didn’t get the Summer Rising notification until April.”

The department spokesperson did not explain the timing of the Summer Rising application, except to say there are several factors that impact the timeline.

Both of Loretta Bencivengo’s children got into Summer Rising last year, likely because she submitted her application as soon as it opened during the previous first come, first served model. This year they didn’t get spots, said Bencivengo, who lives in Windsor Terrace.

The most affordable alternate option she’s found so far is with the local YMCA for a $5,000, eight-week program for both of her children, which she equated to two months of rent. Many places don’t have space this late in the spring, she said.

“All those slots are filled up in January and February,” she said of private programs. “If that’s the case, why not put this application out in November and December so that you can open an appropriate amount of slots?”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC won’t slash school budgets at first, but mid-year cuts are still possible

2023-05-22T22:33:01+00:00

New York City schools won’t have to brace for budget cuts next school year — at least at first.

All schools will receive the same amount of money or more at the start of the 2023-24 academic year as they did this year despite some of the “fiscal challenges” facing the city, Chancellor David Banks announced on Monday during a City Council hearing about the education department’s proposed budget for next fiscal year.

But school budgets may not need the extra cushion this year. Unlike the significant drops over the past few years, the education department is projecting enrollment to largely hold steady next year, dipping by less than 1%

The move represents a shift from what happened last summer, when budget cuts tied to declining enrollment, sparked severe backlash, including a lawsuit, and forced schools to shrink staff and programming.

It also comes as Mayor Eric Adams has proposed cutting the education department’s budget by 3% next fiscal year, which begins July 1. That $30.5 billion budget is expected to include less spending on fringe benefits and cut a previously announced expansion of preschool for 3-year-olds.

The decision to start the new school year with steady budgets, however, doesn’t mean schools are completely immune from cuts. Banks said the city hasn’t yet decided whether schools will see cuts during what’s known as the “mid-year adjustment”— a practice put on pause this year using $200 million in federal COVID relief dollars.

Schools get money in the summer based on the city’s enrollment projections, and when the final tallies are taken on Oct. 31, schools could lose money mid-year if they’ve enrolled fewer students than projected — or get extra money if they have more children.

“If a school has 500 students, but by the middle of the year, they’ve dropped down to 200 students, we’re not going to make the commitment today to say, ‘No matter what, there’ll be no adjustment even at that point,’” Banks said during the hearing.

That might leave some school leaders with tough decisions. While principals might get the same amount of money as last year, they may be hesitant to hire more teachers or create more programming in anticipation of losing money during the school year.

One the one hand, some city principals said they understand the city’s desire to bring funding more in line with enrollment to avoid big disparities in per-student spending between schools.

“There are schools that are serving many fewer students than they were five years ago, and the city can’t afford to just fund those schools endlessly,” said a Brooklyn principal who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

But on the other hand, the principal wishes that the education department would make it easier for schools to plan by promising budgets will not be cut more than a certain percentage in a given year rather than having to make educated guesses.

And even if a school does not have to return money later in the year, it can be difficult to use before the spending deadline, especially to hire staff. If a school has an unexpected surplus in January, “all of a sudden there’s a spending spree and it’s not effective and efficient,” the principal said. “It doesn’t help to get money in November or January if you needed to hire a teacher in September.”

Schools are expected to receive their budgets by the end of this month, said Emma Vadehra, chief operating officer for the education department. When principals receive those budgets, Vadehra said, they might notice cuts to individual funding streams, such as Fair Student Funding, which is the city’s main school funding formula. (Schools with higher needs and higher enrollment get more money under the formula.)

Such drops will be backfilled with “other funding streams” to hold budgets steady, Vadehra said. However, officials did not clarify how schools will be able to use those funds. While Fair Student Funding can be used to hire teachers, money from other pots can sometimes be restricted for other uses.

The education department plans to use funding from multiple sources to keep budgets level at the start of the school year, Vadehra said. That includes a $160 million in federal stimulus funds that had been announced previously, as well as money from the state, which has boosted dollars for districts through its own school funding formula, known as Foundation Aid.

Several council members raised concerns about education department programs that are relying on expiring federal stimulus dollars, including preschool programming and expanded summer programming. Vadehra acknowledged that the education department does not yet have a plan on how to fund these initiatives once the money runs out in 2024.

“This is a major challenge,” Banks said to council members. “I mean, there’s a lot of great programs — even as we came on board — that have been built off of access to these stimulus dollars. The stimulus dollars are going away. We’re going to have to work very closely together to try to figure this out.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC school suspensions spike 27% during the first half of the school year

2023-05-19T23:01:29+00:00

New York City public schools issued significantly more suspensions during the first half of this school year, according to long overdue department statistics.

Between July and December 2022, schools issued just over 10,600 suspensions — 27% more than the same period in 2021. The number is about 6% higher than in 2019 just before the pandemic hit, even though the number of K-12 students has declined over 10%.

Drilling down into the data, principal suspensions — which last five days or fewer — jumped by about 29%. Superintendent suspensions, which stretch longer than five days, and are served at outside suspension sites, spiked by 21%. (The figures do not include charter schools.)

Before the pandemic hit, suspensions were on a downward trajectory, owing in part to a slew of policy changes that made it more difficult to exclude students from classrooms. When COVID forced the city’s school buildings to shutter, suspensions mostly stopped.

Last school year — the first time students were required to attend school in person since March 2020 — suspensions ticked back up but remained far short of pre-pandemic levels. That surprised some student discipline experts, who expected a larger increase given widespread concerns about student mental health and students’ ability to reacclimate to regular classroom rules.

Educators may have been more reluctant to exacerbate learning loss after years of pandemic schooling. Skyrocketing rates of chronic absenteeism and declining enrollment may have also played a role, as there were simply fewer students in school buildings to suspend.

Social distancing rules could have made physical confrontations, which may lead to suspensions, less likely. Suspensions are disproportionately issued to Black students, and teachers may have tempered suspensions in the wake of the racial reckoning after George Floyd’s murder.

Whatever the cause of the decline after the pandemic, suspensions are now ticking back up, mirroring educator reports across the country of more disruptive student behavior. Local data for the full school year, including demographic breakdowns, will not be available until later this year.

The uptick in suspensions raised concern among some discipline reform advocates.

“That is a huge problem that the city is choosing to increase the use of punitive and exclusionary approaches,” said Dawn Yuster, director of the School Justice Project at the nonprofit group Advocates for Children. “We are in the midst of a youth mental health crisis and we know our young people are literally crying out for more support.”

Jenna Lyle, an education department spokesperson, emphasized that the use of suspensions have generally declined over the last decade.

“We are continuously focused on equipping schools with the resources they need to address any issues in a positive, supportive, and less punitive manner, including through implementation of restorative practices,” she wrote.

Under city law, the education department’s mid-year suspension report is due by the end of March. Despite multiple requests, education department officials did not provide the suspension report for weeks. Lyle did not answer a question about why the city did not provide the figures within the required timeframe, a deadline the city regularly met before the pandemic.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC drafts plan to shrink class sizes, but changes won’t start next school year

2023-05-19T22:43:25+00:00

Many education advocates cheered when Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law last September a five-year plan to reduce class sizes in New York City’s public schools.

For the first year, however, the city’s education department plans to make no changes, according to a draft plan shared with reporters on Friday.

Under that plan — which is supposed to spell out how the city will meet the law’s new requirements — class sizes will remain the same in September. That’s because the education department says that enough of its core classes — an average 39% — for K-12 exceed the requirements in the law for the first year of the plan. (The plan only affects city-run schools, not charters.)

But, for future school years, education department officials are bracing for some big expenses to comply with the law. They estimate it will cost $1.3 billion a year for new teachers when the plan is fully implemented as well as about $30-$35 billion in capital expenditures to construct new spaces or reconfigure old ones.

The education department said it would gather feedback from the public and educators to determine the best way to shrink class sizes by 2028, when state law requires that the entire school system meet the new requirements.

The city teachers union — one of the entities that must approve the plan — blasted the education department’s effort, emphasizing that they will work with the state to ensure the city “fulfills its obligations” of the law.

“Meeting the new class size standards is going to require a real plan — and so far, the DOE hasn’t managed to create one,” said teachers union president Michael Mulgrew in a statement. “This document is missing a strategy for implementation and a targeted proposal for where and when new seats should be built.”

Education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer responded in a statement that the draft was created after consulting “extensively” with the unions, and they will continue to be able to share feedback.

“The tradeoffs involved in implementation are too important to be made behind closed doors and our entire community must be involved in informing these decisions,” Styer said.

The education department will begin collecting public comment on the plan, which is posted online, in June. Within two weeks of the end of that process, officials must submit the plan to the state education department for approval.

Here are seven things to know:

What are the new class-size caps?

Kindergarten through third grade should have no more than 20 children.

From grades four through eighth, classes should have no more than 23 students, while students in ninth through 12th grades can have up to 25 students.

That’s down from a previous cap of 25 students for kindergarten, and 32 students in the rest of elementary school grades, according to the teachers union contract agreement. Middle and high schools were supposed to be capped previously at 33 and 34 students, respectively, with a 30-student limit in Title 1 middle schools (where at least 60% of students are from low-income families).

What will change next year in terms of class-size reductions?

Nothing. State law requires 20% of the city’s classrooms be in compliance with the new state law each year, reaching 100% by 2028. According to the education department, an average 39% of classes meet the new requirements, meaning they expect to meet the state’s requirements for next school year. This includes elementary school homerooms, where children receive their core instruction, and core subject classes for grades 6-12 — meaning math, science, social studies, and English courses, including gifted and talented, integrated co-teaching, which includes a mix of students with and without disabilities, and accelerated courses.

Ninety-one percent of performing arts and gym courses are in compliance.

In year two, 40% of classes must comply, then 60% and 80% until the final year when all classes are expected to meet the targets (unless they get exemptions).

How will the education department shrink class sizes by 2028?

We don’t know the details yet, but the education department offered some clues in its plan.

From May to October, the education department plans to meet regularly with a working group that it convened this spring to gather feedback on how to meet the law’s new requirements.

Officials wrote that they will identify additional classrooms for space; work with the city’s School Construction Authority on the next capital plan, which lays out building plans for the school system; and would focus on high-poverty schools not meeting requirements, as required by the law.

Starting in November, officials will begin changing policies “and reprioritization of programming” in order to meet the class-size mandates. Officials did not immediately explain what sort of policies or programs would change. But before the law passed, Chancellor David Banks warned that the law could mean a cut in school services or programming because of the cost of creating more classes.

Who will be exempt from the class-size law?

Any exemptions must be approved by the chancellor, as well as the heads of the teachers union and the union representing principals and other administrators. Disagreements will head to arbitration, the law mandates.

Schools might be exempt because of space limitations, but the education department will have to show that they are working to resolve the issue through their capital budget plan. Schools that are overenrolled or ones in which they would face severe economic hardship to comply might get exemptions. (The plan offered no other information on this.) There might be exemptions for schools where they have insufficient numbers of teachers in subjects that are hard to fill, like bilingual math; the teachers union can negotiate higher class sizes for electives and specialty classes if the majority of a school’s staff approves the increase.

Does the law prioritize any particular schools in regards to meeting the new class-size mandates?

The law requires the education department to start with schools with high shares of students living in poverty. In its plan, the education department said that schools with the highest numbers of low-income students are more likely to have smaller class sizes.

Fifty-nine percent of classes meet the new requirements at schools with the most students from low-income families, according to education department data shared in the plan. In contrast, schools with the fewest students living in poverty have just 23% of classes meeting the new requirements.

Where else are schools more — or less — likely to meet the class-size mandates?

Schools with larger classes also hew closely to racial demographics. Roughly 54% of classes already meet the class-size targets at schools with the highest percentage of Black students compared to schools with the highest percentage of Asian and white students, where only about a quarter of classes meet the targets.

Three Brooklyn districts — Ocean Hill/Brownsville’s District 23, Crown Heights’ District 16, and District 18 in Canarsie/East Flatbush had the greatest share of classes at or below the caps, according to the education department data. These three districts have among the highest shares of Black students in the city.

Two Queens districts — Bayside’s District 26 and Flushing’s District 25 — along with Staten Island’s District 31 have the lowest share of classes that meet the targets. District 25 and 26 have the city’s highest share of Asian students, while District 31 has the highest share of white students.

Of the five boroughs, the Bronx might have the easiest time meeting the class-size caps, with 50% of its schools already hitting the targets. Staten Island could have the most challenges, with only 22% of its schools meeting the class size requirements.

Schools that have grades 6-12 or 9-12 are more likely to have smaller class sizes, the figures show, with about 44% of these schools already meeting the new class-size mandates. Only 30% of standalone middle schools meet the targets, followed by K-8 and K-5 schools.

What happens next?

The education department must collect public comments on the plan and then submit it to the state education department for final approval. The teachers and principals unions must also sign off on the plan, which must go into effect in September.

Next month, city officials are holding online public hearings for each borough via Zoom on the following dates, starting at 6 p.m.:

Staten Island: Friday, June 2

Queens: Tuesday, June 6

Brooklyn: Thursday, June 8

Manhattan: Tuesday, June 13

The Bronx: Thursday, June 15

The city will have two weeks to analyze the public comments before submitting its final proposal to the state.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

600 children would lose child care with end of free NYC program for undocumented families

2023-05-18T21:27:57+00:00

Angela and her family left their home in Colombia after her husband, a police officer, received multiple death threats amid rising violence in the South American country.

Along with thousands of asylum seekers, her family arrived in New York City in September. They made ends meet through her husband’s sporadic construction gigs, but Angela, unable to find affordable private child care, stayed home to watch her toddler son.

Then, through tips from other newly arrived Colombian mothers, Angela discovered a new city pilot program called Promise NYC, which in January began covering up to $700 a week in child care for low-income, undocumented immigrant families. In late March, Angela’s son, just shy of 2 years old, became one of about 600 children who received vouchers to enroll in subsidized day care or after-school programs that are otherwise unavailable to those without legal immigration status.

Angela has since started a part-time job cleaning, is taking courses that would allow her to work in construction, and is figuring out how to obtain legal immigration status. But that could all end on July 1, if the City Council approves Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed budget, which slashes the pilot program for next fiscal year.

“My child wouldn’t be able to share or he wouldn’t be able to learn and grow with other children in the day care that he is part of, and I would have to resort to finding alternatives that I’m not yet prepared for,” Angela said through a translator.

The move has confused program providers, advocates, and some City Council members, who described Promise NYC as successful and netting more demand than they expected. The mayor himself touted the $10 million initiative in his vision for early childhood education last year, but in recent months, advocates became worried that Adams would cut the program. Spokespeople for City Hall and the Administration for Children’s Services, or ACS, declined to explain the mayor’s decision.

”To take that away would mean, you know, possibly the family loses employment or a kid has nowhere to go during the day,” said Kimberly Warner, deputy director of legal, organizing, and advocacy services for the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, or NMIC, a nonprofit organization tapped by the city to help enroll children in Manhattan and the Bronx. “It would be very destabilizing.”

The mayor has proposed cuts across many city agencies, including about 3% of the education department’s budget, citing in part rising costs as more asylum seekers come to the city.

A group of about a dozen elected officials, including some City Council members and state lawmakers have called for the city to provide $20 million for the program next year, which would cover the same number of slots for a full year. Some are hoping for even more funding, as thousands of newcomer immigrants are expected in New York City.

In a statement, Queens Council member Tiffany Cabán, one of the lawmakers who pushed to create Promise NYC, said the program has been a “game changer.”

Without legal immigration status, undocumented immigrants have limited options for work, often turning to low-paying, under-the-table jobs. Nearly 29% of undocumented New Yorkers were living in poverty as of 2017, compared to 18% of naturalized citizens at the time, according to city estimates.

That means many likely struggle to pay for child care, but undocumented children typically don’t qualify for state or federally backed programs because they must be legal residents of the United States. HeadStart programs are an exception, but there are a limited number of seats, providers said.

Private care is pricey: In 2022, the median annual cost of toddler care in Manhattan was just over $17,800, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Three and 4-year-old children can attend many of the city’s free preschool programs, regardless of immigration status. But there are some programs within the city’s sprawling system, run through centers and by organizations outside of brick-and-mortar school buildings, that require children to be legal residents, including those that offer care past 3 p.m., advocates pointed out.

“That is the exact problem that Promise NYC was trying to resolve,” said Betty Baez Melo, director of the Early Childhood Education Project at Advocates for Children New York.

After advocacy from elected officials last year, City Hall agreed to launch the program. Adams even touted Promise NYC in his “Blueprint for Child Care & Early Childhood Education in New York City,” saying it would allow families to seek care “without compromising the confidentiality of their immigration status.”

The program was publicly announced in December 2022 and launched one month later, in mid-January. The four organizations charged with doing outreach and connecting families to child care are responsible for making sure families are eligible.

Warner, from NMIC, said she and her team were overwhelmed and “surprised” by the calls that immediately flooded in, mostly seeking care for kids ages 2 to 7 years old. They’ve enrolled 245 children across Manhattan and the Bronx and have roughly 150 people on a wait list. According to an ACS spokesperson, 600 children — the agency’s target — enrolled across all five boroughs by the end of April. Costs were fully covered for all but three children, the spokesperson said.

The Chinese-American Planning Council, which was tapped to oversee enrollment in Queens, has about 170 people on a waiting list, said Sumon Chin, the organization’s director of early childhood learning and wellness services.

Besides handling high demand, Chin’s organization also struggled to find child care options for infants and toddlers in certain pockets of Queens that are known as “child care deserts,” such as the Corona neighborhood. Along with keeping the program, Chin hopes the city will provide more funding so that each organization can hire more help, due to the demand and difficulty of the work.

Soneyllys, a mother from the Dominican Republic, enrolled her toddler son in day care through Promise NYC in February. Since then, she has noticed he’s talking and is generally more active at home. It also allowed her to work for the first time since coming to the United States two years ago, she said through a translator.

She worries that losing child care will make it difficult to get legal immigration status.

“I cannot afford day care, and I will not be able to give my child a better life because I don’t have the opportunity to find a full-time job that I can provide for my child,” she said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Housing migrants in school gyms: What we know (and don’t) about NYC’s shelter plans

2023-05-16T20:56:16+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

Up to 20 New York City public school gymnasiums could be transformed into emergency shelters for asylum seekers, a sudden move that Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday he was reluctant to make.

“This is one of the last places we want to look at,” the mayor said in an interview on NY1. “None of us are comfortable with having to take these drastic steps.”

Adams contends that the city is running out of space in shelters, hotels, and other emergency accommodations as more than 65,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City since last year.

A handful of school gyms, largely in Brooklyn, are already being outfitted with cots, and at least one has already opened its doors to migrants. The plan has drawn concerns about possible disruption to school activities and whether the spaces have adequate access to bathrooms and showers.

Here’s what we know — and don’t know — about the city’s plans to transform schools into emergency shelters:

NYC is gearing up to use school gyms to house migrants, but only detached gyms.

Adams stressed that the city is only considering gymnasiums that are physically separated from the rest of the building, an effort to ease concerns about students coming into contact with adults who have not been vetted with background checks, as school staffers typically are.

Students are “not going to be impacted,” Adams said during a radio appearance on 1010 WINS.

City officials said the police department will be present at those sites around the clock. Still, some parent leaders said ensuring that students and migrants aren’t in contact may require logistical coordination to manage nearby entrances and exits.

So far, the city is gearing up to house migrants at the following schools in Brooklyn, according to parent leaders and news reports: Coney Island’s P.S. 188, Crown Heights’ P.S. 189, Sunset Park’s P.S. 172, and Williamsburg’s P.S. 17, P.S. 18, P.S. 132 and M.S. 577.

City officials did not provide a full list of school gyms under consideration for emergency shelter, nor did they say which buildings are currently housing migrants. The Daily News reported that some migrants were already staying at P.S. 188 over the weekend.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio implemented a plan in 2017 to build about 75 stand-alone school gyms across the city, since many schools blamed space issues for flouting mandated minutes for gym instruction.

Tensions are rising in some school communities.

At Williamsburg’s P.S. 17, students and parents gathered Tuesday morning to protest the use of the school’s gym to house migrants. Some children held signs reading “We Need Recess!!!” and the crowd chanted, “We support asylum seekers, but not on school grounds.”

Outside PS 17 in Williamsburg, kids chant, “we support asylum seekers but not on school grounds.” pic.twitter.com/35iFNRuxIw
— Gwynne Hogan (@GwynneFitz) May 16, 2023

Tajh Sutton, the parent council president in Brooklyn’s District 14, which includes P.S. 17, said the lack of transparency from the city about their plans helped fuel the backlash. Sutton also contends that Adams has directly stoked anger toward migrants by regularly highlighting the costs associated with connecting them with services and claiming they have “destroyed” the city.

“He’s created the conditions for this vitriol,” she said. The protest at P.S. 17 “made me really sad because I think that parents’ frustration about not being communicated with is valid and parents’ exhaustion about a lack of transparency from the Department of Education is valid. But when you’re allowing that to let you veer into racism and xenophobia, you have to check yourself.”

Still, Sutton said some school communities are trying to be flexible. At P.S. 18, in East Williamsburg, the principal is working to communicate what’s happening with parents, funding alternative spaces for gym class, and tracking down an alternative venue for their graduation, she said. Some members of the community are working with a mutual aid group to provide toiletries to asylum seekers.

“The principal has done a really wonderful job,” Sutton said.

Groups from all corners are calling on the city to reverse course.

The city’s teachers union, local elected officials, the union representing school safety agents, and even immigrant advocates have raised concerns about the city’s plan.

“We don’t agree with utilizing active school buildings as housing for emergency shelter right now because we don’t want to disrupt a school environment,” said Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition.

The union representing school safety agents, who are police department employees, also claimed in a letter to city officials that they were improperly asked to “monitor recently arrived asylum seekers in schools” and contend with “agitated” local residents.

The gym at P.S. 18, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is expected to be used as a shelter for asylum seekers.

It’s not the first time schools have been used as shelters.

Nor is it the first time that families feel like they are being kept in the dark about using schools as shelters.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg opened emergency shelters in 76 public schools for New Yorkers who had no place to go after the storm flooded their homes or residential facilities.

At Brooklyn Tech, the nation’s largest brick-and-mortar high school, more than 200 adults from assisted living facilities in the Rockaways stayed in the school’s cafeteria and other spaces for two weeks while class was in session. The residents shared entrances with the students unlike the city’s current plan where there are separate entrances for the shelter.

“It was a terrible situation for all of these people who were homeless and displaced,” recounted Elissa Stein, a high school admissions consultant, who had a child at Brooklyn Tech at the time. “But the kids were having this experience that wasn’t necessarily safe.”

Residents needed medical services, like blood draws, and families were concerned about medical waste as well as strangers wandering the hallways and stairwells.

The city kept promising that the shelter would wrap up, but the end date kept getting delayed, Stein said.

“It was hard to get answers,” Stein said.

The city has not yet said how long schools will operate as shelters.

The goal is to close the shelters “as soon as possible,” a city hall spokesperson said. Officials did not provide a firm timeline, though, and noted that they have run out of space elsewhere and are seeking federal and state help.

Education officials acknowledge school programming may be affected.

The full scope of how school activities could be disrupted remains unclear.

At Williamsburg’s P.S. 17 and M.S. 577, which share a gym, parents were concerned that kids would lose their gym and also lose outdoor recess and some after-school activities since the gym fronts the playground, according to the New York Post.

City officials said they’re working to select facilities that wouldn’t have a direct effect on programming, but they acknowledged some schools will have to shift their physical education classes to a different venue, including outdoors or in other school spaces.

Under state law, children in elementary school are required to have at least 120 minutes of physical education each week. Middle schoolers must have at least 90 minutes, and high school students are required to have at least 180 minutes for seven semesters.

Officials say the gyms are supposed to house adults, not children.

As the influx of migrants has strained the existing shelter system, Adams last week used an executive order to temporarily suspend some of the city’s rules around guaranteeing the right to shelter, including the requirement to place families in private rooms with bathrooms and kitchens. That could provide a path for the city to house children in school gyms, but a legal aid attorney told THE CITY that state regulations still prohibit children from group shelter settings, and that the city has moved children out of such sites after learning they were there.

A City Hall spokesperson said their “intent” is to only house adults in school gyms.

The city has not explained how habitable the gyms are.

City officials did not share information on what kinds of facilities the gyms offer, such as adult toilets or showers. While high school gyms might have showers, typically elementary and middle schools do not, and all of the schools currently identified as housing asylum seekers are elementary and middle schools.

Jessamyn Lee, an elected parent member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, said details have been scarce about whether the city plans to bring in shower or bathroom trailers and how that might work logistically. “Where will those go — are they going in the street? Are they going in school yards? No information has been released,” she said.

Residents around at least two of the schools, Coney Island’s P.S. 188 and Sunset Park’s P.S. 172, filed complaints with the Department of Buildings raising questions about the legality of using the gyms to house people, public records show.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Reading instruction is getting an overhaul in NYC. Here’s how that could affect your school.

2023-05-12T21:22:42+00:00

Chancellor David Banks is planning the most aggressive overhaul to the way New York City schools teach students to read in nearly 20 years.

The changes, announced this week, will require the city’s elementary schools to adopt one of three reading programs over the next two years. They must also phase out materials from a popular “balanced literacy” curriculum developed by Lucy Calkins, a professor at Teachers College, which has been used by hundreds of elementary schools in recent years.

“A big part of the bad guidance was rooted in what has been called balanced literacy,” Banks said this week. “We must give children the basic foundational skills of reading.”

But what is balanced literacy, anyway? And how are the new curriculums different?

Here’s how the changes could impact students in grades K-5:

What reading strategies is the city moving away from?

For years, many New York City schools embraced a philosophy of reading instruction as a natural process that can be unlocked by exposing students to literature. The idea was that by filling classroom libraries and giving students freedom to pick from them, they would develop a love of reading and absorb key skills to decipher texts.

In many classrooms, teachers offered mini-lessons on topics like how to find a text’s main idea. Then students were often sent to select a book of their choice, geared toward their individual reading level, to read independently and apply skills from the lesson they’d just heard. If a child had trouble identifying a specific word, they were often encouraged to use accompanying pictures to guess at its meaning, a practice that has been discredited.

Critics said the approach lacked sufficient instruction on the relationship between sounds and letters, known as phonics. In response, supporters of the model sprinkled more of it in. That compromise is known as balanced literacy. Balanced literacy was pushed into schools by the city’s education department in 2003, and it has remained popular.

Before the pandemic, roughly half of city elementary schools that responded to a curriculum survey were using a balanced literacy program called Units of Study, developed by Calkins, an investigation by Chalkbeat and THE CITY found. (Calkins has since updated the program, including a greater emphasis on phonics, though most schools will not be allowed to keep using it.)

In practice, instructional approaches often differ from school to school — or even classroom to classroom — with teachers often piecing together lessons from a hodgepodge of different sources. The city’s goal is to ensure all schools have access to, and actually use, high-quality materials.

What is the approach to phonics?

Balanced literacy has increasingly come under fire from a range of experts who point to long-standing research that shows many students won’t pick up reading skills without more systematic instruction on the fundamentals of reading.

Now, all elementary schools are being required to adopt city-approved phonics programs, explicit lessons that drill the relationship between sounds and letters. Those programs are typically delivered separately from a school’s main reading program and are shorter in length, often about 20-30 minutes.

Teacher Lauren Litman delivers a phonics lesson at P.S. 236 in the Bronx.

Even before the latest mandates, most schools were already delivering some phonics, though observers said getting schools to use the same approaches will help streamline training and oversight.

“Many, many schools have adopted a coherent phonics approach over the past few years, but the difference is we’re now organizing the infrastructure … to be able to work together around a common playbook,” said Lynette Guastaferro, CEO of Teaching Matters, an organization that works with about 160 New York City schools to improve reading and math instruction.

What’s the philosophy behind the new curriculums?

In addition to phonics lessons, all elementary schools will be required to use one of three reading curriculums: Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds; Into Reading from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; or EL Education.

Many curriculums focus on reading strategies, such as how to find a text’s main idea or how to draw conclusions from it. But the three required curriculums build students’ background knowledge in science and social studies.

The idea is that a student’s ability to understand what they’re reading depends on how much prior knowledge they have of the subject at hand. In one famous experiment conducted in the 1980s, researchers found that children who were not strong readers but knew a lot about baseball were just as capable of summarizing what they’d read about a baseball game compared with stronger readers. (A recent study offers fresh evidence that the knowledge-building approach may be effective, though research is limited on whether knowledge-based programs outperform skills-focused curriculums.)

Kate Gutwillig, a fourth and fifth grade teacher at P.S. 51 in Manhattan, previously used Calkins’ balanced literacy program but in recent years transitioned to EL Education and now uses Wit & Wisdom.

She said she appreciated EL Education’s social-justice oriented lessons, including one where students unpack the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and also read a novel about a girl who must flee Mexico with her family and winds up in a farm labor camp in California. More recently, she taught a Wit & Wisdom unit focused on the heart’s role in the circulatory system and the way it’s used figuratively to refer to love and other emotional qualities.

“They’re thriving, they’re doing so well with it,” Gutwillig said of her students. Unlike the balanced literacy program where students picked their own books, students are all reading from the same books at the same time. “It helps to build community,” she said.

Some advocates argue that Into Reading doesn’t have as strong a focus on knowledge building compared with the other two programs, in part because it includes such a wide range of materials, but it has still received high marks from curriculum reviewers.

Which curriculum is your school likely to use?

Thirteen of the 15 districts expected to adopt one of the three approved reading programs this September have selected Into Reading. That curriculum uses an anthology-style textbook with texts specifically designed to teach reading skills. Some observers said the lessons tend to be scripted, and department officials said its “teacher friendly” approach made it a favorite among the local superintendents charged with picking a curriculum for their district’s schools.

“The lessons are laid out so the teacher can walk in and teach them,” said Heidi Donohue, an early literacy expert at Teaching Matters. Into Reading tends to move more quickly through multiple texts each week, she said, whereas Wit & Wisdom and EL Education tend to stay on one text or unit for longer stretches.

Into Reading “has everything that teachers would want,” said Merryl Casanova, a literacy coach who works with schools in the Bronx, pointing to materials that focus on grammar, spelling, reading comprehension, discussion strategies, and more. But that can also be “very overwhelming,” she said. “Teachers really have to plan for this, and they have to understand that they’re not going to use all of the resources.”

Into Reading has received some criticism for not reflecting the diversity of New York City’s student population, which is predominantly Black and Latino. A New York University report found that the program “used language and tone that demeaned and dehumanized Black, Indigenous and characters of color, while encouraging empathy and connection with White characters.”

Officials at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which publishes Into Reading, have disputed that characterization, arguing that the report focused on a small sample of materials. The city’s education department said schools may also supplement the curriculum with other materials that are designed to be culturally responsive.

All three curriculums have passed muster with EdReports, an independent curriculum reviewer.

Which schools will be covered by the mandate first?

Many schools among the first 15 districts covered by the mandate already use their district’s approved curriculum or are in the process of doing so, city officials said.

The city’s remaining 17 districts will not fall under the mandate until September 2024. City officials said some schools may receive exemptions, which have not yet been revealed, though they emphasized that they expect the number will be small.

Here’s what each district has selected so far:

Into Reading
Manhattan District 5
Bronx District 12
Brooklyn districts 14, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 32
Queens districts 25, 26, 29, 30
Select schools in District 75, a citywide district for students with more complex disabilities

EL Education
Bronx District 11

Wit & Wisdom
Brooklyn District 19

How long will it take to see changes?

Experts and educators said that curriculum changes often take years to fully take root, and may depend on how committed teachers and school leaders are to the changes. (The city’s principals union, for instance, has pushed back against the mandate.)

At P.S. 236 in the Bronx, educators began transitioning to Wit & Wisdom in 2020 after using Calkins’ Units of Study for years. Lauren Litman, a second grade teacher, said educators have been learning how to deploy texts that students often find challenging and figuring out how to edit the curriculum down to be manageable.

“We’ve kind of gotten into a better rhythm of how to scale down the lessons because there is a lot of information,” she said.

How quickly teaching practice changes may also depend on how effective the city’s training is — and there’s limited time to help educators learn new materials before September.

“Any new curriculum is going to take time for us to get the routines and the systems and the things in place that are going to make it work for the school,” Donohue said. “No curriculum is going to be the quick fix.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Better pay and more hours: NYC Council leaders push for changes to 3-K, pre-K programs

2023-05-10T00:30:12+00:00

Leaders of New York City Council charged Mayor Eric Adams with failing to address problems that have plagued the city’s public preschool programs, and they made several demands to improve the system.

Speaking in the playground of a Lower East Side 3-K and prekindergarten center Tuesday, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, several of her colleagues, and advocates listed several items they want. That includes higher pay for workers in programs run by community-based organizations, paying preschool providers on time, improving outreach to encourage more families to enroll, and allowing community organizations to directly enroll families.

The push comes as budget negotiations are underway between the council and the mayor, whose $106.7 billion proposed budget would cut funding for the education department by 3%, or $960 million. That slashes a plan under former Mayor Bill de Blasio to further expand preschool for 3-year-old children, with the Adams administration pointing to at least 16,000 unfilled seats.

Speaker Adams blasted the mayor’s approach, describing the city’s early childhood education system as “broken” and “in full crisis mode.”

“As my colleagues in the council and the advocates here today have pointed out repeatedly, the city needs to correct its course to address the gaps in our system so we provide stability for this very critical sector,” she told reporters outside the program run by Grand Street Settlement.

New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, flanked by council members and advocates, discusses changes they’ll demand of Mayor Eric Adams in order to improve the city’s public preschool system.

Mayor Adams’ first year in office has been marked by changes and sometimes chaos in the city’s early childhood education system. In addition to the cancellation of plans to expand 3-K, many providers have reported that the city has not paid them on time, which has left some programs in financial crisis and caused others to close. Despite the city’s promise to fix the problem, multiple council members said Tuesday that they’re still hearing of issues at centers across the city.

When the education department announced a bureaucratic overhaul, including moving hundreds of early childhood workers to other offices, those workers were left in limbo without clarity about what their new jobs would entail; the department later pulled back on that plan.

At the same time, the mayor has vowed to ensure the city offers enough seats to preschool students with disabilities, an issue that his predecessor failed to solve.

In a statement, education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer credited the city’s outreach efforts, noting that applications for 3-K have increased by more than 20% compared to last year. The city, he said, has shifted 3,500 3-K and pre-K seats from “unfilled areas to areas of demand, which also includes shifting the types of seats offered to meet actual need.”

Styer added, “there is a misalignment of seats that we are tackling head on.”

Boosting worker pay at community-based organizations

For several advocacy organizations, boosting pay for teachers and other support staff is the most important issue to tackle. Better pay would mean retaining quality staff instead of losing them to programs or jobs that pay better, they argue.

Pay disparities are in part the result of the patchwork of programs that make up the city’s preschool system. Some programs are run by the education department, such as inside schools, while community-based organizations run others. Department staffers are unionized and are generally paid more than their counterparts working in community-based organizations, who tend to be women of color.

Four years ago, the city agreed to boost salaries for teachers at community organizations with a certified masters degree, to $69,000 a year by October 2021, matching the salary of a first-year teacher at the education department. The agreement didn’t include raises after that date, and it also meant a veteran teacher at a community-based organization made the same as a new education department teacher, said Gregory Brender, chief policy and innovation officer with Day Care Council.

Tara Gardner, executive director of the Day Care Council, shared an example of one disparity that still exists: An assistant teacher at a community-based organization earns 53% of their counterpart in public schools. Advocates like Gardner want pay for teachers at community-based organizations to match their years of service, as well as comparable pay for other support staff, such as paraprofessionals and custodians.

“They do the same work as staff at the DOE; the only difference is the building,” said Ayana Reefe, Head Start director for Grand Street Settlement, the community organization where Speaker Adams visited on Tuesday.

Council members will also push for $15 million to provide a longer school day and year for 1,000 3-year-olds. That funding — which would convert existing seats instead of adding more — would also include signing bonuses “to help attract and retain the necessary staff,” officials said.

Currently, many 3-K seats are only available between 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., which advocates argue don’t work for parents who work outside of those hours. In a recent survey conducted by the Citizens’ Committee for Children, one-third of more than 1,000 respondents said they were looking for child care from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Styer noted that there are 11,000 unfilled seats with longer hours that go beyond the school year.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said a survey from the Citizens Committee for Children included 160 respondents due to incorrect information. In fact, there were more than 1,000 respondents.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC forces elementary schools to use one of three reading programs in massive literacy push

2023-05-09T20:09:40+00:00

New York City’s elementary schools will be required to use one of three reading curriculums, a tectonic shift that education officials hope will improve literacy rates across the nation’s largest school system.

Beginning in September, elementary schools in 15 of the city’s 32 districts will be required to use one of three programs selected by the education department, Chancellor David Banks and Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday. By September 2024, all of the city’s roughly 700 elementary schools will be required to use one of the three. Chalkbeat first reported the plans in March.

The new mandate won support from the teachers union, whose leaders expressed faith in the city’s efforts to train thousands of teachers on new materials. Training for the first year is expected to cost $35 million, though city officials declined to provide an estimate of the effort’s overall price tag, including the cost of purchasing materials.

Meanwhile, the plan earned a strong rebuke from the union representing principals, who have long had wide latitude to choose which materials their teachers use. That freedom has allowed school leaders to use programs that vary widely in their approach and quality, Banks has argued.

The chancellor has frequently called for a more systematic approach, citing lagging reading scores. About half of the city’s students in grades 3-8 are not considered proficient readers based on state tests. The results are even more stark among certain subgroups: Fewer than 37% of Black and Latino reached that threshold and the numbers significantly are lower for students with disabilities and those still learning English.

“They aren’t reading because we’ve been giving our schools and our educators a flawed plan,” Banks said during the announcement at Brooklyn’s P.S. 156. He added: “It is really an indictment on the work that we do.”

Now, city officials will require one of three reading programs: Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds; Into Reading from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; or EL Education. They charged superintendents of each district to select their schools’ curriculum. Thirteen of the initial 15 districts are planning to use Into Reading. Some schools are already using these curriculums, and city officials did not say how many will have to switch.

What curriculum is your school’s district planning to use?

EL Education
Bronx District 11

Wit & Wisdom
Brooklyn District 19

City officials said they selected the first 15 districts based in part on how many schools in each district were prepared to make a curriculum change. Notably, some of the city’s most affluent districts (Manhattan’s districts 2 and 3, and Brooklyn’s District 15) will be in the second phase of the rollout. Those districts include many schools that use balanced literacy approaches, including Lucy Calkins’ curriculum, so sweeping changes in those neighborhoods could spark more pushback from educators and school leaders.

All three curriculums have met quality expectations set by EdReports, an independent curriculum reviewer. And they also met the group’s standards for helping students build background knowledge by exposing them to more content in topics like science and social studies, something many experts say is an important ingredient for building reading comprehension skills.

But some of the curriculum materials have also faced criticism. A review from New York University found that Into Reading is not culturally responsive and “used language and tone that demeaned and dehumanized Black, Indigenous and characters of color, while encouraging empathy and connection with White characters.”

Asked about those findings, Deputy Chancellor Carolyne Quintana pointed to the education department’s own culturally responsive materials that can supplement the other reading programs “to better reflect the range of ethnicities and cultures that we have here in New York City.”

The new initiative builds on previous efforts to bolster literacy instruction, including a requirement that schools use city-approved phonics programs, which help students master the relationship between sounds and letters. Education officials have also launched programs to reach students with dyslexia, including a standalone school dedicated to students with reading challenges that will launch in the fall.

Adams, who has repeatedly pointed to his own struggle with dyslexia in school as a motivation for improving literacy instruction, acknowledged that the city’s efforts will take time to come to fruition, likely stretching beyond his administration.

“Is it going to be perfect? No,” the mayor said. “But dammit, we’re going to try.”

Retraining teachers in the shift from ‘balanced literacy’

City officials are pushing schools to move away from a framework known as “balanced literacy” which places a greater emphasis on exposing students to books of their choice to help them develop a love of reading rather than explicit instruction on foundational reading skills.

Balanced literacy was pushed into schools in 2003 under Chancellor Joel Klein and has enjoyed support from successive school chancellors.

But even as a growing chorus of experts have pointed to research showing the importance of teaching foundational reading skills, a balanced literacy program written by Lucy Calkins at Teachers College has remained in hundreds of elementary schools in recent years, an investigation by Chalkbeat and THE CITY found. (Calkins has revised her materials to include more of an emphasis on phonics.)

Many advocates felt relieved when Banks took the helm of city schools and issued a blunt assessment of balanced literacy and Calkins materials, arguing the approach “has not worked.” And literacy experts have widely cheered the city’s plans to mandate a smaller set of reading choices, effectively preventing schools from using balanced literacy programs like the one written by Calkins.

But a new curriculum alone is unlikely to dramatically improve student learning. Much of the plan will hinge on how effective the city’s training is and whether educators buy in to the changes. Meanwhile, curriculum shifts often take years to execute, and there is little time to train thousands of teachers who will be expected to transition to new materials beginning in September.

Education department officials are gearing up training efforts and will pay teachers extra this summer and during the school year to help them prepare, though it’s unclear how much training most teachers will receive before the rollout begins. They also noted each school will have access to more than three weeks worth of training and teachers will receive “job-embedded coaching.”

Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, said he’s seen the city’s training plans come into focus in recent weeks and lent his support, flanking Adams and Banks during the announcement.

“It’s all hands on deck — everybody has to work together,” Mulgrew said in an interview, though he noted that many of his members are “pessimistic” about being forced to adopt new materials. “It should have never been a school system where every school was left on their own to do whatever they want.”

Having fewer curriculums will make it easier to provide teacher training, proponents of the change argue, since superintendents can focus on supporting schools with one curriculum instead of a hodge-podge. And if students switch schools, particularly students who live in temporary housing, they’ll be much less likely to start from scratch with a new program.

“Right now professional learning is like random skills led by fly-by providers,” said Evan Stone, executive director of Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group that has pushed for more standardized curriculums. “Now teachers can become true experts in a core set of tools.”

Principals union worries about buy-in from schools

Still, the changes have met resistance from the city’s principal union, whose members’ freedom to choose instructional materials will be curtailed. And some educators have also expressed frustration that they will no longer be able to use approaches that they believe are working for their students. Other veteran educators have seen education initiatives ebb over time and worry they’re being asked to make a change that will ultimately be scrapped in a few years.

Henry Rubio, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, issued a statement criticizing the department for its lack of outreach in developing its plan, saying that his union repeatedly asked why city officials did not engage parents, teachers, and principals on the shift.

With superintendents choosing their district’s curriculum without giving schools a chance to evaluate them, Rubio cast doubt on whether the move will “earn essential buy-in within their communities.” He also worried that the timeline was too short for many principals, who have been focused on end-of-year activities and planning for summer school.

“This is a massive overhaul of how we teach children to read, and the DOE has provided little detail on how thousands of educators will be adequately trained by September,” Rubio said. “Perhaps more importantly, why have half the districts been given well over a year to adequately prepare while the other half are forced to rush through this vital training?”

Education department officials said there may be some exemptions to the mandate, but emphasized that they will be limited in scope and only apply to a small number of schools.

Some teachers are hoping their schools will qualify for exemptions. At P.S. 236 in the Bronx, the school has been transitioning to Wit & Wisdom from Calkins’ balanced literacy curriculum called Units of Study. Teachers there have been learning how to implement the new lessons, which include more difficult texts and less independent reading time when students read books of their choosing.

And while the school is not in the first wave of those expected to change curriculums, they worry that they’ll be forced to start fresh with a new program depending on what their superintendent selects for their district, even though they’re already using one of the city’s approved programs.

“That would be a lot of work and a lot of wasted effort,” said Susan Mackle, a second grade teacher.

The city is also planning to require more standardized curriculums in other parts of the system. About 178 high schools will begin using a standardized algebra curriculum called Illustrative Math. And early childhood programs will be expected to use a program called The Creative Curriculum.

Amy Zimmer contributed.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools grasp for support as some migrant students miss out on mandated English instruction

2023-05-09T10:00:00+00:00

Miriam Sicherman looks at her Google Translate app or her pocket translator an average of 25 times a day while teaching fourth graders at the Children’s Workshop School in Manhattan’s East Village.

For a recent lesson on internet safety, she translated her presentation into Spanish and Russian ahead of time for her five newcomer immigrant students who speak those languages, but then used her phone to look up words like “password” or “email address” to respond to their questions. In an eight-hour school day, she repeats this process over and over again.

On top of the translation apps, Sicherman takes Duolingo Spanish lessons in her own time and accepts occasional help from a bilingual student and a Russian-speaking teacher at another school in her building.

Still, it sometimes feels impossible to explain in-depth concepts in a language other than her own.

An estimated 14,000 asylum-seeking immigrant students have enrolled in New York City public schools, city officials said last month. Teachers are finding that many of these children are learning English at the most basic level, and some hadn’t attended school regularly before arriving in the United States. The students are legally entitled to extra support, but some schools are struggling to provide it.

Failing to meet the needs of English language learners is not a new problem. Since 2016, the state has placed New York City on a corrective action plan because the district has failed to adequately support English learners, including not providing required services for those with disabilities. The plan, which has been extended multiple times over the past seven years, requires the city to gradually provide more of these services.

For Sicherman, it’s crucial that her English language learners get the support to which they are entitled. But there is just one part-time English-as-a-new-language, or ENL, teacher who provides this support to dozens of students at her school. That means Sicherman’s newcomers are getting a fraction of the extra help they should receive, she said.

“I can make them feel comfortable and safe — that I’m doing my best with, and I think I am achieving that — but they really are entitled to much more than that,” Sicherman said.

Sicherman’s concern is one that potentially many educators share, as thousands of new immigrant families have sought refuge in New York City this year, from Central and South American countries, as well as from Ukraine and Russia.

In anticipation of students’ arrival, the city launched “Project Open Arms” in the fall to send a total $12 million to schools that enrolled six or more newcomer students living in temporary housing. Officials also said schools that have enrolled more students than expected have received another $98 million this year.

Still, some teachers say their schools don’t have enough funding to hire more staff who are equipped to work with newcomer English learners. Some schools have the money, but have struggled to find teachers due to a long-standing shortage of bilingual teachers. That leaves teachers like Sicherman feeling overwhelmed and at times unequipped to properly help these students.

As the city expects another wave of newcomer immigrant families, teachers and advocates are worried it will become even more challenging to support English learners without more help from the city.

The New York Immigration Coalition has heard complaints throughout this school year that students aren’t receiving their required services, said Andrea Ortiz, senior manager of education policy.

“We shouldn’t be allowing students to be just housed in places where they’re not gonna be given the types of supports that they’re legally entitled to,” Ortiz said.

In a statement, education department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said officials are working closely with schools to “assess any gaps in resources and to provide solutions as expeditiously as possible.”

‘It’s kind of demoralizing’

Sicherman’s school has been waiting months for more help.

Over each of the past five years, her school enrolled between six and 13 English learners, according to demographic records. This year, roughly 60 English learners enrolled, Sicherman said.

School leaders volunteered in January to accept more asylum seekers, the spokesperson said. A crush of newcomer immigrant students began coming in February, but even after the principal requested more staffing help from the education department, the school still had just one part-time ENL teacher, Sicherman said.

Budget records show that the school received about $64,600 in funding from Project Open Arms, which can be used to pay teachers overtime, cover teacher prep periods, and pay substitutes, among other uses related to communication with parents. It’s not clear when the school received those funds. The principal did not respond to a request for comment to discuss the school’s challenges this year or explain how that money was used.

As beginner-level English learners, Sicherman’s five newcomer students should each be receiving 360 minutes a week of extra help building English skills, per state regulations for grades K-8. But they are only getting 135 minutes, since the part-time ENL teacher can only work with them for 45 minutes during each of her three days at the school.

Officials did not answer why the school hasn’t received more staffing help. Superintendent Carry Chan, who oversees Manhattan’s District 1, where the Children’s Workshop School is located, has appealed for the school to receive another full-time ENL teacher, a spokesperson said. The spokesperson added that the school also has a classroom teacher licensed to work with English language learners, and suggested they could tweak programming and use that person so that students are getting more services.

Sicherman said she’s constantly trying to balance those students’ needs with those of the 16 native English speakers in her class. She translates many lessons and uses other tools, including donated Spanish flash cards. But it’s difficult to explain topics in-depth, such as the Irish potato famine, or have a conversation about it. She relies “completely” on Google Translate for her Russian student, with whom the language barrier is so thick that Sicherman worries the child won’t be able to tell her if she’s feeling unwell.

Even lighthearted moments are hard. Sicherman recently pulled up Google Translate to tell a few of her Spanish-speaking students that they were “being silly.” Her bilingual student stopped her: Using the app’s suggested word “tonto” would be like calling the children idiots, he said.

“It’s kind of demoralizing,” Sicherman said. “I wish I could be teaching these kids, and I’m really not teaching them.”

There don’t appear to be immediate consequences for schools or districts who are not providing legally required services to English learners. J.P. O’Hare, a spokesperson for the state education department, said the corrective action plan requires the district to submit multiple reports a year about how they’re improving support for these students. In response, state officials share “direction and guidance” on where city schools need to improve and meet regularly with district staff.

Some experienced ENL teachers are struggling this year

Even experienced ENL teachers say they’re overwhelmed by the arrival of thousands of new immigrant students.

Brooklyn ENL teacher Melanie is usually paired with middle schoolers. But this year, as more English learners enrolled at her Bay Ridge school and one of her ENL colleagues went on leave, she was also asked to work with children in grades 2-5.

Melanie, who asked only to use her first name because she was not authorized to speak with the press, found she was “really struggling” to help younger students, since she’s used to helping older children who know how to read and write at more advanced levels.

The school couldn’t find a replacement for the ENL teacher on leave, who returned a few weeks ago.

For most of this year, Melanie served roughly twice as many children in the “beginner” level as she usually does, many of whom haven’t attended school in a while and are learning various skills, such as how to use an iPad. She was providing the legally required amount of support to these children, but she doesn’t think they received enough individual help, she said.

“I know going into it, I am not meeting their needs,” she said.

One Brooklyn high school enrolled about 30 new immigrant students between February and April, causing classes for beginner-level English learners to fill up to the legal limit of 34, said Nathan, an ENL teacher at the school who asked only to use his first name.

The school, which is used to serving many English learners, is staying afloat for now. They’ve created new classes with existing staff, and they’re using some funding to pay one person overtime in order to be a “migrant students coordinator,” who is charged with creating resources for newcomer families.

But if they get another similar wave of students, he’s unsure if the school has enough funding to add another class for beginner-level English learners or even meet legal mandates.

“That would require a lot of creative budgeting,” Nathan said.

Asylum seekers are a ‘blessing’ for one Brooklyn school

Some schools, such as those with dual language programs, seem better set up to welcome newcomer immigrants.

Asylum-seeking families have “been a blessing” for one Spanish dual language program in Brooklyn, where the number of English language learners has doubled this year, said F.C., a teacher at the school who requested only her initials be used because she was not authorized to speak to the press. Typically, the school doesn’t attract many native Spanish speakers. This year, the surge in enrollment has given both English and Spanish speakers a chance to learn from one another.

As a former newcomer immigrant herself, F.C. has used her experience to connect with students. She comforted a student who would occasionally cry because he was struggling in class and missed home. She told him once, “I used to cry, too, because I didn’t understand what everyone was saying, and that motivated me to learn.’” He gave her a hug.

Most schools don’t have dual language programs. There are 245 such programs across all grades for general education students, covering 13 different languages.

While those programs are “set up well” for English learners, they don’t exist everywhere, said Councilmember Rita Joseph, chair of the council’s education committee, who used to be an ENL teacher. Looking ahead, she thinks the education department will have to “pivot” as more asylum-seeking families make New York City their new home.

“We’re gonna have so much that we can no longer have part-time [ENL] teachers,” she said. “That’s the only way you can stay in compliance.”

Sicherman’s school recently launched an after-school program for English learners, which doesn’t count toward their legally required support but is helpful, she said. Her principal also bought each teacher a pocket translator, which Sicherman has found more useful than Google Translate. Sometimes students use it to talk with each other while she uses her phone app.

Five days after Chalkbeat reached out to the education department about the issues at Sicherman’s school, she discovered that their part-time ENL teacher would soon be working with them full time.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

New York state budget boosts school funding and allows more charter schools

2023-05-03T19:44:20+00:00

New York’s state lawmakers approved a budget this week that will usher in record funding for schools and a controversial plan allowing 14 charter schools to open in New York City.

The budget, finalized more than a month past the April 1 deadline, will increase aid for schools by $3 billion compared to last year. That brings the total state support for schools to $34 billion, with more than a third of that going to the nation’s largest district, New York City public schools. (Even so, because of city and federal funding cuts, Mayor Eric Adams is proposing to slash the education department’s budget by nearly $1 billion.)

The late budget caused frustration among local lawmakers and education organizations. Even though there was no dispute over school funding this year, local leaders were still waiting to know final details, such as how much they could expect to receive, said Bob Lowry, deputy director for advocacy and communication at the state’s Council of School Superintendents.

“It’s been aggravating that it’s dragged on without any apparent urgency,” Lowry said.

Unlike past years, funding was not a hot-button issue since lawmakers had previously agreed to significantly boost dollars for schools. However, in a surprising twist, charter schools emerged as a sticking point in final budget negotiations.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to open more than 100 charter schools across the five boroughs was one of the final issues that lawmakers picked apart. They reached a deal last week to open just a chunk of the schools Hochul had proposed.

The day after the deal was struck, Hochul announced that she and Democratic leaders had conceptually agreed to a final budget.

Here’s a look at two big education highlights from the state budget:

‘Zombie charters’ allowed to open in the city

In 2019, New York City reached a state-imposed cap of how many charter schools could open across the five boroughs. That cap included 14 “zombie” charter schools, which have either closed or never opened.

As part of the budget, 14 of those zombies will be allowed to open in New York City, while another eight will be allowed to open elsewhere. The city schools can only open in districts where the total charter school enrollment is 55% or less than that of education department-run school enrollment, according to budget records.

Hochul’s original proposal was pared down in the face of significant pushback from teachers unions, lawmakers, and advocates, who argued that the state needed to prioritize more resources for traditional public schools, which have struggled with declining enrollment.

Many charter advocates applauded the compromise, allowing the sector to expand its footprint in the city. Some operators, who were pre-approved to open schools in 2019 after the city had reached the cap, are expected to receive priority if they reapply now for a zombie charter, according to the SUNY Charter Schools Institute, one of two entities that can authorize charter schools to open. (The other is the New York State Board of Regents.)

Opponents to the proposal, including some local New York City officials, shared frustration.

“It took a month to convince the governor not to lift the cap on charter schools, which would pull vital funds from the traditional public school system, and even a month later, the governor insisted on reviving zombie charters,” Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said in a statement.

The city typically must cover rental costs for charters, but as part of the deal, Hochul agreed to use state funding to cover that cost.

School funding rises to record-high levels

The state’s $34 billion school funding plan includes a final, planned increase to Foundation Aid, the state’s main school funding formula that sends more money to higher need districts.

For years, boosting Foundation Aid was a contentious matter in Albany. While funding for schools increased under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, he declined to fund Foundation Aid at the level the formula calculated for each district’s needs. After years of advocacy from policymakers, advocates, and lawmakers, Cuomo agreed in his final months in office to fully fund the formula over a three-year period.

Hochul agreed to stick to that plan, which was originally expected to boost Foundation Aid by $4 billion over that three-year period. That figure has grown by $800 million because of inflation.

New York City — which sends much of its Foundation Aid dollars directly to schools — will receive an increase of 5.5% in those funds compared to this current school year.

In total, New York City will receive $12.9 billion in funding for schools from the state — equivalent to 42% of what the mayor has proposed for the education department’s operating budget next year.

The mayor’s budget office projected receiving close to that from the state — about $12.7 billion — next year for city schools. But with drops in city and federal funding, Adams has proposed a nearly $1 billion smaller education department budget for next year.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Enrollment at NYC’s transfer high schools tanked during the pandemic. Can it rebound?

2023-04-28T21:22:08+00:00

Alyssa Cartagena stopped attending school after giving birth a year ago. She had no babysitter, and going back felt insurmountable.

But a small alternative high school on Manhattan’s Upper West Side helped pull her back in. The program, Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School, boasts an on-site day care center operated by the education department. She enrolled her two-month old son, Shawn, dropping him off each day before heading to class.

“I was nervous, but I was also relaxed knowing I was so close to him, and I can stop by anytime,” said Cartagena, now 19. “It was easier for me to focus in class.”

She’s now on track to earn a high school diploma later this year.

The city has nearly 60 transfer schools like West Side that focus on the students who struggled to succeed at traditional high schools and are at risk of dropping out. They pride themselves on offering individual support, small classes, and a suite of wraparound services to push students to graduation.

But the city’s transfer schools are in a precarious position, as enrollment across the sector has plummeted. The number of students attending transfer high schools fell 22% over the past four years compared with a 5% decline at traditional high schools, a Chalkbeat analysis found. Steep dips in enrollment can put schools in danger of being closed or merged.

Already, the education department has put forward a contentious plan for West Side, which shrank from serving about 500 students six years ago to about 200 this year. The proposal calls for West Side to swap buildings with The Young Women’s Leadership School in East Harlem, which is outgrowing its campus.

Community members have blasted the proposal because it would leave West Side without an on-site child care center or health clinic. Some have also warned students may face threats to their physical safety if they cross neighborhood lines.

The education department has argued the move, along with a new Spanish dual-language program, could help attract new students to West Side. After the department delayed the proposal earlier this month, the city’s Panel for Educational Policy is scheduled for a Monday vote that will be closely watched.

The battle playing out at West Side only represents the most high-profile example of the transfer school enrollment crisis that has been simmering below the surface. About 70% of the city’s transfer schools now enroll fewer than 200 students, up from about 26% in 2017. A handful have slipped below 100.

The enrollment drops are likely due in part to more relaxed academic standards at traditional high schools during the pandemic, observers say. Some of the sector’s leaders believe it will bounce back as regular grading policies — and state graduation exams — fall back into place.

But dwindling enrollment raises questions about the sustainability of a network of schools that exclusively serve students who are at risk of dropping out, including those who have been tangled in the criminal justice system, face difficult family circumstances, or may be parents themselves. Since schools are funded largely based on enrollment, shrinking rosters can make it difficult to offer a wide range of classes and extracurricular activities.

Manhattan’s Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School is at the center of a contentious proposal to move the school into a smaller space.

Education department officials did not respond to questions for this story, including whether they are considering merging or closing transfer schools.

Some leaders across the sector believe that enrollment will rebound, but there is lingering concern that a broader wave of restructuring could be on the horizon.

“It might have to be the reality — I don’t know that you can run a school with 100 students,” said one transfer school principal who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

“We’ve been sort of warned, in a sense: Keep your numbers up or that’s something that could happen.”

Why is transfer school enrollment dropping precipitously?

Transfer school leaders trace the steep decline in enrollment to pandemic-era policies that made it easier for students to stay on track at traditional high schools.

When the pandemic forced campuses to shut down in 2020, schools eased their grading policies. And state officials temporarily paused the Regents exams, typically required for graduation. Students only had to pass their courses to graduate rather than sit for an additional state exam.

Students may have been able to pass classes they would have failed in a typical year, said Jai Nanda, executive director of Urban Dove, which operates two charter transfer schools, one in Brooklyn and one in the Bronx.

Traditional high schools had incentives to hang on to more of their students, since many of those campuses were also experiencing enrollment declines. Plus, families may simply have been more reluctant to switch schools during such a chaotic time, even if a student was struggling.

“[Students] chalked it up to being remote rather than their school not being a good fit for them,” Nanda said.

Transfer schools may also have lost students who became disconnected from school due to growing mental health and anxiety problems, or because they needed to work to support their families. Some may have moved out of the city with their families because of rising housing costs.

Small-by-design schools are more vulnerable to enrollment drops

Whatever the cause, declining enrollment has an outsized effect on transfer schools, which are typically smaller to begin with to offer more individualized support than a traditional campus.

Shawn Henry, a director of high school programming at Queens Community House, helps oversee the organization’s partnership with three transfer high schools. The group ensures every student is paired with a counselor, conducts home visits if a student doesn’t show up for three consecutive days, and helps coordinate paid internship opportunities.

“The ideal model is a smaller environment,” Henry said.

But that size makes it difficult to absorb big enrollment swings — though so far the schools have been insulated by an influx of federal relief money.

At Urban Dove, which has seen enrollment dip, the school has a heavy focus on sports, with all students expected to participate on athletic teams with coaches who work with them multiple hours each day. “A great deal of that program is beyond the traditional school budget,” Nanda said. Emergency pandemic aid kept the program afloat.

Still, other campuses are beginning to feel the pinch — and relief money is beginning to dry up. One transfer school principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their school has already reduced staff positions. That has limited the number of electives they offer. And it forced them to cut the number of classrooms with a mix of students with disabilities and general education students; those classes are typically staffed by two teachers.

Those types of cuts can prompt a downward spiral, where fewer classes and programs makes the school less attractive to prospective students. At the same time, shrinking rosters make operating the schools even more expensive on a per-student basis, creating incentives for city officials to consolidate or close them.

“As you contract, it becomes harder to even grow,” the principal said.

Some transfer school leaders predict a rebound

Despite the serious headwinds facing transfer schools, some of the school’s leaders believe demand for the schools will return.

As schools return to normal grading policies and Regents exams are back in full swing, there may be an even larger contingent of students who struggle to graduate without moving to a transfer school.

Nanda, the leader of two charter transfer schools, said he is already seeing signs of an enrollment uptick. “You’re going to have a lot of kids coming into high school in the next couple years that won’t have the fundamental skill[s],” he said, though he noted that it remains to be seen how many will wind up at transfer schools.

Transfer school staff also noted that the schools could be an asset to serving the growing number of asylum-seeking students arriving in New York, as alternative schools specialize in reaching students with interrupted educations.

Emma Lazarus High School, a transfer program on the Lower East Side, has long focused on serving students who are still learning English and has seen its enrollment snap back relatively quickly thanks in part to an influx of new arrivals.

“The uptake in immigrants has definitely impacted our enrollment upward,” said Principal Melody Kellogg, who retired this month. Education officials previously indicated that they planned to place some new arrivals at transfer schools, but officials have provided few details about the program.

Still, Kellogg and other transfer leaders said it can be difficult for other transfer schools to serve newly arrived immigrants, arguing that even with a boost in funding, it is often not commensurate with the need to hire new staff. Finding qualified educators, especially mid-year, is a major challenge.

“It’s nice to have a little extra money, but it’s not going to be enough to support them fully,” Kellogg said.

More broadly, Natalie Lozada, who works with four transfer schools through East Side House Settlement, worries that a focus on enrollment declines could jeopardize programs that are doing solid work. “Are we saying that because these numbers are low that we should discard supports for these students?”

Still, like many of the sector’s boosters, she anticipates a rebound is coming.

“I believe in my heart, and based on my experience, and all my years of doing this work, that it’s circular. Their numbers are going to come back up again.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

14 ‘zombie’ charters would open in NYC under Albany budget deal

2023-04-27T18:59:58+00:00

After a four-year halt on new charter schools in New York City, state lawmakers have reached a deal to open 14 “zombie” charters.

The deal, struck Wednesday night between Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democratic leaders, would allow charter school operators to open 14 zombies — schools that closed or were never opened. Additionally, the state would cover rent for these schools, relieving New York City of the cost, said state Sen. John Liu, who is the chair of the state senate’s New York City education committee.

Since the city is required to pay rent for charter schools, this deal would leave little incentive for the city to co-locate these zombie charters with traditional public schools. Such co-locations often drum up opposition from the public and the schools involved.

The deal is not yet law; it is expected to be part of the state’s final budget approval, which is now 27 days late. The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

The state education department and the SUNY Charter Schools Institute have the authority to award charters to prospective operators in New York. Spokespeople for both said they needed to review the final proposal.

SUNY approved charters for six schools in 2019 that couldn’t open because the city had reached a state-imposed cap on charter schools in the five boroughs, said spokesperson Michael Lesczinski. If the deal goes through, SUNY would open a new request for proposals for newly available charters. While those six already-approved schools would have to submit updated materials including “budgets and evidence of ongoing community outreach, support and demand,” they would be first in line for consideration, Lesczinski said.

“I’m glad that the governor and the legislature were able to find some common ground on this,” said Arthur Samuels, who co-founded MESA Charter High School in Bushwick. The organization won pre-approval in 2019 to open a second high school in Brooklyn, but were blocked by the charter cap.

While overall enrollment in the charter sector has increased, many individual schools, including some of the biggest networks, are logging fewer students — meaning that opening more charter schools could lead to smaller budgets or even closures among traditional district schools and existing charters alike.

But Samuels said he will move to open a second school if possible and is waiting for guidance about how the approval process will work.

“There is a demand for the type of education we’re offering, which is responsive and community-centric,” he said. “We see that as something that people want even as the number of school-age children in the city declines.”

Hochul’s push for more charter schools in New York City emerged as one of the last items holding up the overdue state budget — and her keen interest puzzled many following the issue, given the significant opposition she has faced from the start. Her pitch, which was part of her budget proposal in January, came four years after the city hit the charter cap. At the time, a handful of charter operators were approved to open schools if the cap was ever increased, including the six by SUNY.

At first Hochul’s original proposal, which could have allowed more than 100 charter schools to open in New York City, seemed dead on arrival. It drew immediate backlash from Democratic lawmakers, unions, and advocates, who argued that city resources should be spent on traditional public schools, which are seeing enrollment declines and are still facing pandemic-related challenges.

Hochul has argued that she wants more school choice for parents, particularly those who are on waitlists for charters. She has also received campaign contributions from supporters of charter schools, and indirect support from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the New York Times reported last month.

Hochul has also received donations from teachers and principals unions, which have strongly opposed the expansion of charter schools. In a statement, Michael Mulgrew, president of the city teachers union, accused Hochul of listening “to the demands of a handful of billionaires,” despite the charter sector’s enrollment challenges.

Last month, the state Senate and Assembly formally rejected the proposal in their response to Hochul’s budget plan, and even three weeks ago, the topic wasn’t a part of budget negotiations, according to multiple state lawmakers, who said the focus was on other hot issues, such as bail reform.

But this week, Hochul presented Democrats with a compromise: allow just the 22 existing zombie charters to open. Liu opposed that plan, too, largely because several of those charters were issued outside of New York City but would have been allowed to open within the five boroughs.

But on Thursday, Liu said he agreed to this latest deal because the 14 zombie charters in question all exist in New York City, and it would not involve lifting the charter cap.

“The firm agreement is no increase or no elimination of the New York City cap, which is clearly the right policy going forward because you have to strike the balance between the desire for some charter choice and the need for the city to keep public schools open,” Liu said.

In a statement, City Hall spokesperson Amaris Cockfield said, “As all New Yorkers, we are still awaiting final budget details, but we always appreciate and welcome Albany’s support to meet the needs of New York City’s children and families.”

Charter school advocates applauded the deal, which is significantly pared down from what Hochul originally proposed.

“[Hochul] understands that having both a strong and growing charter sector makes all of our public schools stronger and better able to meet the complex needs of our students and families,” said James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center, in a statement. “For years, leaders, including many of color, have been on hold to open innovative new schools in NYC communities – this deal will finally allow 14 of them to open their doors.”

Crystal McQueen-Taylor, president of StudentsFirstNY, said in a statement that “the Governor’s tenacity and persistence made all the difference.”

But not everyone was pleased. Eva Moskowitz, the founder and CEO of Success Academy, the city’s largest charter network, called the deal a “travesty,” in a statement. Albany has “bargained away … access to high-quality schools,” for low-income students of color since the deal would open just 14 schools, she said.

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

NYC’s education budget could drop by $960M next year under mayor’s proposal

2023-04-27T00:19:25+00:00

The city’s education department budget would drop by nearly $960 million next school year under a more detailed budget proposal released by Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday, though city officials did not offer specifics about the impact on individual campuses.

Two-thirds of that cut, or $652 million, is the result of Adams’ decision to reduce the city’s contribution to the education department. Another $297 million is from a drop in federal funding, which is drying up as pandemic relief programs end.

Part of the city’s cut is tied to a mandate from the mayor earlier this month calling on city agencies to cut spending, including at the education department. That raised questions about whether schools would take a hit, but on Wednesday, Adams vowed that this specific cost-saving measure “will not take a dime from classrooms.”

Instead, that reduction — totaling $325 million — will largely come from recalculations on how much the city spends in fringe benefits, such as health insurance for teachers. (Officials emphasized this would not result in a loss of benefits or other services.)

“We had to make tough choices in this budget,” Adams said Wednesday. “We had to negotiate competing needs. We realize that not everyone will be happy but that is okay because that is how you get stuff done.”

The education department’s operating budget would total about $30.5 billion next year under the mayor’s plan, down by about 3%.

Some of the cuts were previously announced, including the elimination of a planned expansion of prekindergarten for 3-year-olds. Other impacts of the cuts may come into focus in the coming days as experts and journalists pore over reams of budget documents, which were released late Wednesday afternoon.

Adams has argued school budgets should reflect falling enrollment, but city officials declined to say what overall change they expect to individual school budgets next year. That question is likely to draw intense scrutiny after the City Council was heavily criticized last year for approving a budget that resulted in cuts to many campuses.

After the pandemic hit, Mayor Bill de Blasio used federal relief money to keep school budgets steady even as enrollment plunged. But as the spigot of federal money is drying up, Adams has started reducing budgets to line up with the number of students enrolled at each school, resulting in cuts on the majority of campuses. (Since the start of the pandemic, enrollment dropped about 11% in K-12.)

Next year, Adams plans to use $160 million of federal money to avoid deeper cuts to school budgets. Officials anticipate a much smaller enrollment decline than in recent years, which could insulate schools to some degree.

The budget is not final and must still be negotiated with the City Council. A final deal is due by July 1.

The proposed budget also includes funding for various other items, including services that advocates had been pushing for the mayor to include. Those are:

$3.3 million for keeping a chunk of the city’s new shelter-based coordinators, who are supposed to help families and children who are homeless navigate school enrollment and transportation. The funding for these coordinators was set to run out this June.
$9 million for a telehealth program for high school students who need mental health support.
$2 million for training up to 1,000 teachers in climate education.

The mayor’s budget received a mixed reception from advocates, union officials, and budget experts. Kim Sweet, executive director at the nonprofit Advocates for Children, praised the funding for shelter coordinators, but raised alarms about broader spending cuts — including to a program that provides extra mental health services to students at 50 high-need high schools, and another that provides free child care for undocumented families.

“We are concerned that the Mayor is proposing to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from our City’s schools at a time when there are so many unmet needs,” Sweet said in a statement, including high rates of chronic absenteeism and shortages in services for students with disabilities.

Still, Adams has argued that the city needs to tighten its belt due to costs associated with serving an influx of asylum seekers and potential economic headwinds.

Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the budget watchdog group Citizens Budget Commission, said her organization is worried the city isn’t properly planning now for big budget shortfalls that are expected in future years. That includes hundreds of millions of dollars of federal relief funding for the education department that will disappear in 2024 and could leave several programs and services unfunded.

“From our point of view there is still a major challenge fiscally for the city that’s not far off,” Champeny said. “We really should be taking action now.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Charter schools emerge as key issue holding up New York’s state budget

2023-04-25T22:14:53+00:00

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s controversial proposal to open more charter schools in New York City is one of the final issues holding up the passage of a state budget, officials said Tuesday.

The budget is nearly a month overdue.

Originally, Hochul wanted to allow more than 100 new charters to open in the five boroughs, by lifting a cap on such schools and releasing “zombie” charters for defunct or never-opened campuses.

After pushback from state lawmakers, Hochul floated a scaled back version, reviving just 22 zombie charter schools for the city, said Sen. John Liu, a Queens Democrat who is the chair of the state senate’s New York City education committee. Half of those zombie charters are located outside of the city, he said.

(Politico reported that the proposal also calls for the state to cover rent for newly released zombie charters.)

Even that proposal has been met with opposition. Hochul told reporters Tuesday that charter schools remain a difficult topic.

“I’m trying hard to overcome the objections, but this is a very challenging issue because of the emotions on both sides of the debate,” she said.

Lawmakers, union officials, and many advocates and families have argued that opening more charters will add to expenses for the city when it should be investing more in traditional public schools, which have lost enrollment. In March, both the Senate and the Assembly officially rejected the proposal.

Charter supporters, who have long pushed for the state to lift the cap in order to expand their footprint, cheered her idea. Hochul has emphasized that she’s attempting to offer more school options to families, including Black and Latino families who are on waitlists for charters.

Overall enrollment in the charter sector has ticked upwards, but it has dropped at many individual schools, including some of the biggest networks. That means opening more such schools could lead to smaller budgets or even closures within the charter sector.

The budget, which was due April 1, has been unresolved for weeks due to disagreements over various hot issues, including bail reform and affordable housing. Charter schools were not a focus of negotiations even three weeks ago, according to both State Senator Shelley Mayer, who chairs the Senate’s general education committee, and Assemblywoman Jo Ann Simon.

In an interview Tuesday, Liu said his committee reviewed Hochul’s new proposal, but it remains “a non-starter.” It would be reasonable “if there were absolutely no charter seats available in New York City,” he said, adding there is “no rationale” for it now.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC teacher contract negotiations heat up, educators worry raises won’t match inflation

2023-04-24T21:24:26+00:00

As New York City’s teachers union pushes for a contract, some educators took to the sidewalks during arrival on Monday to call attention to administrative tasks that distract from teaching.

“We were hired to nurture and educate children, not to feed a bureaucratic beast that can no longer ever be satisfied,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said Monday morning, flanked by educators at P.S. 527 and M.S. 114 on the Upper East Side. “And that is why the teachers are here today.”

But one major issue received comparatively less attention during the event with the union chief: pay increases.

Educators across the city said they’re concerned that an upcoming deal won’t keep up with rising costs, even as teachers faced enormous responsibilities during the pandemic to quickly spin up remote schooling and are now working to catch students up from years of interrupted learning.

“We were called pandemic heroes, we were called essential,” said Martina Meijer, a Brooklyn elementary school teacher. “Love and thank-you cards cannot pay our bills. Our wages are not keeping up with inflation.”

Educators have good reason to worry that a contract will likely not match inflation, which has moderated somewhat in recent months but reached 6.5% last year. New York City unions historically participate in pattern bargaining, which means that once one union reaches a deal on wages, subsequent unions typically follow the same rough outline.

So far, none of the unions that have recently reached deals with the city have matched or exceeded the rate of inflation, which means workers effectively experience pay cuts. District Council 37 — which covers cafeteria workers, crossing guards, and childcare workers — accepted a $3,000 signing bonus and annual wage increases of 3% with a 3.25% increase in the final year of the contract (the agreement is retroactive to 2021). The Police Benevolent Association scored somewhat higher wage increases, topping out at 4%.

“The moment the DC37 contract came out, they set the pattern for wage increases. And those numbers are pretty dismal,” said Ilona Nanay, a literacy coach who is part of the UFT’s 500-member bargaining committee and a member of its executive board. “UFT members are now extremely worried that’s the pattern that’s been set.”

Mulgrew indicated that significant pay bumps would be difficult to achieve given the increases that have been established by other unions. “We have tried to break pattern bargaining in the past — we have not been successful,” he said Monday. “That’s as far as I want to go on that subject right now.”

Mayor Eric Adams has argued the city can’t afford to take on significant cost increases, pointing to uncertain economic headwinds and dwindling federal pandemic relief funding. A City Hall spokesperson declined to comment on the status of negotiations, or any of the city’s proposals, except to say officials hope to reach an agreement soon.

The UFT represents about 120,000 school staff, including 77,000 teachers who currently earn just over $61,000 at the bottom of the pay scale to nearly $129,000 at the top. The union also includes 25,000 paraprofessionals who typically work as classroom aides for students with disabilities and earn considerably less, with salaries that start just under $28,000 and top out shy of $45,000. The UFT’s current contract expired in September.

Many educators already struggle to afford to live in the communities where they teach, and some said they worry that anemic raises will make it even harder to attract and retain them. Mirroring patterns across the country, teacher turnover in New York City increased this past year to 8%, up from about 6% before the pandemic.

“The first few years are really difficult — it takes a while to become a really good teacher,” Olivia Swisher, a middle school art teacher at Sunset Park Prep who is part of the union’s bargaining committee and has been teaching for about five years. “If we don’t create a way for me to pay my bills, pay my rent, then I won’t be able to continue being a teacher and I desperately want to.”

Still, it’s unclear to what extent raises that don’t keep pace with inflation might influence the local labor market for teachers. Although the cost of living in the city is high, “salaries are already relatively high,” said Melissa Arnold Lyon, an assistant professor at the University at Albany who studies education-related political and policy issues. “They probably have more wiggle room than other places.”

Pocketbook vs. paperwork

The UFT’s focus on workplace rather than pocketbook issues may reflect that the union is boxed in on wages. Last month, for instance, union officials organized a “grade in” where teachers took to coffeeshops and other public areas to demonstrate how much time they devote to non-teaching responsibilities.

On Monday, teachers gathered outside their school buildings across the city to distribute flyers that detail survey results that suggest many teachers believe administrative tasks are interfering with student learning. The union is planning similar actions all week.

Teachers spread flyers about burdensome paperwork and administrative tasks outside of P.S. 527 and M.S. 114 on the Upper East Side.

Multiple educators said they agree that administrative tasks can take time away from teaching and learning and hoped the union could make some headway on those issues in a new contract. Some pointed to clunky attendance and special education data systems that are time-consuming to use, eating into time that could be used planning lessons.

Others pointed to assessments educators were required to fill out regarding their students’ social-emotional health, which certain schools have found useful but some educators said was a waste of time. (The city has since made them optional.)

“There are all of these diagnostics that superintendents put on principals that we have to do — we lose instructional time to those assessments,” said Swisher. “It’s burdensome, and we don’t do much with the data anyways.”

Union officials have been tight-lipped on exactly how they want to change the contract to reduce the time teachers spend on paperwork or other administrative tasks. “I’m not allowed to specifically talk about any of the demands,” Mulgrew told reporters. Members of the union’s 500-member negotiating team have also been required to sign non-disclosure agreements, multiple participants told Chalkbeat.

Secrecy around contract demands frustrate some members

The union’s reluctance to lay out its proposals publicly has frustrated some UFT members who believe that sharing specific demands would help galvanize support for a stronger contract from the public and make it easier to organize their colleagues.

Keeping the demands a secret “makes it really hard to mobilize folks because people want to know what they’re being mobilized for,” said Nanay, the bargaining committee member who is also part of the Movement of Rank and File Educators, or MORE, a progressive caucus within the union that is often critical of Mulgrew’s leadership.

Several teachers pointed to Los Angeles as a model of an activist approach, arguing that the union has been more public with its demands and was willing to walk off the job to pressure district officials. Union and district officials there recently reached an agreement to raise teachers’ wages by about 21% over three years.

Mulgrew defended the union’s strategy, arguing the UFT does not want to tip its hand. “If you tell the other side exactly everything that you want, it’s probably a good bet that they’re gonna use that against you in negotiations.”

Lyon, the University at Albany professor, also emphasized that the UFT can’t easily threaten or carry out a work stoppage because a teachers strike would violate New York’s Taylor Law, which imposes significant financial penalties for public sector unions that strike.

Still, frustration with the union’s leadership over wages could create political headaches for union leaders. When the last contract was approved in 2018, teachers raised similar concerns even though inflation was considerably lower.

The union’s leadership is facing other headwinds, too, including a controversial effort to move retirees to a privatized but federally funded Medicare Advantage plan. Mulgrew was re-elected last year by the smallest margin since he won his first full term in 2010, though his victory was still decisive.

“He’s maintained power pretty successfully, and has been able to continue his same leadership style, even in the face of resistance,” Lyon said. “But it will hinge on his ability to win the benefits that the majority of teachers want.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

‘This would be a closure’: Two Upper West Side middle schools fight merger as city panel vote looms

2023-04-17T22:40:16+00:00

Two disparate small Upper West Side middle schools have found their fates intertwined as city officials seek to merge them, despite loud community protests.

One is a progressive institution serving overwhelmingly Black and Latino students, where more than 80% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The other is known for its French dual language program and has a significantly higher share of white students. Just under 60% of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

Officials say the merger could help protect both schools, but to parents and staff at West Side Collaborative, the plan could mean a fatal loss of identity — as community members fear its leadership, approach to teaching, culture, and name could be washed away as it is absorbed into the larger school.

The progressive middle school has fostered a passionate community network, even as its size has dwindled to fewer than 100 students in recent years. The merger would see its students and faculty join Lafayette Academy, roughly half a mile away, in a move the city believes would shield students from funding concerns that stem from their smaller enrollment losses.

The merger comes as the latest sign that some of the city’s smallest schools are increasingly under threat even as families sing their praises, as the city faces steep enrollment declines and a looming fiscal cliff of federal relief funds. The Upper West Side fight follows a battle over a Washington Heights middle school earlier this year, and despite fierce pushback, the merged school may soon become a reality with the Panel for Educational Policy set to vote Wednesday.

Enrollment declines leave few options

Enrollment figures paint a stark picture. Over the past five years, West Side Collaborative has seen a 58% decline in enrollment, with further projected losses expected to shrink its current student body of about 75 students next year, according to city figures. Lafayette Academy, meanwhile, serves about 158 students. Because the city calculates school funding in part based on how many students enroll, a declining student population can mean a loss of funds, too.

“The merger is a reaction to a real trend — nobody will deny that enrollment across New York City is down,” said Paul Kehoe, a teacher at West Side Collaborative. “But in effect, this would be a closure.”

The school developed a set of progressive practices over decades, Kehoe said, like data-driven academic intervention services that catch students falling behind and a coaching period with student-led conferences to promote executive functioning and goal setting.

“The idea that you can pick up those practices and transplant them into another school and have them carried off with the same efficacy and deft touch that comes with experience is just not viable,” he said. “That’s just not a thing that happens.”

And at Lafayette Academy, community members said they were concerned by the lack of concrete details on how staffing and other decisions would shake out.

Stefania Puxeddu Clegg, a parent at the school, raised concerns about potential overcrowding with the influx of students a merger might bring, as well as the potential for Lafayette Academy to lose its small-school feel. And despite an email from the superintendent noting that Lafayette Academy’s principal would head the new merged school, Puxeddu Clegg and other parents remain concerned that such assurances were not included explicitly in the language of the proposal. (DOE projections also say the merger would not bring student levels over capacity in the school’s building.)

In a statement, a spokesperson for the city’s department of education said “meeting student needs” is at the “forefront” of any decisions.

“The district superintendent and his team have worked to engage the community in regards to this merger for months, and while it’s still in the proposal phase, if approved by the PEP, it is designed to give students the best access to new programs and additional supports,” the spokesperson said.

Tensions at both schools remain high

The clash between the school communities and the city surfaced at a public hearing this month, as parents from both schools repeatedly spoke against the merger.

“It was a disaster,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy. “I was so optimistic, and then everybody at the joint public hearing was like, ‘Yep, we’re in opposition.’”

Though Salas-Ramirez understood community concerns, she added she expected the proposed merger to pass. “In terms of the numbers, it’s just really difficult,” she said.

A merged school could see a jump in funding, as more students are housed under one roof, and as the demographic shift could bring federal funding for low-income students to Lafayette Academy. Still, staff members may be excessed in the move, and it remains unclear how many families from West Side Collaborative would choose to enroll at the merged school.

“None of our parents want to go,” said Morana Mesic, a parent at West Side Collaborative and president of the school’s PTA. “If the merger goes through, our parents want a transfer.”

The relationship between the two school communities has been fraught with tension among parents, she added. In a meeting, Mesic said she took issue with Lafayette parents stating that the higher needs and lower test scores of students at West Side Collaborative might affect current students at Lafayette.

As an alternative to a merger, West Side Collaborative parents and staff have pointed to recent enrollment gains due to new students entering the city as asylum seekers have flocked to New York as one possible avenue to bolster the student body. But officials noted during the public hearing that those gains may not persist as families find more permanent housing.

Jeanie Ahn, a member of the local Community Education Council and a liaison for West Side Collaborative, said parents she’s spoken to have been overwhelmingly against the merger. The difficulty of the situation has been intensified by the expedited timeline of the process, she added. The first community engagement meetings about the merger took place in January.

“We are listening to the families and their concerns, but also understand the realities of the situation at both schools,” Ahn said, adding it would be ideal to have more time to develop a proposal that at least some affected families approve of. “If every single voice you hear from in both schools says this merger is not the solution, it’s going to be a really tough vote for the PEP.

“When it comes to these small, close-knit communities that are so tight, it really does feel like you’re breaking up families,” she said.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Timeline fast tracked for rethinking Regents exams and other grad requirements

2023-04-17T21:21:26+00:00

The fate of New York’s storied Regents exams — and other changes to high school graduation requirements — may be decided sooner than anticipated, state education officials confirmed Monday.

After years of discussing how New York’s graduation policies should change, officials launched a special commission last year to present recommendations to the Board of Regents by the spring or summer of 2024. Their findings are now expected in November, Deputy Commissioner Angelique Johnson said at Monday’s monthly Board of Regents meeting.

That moves up the timeline by at least a few months, though a spokesperson for the state education department did not immediately say how long the board would take to deliberate over the recommendations or when new diploma requirements might go into effect.

The state’s reconsideration of graduation requirements is perhaps its most high profile effort in recent years. It has caused substantial debate and discussion over what students should be required to know before they leave high school.

The big question is what officials will decide to do with New York’s Regents exams, which have been offered since the 1870s and are required of most students to earn their diplomas. New York is in the minority of states that still require such exit exams, and research has found little evidence that high-stakes graduation exams improve student achievement.

The 64-member commission, which includes educators, district leaders, advocacy organizations, and some researchers, has been discussing other things they think should factor into graduation requirements, including what skills employers are looking for.

The commission began meeting in fall of 2022 and were told a few months later to fast track their recommendations, but multiple commission members told Chalkbeat they didn’t recall the reasoning behind the change. The commission is expected to meet over three days in July to begin finalizing their recommendations.

Dia Bryant, executive director of Ed-Trust New York and a member of the commission, said she’s concerned that her fellow members and others advising the commission, such as students, parents, and educators, will feel pressed for time and may forgo sharing feedback about potential policy changes that will be floated.

She’s also concerned about how the public will get to review recommendations before the Regents consider changes.

“There is depth to each of those spaces that I think needs room to breathe so that we can actually develop recommendations that will sort of be both relevant and important, not just in 2023 but in the future, because these policies are so important,” Bryant said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Summer Rising applications are now open. Here’s everything you need to know.

2023-04-14T20:30:55+00:00

Applications open Monday for New York City’s free, sprawling summer program for children in kindergarten through eighth grade.

The program was first launched in 2021 under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, using federal COVID relief money, as a way to help children ease into school following remote learning. The rollout of the program was bumpy, but for the first time, it provided a mix of academics and enrichment activities to many children beyond those who are mandated to attend summer school.

In its third year, the program will again have 110,000 spots and will be open to any child in New York City, including children who are home-schooled or attend charter or private schools.

But a couple things will be different from last year, including the application process. Spots won’t be assigned on a first come, first served basis this year; instead, parents will rank multiple choices. In another change, students who already attend a school associated with a Summer Rising site will be added to the list of groups receiving priority in selection for that site.

Parents who want to apply should visit this website when the application opens on Monday.

Here’s what you should know about this year’s Summer Rising program:

Where are the programs, and when will Summer Rising start?

Programs won’t be in every school. Rather, each school will be associated with one of 374 sites across the five boroughs.

The program length will depend on a few things. Programs will run from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. from July 5 to Aug. 18 for children in kindergarten through fifth grade and until Aug. 11 for middle schoolers.

Students with disabilities who have yearlong individualized education programs, or IEPs, will attend programs from July 5 to Aug. 14, from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Students at District 75 schools, which serve children with the most challenging disabilities, will attend programs that run from July 6 to Aug. 15, also from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Students in Nest and Horizon programs, which serve students with autism, who have 12-month IEPs, will attend a monthlong program from July 5 to Aug. 1, from 8 a.m. to noon.

What will my children do?

Generally, students will spend the morning on academics and then in the afternoons participate in enrichment activities, such as sports, arts and crafts or going on field trips. Elementary-age children will spend the last week of their program on enrichment activities and trips, according to the education department website. (Enrichment activities are run by community-based organizations.)

Students with disabilities will receive extra services that are mandated in their IEPs, including services from health and behavioral paraprofessionals, according to the department’s website. For these students, their school will create an accommodation plan for the summer that will be provided to their parents and the Summer Rising site before their program begins.

Students with disabilities are supposed to receive services “as needed” during the enrichment portion of the day, according to the department’s website. If a family doesn’t want the enrichment portion, they should contact their child’s school instead of using the online application. These children can choose on the application to participate in extended-day enrichment programming until 6 p.m.

Last year, several families reported that their children did not have special education support by the start of Summer Rising, said Randi Levine, policy director for Advocates for Children. She said it’s “important that planning begin early” so that students aren’t left without the services they need.

Will my child get transportation to the program?

Generally, students who are already eligible for busing during the school year — typically in grades K-6 — will receive busing to their summer program but not past 3 p.m. This includes students with disabilities whose IEPs recommend busing, as well as students in temporary housing and students in foster care who are more than a half-mile away from their Summer Rising site.

For children who want to participate in programming until 6 p.m. and need transportation, families will have the option of a prepaid rideshare service. However, a caregiver must take the rideshare service to and from the summer site to pick up their child, which some advocates have said is not manageable for working parents.

Eligible students who receive MetroCards during the school year can also get MetroCards from their Summer Rising site, or if their site is more than a half-mile from their home.

Students who are not eligible for busing during the school year could receive transportation if their regular school is not open for Summer Rising and their site is more than a half-mile away.

How will the application work?

Seats rapidly filled up last year, quickly elbowing out many families who wanted to apply, according to some advocacy and community-based organizations.

This year, instead of the first come, first served model, families will be asked to rank up to 12 choices for program sites, “ensuring that more families receive placements that work for them,” according to a news release.

Like last year, priority will be offered to students in temporary housing, in foster care, who are mandated for summer school, and with disabilities who have year-round individualized education programs. But also, students who have a “local connection” to their school will also be prioritized, such as if they attend the school during the year. Last month, city officials said students who attend city subsidized after-school programs will also be prioritized.

Asked how these groups will be ranked, an education department spokesperson said they’re aiming to give every child in a priority group access to their first choice.

The application will close May 1, and families should be notified the following week of where their child will attend the program, according to the department website.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

High School Journalists Demand Albany Expand Press Protections

2023-04-13T16:26:30+00:00

This article was originally published on Apr 13 5:00am EDT by THE CITY

Student journalists say they’re tired of being told what they can write about in their school newspapers, with principals and other administrators often limiting political speech or criticisms of the institution.

A bill that would change that by increasing First Amendment protections for young reporters is gaining momentum in Albany this session after nearly seven years of advocacy.

“Unless it’s a really big story, most local papers aren’t gonna be covering high school issues,” said Violetta Atocha, a senior at Clinton High School in Manhattan who traveled to Albany last month with a group of students and advisers pressing lawmakers on the bill. “And so it’s very important for student journalists not to be censored in the same way that it’s important for adult journalists not to be censored.”

Students who spoke to THE CITY said that stories on certain topics like school funding, racial segregation, standardized testing, and mental health were spiked by advisors.

New York City is home to approximately 118 high school newspapers, according to Baruch College’s High School Journalism Program. And amid a diminishing number of professional jobs in local news — down nearly 60% nationally in 10 years by some estimates — student journalists can represent a significant portion of the community information ecosphere.

But the 1988 Supreme Court decision in Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier established that high school administrators are constitutionally allowed to censor stories in school-sponsored student newspapers — reversing a lower court decision that recognized high school papers as a “public forum,” and therefore protected under the First Amendment.

Several states later passed laws to enshrine protections for student journalists, but New York is one of 34 that has not, according to the Student Press Law Center.

In February, 53 students organized by New Voices New York, a coalition of young journalists, advisors, and educators from across the state, traveled to Albany to advocate for a bill that would give high schoolers editorial control over their school publications.

The legislation would still bar students from writing anything that “is libelous, an invasion of privacy, or incites students to commit an unlawful act, violate school policies, or materially and substantially disrupt[s] the orderly operation of the school.”

It currently has 46 bipartisan cosponsors in the Senate and Assembly, but has been sitting with the Education Committee in the Senate for four months.

Hot topics

Some students behind the bill say they’ve felt pressure in their city schools.

“It feels like when certain articles are off limits or we’re told not to touch on certain subjects, it’s kind of sending a message from the administration that they don’t really trust us,” said a 16-year-old sophomore from The Bronx who wanted to remain anonymous to maintain good standing with her journalism adviser.

The student said that she first felt the pressure of censorship when her school paper’s adviser refused to publish a piece that revealed how some club activities weren’t fully subsidized by the school, and thus inaccessible to students without enough money.

Around the same time, one of her peers was told they couldn’t write about their own struggles with mental health, she said. Over the course of her first year of reporting, she also found that politically polarizing education topics like the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) and racial segregation in elite public high schools would not be approved by her faculty editors.

“We’re told that we go to one of the best high schools and we’re told we can do anything we want,” she said. “But when we propose certain ideas to write about, it’s just completely off the table.”

Of course, not all high school administrators retain strict editorial control over the content of the school papers. Many students from other schools who spoke to THE CITY, including Atocha at Clinton High School, said they experienced great editorial independence from their faculty advisers.

‘Future Custodians of Our Fourth Estate’

A city Department of Education spokesperson declined to comment on the bill specifically, but said the administration supports students’ First Amendment rights, and encouraged any young journalists experiencing restrictions to report it to their district superintendent — or even higher.

“Chancellor [David] Banks and New York City Public Schools strongly support the rights of our students to create their own outlets for self-expression in their schools and make their voice heard,” said department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer. He noted that 20 high school journalists visited the department’s headquarters last year to ask the chancellor questions about their constitutional rights, among other things.

“We’ve had many opportunities as a nation to witness the inherent dangers that accompany efforts to stifle free speech,” said state Sen. Brian Kavanaugh (D-Manhattan), who introduced the legislation. “This bill seeks to empower our student journalists — many of whom will become the future custodians of our Fourth Estate — by allowing them to speak freely and act responsibly.”

A spokesperson for the state department of education said they could not comment on pending legislation. Senate Education Committee Chair Shelley Mayer (D-Westchester) said she was reviewing the bill and couldn’t comment.

In spite of apparent support from various points on the political spectrum, advocates for the protections have struggled to garner momentum in the nearly seven years since the campaign began. One such advocate is journalism educator Katina Paron, who has led advocacy efforts for this bill for years, and has had trouble convincing lawmakers and educators that these protections should be a priority.

“In the past couple years, there was a lot of attention on how the pandemic and remote learning was affecting young people,” said Paron, author of “A NewsHound’s Guide to Student Journalism.” She told THE CITY she’s optimistic about the bill’s future. “A lot of the reporting from that time came from teen journalists talking about their experiences, and that really drove them to understand that they can’t go back to covering pep rallies and blood drives.”

THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.

Meet the principal of NYC’s first district school exclusively for students who struggle to read

2023-04-12T22:28:04+00:00

In September, New York City’s education department plans to open the city’s first traditional public school exclusively devoted to students with dyslexia and other reading issues.

The new school, called South Bronx Literacy Academy, is the culmination of years of advocacy from a handful of parent advocates who watched their own children flounder without adequate reading instruction and argued the city does not have a systematic approach to reading instruction.

Their goal was to coax the city to build classrooms similar to what’s offered at private programs, like The Windward School, which specialize in intensive literacy instruction but are often out of reach for families without the time or resources to secure private tuition reimbursement from the city.

Parents Jeannine Kiely, Ruth Genn, Emily Hellstrom, Akeela Azcuy (left to right) helped push the city to launch a school geared toward students who struggle with reading.

The group helped persuade the city to launch a pilot program this school year to test out a version of the model in an existing public school, P.S. 161. And they even started their own nonprofit, the Literacy Academy Collective, which has helped support the effort.

Now, pending likely approval from the city’s Panel for Educational Policy on April 19, the city is planning to transform the pilot program into a fully-fledged school (a charter school on Staten Island has a similar mission).

Chalkbeat recently caught up with South Bronx Literacy Academy’s inaugural principal, Bethany Poolman, to learn more about her vision, how the school plans to serve students who are behind in reading, and why the city wants to create a school specifically for students with literacy challenges.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell us just a little bit about yourself. How did you get interested in leading a school geared toward serving students with reading challenges?

Yeah, so I’ve been with the DOE for 18 years. I taught in District 9 in the Bronx for 10 years at a middle school [as a] special education teacher. I had a lot of students who really struggled to read who were really behind grade level. I was Wilson trained [a more structured approach to literacy instruction], I applied for an outside grant at one point. I received like $15,000 from a company and I started a breakfast club program. And I was essentially doing structured literacy practices before they were termed structured literacy.

Bethany Poolman

I had kids coming in before school doing these [Orton-Gillingham] practices [a structured approach to literacy instruction], looking at breaking apart words, word cards, pseudo word reading and things like nonsense words. I really was interested in helping kids that were unable to read or really far behind grade level to catch up to become proficient readers.

And then fast forward. I was an assistant principal in the South Bronx in District 7 for seven years. I had the opportunity to learn and grow the admin side of the work. And when this opportunity presented itself in District 7, that I know and love, it was just an awesome opportunity.

Tell me a little bit about this particular school’s design. What makes it different from a traditional elementary school? I know, for instance it’s starting with students in second and third grade.

What we’re doing is we’re taking what in other schools are tier two and tier three intervention practices. When I say that, I’m talking about students who [struggle] get pulled out or get put into small groups and they receive additional supports, additional services to help them close the gap. And we’re taking those practices that are in other schools often in tier two and tier three, and we are making them part of our tier one model. So tier one being instruction that everybody receives.

So, in terms of foundational reading skills and what we know works in terms of the science of reading, we are ensuring that kids have at least 90 minutes a day of foundational skills as their tier one literacy instruction.

In addition to that we’re also bringing social emotional skills and strategies and executive functioning strategies — thinking about things like time management, organization, prioritization, skills that children need in order to access the information in order to tap into their learning, and so we’re bringing those as well to tier one.

In terms of how you achieve that more intensive kind of small group model for all students — what does that take?

There are some points we’re still working out with the Department of Ed, but all of our classrooms are ICT [Integrated Co-Teaching] classrooms. So all classrooms will have two teachers. Budgeting modifications are still being worked out. But we’re looking to have speech and language pathologists and occupational therapists next year. Instead of our speech and language pathologist working in isolation down the hall in their office pulling children out, they’ll be pushing in as the integrated language teacher within the classroom.

Is there a specific curriculum you all plan to use for reading instruction?

I think we’re still working with the Department of Ed to make final decisions on our curriculum. We are partnered with the Literacy Academy Collective and The Windward School and they are using PAF [a curriculum also known as Preventing Academic Failure]. So we are planning to continue our work with PAF, which is an Orton-Gillingham based program.

What’s the goal of launching a school specifically designed for students who struggle with reading? Is it mostly just about the 60 to 80 students who are projected to enroll next year or is there a broader goal here in terms of sharing practices with other schools?

The truth is that all kids deserve to learn to read. We do believe that is a civil right and so we want to ensure that our children are given the tools to be successful and to become proficient readers. I think there are many initiatives that are being performed by the Department of Ed right now to address that.

And I think, you know, there’s a lot of great things happening across the whole city. I think we are unique because we are the first standalone district public school [devoted to students who are struggling readers]. We are really a school that is designed for students who have been struggling and have been struggling for a while, right. So kids that may have been in an intervention pull out model, and just need more, and who need more intense support. We’re working in partnership with everything that’s already happening across the DOE, and we’re just serving a specific population that may need more.

To be admitted to South Bronx Literacy Academy, “a student must either present formal documentation of dyslexia, or demonstrate a pattern of reading challenges consistent with dyslexia through an assessment process conducted by the DOE.” Given that it can be time consuming and expensive to get a dyslexia diagnosis, and many parents of young children may not know that their children are struggling readers, how will you ensure that the school won’t end up serving families who have resources and know how to navigate those systems?

The Department of Ed specifically placed this school in the Bronx, right in the South Bronx in District 7. It’s an effort to ensure that students [who] may not have access to all the same resources as other students get first dibs, if you will, at this opportunity.

We don’t expect many students to have that formal diagnosis. We are creating an additional resource for students that need additional support that’s not District 75 [a specialized group of schools that serve students with more complex disabilities].

Given that second and third grade aren’t super common entry points, how are you imagining students getting funneled to the school?

Parents will choose this option. No one is funneling children anywhere. Parents choose if this is an appropriate place where they would like to apply for their child to be first and foremost. We are trying to make sure that we spread the word and I think it will take time. I think families will trust us more once we’re established, and we have a proven track record of success. We are trying to spread the word and make sure both internally in the DOE and externally with families that we’re an option for them.

Will the school have specific set asides for students with disabilities or low-income families or anything like that?

So priority is given to students residing in the Bronx. So anyone within the city can apply but priority is given to any student with again, we’re an ICT-based model. So all of our classrooms are inclusion, co-taught classrooms, so we will have seats for both students with IEPs and students without IEPs [individualized education program for students with disabilities].

Our class size is 18, so we [have] smaller class sizes to also ensure reading supports. And so, if our class size is 18, we can have no more than 11 [general education] students and no more than seven special education students. But we are looking to serve the families that want to support their children. [An education department spokesperson said 40% of the school’s students will have disabilities, but there are not specific targets for other student groups.]

A major premise of special education is that students with learning challenges should be in classrooms with typically developing students as much as possible, but it also seems like a premise of this school is that it is intended to be the case that 100% of the students there have reading challenges. I’m wondering how you’re thinking about inclusion in that context and why the school wasn’t set up to be more of a mix of students with reading challenges and students without reading challenges?

It’s important to understand it’s an iterative process. We have the pilot work this year. We’ve been really pleased with some of the progress monitoring growth that’s coming out of the pilot, It’s a new endeavor — we want to get back to the basics and back to some solid reading instruction for kids that need that.

Part of the hope is that by addressing some of these issues sooner — by pulling in the [general education], and giving them more intensive reading supports, we don’t need to mislabel children. We don’t need to say the only process, the only avenue, is for this child to get an IEP and to, you know, receive this traditional set of services. We can provide support and help them reach proficiency.

Is the goal to grow beyond second and third graders?

At scale, the school will be serving students in second to eighth grade. So we’ll start with second and third and then we’ll grow year over year and expand up to eighth grade. Schools like Windward they’re pretty clear: that they take students in, they’re putting out a fire, right? They teach them how to read and then they reenter them back into community or independent schools as quickly as possible.

I’m curious how you’re going about finding teachers and what kind of training you’re expecting your teachers to have?

The Literacy Academy Collective have been amazing partners in this work, and we didn’t really get to talk about that, but they, you know, they’re a nonprofit founded by parents of students with dyslexia. They really understand this teacher training piece. And so they have been working in partnership with DOE to ensure that over the summer, teachers work alongside Windward teachers and receive at least the initial training and support that’s required to get started in this.

Is it those teachers who are doing the pilot now who are going to be teachers at the [new] school?

It’s a new school, so everyone needs to apply. It has yet to be posted, so when it’s officially posted, any licensed teacher can apply.

Anything else you want to share?

I’m really excited for this work. I’m grateful that the DOE has given me this opportunity. I’m grateful that the [Literacy Academy Collective] is here, in partnership with the work, and I think we’re just gonna — bleep it out I don’t know — we’re gonna make a really kick ass school. It’s gonna be a great place for kids.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC is expected to spend $38K per student, budget watchdog calls for prioritizing ‘critical services’

2023-04-11T04:01:00+00:00

Buoyed in recent years by billions in federal stimulus dollars, New York City is slated to spend about $38,000 per student next school year — the most in recent history — as enrollment is again expected to drop, according to a new report published Tuesday.

The report, from Citizens Budget Commission, or CBC, a budget watchdog group, comes as the education department faces 3% in cuts for next year. Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council are in the middle of budget planning for the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1.

Many of the CBC’s findings focus on the period from fiscal year 2016 through 2022, since the current fiscal year, 2023, isn’t over yet. Some of the report’s highlights include:

In that time period, the education department’s spending per pupil has increased by 47%, in large part due to the $7 billion in federal COVID aid the district received as enrollment has dipped. Three school years from now, in fiscal year 2026, CBC projects the city could be spending as much as $44,000 per student.
Spending grew the most in three areas: early childhood education, at 65%, covering private school tuition, such as for students with disabilities, by 79%, and for charter schools, by 84%. This was fueled by enrollment growth in these specific areas.
Spending related to schools, such as for instruction, grew by about 34%. Spending on school services, such as transportation, food, and safety, grew at a similar rate.
Spending on school support, such as special education instructional costs, grew by about 15%. And spending on central costs, including central administration, fringe benefits, pension contributions, and debt service, saw the slowest growth – by 8%.

CBC called for officials to prioritize programs and services for next year that are most effective and shed others. It also notes that the city faces financial pressures over the next several years, which the Adams administration has also emphasized as they’ve imposed stricter savings targets on city agencies. Those challenges include labor costs that will stem from new union contracts, including with the United Federation of Teachers, and a potential recession.

“We can’t do everything for everyone, so we need to start focusing on the most impactful interventions,” said Ana Champeny, the vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission.

New York City spends the most per pupil among the nation’s largest school districts. That cost grew as federal dollars were poured into the school system and enrollment dropped significantly after the onset of the pandemic. Dips in enrollment are likely due to several factors, including demographic changes and the cost of living in New York, which are leading many families to find homes elsewhere.

Roughly one-third of the department’s spending growth between 2016 and 2022 was due to federal pandemic aid, which is set to run out by 2024, CBC’s report found.

Advocates and educators have decried the potential cuts to the education department — amounting up to $421 million — as students continue to struggle with a host of challenges, including mental health, chronic absenteeism, and recovering academically after remote learning. Cuts to school budgets this school year resulted in some schools losing teachers, having larger class sizes, and cutting some programming, such as art and music classes.

Research has found that more money usually leads to better schools. New York, however, is in a puzzling situation: Despite being the leading state in spending per pupil, students score in the middle of the pack on national math and reading tests.

It’s possible to make cuts through central or support costs, such as through transportation contracts, and “avoid cuts to school budgets,” the CBC report notes.

While CBC doesn’t make specific recommendations, Champeny said such cuts could mean negotiating cheaper transportation-related contracts. The department could also look for ways to reduce private school placements for children with disabilities, commonly known as “Carter Cases,” a cost that ballooned under former Mayor Bill de Blasio and continues to grow.

More immediately, however, the group called on the department to be “transparent” about the future of a slate of programs that are currently relying on federal pandemic relief, which other organizations and advocates have also pressed for. These programs include expanded summer school, new prekindergarten seats for students with disabilities, and screening for dyslexia and other literacy programs – an area that Adams is increasingly making one of his signature projects.

Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said, “This Administration has been open and honest about the long-term combined challenges of declining enrollment, programs funded by one-time federal stimulus dollars, and rising costs tied to unfunded mandates from the State.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.