Chalkbeat

Amid Chicago’s migrant influx, one school is trying to help newcomer students navigate trauma

2023-10-27T19:24:21+00:00

An hour before dismissal on a recent Friday afternoon, eight Brighton Park Elementary School students huddled in a classroom with Jennifer Moorhouse, a teacher who works with English language learners.

They were there for a voluntary, biweekly support group run by Moorhouse and Stephanie Carrillo, a school counselor, for students grappling with the upheaval of immigration and the adjustment to a new country, new city, and new school.

She asked the children — a mix of sixth through eighth graders who had recently arrived in Chicago as part of an influx of migrant families — to share the best and worst part of their week.

One boy said the best thing was that his family had moved to a new house. Another child looked up, her hair slightly covering her face. She shrugged her shoulders and struggled to come up with a worst moment.

That’s OK, Moorhouse said in Spanish, she doesn’t have to have a low point.

The girl then added, “No mejor,” meaning there was no high point either. After a moment of silence, the whole group burst into laughter.

These students, who arrived in Chicago between last year and this year, are among the more than 20,000 newly arrived migrants in Chicago since last August, with many fleeing from Central, South American and African countries experiencing political and economic turmoil, according to city officials.

Chicago Public Schools does not track immigration status and has not shared how many migrant students have enrolled in schools. But the district has pointed to clues of an increase, including 7,800 more English learners enrolled this school year, compared to an annual average increase of 3,000 such students.

As of mid-September, 2,250 migrant children were housed in the city’s shelters, according to records from the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications that were obtained by Chalkbeat.

Educators have raised concerns that many Chicago schools don’t have the resources, such as staff, to provide new migrants with the right language instruction, recently pleading with the state to send more help.

But there are also questions about whether newcomers have the social-emotional support they need at school. These students have potentially endured dangerous journeys to the United States, on top of the stress of leaving their homes behind for shelters or other temporary living arrangements in a foreign place.

That latter concern led Moorhouse to launch the support group at Brighton Park last year after she met a migrant student who was showing signs of trauma. The student, whom Moorhouse met in January, didn’t want to be in school and sometimes, the student’s body would shake uncontrollably, she said.

At one of the sessions Moorhouse held, the student shared a personal story about his journey to the United States. Afterward, Moorhouse recalled, the student said: “My chest isn’t hurting. I can breathe.” Moorhouse felt it was a sign of healing.

In some ways, Brighton Park is well-positioned to host this support group. As a community school, it partners with a nonprofit organization to provide wraparound services for its students. Carrillo, the school counselor who helps Moorhouse with the support group, works with the school on behalf of its partner nonprofit, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council. Brighton Park Elementary’s community schools funding also helped to pay for the training on the model that the support group is based on, according to Cecilia Mendoza, the school’s assistant principal.

The model is known as STRONG, or Supporting Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups, which focuses on teaching children how to understand and cope with their stress before they’re invited to share more personal details about their journey to the United States, if they choose.

It’s unclear how many schools have specific support groups for migrant students like the one at Brighton Park. About $35 million of the district’s budget this year was allocated for social-emotional curriculum, behavioral health supports for students, and additional social workers and counselors, according to a district spokesperson.

This year, Moorhouse and Carrillo are starting with the basics.

On that recent Friday afternoon, in the classroom where Moorhouse gathered with eight of her students, bright orange and blue strips of paper on the dry erase board described concepts of melting and freezing in English and Spanish: “Que le pasa al chocolate que se deja al sol?” (What happens to chocolate left in the sun?).

A plastic cupboard sat against the wall, filled with shoes, socks, and clothing donations Moorhouse had collected through her Amazon Wishlist. Sheets of paper taped to the wall have words of affirmation in both languages: “Tus emociones son validas.” (Your feelings are valid.)

A classroom for English learners at Brighton Park Elementary School has brightly colored phrases translated in English and Spanish on the dry erase board.

After their icebreaker, Moorhouse passed around crayons and a worksheet with the outline of a human body. She explained that stress can cause physical pain and asked her students to color in the part of their bodies that hurt when they are stressed.

“Entonces para mi, cuando yo estoy estresado, mi estómago me duele,” she told the students, explaining that her stomach hurts when she’s stressed.

One girl, wearing a pair of sneakers donated through the Amazon wishlist, used a green crayon to fill in the top of the head. She colored the shoulders with a green-yellow.

When Moorhouse asked students to share, one boy said stress gives him a headache, and then he feels like throwing up. A low “hmm” spread through the group, as if others recognized the boy’s feeling.

At 2:35 p.m., about halfway through the session, the students received a new worksheet. This one had a large triangle on it, and each point represented something different: pensamientos, sentimientos, y acciones. Thoughts, emotions, and actions. Moorhouse wanted the students to reflect on how a thought may lead to a feeling, which ultimately leads to an action.

After a couple minutes jotting down their thoughts, the students shared their responses. One boy smiled as he described an example: When he’s talking to other students and they suddenly begin speaking in English, he feels as if he’s been removed from the conversation.

“How does that make you feel?” Moorhouse asked him in Spanish.

“Bad,” he replied.

“What’s your action?” Moorhouse responded.

“I walk away,” he said.

That day, Mendoza, the assistant principal, was peeking in.

“I don’t think students or people in general sometimes realize the effect that has on others who only speak one language,” Mendoza said later. “So that really stuck with me, and I thought about how we could have that conversation, perhaps, with the students … because they might not be aware that they’re doing that.”

Moorhouse then presented a challenge for the students: How can they change their thinking about a situation, in order to elicit better action? One boy gave the example of taking a hard math test that he doesn’t know the answers to, so instead, he asks to go to the bathroom.

He was stumped when Moorhouse asked him to think of a better action. She opened the floor to the group, but no one came up with an answer good enough for Moorhouse. When she pressed them to think harder, they hit on a solution: He could ask the teacher for help — for understanding the exam, or perhaps even asking to take it another day.

With about 15 minutes left, Moorhouse and Carillo passed around stress balls shaped like bee hives. They asked the students to squeeze hard and pretend that they were squeezing out the juice.

A couple of kids laughed as they squeezed their fists and then released pressure.

Around 2:55 p.m. Moorhouse handed out a blank calendar worksheet. For the following week, students would be expected to log how they’ve practiced relaxation strategies, such as grabbing an ice pack from the nurse or using a stress ball, when feeling stressed. One student shared that drawing helps.

It was time for dismissal. The students didn’t run out the door. They stayed back to chat with each other. A few grabbed extra bags of Skinny Pop.

As the weeks go on, Moorhouse and Carrillo will meet individually with each student to assess whether they want to talk more about their personal experiences of coming to the U.S. and what would be appropriate to share with the other students.

In those conversations, students may show signs of needing more individual counseling provided by the school, such as bursting into tears while recounting a story, Carrillo said.

Some students take a while to open up, so it’s unclear how much they’ll participate going forward, Moorhouse said. One of those quieter students is the child who had shared that there was no highlight or lowlight of her week. During the hourlong session, this student gradually opened up a little more.

And when most of the other children left at the end of the day, that student stayed behind. She wanted to talk some more one-on-one with Moorhouse.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s youth shelter system locks out hundreds as migrants seek entry

2024-03-12T19:10:05+00:00

This story was originally published on March 12 by THE CITY.

In the depths of January, without a coat on his back, an 18-year-old orphan from Guinea named Mamdou spent a week riding the subways, before a stranger handed him a $20 bill and led him to the Roosevelt Hotel, the city’s main intake for newly arriving migrants. He got a 30-day shelter stint in a converted office tower in Midtown and a few weeks of relative peace after a perilous journey across the world.

But his anxiety built as his eviction day neared. He’d heard about Covenant House, a special youth shelter for people under the age of 21 overseen by the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development, and was determined to secure a bed there.

“I went there every day, sometimes two or three times a day. They know me there,” he said in French on a recent afternoon, two days after he’d been ejected from his Midtown shelter after his 30 days ran out, under Mayor Eric Adams’ strict limits on stays for adult migrants in shelters.

Both nights since his eviction he’d slept outside on the sidewalk. “But every day when I go there they tell me there’s no room.”

The migrant crisis is increasingly intertwined with another crisis: an explosion in the number of homeless youth. Data obtained by THE CITY shows a dramatic increase in young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 reported as having been turned away from specialized shelters that serve young people in that age bracket, with 473 youth rebuffed in the second half of 2023 — up from seven in the first six months of the year.

Last year, DYCD funded about 800 youth shelter beds, with most of those available only to those under age 21, the agency reported to the City Council.

Service providers and advocates had warned for months that the city’s migrant response does not address the needs of the many young people arriving in New York on their own. Those advocates now say the official rejection numbers don’t begin to document just how many young people are unable to find a spot in a homeless youth shelter.

“I’ve been doing this work for 20 years,” said Jamie Powlovich, the director of the Coalition for Homeless Youth, a statewide consortium of more than 60 groups. “I have never seen the level of unmet needs and young people being further traumatized and forced to endure homelessness, especially street homelessness, ever.”

The coalition tallied more than 200 young people turned away from youth shelters in a 12-day period last fall, including seven children under the age of 18, after which they stopped keeping count.

“The list was getting too long, and it wasn’t moving,” Powlovich said. “We didn’t want to add people to a list and give them false hope.”

Advocates have been pressuring the city to make some concessions for youth in the adult migrant shelter system, urging that at the very least adopting the more forgiving 60-day shelter stay limits used for families with children under the age of 18.

“We’ve been told for about four months now that that is something that they’re working on,” Powlovich said. “But it hast happened yet.”

A spokesperson for City Hall didn’t respond to a request for comment, but Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly defended the city’s handling of the arrival of migrants from the southern border.

“This is a national problem that has been dropped in the lap of places like New York and Chicago, Massachusetts and others who have similar programs, 30‑ and 60‑day programs,” he said at a press conference this week. “We’ve done our job. New Yorkers have done their job, and we’re going to continue to do our job, but this is a national issue.”

While the city’s “right to shelter” court consent decrees are supposed to guarantee a bed that day to anyone who requests one, no legal requirement exists for teens or young adults to be placed in an age-appropriate shelter.

As a surge of teen and young adult migrants arrived last fall, they were funneled into the same tent shelters, converted warehouses and office buildings as other adult migrants without children. The city’s migrant intake centers don’t distinguish migrants in their late teens or early 20s from other adults, and the city doesn’t keep separate data about that age group.

Through the organizing of mutual aid and community groups, some newly arriving migrants have found their way into the specialized youth shelter system, which allows youth to stay longer and offers more specialized support services. But last fall, that system became overwhelmed and securing a bed within it became next to impossible, as reflected in the new city data.

After their 30 days in shelters run out, migrant youth are directed to the East Village “reticketing site” inside an old Catholic school, where they can get in line for another shelter cot, a wait which takes days or weeks. Those seeking new shelter placements are directed to spend nights in outer-borough waiting rooms where they can rest on the ground, but a city survey found that, like Mamdou, hundreds spent the night on the streets or trains instead.

THE CITY reported last month that the city Office of Emergency Management was working on plans to close the “overflow” locations.

‘A human cost’

The city’s eight youth drop-in centers, run by nonprofits, are the formal gateway into the youth shelter system, providing young homeless New Yorkers with clothing, food and showers, and linking them up with case workers who can help connect them with youth shelter beds if they become available. Those centers, too, have seen a sustained spike in usage over the past several months.

In January, 1,600 youth spent time in city drop in centers, a 28% increase from July according to monthly data reported by the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development. Case workers at those drop-in sites served 1,700 people in the first four months of the fiscal year, 300 more than the city had planned to serve in the entire year.

Yet Adams’ preliminary budget released in January proposed slashing $2 million from the $52 million allocated for runaway and homeless youth, eliminating 16 positions that help young people access permanent housing options. The Adams administration is also refusing to implement a recently passed law that would allow people in youth shelters to access CityFHEPS housing vouchers, saying the mandate is too expensive.

Mark Zustovich, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development said funding to shelters themselves remained the same in Adams’ proposed budget.

The department and the nonprofits that run shelters for homeless youth “are providing vital services to all youth who seek support — even as the number of young people accessing drop-ins has increased,” he said.

The surge in homeless youth comes a year after a controversial order by the Adams administration banning people from sleeping in 24-hour drop-in centers.

Youth who can’t find shelter are in jeopardy, advocates warn.

“A young woman had recently been discharged from her shelter because her 30 days was up. She didn’t know anybody in the city, spent a night on the street, and was brutally assaulted. That’s preventable,” said Joe Westmacott, a project assistant at Streetwork, which runs a drop-in center for homeless youth in Harlem, referring to an incident that THE CITY has not independently verified.

“We know from decades of research that street homelessness is expensive…. And there’s also a human cost.”

‘They want to go to school’

Many employees at youth facilities are taking the surge in new arrivals in stride, scaling up programs, deftly finding ways to communicate with hand signals in a plethora of languages, and retooling day-to-day operations like how much food they serve on site.

On a busy day before the latest surge in new arrivals, Safe Horizon’s Streetwork daytime drop-in center on 125th Street served about 50 young people a day who would pop in to use computers, eat a meal, peruse the closet of free clothing, or drop off dirty laundry.

Now the center sees about 100 people a day, almost exclusively newly arriving migrant youth who’ve learned about their services through word of mouth. Last fiscal year, the program enrolled 306 new youths into their programs. Four months into this year, they’ve enrolled 542.

Sebastien Vante, associate vice president at Safe Horizon, said they had to halt all new intakes, unable to accommodate any more people. While they can’t connect their clients to specialized youth shelter beds, there are other ways they can support them, he said.

They’ve taken to sending advocates to the East Village reticketing center with their clients, in order to try to advocate for them to get beds in shelters closer to schools if they’re enrolled. They offer referrals to immigration attorneys, and on a recent afternoon, dozens of migrant youth crammed into a back room of the facility intently listening into a demonstration about the asylum application process held in French and Arabic.

“Right now, this is who this is who’s walking through our doors,” Vante said. “Their needs are no different. They’re looking for shelter. They want long-term housing. They want to go to school. They wanna do all these different things.”

But, Vante went on, with its staff already working at capacity, “we spend a significant amount of time managing the expectations of the young people who come into our space,” Vante said.

Newly arrived young adults face challenges to NYC school enrollment

2024-03-19T20:24:30+00:00

This article was republished from City Limits, an independent, investigative news source.

The 20-year-old from Mauritania arrived in the city four months ago with the dream of graduating from high school in the United States.

”I want to make my life better. I am still a baby, and I should go to school to have more experience, to have more knowledge,” the youth—who preferred not to be identified by name, citing past experiences with other media—said in fluent English, something he quickly picked up from daily interactions, adding to the multitude of languages he already speaks. “I don’t want to lose my time.”

In only four months, he has moved from one shelter to the other: living first in Manhattan, then Brooklyn, and now the Bronx, after the city instituted a 30-day shelter limit for adult migrants in the city last year, which was extended last week to 60 days for adults under 23 as part of the city’s “right to shelter” settlement.

Over 852 single immigrant youth between the ages of 17 and 20 were in the city’s shelter system as of March 3, according to City Hall. Dozens of them have told shelter staff they want to graduate from high school, but haven’t been enrolled—even though they are entitled to do so under federal law, according to several community-based organizations (CBOs) that are trying to assist them.

Eight local organizations that provide services to immigrants and/or youth described delays and difficulties in enrolling young migrants recently. The organization with the highest number of cases was Safe Horizon’s Streetwork Project, a drop-in center for homeless youth that has been serving an increasing number of asylum seekers since last year, which says it has referred around 60 cases of migrants directly to the New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) since January.

But only six have been enrolled so far, lamented Sebastien Vante, associate vice president of Safe Horizon’s Streetwork Project in Harlem.Other organizations—Afrikana, an East Harlem community center that serves young immigrants; Artists Athletes Activists, which greets asylum seekers upon arrival and connects them with support services; the Coalition for Homeless Youth; The Door, which offers legal aid, counseling, and various support services to youth; and the New York Legal Assistance Group—told City Limits that the youth they serve have faced difficulties in school enrollment.

Some have been told there is no space, some have been put on waitlists and others said they were only given the option of taking the General Educational Development (GED) high school equivalency test, according to these groups.

When asked about these complaints, a New York City Public Schools spokesperson said the education department “does not track enrollment referrals and students are not asked to disclose how they received information about the enrollment process.”

“Enrollment does not work on a referral basis,” added the spokesperson in an email.

The department said it is working to ensure that older students who want to attend classes are afforded academic options including traditional high schools, transfer schools—which serve students who are behind in credits or need alternative forms of education—as well as adult GED programs.

“Since the inception of Project Open Arms, we have made it clear—we cannot do this work alone,” the spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the city’s initiative to offer educational support to new immigrants and asylum seekers.

But stating now that enrollment does not operate on a referral basis, advocates said, has created confusion, departing from how the city has historically enrolled unhoused young people referred by social services organizations.

“Providers have always utilized certain processes through relationships with students in temporary housing liaisons,” countered Jamie Powlovich, executive director for the Coalition for Homeless Youth. “If that process is no longer something NYC Public School supports, they didn’t tell anyone.”

Under the McKinney-Vento Act, a federal law that protects the educational rights of homeless children and youth, these young adults should be enrolled in school immediately, even in the absence of documentation such as proof of residency, immunizations, school records, or other documents normally required.

The New York State Education Law stipulates that those between the ages of 5 and 21 who have not received a high school diploma are “entitled to attend the public schools maintained in the district in which such person resides without the payment of tuition.”

Further, State Education Department guidance notes that, “Districts may not force such individuals to forego a full-time high school program to pursue this alternative option [GED test], or otherwise steer such individuals toward this alternative option.”

“I feel like almost all my clients in that specific situation—17 to 20, trying to get into high school—are almost always pushed towards the GED program,” said Salina Guzman, immigrant youth advocate at The Door. “I think very often, there are many barriers that our clients face when trying to get into high school.”

Since July 2022, about 36,000 students in temporary housing have enrolled in city schools, according to NYCPS, though the agency could not detail how many of them were aged 17-21.

To enroll, the department stated, prospective students must go through a Family Welcome Center, with locations in each of the five boroughs to handle year-round registration and admissions to traditional high schools.

But advocates say many immigrant youth have learned the hard way that they needed an appointment at these sites before showing up.

“[It] doesn’t sound like a huge issue,” said Rita Rodriguez-Engberg, director of the Immigrant Students Rights Project at Advocates for Children of New York. “But if you’re brand new to the country, and you’re already very confused and trying to make a lot of pieces fit together, and make the trip to the Family Welcome Center, and they tell you that you can’t be there, that you have to go back—that might be a reason alone why a family decides to just stop trying.”

A NYCPS spokesperson disputed that appointments are required at Family Welcome Centers, saying they are recommended but that walk-ins are accepted too. Welcome Centers can provide referrals to students interested in transfer schools, but for other pathways to graduation, such as adult education programs, prospective students should visit a referral center instead, the spokesperson said.

However, migrants who do make appointments at these welcome centers are sometimes told there is no space or they have to go on a waiting list, advocates say.

In an email, a NYCPS spokesperson acknowledged the presence of waitlists at some of its Welcome Centers—one in Downtown Brooklyn, for example, had less than 20 students waiting at the time of publication—but said names are taken off those lists daily thanks to rolling admissions, and that prospective students have the option of applying through other enrollment centers if their local spot is full.

But advocates say what should be a relatively smooth process now takes several weeks to a little over a month, and depends on a variety of circumstances: available seats, the type of school (transfer school, international high school, etc.), the needs of the student, and the time of year.

“The biggest problem: there’s no room in GED or high school alternatives,” explained Chia Chia Wang, NY Director of Church World Service (CWS), an organization that works with unaccompanied children who have come to reunite with their family members, which has been assisting many young people who are 17 or older with enrollment.

A CWS case manager explained that it took a month for one migrant, who will turn 18 in April and is living in a youth shelter without a guardian, to be enrolled after visiting the Family Welcome Center and being placed on a waiting list. “Despite reaching out to several transfer schools, he remained on waiting lists,” the caseworker said in an email.

“His absence from an educational environment,” the case manager added, “was starting to impact his mental well-being, as he expressed feeling down while observing his friends attending school while he remained at the shelter.”

To enroll migrants, advocates have made appointments, visited the Family Welcome Center, and called a bunch of high schools directly. “And that’s how, you know, we get students in school,” described Rodriguez-Engberg.

But according to the law, and reiterated by both the U.S. Department of Education and the NYS Department of Education, enrollment should be immediate. A U.S. Department of Education spokesperson said that anyone who meets the eligibility requirements and who is identified as homeless by a local liaison that serves students in temporary housing and their families in schools, should be able to attend classes right away.

A spokesperson for the New York State Education Department (NYSED) said that NYCPS has not reported any difficulties, delays, or problems in enrolling immigrant students in this age group, nor in failing to enroll them promptly, as required by the McKinney-Vento Act. NYSED would provide direct technical assistance to ensure compliance, added the spokesperson.

As a recipient of McKinney-Vento funds, the NYCPS has submitted proposals and annual reports ensuring compliance with the act, NYSED explained.

The New York State Attorney General’s Office encourages people who have been denied enrollment to contact its office or to file a Civil Rights Bureau complaint form.

Aging out of classrooms

An applicant approaching 18 complicates enrollment, several advocates explained. Turning 18 often makes it even harder.

“I had difficulty enrolling a client that was 17 and a half,” a Church World Service caseworker said via email. “The family was told that he was going to be 18 years old soon and that he should go to take a GED program instead of enrolling him in high school.”

The two young men City Limits spoke to during a visit to the Safe Horizons drop-in center in Harlem, one 20 and the other 18, said they had both asked staff at their shelters to be enrolled in school, to no avail. Nor were they referred to a family welcome center.

The young man from Mauritania said he did not persist or revisit the request because, under the city’s previous 30-day stay limit rules for adult migrants, it would be too difficult to fully focus on his studies without a stable place to live.

“So if I finished that one month, I should wait two weeks—three weeks, or one week, whatever—to get a shelter. I cannot sleep in a church, or sleep in a mosque, and then wake in the morning and go to school and come back tired,” he said.

CBOs told City Limits this age group easily falls through the cracks of the city’s shelter system and tends to be perceived as adults, not as young adults or unaccompanied youth.

“For newly arrived migrant youth of that age group—17 to 20—it’s rare that somebody will identify them as a [school-age] student, as a youth who needs to be in school,” Rodriguez-Engberg said. “They’re looked at as like adults, or they’re overlooked, period.”

Many young adults are entering adult shelters, where it’s harder to access the programs designed to help them.

Young people under the age of 24 are eligible for specialized runaway and homeless youth shelters under the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD), but with only 813 beds, it has long been near or at capacity. In addition to school enrollment assistance, these shelters provide mental health services, access to legal aid, job training, and other services.

After two years of new immigrants arriving from all over the world, organizations say it’s hard to know the magnitude of the problem: how many young people who could be enrolled who are not in school right now, and how their lives could have been changed with such access.

“A bigger problem is the fact that we don’t really even know what the actual need is,” Rodriguez-Engberg said. “How many are there actually, who just gave up and are working or trying to do something else, because they had no idea they could be in school.”

In 2020, the Migration Policy Institute estimated that 3,800 newly arrived immigrants in New York City, ages 16 to 21, were neither enrolled in city schools nor had a diploma.

While NYCPS expanded programs for new immigrants enrolled in the city’s transfer high schools in 2022, the same year that more immigrants began arriving in the city, advocates say it’s still not enough to keep up with demand.

Enrollment challenges have affected both young adults living alone in the city as well as those living with their families. “The problem that exists with the lack of options and the Family Welcome Centers referring students to GED programs, happens regardless of whether the student is here alone or they’re here with their family,” Rodriguez-Engberg explained.

The youngest, those between 17 to 19, advocates explain, have a better chance and more time to navigate the laborious enrollment process, but for older youth, time is limited, since federal law only guarantees their right to attend through age 21.

“Every beginning is hard, but in the end, it’s going to be okay, but we don’t want to lose time,” the young man from Mauritania told a City Limits reporter. “We’re not allowed to work, so we should go to school to get information. If we were allowed to work, that information can help us in the future.”

He cited his own multilingual skills as something he and many other immigrant youth can offer the local job market—if they can access it.

“Maybe, the U.S. is going to need us one day,” he said.

Editor’s note from City Limits: This story has been updated since original publication to include additional information provided by NYCPS.

More than academics: Aurora’s community schools are an example as interest in the model grows

2024-04-23T23:45:27+00:00

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When Bishnu Rai’s children started school at Aurora’s Crawford Elementary five years ago, she initially felt lost. She wasn’t very social and she struggled to help her children, she says.

But thanks to Crawford’s community school model, she’s been getting more involved, learning English, and now feels confident enough she’s helping come up with a plan for empowering other immigrant parents.

Crawford Elementary is one of six schools in Aurora that are using the community schools model. Five of them are part of the ACTION Zone, a group of schools near Denver’s border that have high levels of poverty and large numbers of language learners. The district grouped the schools years ago as part of a plan to better support the schools with similar needs.

At Crawford, some of the work has gone on for almost 10 years, but evolved as the zone schools committed to a “community schools” model in the past five years. The approach focuses on using community partners to address whole family needs, with the end goal of ensuring that children have fewer social and emotional barriers to learning.

In Colorado, nonprofit organizations and the state education department are increasing their focus on how they support schools that want to use the community schools model. Some of these leaders say they see an untapped potential for improving communities.

At Crawford, 97% of the school’s 540 students qualify for subsidized meals, a measure of poverty, and students come from 40 different countries speaking about 25 different languages.

Through the community schools model, Crawford works with organizations to test students’ eyesight at school, helps parents learn how they can continue lessons at home, and brings families together to share about their various cultures. Rai also has taken advantage of English classes, health classes, and parent leadership classes.

Parents are involved in big school decisions. For instance, parents helped pick this year’s new principal by participating in interviews and hosting a forum where parents could ask questions of the applicants and fill out scorecards.

“If we empower our parents, this helps our kids,” Rai said. “They teach me how to raise my voice, how to speak up.”

At Crawford Elementary, students come from 40 different countries and speak about 25 different languages. The school celebrates its diversity.

Supporting the model takes resources

Colorado Department of Education officials recently visited Crawford and Boston K-8, two of Aurora’s zone schools, as part of the state’s work to better understand how the community schools model is implemented and what resources can be shared with other schools looking to try the same model.

State lawmakers in 2022 added adopting the model to the menu of improvement options for schools on the state’s watchlist for low performance. The state education department had some support for the model spread across various departments but now is creating a team focused just on supporting the community schools model.

“We’re happy to connect schools with resources,” said Dana Scott, director of the office of student supports for the state Department of Education. “We want to be a place where we can really create some good connections for them so schools don’t have to start from scratch.”

The state doesn’t track how many districts are using the model, but nationwide, some experts believe the model has had growing interest, and more so since the start of the pandemic. Even as schools shut down, they served as hubs for various help to families in the community, providing meals, internet, COVID tests, shots, and more.

Katie Wilberding Cross, senior director for youth initiatives and education for Mile High United Way, helps lead a coalition of organizations that want to support community schools. The coalition just started meeting in the fall.

She says the idea behind community schools is that students have needs that can be a barrier to learning, but schools should not be expected to be everything for everybody.

“There are partners that provide these different needs,” Wilberding Cross said. “United Ways are uniquely positioned to convene folks, to bring these various organizations and sectors together.”

She said part of the work is getting more districts to learn about the model. It’s hard to say how much interest is in Colorado.

“What I keep hearing is there’s a lot of percolating interest, but it’s something that hasn’t been fully tapped into,” Wilberding Cross said.

In the metro area, Adams 14 has had national support in trying to start using the model at Central Elementary, one of the district’s lowest-performing schools, which is under a state-ordered improvement plan of its own. The hope is that the model will eventually help improve student achievement.

The Harrison school district of Colorado Springs also uses the model at one of its schools, and Pueblo 60 uses it at two of its schools.

Chicago Mayor visits high school to advocate for more Sustainable Community Schools

Many more schools are likely doing much of the same work community schools focus on, such as starting a food pantry for families, or partnering with community organizations to provide another service for students or families, but they don’t have the community schools label or a plan with the intentionality that the model would provide.

Having a community schools coordinator on staff ensures that the partnerships belong to the schools and not an individual teacher or principal who might leave, that those partnerships are responsive to the needs in the community, and that they are providing something for the families. With those elements in place,the work is more likely to be successful and to continue beyond just a year or two, experts said.

Schools trying to use the community schools approach generally hire a community schools coordinator. At Crawford, Maggie Lautzenheiser-Page, the community schools coordinator, helps plan and run the various programs offered for that school’s needs, which are different than the programs offered at the next school using the model.

Family liaisons at Crawford speak multiple languages and meet with parents regularly.

“Then it’s not burdening or putting more weight on educators,” said Christa Rowland, Western regional deputy director for the Coalition for Community Schools from the Institute for Educational Leadership, a national nonprofit group based in Washington D.C. “Rather it should lift it.”

The community school coordinator is key, leaders agree. The person should have some decision-making authority at the school level to help drive the work, Wilberding Cross said. There should be district buy-in. And the plans need to be designed with the community, evaluating needs and existing assets, experts said.

If schools are following Colorado’s definition of community schools as laid out in Colorado statute, then they have to assess the community’s needs every year.

Hiring that community school coordinator to implement this model does require an investment. Experts say research has shown the investment can pay off with more resources coming to the school, and improved measures of attendance, parent engagement, and eventually, other student outcomes.

Aurora has made some of that investment. The community school coordinators, one at each of the zone schools, are district-funded. The district is working to find permanent funding for some of the other positions, including community health coordinators and family liaisons for special populations that speak different languages.

The model has helped improve family and community engagement and enabled parents such as Rai to feel empowered to help their children’s learning. But, based on state ratings, the schools in the zone haven’t seen much improvement in students’ academic achievement. Aurora Central High School, the district’s longest-struggling school is part of the zone and has continued to have low state ratings.

Leaders celebrate other measures of community school success

Crawford Principal Aubri Dunkin, who is new this year, said most school leaders want their schools to be hubs for the community.

“But this truly is a hub,” Dunkin said, noting that the community school model allows the school to support parents and help them navigate potential barriers so students come to school more regularly and “ready to learn.”

In Aurora, the district's six community schools have two food clinics where families can access free food and other help. A Crawford parent is one of the coordinators who helps set parents up with the help.

At Crawford, 50 parents, including Rai, regularly attend leadership meetings. The zone’s two food clinics, which provide food and connect parents to other resources, host regular events to give out local food. Last school year, they served more than 4,700 individuals in the events. Within the district, leaders say students whose families are engaged are showing better outcomes than those who aren’t.

And across the zone, “definitely more than half of our families are attending and participating in events on a regular basis,” said Elizabeth Lewis, the district’s community schools impact manager.

At Crawford, which recently received a large number of new migrant students, parent leaders want to pass on what they’ve learned to help the new migrant parents be involved for their children, Rai said.

She’s also hoping to raise another issue beyond her school: pedestrian safety. She said families who walk to the school want a new stop sign at one of the busy intersections. Parents years ago successfully lobbied the city to install one outside the school, but now there’s a need for another, she said.

Experts say it’s that kind of drive by parents that really creates sustainability, and a model that is responsive to the evolving needs of the community.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools could lose 400 nurses as federal relief funds expire

2024-05-14T00:39:41+00:00

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New York City public schools could lose hundreds of nurses next year, as the city faces the expiration of billions of dollars in one-time federal COVID relief funds.

For years, many education programs have been propped up by the federal funds, including $65 million that supported roughly 400 contracted nurses, some of whom provide care at buildings that previously lacked a school nurse. But as that money dries up later this year, the future of those nurses and other school programs funded by the federal dollars remains uncertain.

Last month, officials announced the city’s Education Department would see its budget shrink by 2.4%, or $808 million, in the next fiscal year — largely spurred by the expiring federal funds. With the disappearance of the relief money, Mayor Eric Adams’ latest budget proposal allocated more than $500 million in city and state funds to preserve some of the programs it funded, including hundreds of social workers, staffers in homeless shelters, and preschool for 3-year-olds. Others, however, remain at risk.

Currently, every public school has a nurse or school-based health center, according to city officials. If a school nurse calls out sick or is otherwise unavailable, then a contracted nurse is deployed to that school to provide coverage.

“We’re grateful to the stimulus funding that has allowed us to ensure every school has a school nurse on site, and we will continue to advocate for and prioritize this need through the budget process,” said Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for the city’s Education Department.

Prior to the pandemic, at least 137 schools serving roughly 70,000 students did not have a school nurse, according to Advocates for Children, an organization that works on behalf of low-income families.

Without a school nurse in the building, kids with particular health needs like those with asthma or diabetes are at a higher risk of experiencing complications, said Anna MacEwan, a former school nurse who previously worked at a K-12 campus in downtown Brooklyn. It also shifts further responsibilities onto teachers, she added.

“You have to have a nurse in the building … to manage all the things that come up,” MacEwan said.

Nurses also provide families with additional peace of mind, said Noelia Gomez, an after-school program director with Good Shepherd Services, a nonprofit organization that supports children and families.

“Having nurses gives families a safeguard,” she said. “Somebody that they can trust — that’s going to care for their child like they would at home.”

She noted her program serves more than 500 students at P.S. 246 in the Bronx, each of whom may at some point need medical attention or support.

“It’s a very scary thought,” Gomez said. “What happens if the nurse isn’t there?”

With the mayor’s proposed budget still subject to negotiations with the City Council, advocates and local lawmakers are continuing to push for funding for initiatives that have relied on the federal dollars. The city must finalize its budget by July 1.

Council members will discuss the city’s Education Department budget at an Education Committee hearing on Wednesday.

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

NYC schools can now donate cafeteria food to fight hunger and reduce waste. Here’s how.

2024-05-10T19:30:40+00:00

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New York City’s Education Department recently launched a program allowing schools to donate unused packaged food to local food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters — an effort nearly two years in the making.

After a small group of schools piloted a food donation program, officials trained roughly 400 school food managers, supervisors, and directors earlier this year on how to set up their own programs, Chalkbeat has learned.

Every school will have the opportunity to opt into the effort, officials said. The Office of Food and Nutrition Services will help schools set up the procedures and equipment for donating untouched food, while a school’s administration will facilitate the donation to school community members or local pantries.

The program is gearing up at a critical moment, as pandemic-era family benefits dry up and childhood hunger is a growing concern. New York City has seen a 100% increase in the number of visits to food pantries by children and their families from pre-pandemic levels and 1 in 5 children don’t always know where their next meal will come from, according to food rescue group City Harvest.

Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams plans to reduce funding by about 56% for an emergency food program that works with about 500 community kitchens and food pantries citywide.

The school-based food donation program was “informed by conversations with several food pantries and best practices from existing school-based food pantries and ad hoc student-led food donation programs,” said Jenna Lyle, an Education Department spokesperson.

Since the program is just getting started, officials do not yet have data on participating schools, but said they plan to track how many opt into it.

Students, advocates, and elected officials have long tried to push the nation’s largest school system — which serves roughly 880,000 meals a day — to come up with a plan to divert food waste from landfills and into the hands of hungry New Yorkers. A Department of Sanitation study found that more than 40,000 tons of trash from New York City’s school buildings can be recycled, composted, or reused.

“There’s so much food being wasted,” said Eila Gandhi, a student at East Side Middle school.

Through the Middle School Leadership Council in Manhattan’s District 2, Elia has been working with Zoya Baulin, another East Side student, and Anya Bravin, from the Clinton School, on advocating for leftover packaged food from schools to go to homeless shelters and other anti-hunger organizations. But they kept hitting roadblocks, finding complicated rules and strict guidelines for donating the food and for shelters accepting the food.

They were happy to hear about the Education Department’s new program and are in touch with their principals about how their schools might participate.

“We feel like it could help so many different groups of people,” Anya said. “It can help people who have food insecurity. It could help schools get rid of this food. It can help homeless shelters to not have to feed so many people from their own money, and it could also help the environment.”

The Education Department’s food service team has been working to reduce excess food or leftovers whenever possible, said Lyle. “We applaud our students who are advocating for their communities and looking to support their local organizations and shelters.”

Rachel Sabella, director of No Kid Hungry New York, was encouraged to hear about the food donation program — especially now. Her advocacy organization recently polled public school families and found that nearly 9 in 10 reported that food prices were rising faster than their incomes.

“We look forward to learning more about this program expansion and the ways it can relieve the difficult choices too many families are forced to make between food, rent, and other necessities,” Sabella said in a statement.

Here’s what schools should know about participating in the program.

What’s the first step a school can take to participate in the program?

A school needs to set up what’s called a “share table,” where students can discard unopened packaged food or whole pieces of fruit from their trays, letting their peers pick up the food if they’d like.

Because of federal school food reimbursement regulations for meals — which are free for all New York City public school students — kids cannot, for instance, just take a cookie or an apple, but instead must take a complete meal with a protein and other food items. Because of that, many kids often end up tossing a lot of untouched food.

Several schools already have share tables set up in their cafeterias as a way to reduce food waste. (Education Department officials said they are in the process of collecting data on which schools have share tables.)

What food items are eligible for donation?

Only food from share tables can be donated.

The food must be non-perishable or unspoiled and must be donated within 36 hours of being served.

Where will the food donations go?

School leaders have two options:

They can donate the food directly to their school community, with school leaders selecting students and families to participate, according to a January presentation given to schools. “[This] enables students and families in need, access to food right in their own schools,” the presentation stated. “This program will help to make balanced, nutritious meals a reality.”
They can partner with an established local community food pantry or program that serves New Yorkers in need. The school can work with an organization to determine the food pick-up or delivery system.

Who will run the program at a school?

Principals must identify a “designee” to oversee the program. The designee can be a school staffer or a school community volunteer, such as a parent or guardian.

Students may volunteer to assist and support the program under that person’s guidance.

How will the food get from a cafeteria to families or organizations?

After each meal, whoever is running the program will evaluate food items left on the cafeteria’s share table. They — or student volunteers— will then place all eligible food items in a designated refrigerator or milk chest.

Each shelf must then be labeled with the date the items were placed there. And at the end of the last meal served (some schools serve breakfast, lunch, and after-school snacks), the person overseeing the program must complete a “daily food donation receipt,” submitted to an assigned kitchen staff member.

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

An attempt to roll back protections for trans students in sports angers NYC students and families

2024-04-23T16:57:31+00:00

Rebeca moved to New York City a year ago to protect her daughter, now 8, from increasingly trans-restrictive laws in Florida.

So it came as a shock when she received a 7 a.m. text from a parent at her children’s school on March 21. A Manhattan parent-led advisory board had voted 8-3 the night before calling on the Department of Education to revisit guidelines on trans girls’ sports participation.

Rebeca — who asked that we use only her first name and a pseudonym, Sophie, for her daughter, who is transgender — had thought of herself as a political refugee from a state where each legislative session threatened her daughter’s identity.

“It’s very triggering just to see the rhetoric so close,” she said of the largely symbolic resolution passed by the Community Education Council, or CEC, in Manhattan’s District 2, the second largest of the city’s 32 local districts.

NYC schools Chancellor David Banks made it clear that he did not support the CEC’s resolution. But for Rebeca, whose daughter attends school in a nearby district, and other trans youth and allies, the resolution marked a troubling first for New York City, and old fears were awakened.

“You get scared to talk to anybody, because you don’t know if somebody’s supportive or not,” Rebeca says. “Once the rhetoric is there, it’s not just sports, soon it’s bathrooms, soon it’s curriculum.”

The parents who passed the resolution claimed they were seeking to open a dialogue, but many of them are part of or endorsed by PLACE NYC, or Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, a group seen as pushing a pro-screened school and anti-integration agenda. Additionally, Maud Maron, the resolution’s lead sponsor and co-founder of PLACE, has made anti-trans comments.

Last week, Maron received a letter from the Education Department, following an investigation under a new process to address parent leader misconduct allegations, that instructed her to “cease engaging in conduct involving derogatory or offensive comments about any New York City Public School student,” or face suspension or removal from the CEC, as first reported in The 74.

Some experts worry that the resolution itself, even though it’s only advisory, will have a negative impact on trans youth who already experience bullying and harassment.

“I’m a little emotional because this is my community once again being attacked by individuals who have zero idea what it’s like to walk in my very high heels,” Athena Rivera, a trans teen who is a member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, said at a recent meeting of the citywide board. “I find it utterly appalling that we still today have grown adults making anti-trans or bigoted proposals.”

Tension between NY laws and parent rhetoric

New York state education law prohibits discrimination in physical education classes and athletics, a fact raised repeatedly by speakers at March’s Community Education Council meeting. But the resolution’s co-sponsor was undeterred.

“A lot of our resolutions, whether it’s on issues related to social issues or educational issues, are all geared towards putting parents more front and center,” said Leonard Silverman, who is CEC 2′s president.

Actor Elliot Page (right) with Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU who is also a District 2 parent, at the District 2 CEC meeting on March 20, 2024.

His views echo proponents of parents’ rights bills nationwide that limit educators’ ability to teach about race, gender, and sexuality. PEN America reports that nearly 400 “education intimidation” bills were introduced between January 2021 and June 2023, and 39 are now law.

As of last summer, 23 states had passed laws excluding trans youth from participating in the sport that aligns with their gender, according to ESPN.

“We know that hostile legislation undermines LGBTQ+ young people’s well-being and puts them at higher risk of harassment, so there are good reasons to believe this resolution alone has negatively impacted NYC trans youth,” said Jennifer Jennings, a District 2 resident and Princeton University professor currently teaching a course titled “Schooled: Education, Opportunity, and Inequality.”

Education Department officials said the District 2 CEC resolution would be rejected, and the city does not intend to revise the guidelines. At the March Panel for Educational Policy meeting, held on the same night CEC 2 approved the resolution, Banks condemned the misinformation in the resolution and its intent to target trans youth.

“It’s especially troubling because we know sports build a sense of self-confidence and belonging,” said Banks. “Rather than excluding our trans students, we ought to be working together to wrap our arms around them. They need our love and encouragement, and support, not political attacks.”

Still, despite the Education Department’s assurances, Oliver Duffy, a District 2 seventh grader, said what happens in these meetings could have ramifications across the city.

He and his peers were talking about the CEC’s rhetoric even before the vote. In January, Duffy wrote CEC 2 members a letter after some of their anti-trans internal chat messages leaked to The 74. The messages were particularly upsetting to him, he said.

Maron has become a polarizing figure: At Stuyvesant High School, where Maron is on the Student Leadership Team, a student started a petition asking for her removal. The petition expresses concern that Maron will “alter school policies in more subtle ways that may prove detrimental to students of color and LGBTQ+ students.”

“I wanted the CEC to know that their words have impact,” said Duffy, who started a Gender and Sexuality Alliance, or GSA, in his elementary school. “Maud tweets a lot of anti-trans stuff on social media, which kind of sometimes influences kids. And a lot of kids see it, and it just makes them feel more bad about themselves.”

When asked on last year’s NYC School Survey whether or not students harass, bully, or intimidate each other because of their gender, gender identity, or gender expression, 34% of the students citywide in grades 6-12 who participated said this happens some or most of the time.

Of the 41 students who identified as nonbinary, gender fluid, or gender expansive who took the survey, 66% reported seeing this behavior in their schools.

Tamuira Reid, Duffy’s parent, sees the resolution as an opportunity to strengthen the Education Department’s guidelines on gender inclusion – not just to see whether or not trans and nonbinary students feel safe going out for the sport of their choice, but to ask, “Does every school have a GSA? Does the staff there have the funding to run the programs that actually affirm and keep kids safe?”

Alaina Daniels, executive director of Trans formative Schools, an after-school program centering trans joy and social justice, addresses the District 2's Community Education Council on March 20, 2024.

Though supporters of District 2′s resolution said it wasn’t anti-trans, Maron, also a member of the far-right parent organization Moms For Liberty, has made it clear she would exclude trans girls from playing the sport that aligns with their gender. “When you say trans girl, what you’re talking about is boys,” Maron told Chalkbeat. But Maron said her positions are distinct from the resolution. “My personal opinions and the resolution are two separate things,” she said.

For fellow CEC member, Gavin Healy, making this separation isn’t possible. “If you’re a representative of families on a public body and you say ‘trans kids don’t exist,’ then how can you represent the families of trans kids,” asked Healy, who opposed the resolution. He also noted that the council is supposed to include one student representative. “Could a trans kid or even any queer student be on CEC 2 and feel safe and protected and affirmed? I think that would be really difficult.”

In response to the Education Department’s sanctions against her, Maron wrote, “I have no idea what conduct I’ve been found guilty of.” She said she was never provided copies of any charges. Her statement was included in a lawsuit she and others are filing against the Education Department and other parents over the new parent leader investigation process.

She added, “I have only been accused of exercising my First Amendment rights to criticize transgender theory.”

Potential consequences of District 2′s resolution

Experts say exclusionary policies, whether they are passed or not, can endanger trans youth. Barnard College Professor Rebecca Jordan-Young, who is trained in sociomedical science and co-authored the book “Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography,” said, “There’s this boogeyman idea that trans girls and women are just going to completely dominate all sports if in fact equity-based policies are opened up. That has not proven to be the case at all.”

Keeping trans girls off girls teams puts them at serious risk, Jordan-Young said. A recent Washington Post analysis found states with laws that exclude or restrict trans students or limit what can be taught about LGBTQ+ topics experienced a massive increase in K-12 hate crimes, including intimidation and assault.

In addition to external violence, LGBTQ+ youth are at risk for self-harm — 41% seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, according to a 2023 The Trevor Project survey. One in four Black transgender and nonbinary youth surveyed said they had attempted suicide.

“There are huge conversations to be had around equity and what it would take to actually truly support girl and women athletes,” Jordan-Young said. “This is all about trying to split this tiny little paltry pie and kick some of the girls out.” Instead, Jordan-Young said, people should be advocating for equal training facilities and focusing on building all girls’ confidence in their physical capabilities.

One byproduct of gender inclusive policies people might not expect is that they create environments where all students are safer, said Travers, a professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, who uses only one name and they/them pronouns. “If you want your female child to have a better experience in school, put her in a school with gender inclusive policies,” they said.

Finding a world of difference in New York from Florida

Since Sophie was 3 years old, Rebeca has been protecting her right to live as herself in school. When she was in prekindergarten, parents complained when Sophie, who identified as a boy at the time, went to school in a tutu. While the principal said she supported Sophie’s dress-up choice, the school stopped hosting events where she could dress up, Rebeca said.

This experience coupled with the passage of what’s commonly known as Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill soon afterward made Rebeca nervous about sending her child to a public school. The law, which was challenged in court, was widely interpreted as outlawing lessons or books that mentioned sexual orientation or gender identity. Over the next few years, Rebeca tried different school settings she hoped would affirm, or at least not disparage, Sophie. Once Sophie’s father said he wouldn’t fight Rebeca’s choice to move to New York, Rebeca put her two kids on a plane and had them in a school in NYC by the following week.

Rebeca is not alone in moving out of state as a way to better ensure her child can grow up supported. UCLA’s Williams Institute surveyed 113 LGBTQ+ parents in Florida in 2023 and found 16% had already taken steps to move to another state. More than half were considering doing so. Until March 21, Rebeca hadn’t been feeling the constant fear for Sophie’s safety she’d lived with in Florida.

“When we came here, and she started going to school,” Rebeca said, “all of that was not even an issue anymore.”

Sophie’s activity of choice is dance. Her experience in dance class in New York is quite different from the atmosphere she and Rebeca encountered in Florida, where Rebeca was told Sophie would only be allowed to compete as a boy.

“Now she’s doing modern dance,” said Rebeca. “They’re very supportive. Nobody cares that she’s trans — in a good way.”

She hopes that doesn’t change.

Liz Rosenberg is a New York-based reporter.

A civics roadmap for teens: New online clearinghouse created ‘by youth, for youth’ aims to help

2024-04-12T22:17:31+00:00

Looking to run a voter registration drive at your school? Want to learn how to earn a high school diploma with a “seal of civic readiness,” demonstrating civic skills and knowledge? Trying to find out more about the NYC Mayor’s Office internship program?

Or maybe you want to get a head start on registering for the upcoming election, whether you’re 18 or not. (Those who are 16-17 can now pre-register so they are automatically registered when they turn 18.)

This information and more can be found on the “Youth Civic Hub,” an online portal launched on Friday, designed “by youth, for youth,” to increase youth civic engagement and electoral participation.

Led by the NYC Youth Agenda and Civic Coalition, this one-stop clearinghouse includes a wealth of information, ranging from internships and volunteer opportunities to voter registration tools and an elections portal with scorecards rating candidates on young people’s issues. It will soon have a “power map” explaining the different roles of elected officials, a glossary outlining the language commonly used in civic spaces, and a directory of various local organizations for young people to connect with.

The young people behind the portal are hoping to get it in the hands of New York City teachers, so they can share it with their students and expose them to “high-quality” civic opportunities across the five boroughs.

Creating the hub has been a yearslong project spearheaded by YVote, a teen-focused civic engagement nonprofit that is helping lead the larger NYC Civic Coalition.

“We’re not just helping voters, we’re trying to make the connections — who oversees what,” said Mia Payne, a 2022 graduate of Manhattan’s Talent Unlimited High School, alumnus of YVote, and a youth co-chair on the education transition team for Mayor Eric Adams.

“We just want to connect the dots of the roles and responsibilities [of government officials],” she said. Though young people often “just see whoever’s on the TV,” which is often the mayor or governor, it might make more sense to reach out to their city council member for school community issues, she said.

When Payne joined YVote in her sophomore year of high school, she asked why it was so hard to find out who represents you and what they do and believe. It turned out the organization was already working on solving this problem by building the hub. She believes the work they’re doing can serve as a blueprint for other states.

The portal comes at a pivotal moment, just months before November’s presidential election. In the 2022 midterm elections, just 7.6% of eligible Bronx voters ages 18-29 cast ballots and 15.3% of Queens young people voted, according to CIRCLE, an independent youth civic engagement research organization based at Tufts University. About 18% of Brooklyn voters in this age group cast ballots along with 18.8% in Manhattan and 23.4% in Staten Island. The statewide average, 19.8%, was lower than the national average of 23%.

The nation’s political polarization can turn young people off from wanting to be civically involved, Payne said, but she also believes that the hub can help provide different points of access for young people to feel more empowered.

“There’s a lot of mistrust and misinformation. We want to make this as cross-partisan as possible and straight facts,” Payne said. “The goal of the hub: You may not agree or be proud of your elected officials, but at the end of the day, the power is in the people’s hand. You have the ability to hold them accountable and elect someone else.”

Written in “teen-friendly” language the hub aims to reach young people, especially those in “civic deserts,” where there’s less broadband access and less exposure to election-related news and information.

Through the portal, young people can learn about various opportunities to get involved with communities: You can find out how to volunteer at a farm in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, apply for an internship at a design museum in Manhattan, or try and land a civics-focused fellowship centered on such issues as criminal justice, voting rights, and media literacy.

“Many youth don’t know of any opportunities besides the ones in their schools, and the hub aims to change that,” said Afsana Rahman, a member of the hub youth working group and senior at the Queens High School for the Sciences at York College. (She became involved in the hub through her work in CUNY’s Intergenerational Change Initiative.)

The hub will be officially unveiled on Monday at the NYC Youth Agenda Policy Party, where young people will also share their policy recommendations for how to make the city more equitable for youth, based on thousands of surveys of teens across the city.

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

Newark’s summer school programs aim to move kids forward, Superintendent Roger León says

2024-04-08T10:00:00+00:00

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With the end of the academic year quickly approaching, Newark Public Schools summer school applications are now open for students in elementary, middle, and high school.

This year, the district is hosting programs at 16 elementary schools, up from 14 last summer, and across 10 high schools.

Summer school is a combination of mandatory academic programs, which are based on attendance, grades, and state test scores, enrichment activities, and specialized programs for high schoolers. The district is also extending hours for enrichment programs – which are provided by teachers and community-based organizations – to 6 p.m. this year.

Similar to last year, summer school is about “moving kids forward” by helping students refine basic skills in math and reading and offering accelerated courses and internship programs for high schoolers, Superintendent Roger León said. District leaders expect a rise in English language learners and students with disabilities next fall and are providing programs this summer aimed at integrating new multilingual learners and supporting students with Individualized Education Programs over the break.

Registration for summer school began on March 28, and closes on May 15. Due to an earlier end to the school year, summer school will begin on June 27 and end on Aug. 2. Students enrolled in the district during this school year are eligible for summer school. Those who are Newark residents but were not enrolled in a public school this year are also eligible to attend depending on availability. Students who do not live in Newark cannot attend summer programs.

Last year, more than 10,000 Newark Public Schools students attended summer school, with more scattered throughout city charter schools. Federal COVID relief dollars helped expand summer programs last year, León said, and this fall, the district is facing the end of those funds.

What families can expect this summer

Not all school sites will be open for summer school, but students can report to the school closest to their home for programs, León said.

Parents of students who are required to attend Summer Achieve, the district’s mandatory summer school program, were notified last month and do not need to register for summer classes, district leaders said. Students wanting to enroll in enrichment programs such as summer sports camps and STEM academies must apply online by selecting the program through the district’s online application.

This year, summer school starts with breakfast at 8:30 a.m. and runs until 6 p.m. Summer Achieve sessions will be held between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. with lunch at 12 p.m. Enrichment programs and activities through the district’s Summer Quest program will run from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. with dinner included. Students can attend morning, afternoon, or sessions all day, district leaders said.

Elementary students who do not attend within the first three days of programs may lose their seats and, after the third unexcused absence, will be dismissed from their mandatory program, according to the district’s summer programs brochure. High schoolers enrolled in accelerated programs must attend every day to keep their spots.

At the beginning of this school year, Newark residents experienced sweltering conditions with some students learning in hot schools. Other students reported having little to no access to cold water in fountains at their school.

Stephanie McNeil is a per diem aide at 13th Avenue School who in past years, has worked for the district’s summer school program. This year, she’s decided not to apply for a summer position because of the hot conditions that make working in city schools “unbearable.”

“It is way too hot and it’s too hot for the kids to even learn in those types of conditions,” McNeil said.

Last month, the district said it will prioritize air conditioner installations at summer school sites before the start of programs in June. The district said it will also install them at other schools this summer, but has not said which ones.

In 2022, the Newark school board approved a nearly $5 million contract to purchase and install touchless water fountains districtwide, but the work is ongoing. More than 150 contactless water fountains need to be installed in schools and the district’s Office of Facilities Management says it plans to install them by May.

Programs for English language learners, students with disabilities

English language learners in kindergarten through 11th grade are eligible for the English-plus program meant to help students with their academic and language skills. The district says it focuses on developing reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in English.

Multilingual students who have recently arrived in the country and will enter high school in the fall can also participate in the newcomers high school summer program. The program is offered at two high schools – Barringer High School in the North Ward and East Side High School in the East Ward – and intends to support students academically, socially, and culturally.

Students who live more than two and a half miles from either school and want to attend the program are eligible for bus tickets, according to the district.

Students with an Individualized Education Program receiving special education services may be eligible to enroll in the Extended School Year program. But the district’s office of special education says not all students with IEPs are eligible for summer services.

Child Study Team members will assess each student to determine their eligibility for the program by looking at a student’s risk of losing skills and knowledge during the summer break, according to the district’s office of special education. They will also look at how long it might take a student to regain those skills lost over the break. If a student is denied a spot in the extended school year program, a parent can appeal that decision.

Nyemia Young is the mother of Nasariah, a kindergartener at Salomé Ureña Elementary School who receives special education services from the district. For the last two summers, Young has enrolled her son in the district’s Extended School Year summer program but wasn’t happy with the care and attention he was getting. During Nasariah’s first time in summer school, he went to Rafael Hernandez School and was struggling with sensory issues that some teachers, Young said, were not prepared to deal with.

“They’re not even putting these kids with the appropriate staff,” Young added. “This year I might send him but I’m not all the way sure.”

The Extended School Year program is offered at nine elementary schools and three high schools, including the district’s specialized high schools: New Jersey Regional Day and John F. Kennedy School.

Who works during summer school?

León says the district is working to staff all its summer school sites. Current district teachers and staff members are eligible to apply for one of dozens of positions districtwide. Each school site is managed by a summer school principal and vice principal who are different from administrators who oversee schools throughout the regular year.

The district has posted positions for administrators, teachers, aides, nurses, and case managers, among others. With enrichment programs running until 6 p.m. this year, some positions require staff to stay for the full summer school day.

Educators like McNeil say it might be tough for teachers to commit to that schedule “on top of working during the regular school year.”

“It’s already difficult during the school year so, I don’t want to have a tough summer too,” McNeil added.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Jóvenes inmigrantes recién llegados enfrentan dificultades para matricularse en escuelas de Nueva York

2024-03-19T20:24:18+00:00

Este artículo se publicó originalmente en inglés el 18 de marzo en City Limits, una publicación independiente de investigación. Traducido por Daniel Parra. Read the English version here.

El joven de Mauritania de 20 años llegó a la ciudad hace cuatro meses con el sueño de graduarse de secundaria en los Estados Unidos.

“Quiero mejorar mi vida. Todavía soy un bebé, y debería ir a la escuela para tener más experiencia, para tener más conocimientos”, dijo en un inglés fluido —-aprendido rápidamente en interacciones diarias y que se suma a la multitud de idiomas que ya habla— el joven, quien prefirió no ser identificado por su nombre por experiencias pasadas con otros medios de comunicación. “No quiero perder el tiempo”.

En sólo cuatro meses, ha pasado de un albergue a otro: viviendo primero en Manhattan, luego en Brooklyn y ahora en el Bronx, después de que la ciudad instituyera el año pasado un límite de 30 días de estadía en refugios para los inmigrantes en la ciudad, y que fue ampliado la semana pasada a 60 días para los adultos menores de 23 años como parte del acuerdo sobre el “derecho a refugio” de la ciudad.

Más de 852 jóvenes inmigrantes solteros entre 17 y 20 años estaban en el sistema de albergues de la ciudad al 3 de marzo, según la alcaldía. Decenas de ellos han pedido al personal de los refugios que quieren terminar el bachillerato, pero no se les ha matriculado, a pesar de que tienen derecho a ello en virtud de la legislación federal, según varias organizaciones comunitarias que intentan ayudarles.

Ocho organizaciones locales que prestan servicios a inmigrantes y/o jóvenes describieron retrasos y dificultades para matricular a jóvenes inmigrantes recientemente. La organización con mayor número de casos es Safe Horizon y su Streetwork Project, un centro de acogida para jóvenes sin hogar que atiende a un número creciente de solicitantes de asilo desde el año pasado, afirma haber remitido unos 60 casos de inmigrantes directamente a las Escuelas Públicas de la ciudad de Nueva York (NYCPS por sus siglas en inglés) desde enero.

Pero hasta ahora sólo se han inscrito seis, lamentó Sebastien Vante, vicepresidente asociado del Proyecto Streetwork de Safe Horizon en Harlem.

Otras organizaciones —como Afrikana, un centro comunitario de East Harlem que atiende a jóvenes inmigrantes; Artists Athletes Activists, que recibe a los solicitantes de asilo a su llegada y los pone en contacto con servicios de apoyo; la Coalition for Homeless Youth; The Door, que ofrece asistencia jurídica, asesoramiento y diversos servicios de apoyo a los jóvenes; y el New York Legal Assistance Group— dijeron a City Limits que los jóvenes a los que atienden han tenido dificultades para matricularse en la escuela.

Según estos grupos, a algunos de los jóvenes se les ha dicho que no hay cupos en los colegios, a otros se les ha puesto en listas de espera y otros afirman que sólo se les ha dado la opción de presentar el examen General de Desarrollo Educativo (GED por sus siglas en inglés) de equivalencia de bachillerato.

Cuando se le preguntó acerca de estas quejas a NYCPS, un portavoz dijo que el departamento de educación “no rastrea los casos referidos de inscripción y no se pide a los estudiantes que revelen cómo recibieron la información sobre el proceso de inscripción”.

“La matriculación no funciona en base a referidos”, añadió el portavoz en un correo electrónico.

El departamento dijo que está trabajando para asegurar que los estudiantes mayores que quieran asistir a clases tengan opciones académicas que incluyan escuelas secundarias tradicionales, escuelas de transferencia —que sirven a los estudiantes que están atrasados en créditos o necesitan formas alternativas de educación—, así como programas de GED para adultos.

“Desde el inicio del Proyecto Open Arms, hemos dejado claro que no podemos hacer este trabajo solos”, dijo el portavoz, refiriéndose a la iniciativa de la ciudad para ofrecer apoyo educativo a los nuevos inmigrantes y solicitantes de asilo.

Pero afirmar ahora que la inscripción no funciona con referidos, dijeron los defensores, ha creado confusión, apartándose de la forma en que la ciudad ha inscrito históricamente a los jóvenes sin hogar remitidos por las organizaciones de servicios sociales.

“Los proveedores siempre han utilizado ciertos procesos a través de las relaciones con los estudiantes en los enlaces de vivienda temporal”, refutó Jamie Powlovich, directora ejecutiva de la Coalition for Homeless Youth. “Si ese proceso ya no es algo que apoye NYCPS, no se lo han dicho a nadie”.

Según la Ley McKinney-Vento, una ley federal que protege los derechos educativos de los niños y jóvenes sin hogar, estos jóvenes adultos deben ser matriculados en la escuela inmediatamente, incluso en ausencia de documentación como prueba de residencia, vacunas, expedientes escolares u otros documentos normalmente exigidos.

La Ley de Educación del Estado de Nueva York estipula que las personas entre 5 y 21 años que no hayan recibido un diploma de secundaria tienen “derecho a asistir a las escuelas públicas en el distrito en el que resida dicha persona sin el pago de matrícula”.

Además, la directriz del Departamento de Educación del estado señala que “los distritos no pueden obligar a estas personas a renunciar a un programa de escuela secundaria a tiempo completo para seguir esta opción alternativa [examen del GED], o de otra manera dirigir a estas personas hacia esta opción alternativa”.

“Siento que casi todos mis clientes en esa situación específica —de 17 a 20, tratando de entrar en la escuela secundaria— casi siempre son empujados hacia el programa de GED”, dijo Salina Guzmán, defensora de los jóvenes inmigrantes en The Door. “Creo que muy a menudo, hay muchas barreras que nuestros clientes enfrentan cuando intentan ingresar a la escuela secundaria”.

Desde julio de 2022, alrededor de 36,000 estudiantes en viviendas temporales se han inscrito en escuelas de la ciudad, según NYCPS, aunque el departamento no detalló cuántos tenían entre 17 y 21 años.

Para matricularse, dijo el departamento, los futuros estudiantes deben pasar por Centros de Acogida para Familias (Family Welcome Centers), con sedes en cada uno de los cinco condados para gestionar las inscripciones y admisiones durante todo el año.

Pero los defensores dicen que muchos jóvenes inmigrantes han aprendido por las malas que necesitaban una cita en estos lugares antes de presentarse.

“No parece un gran problema”, dice Rita Rodríguez-Engberg, directora del Proyecto de Derechos de los Estudiantes Inmigrantes de Advocates for Children of New York. “Pero si eres nuevo en el país, y ya estás confundido y tratando que un montón de piezas encajen, y haces el viaje al Centro de Bienvenida Familiar, y te dicen que no puedes estar allí, que tienes que volver, eso podría ser una razón por sí sola por la que una familia decida simplemente dejar de intentarlo”.

Un portavoz de NYCPS negó que los Centros de Acogida para Familias requieran cita previa, afirmando que es recomendable, pero que también se aceptan visitas sin cita previa. Los Centros pueden referir a los estudiantes interesados a escuelas de transferencia, pero para otros programas de graduación, como los programas de educación para adultos, los interesados deben visitar un referral center (centro de referencia) en su lugar, dijo el portavoz.

Sin embargo, los inmigrantes que tienen cita en estos Centros de Acogida para Familias a veces les dicen que no hay cupo o que tienen que inscribirse en una lista de espera, dicen los defensores.

En un correo electrónico, un portavoz de NYCPS reconoció la presencia de listas de espera en algunos de Centros de Acogida para Familias: uno en el centro de Brooklyn, por ejemplo, tenía menos de 20 estudiantes esperando en el momento de la publicación, pero dijo que los nombres se eliminaban de la lista diariamente gracias a las admisiones continuas, y que los futuros estudiantes tenían la opción de ir a otros centros.

Sin embargo, los defensores de los estudiantes afirman que lo que debería ser un proceso relativamente sencillo tarda ahora varias semanas o un poco más de un mes, dependiendo de diversas circunstancias: cupos disponibles, tipo de secundaria (escuelas de transferencia, escuela internacional, etc.), necesidades del estudiante y la época del año.

“El mayor problema: no hay cupos en las escuelas alternativas de GED o bachillerato”, explicó Chia Chia Wang, directora en Nueva York de Church World Service (CWS por sus siglas en inglés), una organización que trabaja con menores no acompañados que han venido a reunirse con sus familiares, que ha estado ayudando a muchos jóvenes de 17 años o más a matricularse.

Un gestor de casos del CWS explicó que un migrante que cumplirá 18 años en abril y vive en un refugio de menores sin tutor, tardó un mes en ser matriculado tras visitar el Centro de Acogida para Familias y ser incluido en una lista de espera. “A pesar de contactar a escuelas, seguía en lista de espera”, dijo en un correo electrónico.

“Su ausencia de un entorno educativo”, añadió el gestor de casos, “estaba empezando a repercutir en el bienestar mental, ya que el joven expresó sentirse decaído al observar a sus amigos asistir a la escuela mientras él permanecía en el refugio”.

Para matricular a los inmigrantes, los defensores han concertado citas, han visitado el Centro de Acogida para Familias y han llamado directamente a un montón de escuelas. “Y así es como, ya sabes, conseguimos que los estudiantes vayan a la escuela”, describió Rodríguez-Engberg.

Pero de acuerdo con la ley, y reiterado tanto por el Departamento de Educación de EE.UU. y el Departamento de Educación del estado de Nueva York, la inscripción debe ser inmediata. Un portavoz del Departamento de Educación de EE.UU. dijo que cualquier persona que cumpla los requisitos de elegibilidad y que sea identificada como persona sin hogar por un enlace local que atiende a los estudiantes en viviendas temporales y a sus familias en las escuelas, debe poder asistir a clases de inmediato.

Un portavoz del Departamento de Educación del estado de Nueva York (NYSED por sus siglas en inglés) dijo que NYCPS no ha informado de ninguna dificultad, retraso o problema para matricular estudiantes inmigrantes en este grupo de edad, ni sobre matricularlos con prontitud, como exige la Ley McKinney-Vento. El NYSED proporcionaría asistencia técnica directa para garantizar el cumplimiento, añadió el portavoz.

Como beneficiario de los fondos McKinney-Vento, el NYCPS ha presentado propuestas e informes anuales que garantizan el cumplimiento de la ley, explicó el NYSED.

La Oficina de la Fiscal General del estado de Nueva York anima a las personas a las que se haya negado la inscripción a ponerse en contacto con su oficina o a presentar una queja a la oficina de derechos civiles.

Envejecer fuera de las aulas

Estar cerca a cumplir 18 años complica la inscripción, explican varios defensores. Cumplir 18 años a menudo lo hace aún más difícil.

“Tuve dificultades para matricular a un cliente que tenía 17 años y medio”, dijo por correo electrónico un gestor de casos de CWS. “A la familia le dijeron que pronto iba a cumplir 18 años y que debía ir a un programa de GED en lugar de matricularlo en el instituto”.

Los dos jóvenes, uno de 20 años y el otro de 18, con los que City Limits habló durante una visita al centro de acogida de Safe Horizons en Harlem dijeron que ambos habían pedido al personal de los refugios que los matricularan en la escuela, sin éxito. Tampoco los remitieron a un Centro de Acogida para Familias.

El joven de Mauritania dijo que no insistió en la solicitud porque, según las normas anteriores de la ciudad sobre el límite de estadía de 30 días para inmigrantes adultos, sería demasiado difícil centrarse plenamente en sus estudios sin un lugar estable donde vivir.

“Cuando termine el mes, debo esperar dos semanas —tres, o una semana, lo que sea— para conseguir un refugio. No puedo dormir en una iglesia, o dormir en una mezquita, y luego levantarme por la mañana e ir a la escuela y volver cansado”, dijo.

Las organizaciones de base comunitaria dijeron a City Limits que este grupo de edad fácilmente queda fuera del sistema de albergues de la ciudad y tiende a ser percibido como adultos, no como adultos jóvenes o jóvenes no acompañados.

“Para los jóvenes migrantes recién llegados de ese grupo de edad —de 17 a 20 años— es raro que alguien los identifique como estudiantes [en edad escolar], como jóvenes que necesitan estar en la escuela”, dijo Rodríguez-Engberg. “Se les mira como adultos, o se les pasa por alto, sin más”.

Muchos jóvenes ingresan en centros de acogida para adultos, donde es más difícil acceder a los programas diseñados para ayudarles.

Los jóvenes menores de 24 años pueden ir a los albergues especializados para jóvenes fugados y sin hogar del Departamento de Juventud y Desarrollo Comunitario de la ciudad, pero con sólo 813 camas, hace tiempo que están casi o al límite de su capacidad. Además de ayuda para matricularse en la escuela, estos albergues ofrecen servicios de salud mental, acceso a asistencia jurídica, formación laboral y otros servicios.

Tras dos años de llegada de nuevos inmigrantes de todo el mundo, las organizaciones afirman que es difícil conocer la magnitud del problema: cuántos jóvenes que podrían estar matriculados no están escolarizados ahora mismo y cómo podrían haber cambiado sus vidas con acceso.

“Un problema mayor es el hecho de que ni siquiera sabemos realmente cuál es la necesidad real”, dijo Rodríguez-Engberg. “Cuántos hay en realidad, que simplemente se dieron por vencidos y están trabajando o tratando de hacer otra cosa, porque no tenían idea de que podían estar en la escuela”.

En 2020, el Migration Policy Institute estimó que 3.800 inmigrantes entre 16 y 21 años recién llegados a la ciudad de Nueva York no estaban matriculados en las escuelas de la ciudad ni tenían un diploma.

Si bien el NYCPS amplió los programas para los nuevos inmigrantes matriculados en las escuelas secundarias de transferencia de la ciudad en 2022, el mismo año en que más inmigrantes comenzaron a llegar a la ciudad, los defensores dicen que no es suficiente por la demanda que hay.

Los problemas de matriculación han afectado tanto a los adultos jóvenes que viven solos en la ciudad como a los que viven con sus familias. “El problema que existe con la falta de opciones y los Centros de Acogida para Familias que remiten a los estudiantes a los programas de GED, sucede independientemente de si el estudiante está aquí solo o está aquí con su familia”, explicó Rodríguez-Engberg.

Los más jóvenes, los que tienen entre 17 y 19 años, explican los defensores, tienen más posibilidades y más tiempo para navegar por el laborioso proceso de matrícula, pero para los jóvenes de más edad, el tiempo es limitado, ya que la ley federal sólo garantiza su derecho hasta los 21 años.

“Todos los comienzos son duros, pero al final todo va a salir bien, pero no queremos perder tiempo”, dijo el joven de Mauritania a un reportero de City Limits. “No se nos permite trabajar, así que debemos ir a la escuela para informarnos. Si nos dejaran trabajar, esa información podría ayudarnos en el futuro”.

Él citó sus propios conocimientos multilingües como algo que él y muchos otros jóvenes inmigrantes pueden ofrecer al mercado laboral local, si pueden acceder a él.

“Tal vez, Estados Unidos nos necesite algún día”, dijo.

Este artículo ha sido actualizado desde su publicación original para incluir información adicional facilitada por NYCPS.

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.

A push for universal after-school gains traction in Albany

2024-03-27T18:45:53+00:00

A Brooklyn state senator’s push for universal after-school programs is gaining traction among his Albany colleagues.

After Zellnor Myrie’s monthslong effort discussing the importance of expanding after-school programs, the state senate tucked a line into its recent spending proposal: “The Senate is interested in exploring pathways to achieving universal coverage for afterschool programming.”

Though the senate’s proposal — released in advance of finalizing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget due April 1 — is largely symbolic and sets no price tag for such a program, the nod is significant. It’s the first time the legislative body included such a reference to universal after-school, according to Myrie, whose office did a deep dive into the archives.

Building on that momentum, Myrie last week introduced legislation directing the state’s Office of Children and Family Services to conduct a feasibility study for a statewide program, looking at how much it might cost to provide year-round after-school programming to every child who wants a seat.

Myrie believes that it’s all the more urgent for the state to step in as New York City is cutting back on some after-school programs, as Chalkbeat recently reported.

“This should be at the top of our agenda if we are in fact serious about public safety, the future of our children, and the health of our communities,” said Myrie, who represents a swath of Brooklyn from Crown Heights and East Flatbush to Park Slope and Windsor Terrace.

As food, housing, and transportation have gone up, paying for child care has become increasingly difficult. In 2022, the city lost an estimated $23 billion from working parents who either left the city or cut back on hours because of child care needs, according to the city’s Economic Development Corporation.

Myrie believes the after-school programs he attended growing up, such as his middle school step team and the Crown Heights Youth Collective, helped put him on his path to college, law school, and now as an elected official in Albany representing the community in which he was born and raised.

“After-school was a lifeline not just for me because of the skills and confidence I was able to acquire, but also for my mom — that I had a safe place to stay,” he said. “I truly credit after-school for keeping me off the streets.”

He also cited data from the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that violent crimes committed by children ages 7-17 spike between the hours of 3-6 p.m.

Calls for universal after-school in NYC have stalled before

New York City officials said they would review whatever bills come their way on the matter.

“Support from all our government partners in providing services to young people is always welcome,” Mark Zustovich, spokesperson for the Department for Youth and Development, said in a statement.

Creating such a pricey program for the nation’s largest school district has faced hurdles before. After former Mayor Bill de Blasio vastly expanded free after-school programs for middle schoolers a decade ago, aiming to reach all children in grades 6-8 who wanted a seat, New York City Council has tried to expand after-school even further, unsuccessfully introducing legislation in 2018 and again last year.

For its roughly 900 after-school programs — reaching more than half of the city’s 1,600 schools — the city spent about $420 million last fiscal year on “out of school time” programs and is projected to spend $393 million for the upcoming fiscal year, according to public documents. The city was serving about 104,000 students in after-school programs as of October, according to the mayor’s management report.

The city also runs 92 school-based Beacon community centers and 99 Cornerstone programs based at public housing complexes.

Myrie believes that planting the seeds to build the political will for universal after-school could help it follow in the footsteps of New York City’s effort to make prekindergarten available to all 4-year-olds. That ambitious initiative has been a huge boon for families, saving them upwards of $15,000 a year, and the Adams administration’s plan to scale back pre-K for 3-year-olds has faced fierce opposition.

Earlier this month, a group of City Council members urged the governor and other Albany leaders to support universal after-school programming.

“Beyond alleviating the financial burdens facing families, expanding access to afterschool would also generate substantial economic advantages for the city,” City Council member Rita Joseph, who chairs the education committee, and 18 other council members wrote in a March 8 letter. “By enhancing the accessibility of after-school programs, New York could enhance productivity, retaining more adults within the city during their peak working years.”

Universal after-school as an integration tool

Parents on the Community Education Council for District 1 had been pushing for universal after-school in their Lower East Side and East Village schools when they launched a diversity admissions policy before the pandemic to integrate their schools.

“One of the determining factors parents look at for schools is after school,” said Naomi Peña, former president of the parent-led advisory council.

Schools that did not have a high enough concentration of families from low-income households often had after-school programs that charged fees, which was a hurdle for many parents.

“We argued that providing free afterschool would help integrate these schools, and it helps lift the burden off of families,” she said.

Advocating for the plan, however, lost momentum once the pandemic hit.

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

After-school cuts catch NYC programs by surprise

2024-03-21T17:00:55+00:00

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A group of after-school programs are scrambling to figure out what to do next year, after learning recently their contracts would not be renewed due to Mayor Eric Adams’ budget cuts.

The entire COMPASS Explore program, which offers specialized classes to grades K-12, will be affected. Another program for middle schoolers, the SONYC, or Schools Out NYC, also will lose a number of seats.

The nonprofit organizations running the programs received an email earlier this year from the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development alerting them that their contracts would end on June 30 and would not be renewed.

The cuts, which total nearly $7 million for both programs, came without warning, program directors said.

“We were thinking the agency itself would be hit but not the program itself,” said Derwin Greene, of the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center, which runs a COMPASS Explore program at Bronx Theatre High School.

COMPASS Explore serves grades K-12 and typically focuses on a single subject — such as art, music, STEM, or leadership — to give students time to go deep into a particular passion. Some of the programs are specifically aimed at serving LGBTQ youth or students with disabilities. (COMPASS Explore is smaller and offers more specialized services than regular COMPASS, which stands for Comprehensive After School System of New York City programs.)

Cutting the $2.7 million Explore program could have ripple effects beyond the loss of its nearly 1,900 seats, some organizations fear, potentially hobbling their ability to staff other programs since they often cobble together funding from various contracts to offer a fuller array of services.

Of SONYC’s 50,000 seats, the city is cutting about 1,660 slots to achieve a $4.2 million savings, according to public documents.

The Explore program Greene’s organization runs at Bronx Theatre offers juniors and seniors college counseling services, trips to college campuses, and job readiness training. They also work on social-emotional learning, and have a paid youth council where students earn a stipend for advocacy work. During the school day, they have one-on-one office hours for students who might need extra help.

The organization has a separate COMPASS contract for the work they do at the school with freshmen and sophomores. But having only one contract would not be sufficient to keep them afloat at the school.

“The contracts that we have already aren’t even enough,” Greene said. “We supplement with other funding.”

After-school enrollment is trending upward

City records show that the cuts were supposed to be aimed at underutilized programs — ones that did not meet the participation numbers under their contract. But that’s not what happened, according to a survey from United Neighborhood Houses, an umbrella organization working with settlement houses across the city.

Greene said his Explore program often over enrolls students to guard against teens dropping out, but this year they saw fewer kids leave.

Of the COMPASS Explore programs surveyed, most were meeting their benchmarks. Some SONYC providers said they were not meeting their targets, but several contributing factors complicated the narrative as to why, including delayed licenses and background checks for staff, stagnant contracts limiting their ability to pay competitive wages, and changing demographics of their student communities.

City officials said they prioritized the main COMPASS program over Explore since the latter is offered fewer days a week and that they targeted “lesser used” seats based on available data to minimize the impact on families.

“The city is committed to providing high-quality, engaging, and safe afterschool programming,” DYCD spokesperson Mark Zustovich wrote in an email. “DYCD is working with our COMPASS providers to serve as many young people as possible as the budget process continues in the coming weeks.”

Concerns about taking money out of after-school system

Once these after-school seats are cut they are not redistributed to other parts of the system, and that’s a concern as interest in after-school seats has been increasing, nonprofit providers say.

Participation in both city-run programs increased nearly 3% in the first four months of fiscal year 2024 compared to the year before, according to the mayor’s management report.

“Cutting COMPASS Explore and SONYC is taking money out of the after-school system when every dollar is precious,” said Nora Moran, policy director at United Neighborhood Houses. “They’re taken as a savings out of the system, so the overall pot that DYCD has to work with is smaller.”

That’s especially concerning, she said, as the price per participant is higher because other costs have gone up, such as minimum wage.

Farida Mohammed, a senior at the Orchard Collegiate Academy on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, is one of about 30 high schoolers in a COMPASS Explore program run by Grand Street Settlement, which is focused on college awareness and career exploration, as well as life skills, financial literacy, and study habits.

“It’s very helpful,” the Bronx 17-year-old said. Through the program, she’s learned how to create a resume, use Notion AI to create a daily planner to help her stay on top of assignments, and improve her public speaking skills. “My counselors at school — they don’t teach stuff like that.”

Grand Street Settlement operates another COMPASS Explore program at P.S. 158 in East New York focused on health and wellness for about 75 students, with a mix of instruction on nutritional eating and making sure kids are physically active.

Thanh Bui, Grand Street Settlement’s chief program officer, is especially concerned about the high school program.

“A lot of times, high school kids are dealt the short end of the stick. They don’t have a lot of services,” she said. “High school kids need a lot of life skills. They are also going through a lot of mental health issues.”

Bui’s organization also lost 15 of 50 SONYC seats it operates at a Catholic school, due to outdated enrollment data, she believes.

Her organization will now have to spend “double time” trying to find other sources of money, likely competing with others vying for the same pool of philanthropic dollars.

“Other organizations are going through the same process of trying to find that supplementary funding,” Bui said.

She was, however, holding out hope that the cuts might be restored.

“The mayor did some magical math a couple of months ago and restored some money back to DOE,” she said, referring to the mayor’s recent funding restorations. “Maybe there’s some magical math that’s going to happen soon.”

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

Grocery cards and car repairs: How COVID aid changed the way schools can help homeless kids

2024-03-14T21:15:14+00:00

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Mollie Eppers tried for years to give students experiencing homelessness prepaid grocery cards that would allow their families to shop for food.

But the student services specialist in Juneau, Alaska, couldn’t devise a system that would satisfy the spending rules for both her local school district and the federal program that helps homeless students.

So when Congress sent schools COVID aid for homeless students with fewer restrictions, Eppers knew her first order of business: Get the grocery cards.

She found a local Safeway that accepted prepaid cards, then bought them in bulk. Families can get $100 to $200 cards at a time, depending on how many kids they have. The aid has made it easier for families sleeping in their cars or who don’t have a stove to choose foods they can eat. That’s been especially helpful as Alaska works through a huge backlog of applications for food benefits that left many families waiting months to get aid.

The Juneau School District in Alaska purchased $25,000 in grocery cards to help students experiencing homelessness buy food.

“It’s been a lifesaver,” said Eppers, who’s spent $25,000 on grocery cards so far, and plans to buy more. “They don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Across the country, Eppers and other school staff are doing things to help homeless students that they’ve never been able to before. That’s in part due to the size of the aid package. But it’s also because federal education officials said explicitly that schools could spend this money on items like prepaid store cards, gas cards, and cell phones that schools were often reluctant to buy in the past for fear of running afoul of various spending and record-keeping rules.

That’s meant more schools are providing families with direct aid that allows them to choose which foods, clothing, and other supplies will best meet their children’s needs. It’s one more way that schools have stretched beyond their typical roles and used pandemic assistance to help families in dire straits in new ways.

But schools might stop doing this soon — unless federal officials spell out that other funds can be used like this, too.

“You can provide somebody a pair of shoes, but if you say: ‘Here’s a store card, pick out the shoes for your child that your child will wear,’ there is a sense of dignity, and there’s also a sense of agency,” said Barbara Duffield, the executive director of the nonprofit SchoolHouse Connection, which recently gathered data on how often schools are spending COVID aid in this way. “And what that has translated to is trust and engagement. A store card is much more than a store card.”

Schools used to face more limits on helping students

In a survey of more than 1,400 school liaisons earlier this school year, SchoolHouse Connection found that 40% had purchased gas cards for families and 34% had bought store cards. That was double the share who planned to purchase cards when the nonprofit did a similar survey in 2021.

“These unusual uses may be the very ones that are the most impactful and strategic in meeting broader goals of increasing enrollment, attendance, and performance,” the report concludes.

In Washington state, one liaison said gas cards were now among the top-requested forms of assistance by families. The offering made families feel heard and open to more collaboration, the liaison wrote on the survey.

In Rhode Island, another liaison said that it had been a “huge plus” to give families store cards so they could buy sneakers and underwear. “I would argue that being able to make their own selections is better for the kids, physically and emotionally,” the liaison wrote.

In the past, some schools did provide this kind of assistance to homeless students. But Duffield said it often boiled down to a judgment call.

The federal education law that outlines the rights of homeless children, the McKinney-Vento Act, says that schools can provide “extraordinary or emergency assistance” to make sure homeless kids can attend school and participate in school activities.

While some schools interpreted that to include prepaid store cards, many other districts or states didn’t allow schools to buy store cards. Officials worried about how they would show the cards benefitted a particular student, Duffield said, and some feared giving away prepaid cards could be ripe for misuse or fraud — a long held, and often misplaced, complaint among critics of public assistance programs.

For that reason, Duffield and others are calling on the federal government to issue guidance saying that schools can use McKinney-Vento funding in the same ways that were permissible with the COVID aid.

“Having clear federal guidance saying that you can, that then shapes what a state allows,” Duffield said. Getting something in writing is key, because many school business officers will ask: “Where does it say that?”

How cell phones and car repairs help students

Still, school liaisons like Eppers say they’re taking lots of precautions. The grocery cards Eppers hands out to families don’t allow for the purchase of alcohol or tobacco, and she locks up the cards in her office to keep them safe. Families have to sign for each grocery card, too.

“I don’t want anything to come between my ability to provide that to the students,” she said.

In the suburbs of Madison, Wisconsin, Claire Bergman used COVID aid to buy five cell phones with internet hotspots for homeless teens who live on their own without the support of their parents. Each month, the Sun Prairie Area School District pays their phone bills.

The new initiative has helped social workers stay in touch with students who tend to move around a lot and may be parents themselves. That’s helped ensure their ride to school shows up in the right place and that students are connected with child care.

The phone hotspots enable unaccompanied teens to use the internet on their school-provided Chromebooks, so they can do their homework wherever they’re staying. And the district also allows the teens to download certain social media apps so they can stay in touch with classmates — an added benefit for kids who often feel isolated from their peers.

“The phones have really opened up lines of communication and supported attendance efforts,” Bergman said. That success has helped Bergman make the case the district should keep paying for cell phones when the COVID aid is gone.

“Our business office has been really open to exploring different opportunities and understanding the connection piece of the phones,” she said. “Once these funds run out, it will be a little bit more of a: ‘Is this really a priority?’ question.”

In North Dakota’s Bismarck Public Schools, COVID relief funding has allowed Sherrice Roness to make more “outside the box” purchases that she is hoping to continue, too.

With COVID aid, the district now covers up to $500 in critical car repairs, such as fixing brakes or power steering. It’s a strategy advocates for homeless youth say can be more cost-effective than paying for a bus pass or taxi, and it has the added benefit of helping families get to work and doctor’s visits, in addition to taking their children to school.

“It gives them that pride of: They’re able to do that — provide that normalcy for their kids,” Roness said.

Roness has also paid for children’s medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder when a family’s insurance has lapsed, and she purchased a post office box so a 17-year-old who was no longer living with her parents could still get her college and financial aid letters in the mail.

When unique needs like that pop up, Roness said, it’s made a big difference to be able to tell students: “You know what? I can help you with that.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Deadline extended for NYC summer youth jobs program. What families should know

2024-02-29T17:01:12+00:00

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This story was updated to reflect the new deadline, March 15.

Sixteen-year-old Martha Martin’s reason for applying to last year’s New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program was simple.

“I had nothing to do over the summer,” she said.

But to her surprise, she loved the work.

Through the program, Martha was employed as a teacher’s aide in Bay Ridge, taking care of 3-year-olds. With the extra income, Martha was able to pay for her books and school supplies for the upcoming school year, while giving some extra money to her mom to help her family.

Now, Martha, an 11th grader at Pace High School in Manhattan, is considering a career in early childhood education.

“I realized that I like working with kids, and probably see that in my future,” she said. “I never expected myself to actually be working with kids, but I’m so glad that I did.”

What Martha experienced last summer mirrors that of thousands of other young people across the five boroughs. The Summer Youth Employment Program, also known as SYEP, has for decades provided the city’s youth with paid opportunities to explore potential career pathways.

But for those who want a chance to participate this year, the deadline is fast approaching: Applications are due by 11:59 p.m. on Friday, March 15. The city extended the deadline by two weeks.

The application period was moved up from last year’s mid-April due date to allow for earlier enrollment and to give community-based providers and worksites more time to prepare, according to officials.

In recent years, the program has expanded, with Mayor Eric Adams adding 25,000 seats in 2022 — bringing it up to 100,000 spots in total. Last year, the program also made a commitment to matching LGBTQ+ youth with “supportive work opportunities.”

City officials have praised the program, noting participation can improve school attendance, reduce incarceration rates, and help keep young people safe over the course of the summer.

Applicants are asked to indicate three areas of career interest among a wide range of industries, as well as three providers they want to work with.

Where can I apply?

Young people can apply online at: https://application.nycsyep.com/ApplicationPages/NYCIDLogin

Who is eligible?

The program is open to New York City residents between the ages of 14 and 24 who are legally eligible to work in the United States.

Participation in the program is not based on income, and applicants are not required to submit any documentation related to parental income.

Though undocumented youth aren’t eligible for the program, they and others who face enrollment obstacles are eligible for a smaller Department of Youth and Community Development program known as SYEP Pathways. It offers summer project-based learning to a number of young people.

That program, which had more than 800 spots last year, recruits through local community-based organizations, and young people interested in participating can check with their local organizations, according to officials.

The SYEP Pathways program has been praised for offering opportunities to undocumented youth, but has also raised some concerns that pay is inequitable compared with SYEP. Last year, the program provided participants with a stipend of about $500 for 60 hours of project-based learning.

How much will I earn? What will I be doing?

Programming and pay for the Summer Youth Employment Program vary based on the individual participant’s age.

Participants aged 16 and older will be assigned to work 25 hours per week for six weeks, earning $16 per hour. Meanwhile, younger participants will work about half as many weekly hours and earn up to $700 over the course of the program.

Younger participants are assigned projects by one of the more than 40 participating community-based providers, offering them a chance to explore future career opportunities and develop leadership and other skills over the course of the program.

Older participants are matched to a worksite based on their interests. Work sites can range between public, private, and nonprofit organizations. Last year, the program saw youth placed across nearly 18,000 worksites in industries that included finance, fashion, philanthropy, technology, arts, engineering, health care, legal services, real estate, transportation, advertising, hospitality, media, retail, and more.

Some young people who face particular barriers to employment — like those who are justice-involved, NYCHA residents, experiencing homelessness, attending District 75 schools, and more — also qualify for tailored experiences.

Am I guaranteed a spot?

The program has 100,000 spots, but applications typically exceed that number. The city fills the majority of seats by random lottery, according to DYCD. As of March 1, more than 140,000 people had applied.

Last year, more than 176,000 people applied for a spot in the program.

How long does the program run?

The program runs for six weeks in July and August.

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

Unaccompanied homeless youth are overlooked. A new book shows what it means to give them support.

2024-02-16T01:00:00+00:00

When Vicki Sokolik first started working with teens experiencing homelessness living on their own without a parent, she would host “lunch and learns” at local high schools.

Her goal was to explain to social workers, assistant principals, and other staff who qualified as an unaccompanied homeless youth, and how schools could refer those students to her nonprofit for housing and other services.

Sixteen years later, Sokolik says there is still a lack of awareness of these students and their particular social, emotional, and educational needs.

“People still — no matter if they’re in the schools, if they’re lawmakers, if their medical professionals — really do not understand what an unaccompanied homeless youth is, or even what to look for,” Sokolik said.

Her new book, “If You See Them: Young, Unhoused, and Alone in America,” details her experience working with these students in Florida’s Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

The latest federal data show that nearly 111,000 students were identified as unaccompanied homeless youth during the 2021-22 school year — a number many experts and advocates, including Sokolik, say is an under-count. Other estimates that include older teens and youth in their early 20s put the number much higher.

The needs these students have are often great. Many are survivors of rape or sexual assault. Many have experienced suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide. Some were kicked out of their homes because they identify as LGBTQ. Many have had contact with child protective services, but were not removed from their homes. Often they have a juvenile record, sometimes for stealing basic necessities.

Vicki Sokolik's book looks at the particular needs of unaccompanied homeless youth. Shaq, now 27, participated in a program run by Sokolik's nonprofit and shares his experience with students.

It’s also common for these students to be chronically absent from school, and to have undiagnosed learning disabilities. Sokolik recalls one student who entered her nonprofit’s program a few years ago as a 12th grader who could not read. He needed intensive help from a reading coach and a special education plan.

And these students are caught between being treated as children and adults by various legal systems. A student Sokolik worked with lobbied Florida lawmakers to make it easier for youth living on their own to obtain their birth certificate, for example.

Chalkbeat spoke with Sokolik about what she’s learned working with unaccompanied homeless youth through her nonprofit — Starting Right, Now — and what educators should keep in mind.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Why can it be hard for schools to identify students as unaccompanied homeless youth?

This is a very invisible population because the kids actually don’t want to be found. They are so afraid of what will happen if someone figures out that they’re not with their parent or guardian. Will they put them in foster care? What will happen to their siblings? Because of that, they tend to hide.

There’s a lot of shame associated with being a homeless unaccompanied youth. They carry this burden of: They did something wrong. Until they get to the point where they just don’t know what to do anymore, they don’t seek help.

Schools can refer students to Starting Right, Now. What are some of the gaps that your organization is able to fill in that schools can’t?

Unfortunately, schools can’t get to the root of the problem for an unaccompanied homeless youth. The first thing is, obviously, stable housing. So we provide stable housing, we provide food security. We provide academic support, social services support, life-skills training, and then we help the kids plan what their next goal is going to be.

One percent of our kids go to the military, about 9% go to vocational training and the rest go to higher education. And then we provide case management to those kids until they actually get into their career. In addition to that, every single student in our program is matched with their own mentor, so they have this incredibly reliable adult in their life.

You talk in the book about the link between being an unaccompanied homeless youth and chronic absenteeism. What are some of the barriers that prevent the students you work with from attending school regularly?

The kids do what we call couch-hopping, where they’re asking a friend every night: Can I sleep at your house? And a lot of times they’ll get farther and farther away from school. We had a student who was walking six miles each way to get to school. And if it was pouring down rain, she wasn’t going. Transportation becomes a major barrier.

A lot of times, the kids work. And because they have to survive, they end up going to work during school hours. Their employer should not even allow that, but they do. And then the other thing is they don’t have access to laundry facilities. They don’t want to go to school because their clothes are not clean.

The share of students you work with who’ve had a visit from child protective services at some point in their lives is incredibly high. And a lot of them do not have a positive experience with the state. How does that shape the services you provide?

Most of our kids are so afraid of authority, in general, because they’ve watched their parents being taken away. They’ve watched their siblings being taken away. They’ve been taken away.

It shapes everything that we do. When a student walks into our program, we know for sure that they’re not going to trust anything we say or do. And they’re going to probably try to get kicked out because they just know it isn’t going to work out — they already have that in their head.

We have to develop trust by having our actions align with our words, and making sure that when we say we’re going to do something, it’s unquestionably done at the time we say. It takes a long time to build that trust. You have to show up day after day.

We do a lot of activities that require not only them to be vulnerable, but our staff to be vulnerable. We open up with the “Snowballs” activity in the book [which asks staff and students to write down and anonymously share something they’re afraid of, something they’re ashamed of, and something they succeeded at]. When the veil is lifted, I just think that kids realize we’re people, too.

One student in your book writes about feeling like she’s disintegrated, and she’s having these intense feelings of loneliness. How do mental health struggles complicate the lives of the students you’re working with and their education opportunities?

Trauma just creeps into everything. Because [our kids] have been so busy, just trying to survive day to day, their trauma gets a little bit pushed back. But the minute they get stably housed, after about 30 days of being in the house, [they] start having these horrible flashbacks of all different things that have happened to them.

Among the students featured in Vicki Sokolik's book is Taylor, who experienced homelessness as a youth and now works as a school social worker.

It can impact eating, it can impact sleeping — they just want to lay in bed all day. It can impact going to school, even being able to listen to their teacher. That’s usually the moment that we kick in the mental health specialists.

The other thing we see all the time is, because our kids are so angry — and rightfully so, people that should have protected them have let them down — they end up saying things to a teacher that they obviously shouldn’t say. And so they end up getting a [discipline] referral at school, and a lot of times end up being released for the day, when, really, they need help.

It’s so hard to point your finger at the schools and say: “You should be doing this or that,” because they’re doing the best they can with the resources that they have. I think they need more resources.

You try to strike the right balance between providing meaningful guidance and support, and also letting young people advocate for themselves and make their own choices. You write that a lot of times, unaccompanied homeless youth have learned to be incredibly resourceful and resilient, but they also lack basic skills, like cooking for themselves.

It’s hard. The way that I approach everything now — which is not how I did it previously — is that [I say]: I’m trying to look ahead for your future. [For example], every year we do an etiquette class. The majority of our kids have never been to a restaurant, they’ve never ordered off a menu. And we talk about: This isn’t about today. We’re not judging you. We don’t care that you don’t know. However, when you have your first interview over a meal, you’re going to be expected to know this.

It also comes down to: Is my help going to matter in that moment? Or should I back off, because it’s not dire right this second. I find that when I give the kids space, they’re more willing to listen. I let both of us just calm down, and then come back to it, and come up with a strategy that works.

In the book, some students say: There’s this white woman in front of me asking me personal questions, I don’t know if I trust her, I don’t want to be seen as a charity case. How have you learned to navigate some of the racial and socioeconomic divides between yourself and the kids?

I am who I am. I don’t think I try to change that divide.

There was a student in our program who said to me: “You’ll never understand me.” They’re in our program right now. And I said: “Well, try me, is there something going on?” [The student said]: “I can’t tell you, and you’ll never understand me.”

[Then one Saturday, the student called me] and she’s hysterically crying. And I find out that she’s so upset because her mother was investigated again by [Florida’s Department of Children and Families]. We probably were on the phone for an hour, just talking. By the time she hung up, she said to me: “Thank you for answering your phone.” And I said: “I’ll always answer my phone, that isn’t even a question. I’m here for you.”

And that changed everything. I do understand her now, in her eyes.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Millions of kids are newly eligible for free school meals — but many will likely miss out

2023-10-11T17:37:22+00:00

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Dylan Beitz’s ears perked up when federal officials announced last month that a new rule would allow more schools to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students.

That rule would cover Jefferson County schools, the district in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle where Beitz oversees child nutrition. Before the change, the district fell just below the federal cutoff for offering free meals to all 8,400 of its students as part of a national program meant to help high-poverty schools.

Under the new rule, which takes effect later this month, Jefferson County could go from offering free meals in seven schools to all 16. Beitz knew that could save the district time and labor — no more mailing bills for unpaid meal debt — and give families extra money to spend on other expenses.

“I think it’s something that we want to go to,” Beitz said. But first, the district has to see if it can afford to “bite that bullet” if there are out-of-pocket costs: “We’ve really got to look and see what the financial repercussions are.”

Beitz isn’t the only one crunching the numbers. Recent headlines proclaimed the new rule would grant millions of students access to free school meals. And there’s research indicating that universal free meals may provide academic and other advantages for students. Yet federal officials and school nutrition experts say many kids who could benefit will actually miss out.

That’s because without additional funding from Congress that’s probably not on the horizon, districts that want to participate must weigh the costs and benefits of providing more free meals against other priorities.

“Unless they have additional resources, or the state is able to provide additional resources, a lot of the newly eligible schools will find it difficult financially to implement that,” said Crystal FitzSimons, who oversees school nutrition work for the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center, which advocated for the new cutoff.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees school meal programs, said it’s up to districts to opt in and the agency knows not all newly eligible districts will do so.

What is the community eligibility provision?

This federal program allows schools or districts that meet certain criteria to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of family income. Elsewhere, schools have to collect paperwork from families to determine if they qualify for free or reduced-priced meals. Other students pay full price.

What is changing?

Under a new rule, individual schools or entire districts can participate in the community eligibility provision if at least 25% of students meet certain criteria. These could include participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — commonly known as SNAP — or Medicaid, lacking stable housing, or living in foster care. Under the previous rule, schools or districts had to enroll at least 40% of students who met those criteria.

The change affects a federal program known as the community eligibility provision that allows schools to provide free meals to all students regardless of family income. It has shot up in popularity in recent years, as schools got used to providing free meals to all kids under a temporary pandemic-era policy, and didn’t want to go back to charging them when that expired.

Under a previous rule for that program, individual schools or entire districts could offer free meals to all kids if at least 40% of students met certain criteria that showed they were from low-income backgrounds. The new rule lowers that to 25% of students. Around 3,000 school districts serving some 5 million students are newly eligible, federal officials said. That represents around 10% of all public school students in the U.S.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack touted the change as an important step toward fulfilling the Biden administration’s pledge that it would expand access to free school meals to millions more children in the coming years.

In feedback collected by federal officials, some school staff said the lower threshold would help their districts that didn’t qualify under the old cutoff, “but they know students in their communities experience widespread food insecurity.”

Still, many districts that are newly eligible may choose not to participate because they’d rather spend money on things like classroom activities or staff salaries.

Before the rule change, schools and districts that were just above the old 40% threshold often didn’t participate because it was hard to break even under the formula the federal government uses to reimburse schools for the free meals they serve.

Last school year, two-thirds of schools that served 40% to 50% of students who met the low-income criteria used the community eligibility provision, a 50-state survey conducted by FitzSimons’ organization found. The take-up rate rose as more students were identified as being from low-income families.

That financial calculus is unlikely to change anytime soon. In its most recent budget, the Biden administration proposed raising the federal reimbursement for school meals in a way that would help districts that serve lower shares of students from low-income families provide free meals to all. But Congress would have to agree — and Republican leaders have previously opposed additional spending to make meals free for kids who don’t already qualify.

To decide if the free-meals-for-all route makes financial sense, newly eligible districts should look at whether they’d save money by reducing administrative work, and if there would be “any financial improvements because of economies of scale and increases in breakfast and lunch participation,” FitzSimons said.

Eliminating meal debt, and the need to collect it, could also be a reason to opt in, she said.

School officials want more aid from federal government

The community eligibility provision is different from the temporary universal free school meal programs that all schools were permitted to run during the pandemic, and the permanent state-run programs that eight states adopted after Congress failed to pass a national universal meals program.

Those programs generally offer free meals to all public school students in the state regardless of income, and require additional state spending.

Federal officials and school nutrition experts expect many districts in those eight states will take advantage of the rule change because it will cut down on paperwork and allow for more federal funding. More districts in states that help pay for the cost of participating in the federal program, such as New York and Oregon, may opt in, too.

Districts that want to make this change mid-year will have to work with state education officials to seek a waiver from the federal government. Some, like New York, have already opened an application process.

Kate Dorr, who oversees food services for 16 districts in central New York, is planning to apply to bring on the last three schools in her area that do not yet serve free meals to all students.

She knows it will help many families. Last year, meal debt in her districts spiked from zero to $150,000. Dorr had many painful conversations with families who struggled to afford food, but no longer qualified for free meals.

But without the New York state subsidy, providing free meals to all students would be hard to afford, she said. That’s why she wants federal officials and lawmakers to do more to support school nutrition programs like hers.

“I really feel for states that don’t have this kind of supplemental funding,” Dorr said. “This change from 40% to 25% just feels like way too little, when so much more is needed.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

It’s tough to build school community post-pandemic. Music helps.

2023-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

The gym was packed. Parents, aunties, grandparents, and cousins filled the seats and more stood in the back. As their child’s class came up to perform, they jostled to the front, cell phones in hand, ready to get a good video.

The kids were dressed up in their finest sparkly red dresses or shiny slicked-back hair, with creased pant legs and bowties. All for a little winter concert at an elementary school.

It almost seemed like a night from the before times, pre-pandemic. The students’ voices weren’t always in perfect pitch, and some of them were a little fuzzy on the exact words. But the scene, and the songs, were perfectly beautiful.

It was also a surprising turnout for this school year. I lead a two-school charter network in Denver, and our school community has been a paradox post-pandemic. When we ask for feedback from our families, they ask for more in-person events: movie nights, dad and child dances, parent workshops, festivals. But typically we rely on parent volunteers to help us host these events. This year, when we’ve asked for volunteers to organize these events, almost no one signs up.

At the last moment, a little flurry of people always agree to man the grill, run the popcorn maker, or be on the clean-up crew. But it makes each event feel like a heavier lift when there aren’t quite enough hands, and that makes parents and staff more hesitant to volunteer the next time.

Turnout for most school meetings this year have been sparse, too. Our School Accountability Committee, which is supposed to have as many parents as staff members reviewing our academic data, had only staff at several meetings. We held a parent education night and only three people attended, while seven teachers were ready to share their great curriculum work.

It feels like we are longing for the social events from before the pandemic but we have all changed our boundaries. People have re-organized their work-life balance. They are used to being home more and maybe less used to extending themselves outside their most intimate sphere. Just as so many people are reluctant about going back to the office, we are reluctant to shift back to our previous level of community engagement. It feels like no one wants to leave home after collecting their kids at the end of the day and even fewer want to jump on a Zoom meeting after work.

I can understand it. I feel resistance myself about going to as many evening events as I have in the past, and teachers are more hesitant as well. Maybe we are still exhausted — or depressed, scared, and traumatized — from all we’ve been through, from the pandemic to recent gun violence. It leaves few people, parents or staff, with the energy it takes to organize and volunteer.

It has also been hard to be a parent in this country for a long time. We do so little as a society to support people with young children. Maybe living through these last few years has taken that little bit of extra parents still had to give.

Still, it worries me. Those outside of school time events are where community gets built. It’s where we get to see each other as people, and not just a teacher and a parent.

It all felt different at our winter concert performances, though. We were not trying to educate our families, we were not trying to fundraise, we weren’t even asking them to set up game booths or make cupcakes. We just invited them to hear their children sing.

It was a simple event. Staff set up the chairs and the stage. Teachers shepherded the children from classrooms to the stage and back. Our office team bought trays of cookies, and the tech teacher set up the sound system. I was grateful that staff were willing to do a little bit more that night so that we could all hear the children sing.

Music is a healing force, and children singing together often brings tears to my eyes. It is an expression of innocence and hope wrapped up in nostalgia for our own childhoods. Recent studies have shown that creative expression helps relieve anxiety, stimulates the rewiring of the brain after trauma, and even just listening to music can reduce cortisol production and stress. So it is no accident that these assemblies drew us together in community like nothing else has been able to since the pandemic.

We need the medicine of music to breathe life back into our tired, traumatized parent brains. I think it might be time for a spring concert.

Christine Ferris is the executive director of Highline Academy Charter Schools in Denver. She founded and led Our Community School, a K-8 charter school in Los Angeles, from 2005 to 2013. Ferris has been a consultant for charter schools in Denver, Los Angeles, and nationally.

Millones en beneficios de comida por la pandemia podrían caducar el mes que viene

2024-01-31T17:57:05+00:00

Read in English.

Millones de dólares en beneficios de comida por la pandemia en Nueva York que no se han usado podrían empezar a caducar el mes que viene, ya que la fecha límite para que las familias los usen se está acercando.

Los fondos — conocidos como Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer, o P-EBT— se enviaron a todas las familias de las escuelas públicas de Nueva York en varias rondas durante los últimos cuatro años. El propósito de los fondos es ayudar a cubrir los costos de las comidas que de otro modo serían recibidas en la escuela.

El año pasado, el estado distribuyó múltiples rondas de fondos, incluyendo $120 por niño para el verano de 2023, y por lo menos $391 por niño para el verano de 2022 y el año escolar 2021-22. (Los fondos de este último pago podrían ser de hasta $1,671 por niño según las ausencias relacionadas con el COVID o los días de aprendizaje remoto durante el año.)

Ahora, el último pago está por caducar para las familias que no los han usado todavía. En octubre, al menos 90,000 beneficios en la ciudad no habían sido canjeados por las familias, lo que significa que al menos $35 millones estaban en riesgo de caducar.

David Rubel, consultor de educación que ha seguido de cerca los beneficios de comida, teme que miles de familias perderán dentro de poco tiempo los beneficios que quizás no sepan que tienen.

“Imagínate que mañana por la mañana leamos que los principales programas de distribución de alimentos perdieron la mitad de su presupuesto”, dijo. “En realidad, esa es la magnitud de lo que estamos hablando”.

Las preocupaciones de Rubel surgen en parte por los datos que pidió y obtuvo bajo la Ley de Libertad de Información del estado, y que los funcionarios estatales confirmaron. Los datos mostraron que para los beneficios P-EBT emitidos para el verano de 2021, casi 600,000 estudiantes en todo el estado nunca canjearon el dinero.

Eso significa que más o menos un 27% de los más de 2.2 millones de estudiantes que recibieron los beneficios nunca los usaron — un total de beneficios sin usar de aproximadamente $222 millones.

A Rubel le preocupa que el estado no haya tenido suficientes actividades para informar a las familias sobre cada ronda de los fondos. Dijo que les ha pedido a los funcionarios estatales que soliciten al gobierno federal una enmienda a los plazos del programa.

La Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance del estado, o OTDA, que supervisa el programa P-EBT, dijo que el vencimiento de los fondos se basó en estatutos y regulaciones federales.

“La fecha de caducidad no se puede extender”, dijeron los funcionarios en una declaración.

En otros estados, los funcionarios han enmendado sus programas P-EBT para efectivamente extender la fecha límite para que las familias usen sus beneficios. En California, por ejemplo, los funcionarios permitieron que los hogares pidieran el restablecimiento de sus beneficios si se habían caducado sin que las familias los usaran.

Los funcionarios de Nueva York, sin embargo, dijeron que no tenían planes de pedir una aprobación federal para enmendar el programa P-EBT.

Esto es lo que las familias deben saber:

¿Cuándo empezarán a caducar los beneficios?

Los beneficios de P-EBT caducan automáticamente 274 días después de la última vez que se usaron, es decir, unos nueve meses después. Más del 60% de los beneficios del verano de 2022 se distribuyeron a las familias en mayo pasado, lo que significa que los fondos de quienes no los hayan usado todavía s empezarán a caducar en febrero.

Cuando las familias utilicen los beneficios, el plazo para caducar empieza a contar desde 0 nuevamente y tendrán otros 274 días antes de que los fondos corran riesgo de vencerse.

¿Cómo las familias pueden reemplazar sus tarjetas?

Las familias que hayan perdido su tarjeta P-EBT pueden obtener una de reemplazo llamando al 1-888-328-6399.

¿Por qué algunas familias no están usando los fondos?

Desde que comenzó la pandemia, la OTDA ha emitido más de $6,300 millones en beneficios P-EBT, de los cuales cerca del 60% han ido directamente a las cuentas existentes de hogares que ya estaban recibiendo beneficios del Programa de Asistencia Nutricional Suplementaria (SNAP). Otras familias recibieron los fondos en tarjetas P-EBT emitidas por el estado.

El estado mantiene información detallada sobre los beneficios en su sitio web y opera una línea de ayuda: 1-833-452-0096.

Los funcionarios de la OTDA le dijeron anteriormente a Chalkbeat que han llevado a cabo una extensa campaña de información para el público y han trabajado con grupos de defensa para ayudar a crear conciencia sobre los beneficios de comida. El Departamento de Educación del estado también envió mensajes sobre los beneficios a todos los distritos escolares locales, añadieron los funcionarios.

Las familias con números de teléfono válidos registrados en su distrito escolar también deberían haber recibido un mensaje de texto cada vez que había beneficios nuevos disponibles, según los funcionarios estatales.

Algunas familias, sin embargo, dijeron que nunca recibieron mensajes de texto, y otras han tenido dificultades para tener acceso a los beneficios.

“Debemos lograr un 100%”, dijo Angela Trude, profesora de la NYU que ha estudiado el acceso a comida y beneficios del gobierno. “Queremos que todo el mundo aproveche los beneficios”.

Trude dijo que ella ha trabajado con familias que suponen falsamente que usar los beneficios podría restarles dinero a otras familias más necesitadas, o que el gobierno en algún momento les pedirá que devuelvan los fondos.

Es crítico combatir estos conceptos erróneos, dijo ella, y a la vez comunicar que todas las familias deben utilizar los beneficios.

“Si estas familias sienten que les están quitando a otras, entonces en vez de no utilizarlos, pueden comprar alimentos no perecederos y donarlos a organizaciones comunitarias y despensas de alimentos”, añadió Trude.

Rubel cree que casi todas los beneficios caducados del desembolso del verano de 2021 ocurrieron entre familias que no son beneficiarias del SNAP, ya que los hogares del SNAP recibieron los beneficios en sus cuentas existentes y pudieron seguir gastando como de costumbre para utilizarlos.

Para las familias que han podido aprovechar los beneficios, los defensores han dicho que pueden tener enormes consecuencias. Rachel Sabella, directora de No Kid Hungry New York, dijo que los fondos del P-EBT “pueden ser la diferencia un niño que pasa hambre o uno que tiene una comida sana y nutritiva”.

“Sabemos que las familias están sufriendo — 3 de cada 4 nos han dicho que ahora ha sido más difícil poder comprar alimentos que en 2022 — así que esperamos que todos los hogares con derecho al P-EBT aprovechen este beneficio”, dijo en una declaración. “Sabemos cuán importante es dar a conocer estos fondos antes de que caduquen, y les pedimos a las familias a que revisen sus cuentas de EBT y tengan sus tarjetas a la mano”.

Nueva York necesita más programas de información, dice un experto

Wendy De La Rosa, profesora adjunta de marketing en la Wharton School de la Universidad de Pensilvania que ha estudiado los beneficios públicos, dijo que Nueva York y otros estados deberían hacer más para comunicarse de forma eficaz con las familias.

Usar mensajes de texto para avisarles a las familias sobre sus beneficios es un método “fundamentalmente defectuoso”, según De La Rosa.

“Las estafas están por las nubes, y todos los expertos en seguridad nos dicen que tengamos miedo”, dijo. “¿En qué mundo pensaríamos que un solo mensaje de texto — que con frecuencia proviene de un número desconocido — va a lograr que más gente lo reciba y capte?”

Agregó también que, en el caso de estudiantes con vivienda inestable, los números de teléfono que están en los archivos de los distritos escolares pueden tener errores o no estar actualizados.

“Tiene que ser un mensaje de texto, y un email, y una carta, y llamadas telefónicas, aparte de realmente determinar ¿A qué padres no hemos llegado?”, dijo De La Rosa. “Y luego hay que hacer un esfuerzo concertado para llegar a ellas y que todos estén informados”.

Algunas familias también responden mejor a cierto tipo de comunicación cuando se trata de beneficios. Lograr que las familias sientan más de los beneficios son suyos puede hacer que los aprovechen más, dijo De La Rosa. Es más probable que las familias usen beneficios presentados como un derecho, que los presentados como un programa de ayuda.

Programa permanente de beneficios de comida de verano a la vuelta de la esquina

A pesar de sus preocupaciones, a De La Rosa le satisface que Nueva York está entre los estados que han optado por adoptar un programa permanente federal de beneficios de comida en el verano. En todo el país, 9.5 millones de estudiantes que hubiesen sido elegibles para los beneficios probablemente se quedarán sin ellos este año, ya que por lo menos 12 estados no quisieron participar en el programa.

“Cuando se pone en ese contexto — que los niños de familias en algunos estados están pasando hambre porque los legisladores no han querido adoptar esta política — es evidente que Nueva York les lleva ventaja”, dijo ella.

Julian Shen-Berro es un reportero que cubre la ciudad de Nueva York. Comunícate con él enviándole un email a jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

As schools close across the U.S., districts and families prepare for unprecedented disruption

2020-03-14T15:15:00+00:00

School closures rippled across the country in the wake of the new coronavirus, amounting to one of the most dramatic upheavals of American schooling in a century.

Over a dozen states, including Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, have called school off for a week or more. The nation’s second-largest school district, Los Angeles, is also closed for at least two weeks. As of Friday evening, Education Week estimated that at least 40 percent of students nationwide have been affected by closures.

Holdouts, like leaders in New York City, are facing increased pressure to close schools in hopes of limiting the spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. In some schools that have stayed open, attendance has fallen sharply.

There remains debate on whether closures are warranted to stop the spread of the virus. So far, most confirmed cases have been among adults, and children who’ve tested positive for the virus have had milder symptoms. But they still may play a role in spreading it.

Guidance released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encouraged schools to close in certain circumstances, while acknowledging other countries’ experiences haven’t proved closures would slow the illness.

The guidance says that shorter school closures, of two to four weeks, had not clearly proven effective in limiting the coronavirus spread in other countries. Closures of eight weeks or more, the CDC said, could be more effective.

Meanwhile, congressional leaders and the Trump administration are attempting to iron out a response to the crisis, including efforts to cushion the blow of school closures. “Our legislation protects our children, in particular the tens of millions of little children who rely on the free or reduced-price lunch they receive at schools,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. President Trump declared a state of emergency on Friday afternoon, and the House is expected to vote on a version of the coronavirus relief bill sometime Friday.

How long these school closures will last is difficult to predict, because much is unknown about the virus. “When you have an outbreak like this,” Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday, “it’s really impossible to predict the time element of when it’s going to peak and when it’s naturally going to go down.”

The CDC says while it has some data that can help communities decide when to close schools, “there is almost no available data on the right time to re-start schools.”

What is clear is that the mass closures of schools — particularly if they remain shuttered for many weeks — will create a series of cascading academic, economic, and social challenges. Here are some of them.

🔗Lost instruction

A key consequence: kids who aren’t in school aren’t getting instruction, at least not in the traditional way. Research suggests that closing schools for a few days probably won’t hurt students academically, but prolonged closures could affect students’ educational trajectories.

To avoid that, some districts have attempted to put in place “distance learning” structures — including computer programs, assignments sent home, and even a television channel in Los Angeles.

But this is difficult to pull off, and might exacerbate existing inequalities.

Virtual learning is much less effective than face-to-face instruction, studies have shown. Advocates for students with disabilities are particularly concerned. Guidance released by the Department of Education this week reiterated that schools attempting to deliver remote instruction must continue to serve students with disabilities.

“Sure, it could work for some kids, I just have my reservations on saying it’s going to work for all kids,” Jen Cole, who provides assistance to parents of students with disabilities through a Washington-based nonprofit, told Chalkbeat.

Some places, like Washington state, have discouraged schools from attempting distance learning at all. Districts that have tried going remote, like the Northshore School District in Washington, have already heard reports from parents who say their children are having a hard time staying focused.

🔗School meals

Over 30 million American children get meals from the National School Lunch Program. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program, is offering flexibility for schools that want to continue to offer meals to students even while closed. (States currently must apply for waivers from certain rules, such as one that requires students to eat meals together — which would partially defeat the purpose of closing schools.)

For instance, districts can designate food pick-up locations, at schools or other locations like libraries. In New York City, officials are offering free “grab and go” meals to the handful of schools that have closed so far, offering food like canned fruit, hummus, and cereal. When all of Memphis’ schools closed this week, community agencies quickly began food drives. A guidance document from the USDA says that districts could also consider handing out multiple days’ worth of meals at a time.

“We do think that that would be the best strategy,” said Crystal FitzSimons, of the Food Research and Action Center. “It seems a little silly to be pulling people back into a site to get meals.”

Congress is considering proposals to remove certain regulations that make it harder for districts to continue to offer meals. Currently, districts can’t be reimbursed for offering meals in areas that are not low-income.

“I’ve heard that from a couple schools — we’re just going to get kids meals and we’ll worry about it later,” FitzSimons said.

Carissa Moffat Miller, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said school districts need more flexibility and more money. “CCSSO urges Congress to approve new funding and flexibilities in existing programs, including but not limited to school nutrition, to allow states to operate these programs effectively under unprecedented circumstances,” she said in a statement.

🔗The economy

Closing schools would also have major consequences for the economy, which is already facing huge stress from the pandemic. One estimate suggests that closing all schools and daycares for four weeks would result in a $50 billion hit to the economy, or 0.2% of GDP. When kids are home, many parents miss work, too.

Some have argued that Congress should also expand access to food stamps, particularly for families with children — simultaneously addressing food insecurity and providing an economic boost. This is part of a bill that Congress is considering.

Another question is whether teachers and other staff will continue to be paid while school is out. Cutting off pay would of course harm staff, and could also hurt the economy more broadly.

“A lot of students and families are being thrust into situations they are not prepared for,” said Barbara McPherson, an educator in Washington’s Auburn School District. “Child care is a big issue as well as the unknown status of employment.” Seattle Public Schools, among the first districts to close down, said it will charge teachers three sick days, and then the district will cover up to 14 additional days. Some other districts have not made clear plans.

The full economic impact will depend on the federal government’s response.

🔗Summer school?

If students miss out on a significant amount of the school year, one solution is to expand summer school options.

Doug Harris, a Tulane University economist, has suggested the federal government fund such an effort. He proposed a roughly $8 billion stimulus to hire a third of American teachers to provide summer school over the course of six weeks.

Harris argues that this would also provide an economic boost, both by putting money in teachers’ pockets and allowing more parents to work by providing childcare during the summer.

“Yes, we can use modern technological tools to help students continue learning, at least a little, over the coming months,” Harris wrote. “But sometimes it’s best to fight the old-fashioned way. Summer school seems like one very promising approach to consider.”

Special education advocates have also suggested this would be a good way to make sure that students with disabilities are getting the services they missed while schools were closed.

🔗Testing

State tests are right around the corner, which means they’re likely to butt up against closures. And even if students return in time for tests, they will have lost instruction, raising questions about whether the exams could even provide a fair picture of student learning.

These exams have significant stakes — by federal law, they’re used to determine if schools are low-performing. Many districts also use them to decide whether students move on to the next grade, make admissions decisions for selective schools, and to evaluate teachers.

The U.S. Department of Education said Thursday that it would consider offering a one-year waiver for states and schools affected by closures. In turn, states might be able to get a waiver from the requirement of identifying low-performing schools for extra support. Other consequences would have to be figured out locally and at the state level.

The College Board also announced that it would cancel the administration of the SAT at hundreds of its testing centers.

Thousands of students with disabilities are set to ‘age out’ of school. After a pandemic year, they may get more time to prepare for what’s next.

2021-05-12T17:32:05+00:00

This was supposed to be the year that Jake Smith got a lot of hands-on practice working and doing tasks on his own as he got ready for life after school.

Jake has autism and Down syndrome and is in a life skills program at a high school in Harford County, Maryland. He is one of the thousands of young adults with disabilities in the U.S. who are over 18 but still in school — usually in publicly funded transitional programs that offer hands-on job training or time to learn life skills, like doing laundry or shopping for groceries.

Just before the pandemic hit, Jake’s mother, Tracy Smith, was encouraged by the progress her son made getting to class on his own and learning to vacuum at his job at a local hospice. But when school went virtual and work stopped, a lot of plans went out the window.

Monthly field trips to practice social interactions ended, and Jake’s in-person speech therapy moved to video chat. Through a screen, it was much harder to practice the kinds of social skills Jake needed to work on.

“You can’t teach it virtual,” Smith said. “You have to teach that in a group.”

This month, Jake turned 21. The milestone birthday means he is about to “age out” of his program, a challenge for young adults like him in any year, but made all the more difficult because of the disruption wrought by COVID-19.

Now, lawmakers in at least half a dozen states — Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania — have introduced bills that would give this group of students additional time in school after they would usually age out. Smith is among the parents in Maryland advocating for extra time for their children.

“Another year in the school, especially in the setting he’s familiar with, would have really helped him build that confidence to move forward,” Smith said. “And it would give him those skills that he could take with him.”

It’s unclear how many of the legislative efforts will be successful. But the wave of bills is an acknowledgment that many older students with disabilities didn’t get what they needed during the pandemic, and it points to a larger question: What exactly is owed to the students who went without services while schools were virtual or disrupted for months?

“There is so much thinking about K-12, but it’s really critical that this group of young adults not get lost in all of the other challenges that schools and states are facing,” said Wendy Tucker, the senior director of policy at the nonprofit Center for Learner Equity, which advocates for students with disabilities.

In many states, the cutoff for students with disabilities to receive services is 21 or 22, as federal special education funds can’t pay for services after a student turns 22. States and districts that allow students to stay longer tap into their own money.

Tens of thousands of students nationwide are likely to “age out” of their educational services this year. In the 2018-19 school year, the latest year with federal data available, 55,000 students with disabilities who were 20 or 21 received services across the U.S., though that leaves out some students in states that allow students to stay longer.

In some places, those students have already been told they’re entitled to more.

Virginia set aside money in its budget to pay for students who turned 22 to attend school for another year. New York City has said students set to age out of education services can stay an extra year, and state education officials in New York are “strongly encouraging” school districts to provide extra time this summer or next school year to students turning 21. In Clark County, Nevada, school officials will let students who’ve turned 21 stay an extra year if their special education team says it’s needed.

In Broward County, Florida, schools are letting students who’ve turned 22 stay on for the district’s summer program. Orange County schools in Florida also are letting students who turn 22 this spring attend the district’s extended school year this summer.

But timing is critical. Advocates worry that the longer these efforts take, the harder it becomes to get the word out to families whose children may qualify for additional help, and for districts to hire the staff they need to pull it off. Laws requiring districts to offer students additional time or services, they say, would make it easier to inform families of their rights — instead of directing them through the usual complaint process to get make-up services, which can be difficult to navigate, especially for families who can’t afford private legal help.

“If we have to do it one by one, and case by case, it also means, realistically, that families with more resources are going to be more likely to get the additional time,” said Ashley Grant, who oversees postsecondary readiness for the nonprofit Advocates for Children of New York, which is part of a coalition that’s supporting the New York bill.

So far, the federal government hasn’t officially weighed in. But some advocates, including Tucker’s organization, hope federal officials will encourage states to extend services for students with disabilities and clarify whether schools could use coronavirus relief money to pay for it — which has been a sticking point in some states where legislation has been introduced.

Students who receive transitional services were especially affected by the pandemic. While many schools tried to provide them remotely — using virtual job shadows or teaching students how to grocery shop online — parents say it often paled compared to the hands-on training their children were supposed to receive. Some say their children simply couldn’t access the virtual stand-in.

And even when students went back to school in person, businesses and vocational programs often were closed or not operating at full capacity, making it hard for students to participate in their usual job training.

In Chicago, Merari Olascoaga’s son attended a specialty public high school for young adults with disabilities before turning 22 and aged out in March.

Olascoaga’s son, who has cerebral palsy, had anticipated spending time in the community this year to learn about jobs that might be a good fit for his skills. But while school was remote, that didn’t happen.

Jake Smith cooks at home. During the pandemic, his mother devised exercises to help her son cook, clean, and track events in a day planner.

“It’s really frustrating as a parent to see your child being left out,” said Olascoaga, who is hoping proposed legislation in Illinois will give her son and others more time in school. “It’s not only for my child, it’s for all the kids who are in this situation. Because all of them have dreams, and they dream to find something in the community, be part of it, and be given the opportunity to explore and get the help that they need.”

Many families tried to fill the gap in services by creating their own lessons at home to help their children practice their skills. Smith, for example, devised exercises to help her son cook, clean, and track events in a day planner.

Another critical part of transitional programs is helping students and families understand the complicated web of agencies that manage vocational training and job placement for adults with disabilities and how to apply for services they may qualify for after they age out of school. During the pandemic, many families didn’t get the same support in this area.

“It’s tough enough when you have a team around you,” said Peg Kinsell, the institutional policy director at SPAN, a parent advocacy group in New Jersey. “But when all that’s gone, they’re really left out on their own.”

That happened to Thomas McHale, whose school district in Westchester County, New York, paid for him to attend a private day school from the time he was in kindergarten until he turned 21 last year. McHale, who has autism and a developmental disability, said he felt displaced and abandoned when he was suddenly no longer able to see his classmates and teachers in person.

Instead of the daily therapy he was used to, McHale’s therapist called once a week and sometimes visited in person in the driveway. It helped, but it wasn’t the same, McHale said.

Over the years, school helped him become more social and learn how to cope when he felt angry. But without the hugs and other in-person support he was used to, McHale says he reverted to old behaviors.

“I was punching walls again,” he said. “I was not happy. Basically, my 21-year-old self was put back into a 5-year-old’s mindset.”

Thomas McHale cares for a goat at the local farm where he works in Westchester County, New York.

His mother, Francesca Hagadus-McHale, is among the parents in New York who are working with lawmakers to try to get services extended for students who either aged out last school year, like her son, or those who will age out this year. Though her state encouraged districts to extend those services, her district did not opt to do it.

If the legislation passes, Hagadus-McHale says she’d want to see her son get additional therapy and help planning for life after school. Hagadus-McHale made dozens of phone calls to help secure a part-time job at a local farm where her son feeds and cares for the animals, but she says more could have been done to help prepare him for the transition.

McHale says if he and other students could get back missed services, it would be “extremely helpful,” and he’s supportive of efforts to try to make that happen.

“It felt like I was in limbo,” McHale said. “I think getting back that time with your therapist, or just seeing them more, would help rekindle that bond that you had before it got stripped away.”

Schools may lose access to emergency hotel stays, a critical strategy to help homeless students

2023-12-18T10:00:00+00:00

This story was co-published with USA Today.

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SAN DIEGO — Each request in Linda Lee Garibay’s inbox offers a tiny glimpse into San Diego County’s housing crisis and its profound effect on kids.

On a Thursday in early November, a family with four children in the San Diego Unified School District had just been evicted. Another San Diego family with a 6-year-old needed to leave the trailer park where they’d been staying. In the Poway Unified district, a family of four needed a respite after sleeping in their car for over a month.

Lee Garibay, a project specialist for the San Diego County education office, reviewed each family’s situation, then helped to reserve them a free room at a Motel 6 close to their child’s school. She’s the engine behind what is likely the country’s largest emergency hotel stay program supporting students experiencing homelessness.

“You spend so much time dealing with families that need help and not having anything to give them,” said Susie Terry, who coordinates homeless education services for San Diego County. “I had homeless liaisons who were just like, ‘This is the first time I feel like I actually have some real help to offer.’”

San Diego’s Project Rest and other programs like it exemplify the way schools are increasingly expanding their work beyond teaching and learning to meet the basic needs of students and their families. Hotel stays have become a crucial strategy for schools seeking to address rising student homelessness and chronic absenteeism. They are also unprecedented: Never before have schools had the money and permission to offer this kind of material aid at such a scale.

School staff and advocates for homeless youth say these programs have been transformative: The stability they provide boosts school attendance and allows kids to focus on their schoolwork. But despite their impact, programs like Project Rest are at risk of disappearing.

That’s because many are funded with federal pandemic aid for homeless students that goes away next school year, and along with it, special spending rules that allow for hotel stays. Federal officials have said schools cannot use the federal funds they typically receive to help homeless students on short-term housing, such as hotel stays.

Terry is searching for funding alternatives, but isn’t hopeful.

“I think it’s a shame,” she said, “because it’s desperately needed.”

Linda Lee Garibay at a park in Chula Vista, California. Lee Garibay is a project specialist for the San Diego County education office who books free short-term hotel stays for families.

Why schools are turning to hotels to help homeless kids

Before the pandemic, Terry got the occasional call from a school liaison asking if the county education office could do anything to help a family that needed a place to stay. All she could do was refer them to other agencies, where families often had to wait for housing. The federal McKinney-Vento program that provides funds for homeless students has a miniscule budget and doesn’t allow for short-term hotel stays.

So when the federal government gave states and schools $800 million in COVID aid to help homeless students — eight times what they’d usually get in a year — plus instructions that they could use that money for short-term housing assistance, Terry decided to hire a staffer and launch the hotel program.

She knew there would be high demand. More than 20,000 homeless students lived in San Diego County during the 2021-22 school year, state data show. That meant 4.3% of students did not have a fixed and adequate place to stay at night, compared with the national average of 2.4%.

But even Terry sorely underestimated the need. Initially, her team expected one or two requests a week. They typically get 10 a day.

“It was shocking,” she said.

Since the program launched 20 months ago, it has housed more than 1,200 families. Together, San Diego County’s education office and a dozen local school districts have spent around $640,000 to run it. On a single day in November, 64 students and their families were staying at hotels through the program.

In the past, schools typically advised families in need of housing to call the county’s social services helpline. But they were unlikely to get into a shelter within a day, or even a week. So parents and kids often slept in their cars or on the street while they waited. Now, through Project Rest, families can check into a hotel room within 24 hours.

Students have needed a hotel stay for all kinds of reasons, Lee Garibay says. Many were staying with family or friends and were asked to leave with little warning.

Some need a break from sleeping in their cars. San Diego’s safe parking program offers security, but no showers, and even those lots have waitlists.

Others are fleeing domestic violence. Some stay with family during the week, but need lodging on weekends. Some saw their homes destroyed by a fire or landslide.

And this fall, Lee Garibay helped a 17-year-old with a 2-week-old baby after they ran out of days at a local shelter and had nowhere else to go.

Many shelters and housing resources cater to single adults, so it can be “transformative” when schools can find housing for families, said Barbara Duffield, the executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of homeless youth.

“It’s a critical intervention at this moment,” she said.

Related: As families struggle to find housing, more schools are hiring staff to help. The clock is ticking.

How hotel stays can help homeless students

A key feature of the program is that families are offered all kinds of support while they stay at the hotel. Families often enroll in CalFresh, which helps low-income families pay for food, and get connected with a housing case manager.

Some families have cried when they found out a person would help them look for housing, Terry said. The county education office doesn’t keep data on how many families find stable housing, but case workers are sometimes successful. In early November, a social worker in the South Bay Union School District wrote to Lee Garibay that a family could check out of their motel room because an agency had found them permanent housing. “That’s what we like to hear!” Lee Garibay exclaimed.

The program can also lead to kids getting more support at school.

Some families who’ve stayed in hotels weren’t identified as homeless by their school before — often because they were afraid to let the staff know — and didn’t realize their child is legally entitled to stay at their school and receive transportation, even if they move.

Julia Sutton, a social worker for the Chula Vista Elementary School District in California, looks over homes and an industrial area near Finney Elementary in late November.

Social workers in the Chula Vista Elementary School District, for example, make sure families staying at a hotel know about other services the district can offer, whether that’s priority access to before- and after-school programs, trauma-informed counseling for their child, or reimbursement for driving to school.

Lee Garibay logs the information of every family who uses the program — how many kids they have, what schools they attend, what help they need — in a giant blue spreadsheet. If a family uses the program for a second time, Lee Garibay looks at which resources they were connected with and tries to figure out what helped — and what didn’t.

“We work in education, we don’t work in housing,” she said. “But at the same time, from my perspective, if we don’t help assist them with housing, how are we going to make sure that they are stable in their education?”

The Chula Vista Elementary School District has become one of the county’s top referrers to the program. They’ve housed 55 families in hotels since the start of the school year.

Located just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the district of 29,000 serves families who live in million-dollar homes and families who sleep in store parking lots. The community has no family shelter or official safe parking program. Depending on traffic, the nearest shelter that accepts children can be over an hour away by car — a trip many families can’t afford in San Diego County, where gas prices are much higher than the national average.

Additionally, the rising cost of food and rent since the pandemic and an increase in asylum-seeking families crossing the border have intensified housing needs, school staff say.

On left, backpacks that social worker Julia Sutton keeps for children who need them at Finney Elementary.

Julia Sutton is one of eight social workers who works with students experiencing homelessness in the district. Academics improve when kids have lights to do their homework, Sutton said, and they’re sleeping on a bed, not crunched up in the car.

Knowing they have a place to stay can put children at ease. Sutton recalls one student who came up to her in early November to excitedly report: “I heard we have more nights at the hotel!” Mothers have told the social workers that when their kids see the Motel 6 has a pool, it helps them feel like they’re not in crisis, if only for a little while.

“It’s only 15 days, but it’s more stable than jumping from place to place each night,” Sutton said. “They’re still in crisis, but at least they’re getting to school every day and there is a deeper sense of community with your school. They feel supported.”

Making sure kids and families feel safe

In San Diego, Project Rest is a partnership between the county education office and San Diego Youth Services, a nonprofit that supports youth experiencing homelessness and has a corporate contract with Motel 6. The streamlined process is easier for service providers to navigate than working with individual hotels, said Gillian Leal, a program manager for the organization.

A family needs a government-issued ID to check in, but doesn’t have to put down a credit card for damages. That arrangement is crucial. For one, many families don’t have a credit card. And there’s no chance that a paperwork glitch will result in a canceled room.

The San Diego program allows families to stay at a hotel for five nights at a time. If their school district is contributing funds, they can stay for up to 15. But elsewhere, school districts have been hesitant to allow hotel stays for that long.

Gillian Leal, program manager for San Diego Youth Services' TAY Academy, sorts through clothing donations meant to support youth experiencing homelessness on Monday, Nov. 27.

When U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona first issued guidance for the $800 million in COVID aid in early 2021, he wrote that the funds could be used for short-term, temporary housing, such as “a few days in a motel.” Many school officials interpreted that to mean two or three days, although Terry said that short time frame can make it hard to get families help in a compassionate way.

This fall, after nearly two dozen education organizations, including SchoolHouse Connection, urged the U.S. Department of Education to explicitly permit longer motel stays, a top official issued a clarification that the length of short-term housing provided could vary based on families’ circumstances and other factors.

Similar programs exist elsewhere. In Ohio, Cincinnati Public Schools partners with a local nonprofit that serves homeless youth to house families at a Quality Inn along a public bus route. They’ve housed more than 220 families at the hotel over the last year and a half.

In central Florida, Gigi Salce, a wraparound services specialist for the School District of Osceola County, has worked with Stayable Suites and Rodeway Inn. The partnership has helped families get off housing wait lists and kept kids from sleeping in Walmart parking lots.

And on California’s Central Coast, the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District has housed 63 families through its partnership with Motel 6 over the last year and a half. Donnie Everett, an assistant superintendent who oversees support services for the district, said the program has boosted attendance and kept students on track for graduation.

But there are some challenges beyond schools’ control.

If the area is a tourism destination, rooms can fill up quickly. In San Diego, for example, the program is harder and more expensive to run during the annual Pride Festival and Comic-Con. Rural areas, like San Diego’s mountainous East County, are less likely to have hotels near schools. And some hotels are deterred by the possibility of damages or last-minute cancellations.

“It was a bit of a struggle to find the right hotel that would accept families,” said Katie Jensen of UpSpring, the nonprofit that books rooms for Cincinnati students. “People don’t necessarily want homeless families on their properties.”

School districts may not be able to afford their hotel stay programs once they exhaust federal COVID relief funds. In an email, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education said those relief dollars could be used for short-term housing because social distancing rules meant shelters weren’t available to many families. That’s no longer the case — and if McKinney-Vento program funds were spent on housing, they would quickly be exhausted, leaving little to provide for students’ educational needs, the spokesperson said.

The McKinney-Vento program, which focuses on making sure homeless students have access to the same educational opportunities as their peers, is around $100 million a year for the whole country, compared with $800 million in pandemic assistance for homeless students.

Everett in Monterey is working to secure private funding for his district’s program. Terry is looking to see if she can tap into county or state funds to keep a smaller version of their program alive.

Some states have decided to step in. Maine started a pilot program this year that gives schools emergency money to prevent student homelessness, and one allowable use is a short-term hotel stay. Since 2016, Washington state has offered grants to provide stability to homeless students that can be used on hotel stays of up to three months.

A school bus outside Finney Elementary on Friday, Nov. 3. The school is part of the Chula Vista Elementary School District, which has housed dozens of families in hotels this year.

Mary Jane Palacios, the assistant manager of a Motel 6 that works with Project Rest, says hotels and motels that partner with schools need to make sure their properties are welcoming, and treat families with empathy and dignity.

At her location in Chula Vista, for example, if a family leaves behind their belongings, the staff will hold items for up to 30 days.

“We know you have a whole life inside of that room,” she said.

Palacios experienced homelessness as a child, and remembers what it felt like to walk out of a hotel with her mother and to be bullied at school.

“I totally get where a lot of the struggling moms are coming from, I totally get where the kids are coming from,” said Palacios, who watches each morning as families fan out in different directions from the Motel 6 parking lot, some running to catch the trolley to go to school.

So while she tells families to remember that their circumstances are temporary, she also stocks the pool chest with floaties for kids to play with. She makes sure the hotel is decked out with spider webs and candy for Halloween. And in December, her staff hands out hot cocoa and decorates a real Christmas tree.

“I like to put that out for the kids,” Palacios said, “because I wish those programs were there for us when we were little.”

This story was produced with support from the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

As families struggle to find housing, more schools are hiring staff to help. The clock is ticking.

2023-12-21T10:00:00+00:00

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CINCINNATI — It was late September when Latoya Singley got the eviction notice saying she and her 6-year-old had seven days to clear out of their apartment.

Singley called Cincinnati’s shelter hotline repeatedly for weeks, but there were no beds available. Singley and her son couldn’t stay long with Singley’s sister, because having guests would jeopardize her sister’s subsidized housing.

Singley worried about her son, who’s autistic and needs specialized support. “It would be different if it was just me,” Singley said. “But I have a child — I can’t be outside.”

Her frequent calls to the hotline yielded results. An intake worker referred Singley’s case to Megan Rahill, a shelter and housing specialist for Cincinnati Public Schools. Rahill flagged the family with a bright orange “EXTREMELY HIGH” priority label and pushed them to the top of shelter waitlists. Just in time, space opened up at Bethany House, the city’s main family shelter.

“It changed so much for us,” Singley said in early December. They felt safe, instead of scared. Her son enrolled in an elementary school where Singley liked the teachers and therapists. And she landed an appointment to check out a two-bedroom apartment.

Latoya Singley at Bethany House, Cincinnati's main family shelter. She's one of many parents who received housing help from Cincinnati Public Schools this year.

Rahill is part of a growing contingent of school staffers whose primary job is to help students and their families navigate housing systems. Many districts have used their share of an unprecedented $800 million in COVID relief funding for homeless students to shrink gaping holes in the social safety net, providing services that didn’t used to be schools’ responsibilities.

Schools have leaned into this type of work in part because research shows housing instability affects everything from attendance to test scores to graduation rates.

Project Connect, Cincinnati Public Schools’ program that supports students and families experiencing homelessness, used to provide mostly educational support. Now, with $1.5 million in COVID aid and more staff, Project Connect ensures fewer families have to sort through a complex web of housing and social service agencies alone.

Against a rising tide of family homelessness, Cincinnati’s housing systems navigators are on track to provide help to twice as many students this school year as last year.

But the looming expiration of pandemic funding means this help could be going away. Rahill’s shelter and housing position, for example, is only funded through June.

“We won’t have the staff, we won’t have the same level of services — unless we find some miracle funding,” said Rebeka Beach, who manages Project Connect.

How housing systems navigators help homeless students

The idea of hiring a navigator started in the health care industry in the 1990s. The American Cancer Society was an early pioneer, deploying navigators who helped patients get screenings, treatment, and family support.

Schools picked up the model at the urging of federal education officials and advocates for homeless youth, who said it made sense for schools because staff were already in contact with families, and often had their trust.

Having a person who specializes in housing has allowed the Cincinnati school district to form closer relationships with local shelters and housing agencies, Rahill said. That’s helped families with kids get priority access to a limited supply of shelter beds and housing vouchers.

Megan Rahill, a shelter and housing specialist for Cincinnati Public Schools, calls a family in her office at Project Connect.

When Rahill was a homeless student liaison supporting 20 Cincinnati elementary schools, she often wished she could do more for families. Parents would tell her, “OK, thank you for the uniforms and transportation, but can you refer me for housing?” she said.

Rahill’s work means more families get help faster. So far this school year, she’s referred 522 children and teens to a shelter, a housing voucher, or another kind of housing support. That’s nearly as many as the district helped all of last school year.

That extra help is coming as student homelessness in Cincinnati is rising. Project Connect has identified nearly 2,700 children and teens as homeless so far this year, an increase of more than 20% compared with this time last year.

School staff say there’s a few reasons for that. The average stay at the main family shelter has stretched to over two months as families struggle to find housing. That creates longer waitlists. Rent has risen in Cincinnati much faster than in other cities, and evictions are up, following the end of pandemic-era protections. And families lucky enough to obtain a housing choice voucher are finding it increasingly difficult to find landlords who will accept the rental subsidy.

Rahill sees how that housing crunch has affected families.

On a Friday in early December, she spoke on the phone with the mother of five elementary-age children who had a month to leave their home of six years. Their heat was broken and a city inspection turned up faulty wiring — a “death trap,” the mother had been told. The landlord wasn’t returning her calls. As the stress mounted, she could tell it was affecting one of her children’s behavior at school.

Rahill made sure the parent knew about her rights to relocation assistance, and shared a list of apartments that may accept housing vouchers. Then she offered to refer her to an agency that could help pay for a security deposit and first month’s rent — a step the mother had tried on her own without success.

“If it comes through me, then you are more likely to hear from them,” Rahill explained. She urged the mother to hang on to her number: “We would definitely make sure that you guys weren’t out on the street.”

Before she hung up, Rahill had one more thing to say. “You were mentioning that you guys weren’t going to be able to have Christmas,” she began. The district was hosting a toy drive, but was at capacity. “Do you mind if I put you on the waiting list and I’ll give you a call if we have leftover toys?”

Later that Friday, Rahill got a message from another mother who was sleeping in her car with her four kids, including a preschooler. She’d applied for a housing voucher with the district’s help, but hadn’t heard back from the housing authority yet.

“I’m really desperate at this point,” the mother said in her voicemail. “I just need somewhere for me and my kids to go.”

Rahill caught her breath as she listened, then dialed the parent’s number. She offered to make a priority shelter referral that would expedite the process.

After she hung up, she highlighted the family in bright orange. Extremely high priority.

Project Connect provides jackets, shoes, uniforms, backpacks, and more for Cincinnati students in need.

Schools can’t clear all the housing hurdles

As part of her work, Rahill made a 10-page guide for families. It has everything from how to apply for a housing voucher to where kids can get a free haircut. She knows a kennel that is willing to take a pet so that a family can move into shelter. And her shelter connections stretch to Indiana.

When the local shelters are full, Rahill can book families a few free nights at a local Quality Inn using COVID relief funds. The hotel owners charge Project Connect a discounted $75 a night, and sometimes extend that rate to families so they can stay longer.

“Our community needs help, and if we can’t step up, who will?” said co-owner Kevin Patel.

Related: Schools may lose access to emergency hotel stays, a critical strategy to help homeless students

But Rahill can’t solve all problems. Perhaps most importantly, Project Connect is still limited by a dearth of affordable housing — a problem that plagues communities nationwide.

Rahill can usually only get families into a shelter when they are sleeping outside or in their car. Yet that situation has become more common in recent months.

Charity Tyne works part time with Project Connect to assist Spanish-speaking families.

Many immigrant families, especially newly arrived families from Venezuela and Nicaragua, don’t qualify for widely used public programs. And without Spanish-speaking case workers, they struggled to access the help that was available.

To address that gap, Project Connect used COVID aid to hire Charity Tyne to work part time with Spanish-speaking families. Before Tyne, Project Connect used interpretation services or Google Translate, but that often failed to detect when families were in need.

“There have been many instances where someone has called a family and has said: ‘Are you OK with housing?’ And they’ll be like ‘Yes, yes.’” Tyne said. “And then if they’re called by someone who speaks Spanish you hear the whole story.”

Because many immigrant families don’t qualify for benefits, Tyne orders them groceries and delivers them herself. She has built up a list of landlords who charge low rents and are willing to be flexible on rental history and employment.

It’s labor-intensive work. Recently, it took Tyne 50 calls to help one family with four children rent an apartment.

More than 100 Spanish-speaking families have Tyne’s cell phone number now.

‘There should be more of a safety net’

As schools across the country have expanded their work to meet students’ basic needs — from providing food to shelter to mental health care — one downside is that families and outside organizations may think schools have the ability to do more than they can.

Rahill distributes housing voucher applications from Cincinnati’s housing authority to families who don’t have a stable mailing address. Now, some parents call Rahill frustrated, mistakenly believing she — and not the housing authority — is processing their application.

“It just shows the gap,” she said. “There should be more of a safety net around people that’s not just some COVID funding through the school district.”

Student homelessness has risen in Cincinnati this year, and school staff say more families are sleeping outside or in their cars.

Many school districts, like Cincinnati, are weighing whether they can afford to keep the staff they hired with one-time COVID relief, said Marguerite Roza, the director of the Edunomics Lab, a research center at Georgetown University that studies school finance.

“That’s the tricky question,” she said. “Are we saying, basically, that when the housing system is supposed to meet the needs of kids first, it’s up to the school system to hold their feet to the fire?”

Some educators say housing and education are too closely linked for schools to just sit back and let someone else handle it.

When Cincinnati teacher Clarice Williams tutors kids in the evenings at Bethany House through Project Connect, she often meets students who have attended three or four elementary schools. Others missed large chunks of school.

Clarice Williams, a reading specialist for Cincinnati Public Schools, tutors children staying at the city's main family shelter through Project Connect.

She’s seen elementary students struggle to understand what they’re reading because they’re sounding out words so slowly, and middle schoolers who never learned crucial grammar and spelling rules.

“They are missing those foundational skills,” she said.

If schools see this work as critical, Roza said, then they have to figure out how to make it sustainable, possibly by training other existing staff to do the work.

Beach has been talking with a county agency and other organizations to see if there is a way to cobble together ongoing funding for the housing and shelter position.

For some families, like the mother and son who faced an eviction in September, a shelter stay is a bridge to permanent housing.

On a Friday in mid-December, Singley watched as her 6-year-old explored the apartment she’d just leased.

After several weeks of sleeping on an unfamiliar bunk bed at the shelter, her son had his own bedroom again. Already, Singley could see where she’d hang posters on his wall and PAW Patrol curtains in his window.

Her son is set to start at his new school after winter break. Singley feels confident about the plan they’ve put together for him, with one-on-one help in his classroom and time with a speech therapist. He’s started to learn a few words: no, shoe, and “eat eat.”

There was just one thing left to do: Call the school district to let them know they’d found an apartment, so they could send the bus.

This story was produced with support from the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Nearly 10 million children won’t get summer food benefits as states opt out of new federal program

2024-01-10T21:02:51+00:00

Across rural North Dakota, many school districts struggle to staff summer meal programs, and families might live 20 miles from the nearest meal site.

So state officials eagerly got on board when they learned the federal government was launching a permanent summer program that gives low-income families $120 for each of their school-aged children. Families can use the money, which comes loaded on a prepaid card, to buy their own food and cook at home.

“In North Dakota, the summer food service program doesn’t meet the needs of a lot of the students,” said Linda Schloer, who directs child nutrition for the state’s Department of Public Instruction. “For a modest effort both financially and personnel-wise, it just makes sense that we would do whatever we can to try to get the program going as soon as possible.”

States had to tell the federal government by Jan. 1 if they planned to run a Summer EBT program in 2024. As of Wednesday, 35 states said they would. Together they are expected to reach more than 20 million school-aged children — a rare example of a pandemic-era assistance program sticking around after the end of the public health emergency.

But another 9.5 million students who would have been eligible will likely go without after their states declined to participate this year. Some states cited cost and administrative burden, while in others governors balked at accepting federal money.

South Dakota, which serves a similar student population as its neighbor to the north, is among those opting out.

“Federal money often comes with strings attached, and more of it is often not a good thing,” Ian Fury, the chief of communications for Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, wrote in an email. He cited low unemployment, the administrative burden of running the program, and South Dakota’s “robust existing food programs.”

That news came as a disappointment to school leaders like Louie Krogman, the superintendent of the White River School District in South Dakota.

The district serves around 400 students, most of whom are Native American and come from low-income families. The district runs a summer meal program in June, but families are on their own until school starts seven weeks later.

“We do have some families that would have definitely benefited from that additional EBT money,” Krogman said.

Timeline and cost keeps some states from offering Summer EBT this year

Summer EBT will work a little differently depending on the state, but generally states will identify which families qualify for the $120 or more in benefits and either mail out EBT cards for the summer, or load the value onto existing benefit cards. Then families can use that money to buy food at their local grocery store.

The newly permanent program will run similarly to the Pandemic Summer EBT program that operated for the previous three summers, as well as a federal pilot program that tested the concept over the last decade. A 2016 review of that program found that offering these summer benefits reduced child food insecurity and helped kids eat more fresh fruits and vegetables.

The extra money is coming at a much-needed time, said Kelsey Boone of the Food Research & Action Center, a nonprofit that advocates for anti-hunger policies, including Summer EBT.

“In the last year, a lot of the boosts to SNAP benefits ended,” Boone said, referring to the temporary pandemic-era increases to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which ended last spring. Summer EBT “can help offset those cuts,” she said, “especially at a time when food prices are so high.”

In declining to participate, Georgia and Nebraska pointed to their states’ existing summer food programs, while Mississippi said it did not have the funding or staff capacity to run the program. During the pandemic, the federal government covered the full cost of the benefits and running the Summer EBT program, but now states have to split the administrative costs.

Texas said it wasn’t feasible to participate because the final rules and guidance for the program came just days before states had to tell the federal government if they’d be opting in. The state also needs additional funding from the state legislature to run the program, a spokesperson for the state’s health and human services department wrote in an email.

Vermont, too, said the state is working to secure funding and put the necessary IT systems in place. “The goal is to be able to offer this important summer nutrition benefit for eligible children starting in the summer of 2025,” a spokesperson for Vermont’s Department for Children and Families wrote in an email.

Still, in several Republican-led states, the program seemed to get caught in a longstanding political debate over whether the government should provide more publicly funded benefits to families — a debate that’s also raged over whether states should provide free school meals to all students.

Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, for example, issued a statement saying her state opposed participating in Summer EBT because the program didn’t have tight enough restrictions on what foods families could buy and it would cost the state $2.2 million to run — though Iowa students were in line to receive around $29 million in food benefits and the program follows the same nutrition requirements as SNAP.

“Federal COVID-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don’t provide long-term solutions for the issues impacting children and families,” Reynolds said. “An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”

In Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt cited concerns about the program not being “fully vetted.” He also said that it would help relatively few children — though an estimated 403,000 school-aged children would qualify for food benefits in his state.

Three of Oklahoma’s largest Native American tribes are stepping in to run Summer EBT programs on their reservations, an effort that could reach at least 50,000 children.

Florida said it opted out of participating because it already had summer food programs and didn’t want to follow additional federal rules.

“We anticipate that our state’s full approach to serving children will continue to be successful this year without any additional federal programs that inherently always come with some federal strings attached,” Miguel Nevarez, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Children and Families wrote in an email.

But Sky Beard, the Florida director for No Kid Hungry, an initiative of the nonprofit Share Our Strength that advocated for Summer EBT, sees a big need for the additional summer benefits.

Her organization conducted a poll last year that found around a quarter of parents of school-aged children worried their households wouldn’t have enough to eat.

“There are summer meal sites available throughout the state, but there are real challenges with families accessing those,” she said. Existing programs “just don’t reach all children that participate in school meal programs over the school year.”

Some Republican-led states are embracing the program. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, for example, issued an enthusiastic statement about her state’s participation in the anti-hunger program.

“We are leveraging every resource at our disposal to fight this crisis, and Summer EBT promises to be an important new tool to give Arkansas children the food and nutrition they need,” she said.

For now, many states are already working to get Summer EBT up and running by the time school lets out in a few months.

In North Dakota, Schloer is focused on making sure the state has up-to-date addresses for eligible students so families can get their EBT cards in the mail.

The state is preparing to send out lots of emails and texts to families, too, to make sure they know about the new program, and whether they might need to fill out some paperwork to get their benefits.

“If we can get a message on that smartphone and from a reliable source, we’re hoping that they will read it,” Schloer said. Schools, too, can play a part by making sure families know: “It’s legitimate, please pay attention!”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

‘Stop the shooting’: Inside the effort to protect students from neighborhood gun violence

2022-09-13T11:00:00+00:00

Cars streaked past Bashir Muhammad Ptah Akinyele last month as he stood at the corner of a busy intersection across from a high school, baking under the midday sun.

Then he stepped off the curb and faced the oncoming traffic.

Desperation drove Akinyele to join the street protest, as it had many times before. A veteran teacher in Newark, New Jersey, Akinyele can name well over 40 former students who have been killed by guns. “One day you have a kid in your class,” he said, “and the next day he’s gone.”

Akinyele realized long ago that the only way to protect his students is to stop the shootings where they occur — not in his school, but in the neighborhoods around it. So he started attending rallies like the one in August, calling for an end to the shootings and the conditions that cause them.

“I have to do something outside of the classroom,” Akinyele recalled thinking. “I was losing too many students to the violence in the city.”

Over the course of his career, Newark teacher Bashir Muhammad Akinyele has lost over 40 students to gun violence.

At the start of this new school year, classrooms across the country were dotted with empty desks, a silent testament to summer gun violence. From June through the end of August, more than 600 fatal shootings were reported nationwide involving children under age 18 as either victims or suspects, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which relies on public records and news reports.

Almost all the shootings occurred away from schools, in homes and neighborhoods. And yet community violence is rarely seen as an education issue. Instead, voters and policymakers tend to focus disproportionately on school shootings, endorsing measures to “harden” schools with armed guards and metal detectors and turning school security into a $3 billion industry.

But out of the spotlight and with far less money, communities across the country are finding innovative ways to combat neighborhood violence.

From Oakland to Chicago and Philadelphia, city agencies and local nonprofits are partnering with the police to both prevent and respond to shootings. Often called community violence intervention, much of this work centers around young people, helping them process trauma and settle conflicts peacefully. Congress and the Biden administration recently expanded funding for such efforts, which are backed by a growing body of evidence.

With the new school year underway, this violence reduction work in communities — where shootings are far more common than in schools — will arguably do as much to protect students as ramped up school security, according to advocates and experts.

Akinyele understood this when he stood in the intersection last month disrupting traffic. He was joined by a crew of community members — parents, recent high school graduates, former gang members — who are paid to prevent violence in the neighborhoods where Akinyele’s students live, play, and go to school.

“Stop the shooting,” Akinyele said over a loudspeaker, the non-violence workers echoing his words. “Stop the killing.”

Most shootings happen outside schools, but learning still suffers

The nation’s epidemic of gun violence is especially lethal for young people.

After shootings surged at the start of the pandemic, 2020 became the first year in which gun violence was the leading cause of death for children and teens. Young Black men run the greatest risk of being fatally shot.

Even with the sharp rise in school shootings, the vast majority of gunfire erupts off campus. According to federal data from 1992 to 2019, less than 3% of youth homicides occurred on school grounds.

But while most shootings happen in communities, they reverberate inside schools. Exposure to violence is closely associated with trauma symptoms, including anxiety, disrupted sleep, and difficulty concentrating, and it can lead to lower grades and more absences.

“It literally gets under their skin and makes children more biologically stressed,” said Daniel Semenza, who directs research on interpersonal violence at Rutgers University’s New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center.

One study found that students performed worse on reading tests after a murder occurred in their neighborhood, even if they didn’t witness it.

“No way somebody is going to be able to pull off the same level of cognitive performance,” Semenza added, “if they have that running through their minds.”

Starr Whiteside, a Newark 12th-grader, is constantly on alert for gunfire in her neighborhood.

Starr Whiteside has seen how the constant threat of gunfire can warp your world, shaping where you go, what you feel, and how you act.

“Young people my age, it makes us feel like we always got to be on guard,” said Whiteside, a 12th grader in Newark. “Even going to the corner store, we have to watch our back.”

She’s also watched violence in the community seep into schools. Last year, her school went into lockdown after a student brought a loaded gun into the building, apparently because he had been jumped outside of school.

“It’s like there’s no escape,” she said.

How Newark’s grassroots groups keep students safe

Newark has emerged as a national model of community violence intervention, thanks partly to pressure by advocates like Akinyele and the support of the city’s mayor, Ras Baraka.

A tight-knit network of local groups leads the anti-violence work, in partnership with the city. They help protect young people in two main ways: by addressing the underlying causes of violent behavior, and shielding students from violent acts.

A member of the Newark Community Street Team, Malachi Muhammad keeps watch over students outside of school.

The Newark Community Street Team does the latter through its Safe Passage program, which hires community members to patrol the routes students take to and from school. Trained in de-escalation, the staffers help defuse tensions between students while watching for external threats.

Last November, a Safe Passage worker was speaking with two students outside a Newark high school when a gunman exited a car and fired nearly a dozen rounds their way. The worker, Malachi Muhammad, a graduate of the high school, rushed the students to safety.

“I’m responsible for them,” he said last year.

The incident illustrates why such groups are essential to student safety: Violence in the community often follows students to school, and school conflicts often spill out into the community. In fact, the impetus for the Safe Passage program came partly from a Newark health department analysis that found neighborhood conflicts frequently originate in schools, said Aqeela Sherrills, who co-founded the Street Team.

“Schools are an extension of the community,” he said. “They’re not these siloed institutions.”

The small number of young people who commit violence usually have been victims themselves, so healing their wounds can help stop the cycle of harm.

To that end, the Street Team offers counseling and life-skills training to young people at risk of violence, while The HUBB Arts & Trauma Center, another Newark nonprofit, provides art therapy and mentoring. Newark’s Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery sends social workers into some high schools, and the city is paying for 40 students who have been affected by violence to attend college.

The efforts reflect the public health approach that is central to community violence intervention, with education, counseling, and support services used to treat rather than punish perpetrators.

“If you look at it as a sickness,” Baraka said, “then these people are obviously infected and we have to give them treatment.”

The HUBB specializes in such treatment, helping young people address the trauma that is both a symptom and source of violence. One of those young people is Tah’gee.

This spring, the 16-year-old left his Newark charter school after a disciplinary issue, was arrested, and spent a brief time in jail. Not long after, his cousin was gunned down.

The police referred Tah’gee to the HUBB, where Denisah Williamson took up his case. Williamson is what experts call a “credible messenger,” a mentor to troubled youth who has experienced many of the same challenges they have.

As a teenager growing up in Newark, she was sexually assaulted and expelled from school. Later she was arrested and stabbed.

Despite the violence she endured and the discrimination she faced as a Black woman growing up in a low-income community, she pressed on, eventually earning a master’s degree in social work.

“I had a bad childhood, but it didn’t define me,” said Williamson, who directs programs, data, and community relations at the HUBB and mentors students. “There’s no judgment here.”

Williamson convinced Tah’gee to start showing up at the HUBB’s community center, where young people study photography and video production, create podcasts, and record songs in a state-of-the-art studio. They also participate in a youth-led forum called My Thoughts Out Loud, freely discussing relationships, drugs, and whatever else is on their minds.

Tah’gee credits the HUBB for guiding him towards a new path in life.

During a workshop this summer meant to build trust between Newark residents and police and address collective trauma, Tah’gee shared a harrowing story. He said that he was walking with a friend when a crew of 10 or so young men approached and put a gun to his head, then attacked him after he fled.

“Yes, it should never have happened and it’s not normal,” he said, talking about the “crazy stuff” he’s experienced. “But to me it was normal.”

Over time, Williamson watched Tah’gee evolve. He learned to manage his emotions and check his impulses. He signed up for the violence prevention office’s summer work program and applied to Newark Street Academy, a city program that helps out-of-school youth earn GEDs.

Today, Tah’gee credits the HUBB with putting him on a new path.

“It messed up my life,” he said, “in a good way.”

The anti-violence movement gains momentum

Groups like the HUBB curb violence person by person, but evidence of their impact is more than anecdotal.

A number of studies have found that local anti-violence groups play a significant role in reducing shootings and improving public safety.

The Becoming a Man program, which offers weekly group counseling to young men in more than 140 schools nationwide, has been found to decrease arrests and increase graduation rates. Groups like Cure Violence and Advance Peace, which intervene in conflicts and support high-risk individuals, have been associated with fewer shootings. And Safe Passage programs have been shown to reduce crime along students’ routes to school.

The evidence base for such interventions “is now extremely strong,” said Patrick Sharkey, a sociology and public affairs professor at Princeton University, who found that local nonprofits contributed to the historic decline in violent crime that began in the 1990s.

“These organizations have tremendous capacity to create safe communities,” he said. “We just haven’t given them the commitment and the resources that we devote to institutions like law enforcement.”

That is beginning to change.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which President Biden signed into law this June, includes $250 million for community violence intervention. Biden has also urged local governments to use some of their federal stimulus money for violence prevention, and over $2 billion has already been earmarked for anti-violence groups, substance-abuse treatment, and mental health services, according to the White House.

The White House also convened 16 counties and cities, including Newark, to share their experiences with community violence intervention. Backed with philanthropic funding, the collaborative is also providing technical assistance to more than 50 grassroots anti-violence groups.

“We’re spreading this model to cities across the country,” said Sherrills, the former Newark Community Street Team leader whose new organization is training other groups through the White House initiative.

Newark is using stimulus funds and other sources to invest $19 million in violence intervention programs. The city’s Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery also ran a work program this summer that paid students — many of whom had been arrested or struggled in school — to intern at city agencies and nonprofits and take classes on conflict resolution, financial literacy, and other life skills.

“We’re teaching them how to integrate and be a part of something,” said Lakeesha Eure, the office’s director. “We’re teaching them how to belong to the city.”

Lakeesha Eure is the director for the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery in Newark.

Now that school is back in session, the city’s small army of anti-violence workers will continue doing what they can to keep students safe. They will keep a watchful eye as children walk to school, step in before teenage taunts escalate into shots fired, and help young people like Tah’gee envision a future — graduation, college, a good job — that does not involve violence.

Akinyele, the Newark teacher and peace activist, knows there will be setbacks.

Last month, he learned that another former student, 20-year-old Yasir Manley, had been fatally shot. Yet when Newark held its annual 24 Hours of Peace festival the weekend before school started, Akinyele still showed up.

He stood on stage facing a crowd of parents and teens, police officers and outreach workers. Knowing he needs their help to protect his students, he began his call-and-response.

“Stop the shooting,” he said, and the crowd repeated it back to him. “Stop the shooting.”

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

Staffing, attendance, behavior: 7 big issues facing schools this year

2022-08-18T19:24:19+00:00

After surviving two school years “completely veiled in the pandemic,” teacher Kathryn Vaughn says this year is off to a different start.

Her stress levels are down. COVID protocols are relaxed. Teachers are feeling hopeful.

“It feels a little lighter this year,” said Vaughn, who teaches elementary school art in Tennessee. “It really feels like we’re just kind of back to business as usual.”

Many students and educators are returning to classrooms this fall with a sense of cautious optimism. But there are still many open questions after last year’s staffing shortages, student absences, and mental health and behavioral challenges interfered with academic recovery efforts.

Here are seven big issues facing schools:

How will schools handle staffing challenges?

Some schools are stepping up efforts to boost student attendance this year.

First, some reassuring news: Despite what you might have heard, there isn’t evidence of an unprecedented teacher shortage nor an exodus of teachers fleeing the profession.

Yet some schools are struggling to staff up — partly for reasons that predate the pandemic. High-poverty schools have long had trouble recruiting and retaining teachers, and the supply of new educators has dwindled over the past decade as fewer people enroll in teacher-prep programs.

But the pandemic also has created new complications. Many districts used federal relief funds to add more positions, including tutors and extra substitutes, creating huge demand for a limited pool of workers. Schools also must compete with other employers for lower-wage workers, such as bus drivers and custodians, spurring some districts to hike their pay and offer bonuses.

Those hiring pressures are bearing down on Paterson Public Schools, a high-needs district in New Jersey. Some 130 teaching positions remain unfilled, or nearly 6% of the total teaching force, about three weeks before students return, said Luis Rojas, Jr., the district official who oversees human resources. While some vacancies are expected, Rojas said the number has surged as teachers take advantage of the tight labor market.

“They understand the demand,” he said, “and folks are jumping around from school district to school district trying to move up the salary ladder and get as much money as they can.”

The causes of the staffing crunch are ultimately less important than the effect on students. Schools that can’t find enough teachers might have to raise class sizes, hire less qualified candidates, assign teachers to subjects in which they have limited training, or rely on long-term substitutes — all of which can get in the way of learning.

“I would tell you that one is too many,” Rojas said, “when you have a vacancy.”

Will student attendance improve?

Chronic absenteeism rates rose last year, as quarantines and COVID infections kept students home for long stretches.

This year, the CDC is no longer recommending that students quarantine after an exposure. Many think that will help stabilize attendance, though it’s possible other factors could persist, such as lingering student disengagement.

In Los Angeles, about half of all students were chronically absent last year. Even without quarantines, 30% of students were chronically absent, up from 19% before the pandemic.

“That is just not acceptable,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said last week as he announced a new campaign to boost attendance by visiting student homes.

In Detroit, 77% of students were chronically absent last year, up from 62% the year before the pandemic began. There, the spike was especially concerning because the district has long worked to raise attendance. Now, officials are stepping up efforts to get kids to school.

Lisa Blackwell, a district attendance agent, is part of that. This summer, she’s been knocking on doors to talk up her elementary school’s new before- and after-school care options, and explaining to parents the COVID precautions her school is taking. She’s also planning incentives to reward students, like bringing an ice cream truck to school.

“I want to focus more so on getting the kids excited to go to school,” Blackwell said. “Maybe that will push parents a little bit more to say: ‘Well, my kid is very excited to be at school, so I as a parent, I’m held accountable to make sure they get there.’”

Can schools meet students’ mental health needs?

Inside classrooms across the country last year, the crisis in young people’s mental health was all too evident. After many months of social isolation and learning by laptop, some students were prone to outbursts, meltdowns, and squabbles.

“These kids are very anxious,” said Aaron Grossman, a fifth grade teacher in Reno, Nevada. “The uptick in behavior is very real.”

The distinct but overlapping challenges of worsening student behavior and mental health were fueled by the pandemic — and the stress, financial hardships, and trauma it caused. Federal survey data from this spring confirmed the twin crises: 70% of public school leaders reported an increase in students seeking mental health services during the pandemic, and 56% said disruptive student misconduct had become more common.

Efforts to address both issues have achieved mixed results. Some schools responded to student misbehavior by leaning into restorative practices, which aim for healing over punishment, but others issued more suspensions than usual. Many schools used federal aid to hire more counselors, social workers, and school psychologists, but not always as many were needed. In an April survey, just over half of school leaders said their schools could provide mental health services to all students who require them.

Nance Roy, the chief clinical officer of The Jed Foundation, which focuses on youth mental health and suicide prevention, says schools should encourage students to reach out for help and connect them with service providers.

“It’s developing a culture of care and compassion in schools,” she said, “where there’s no wrong door to walk through for support.”

What will public school enrollment look like?

U.S. public school enrollment held steady last fall, according to federal data released this week. That came after student head counts dropped 2.8% in the fall of 2020, following years of national enrollment growth.

Last year saw a spike in preschool and kindergarten enrollment, both of which dropped sharply when many districts turned to virtual schooling. The return of full-time in-person learning, declining COVID safety concerns, and additional family outreach likely helped boost those grades. But enrollment continues to fall among students in other elementary and middle school grades, a trend that could spell trouble for some districts as the extra funding from federal COVID relief packages dries up.

The issue weighs especially heavily on school leaders in big cities where the share of small schools has ballooned. Now, some are considering school closures, which can create schools that are less expensive to run and have a wider range of programs, but will mean more disruption for students who’ve faced a lot of it in recent years.

“There are really awful tradeoffs,” Shanthi Gonzales, a former school board member in Oakland, California, told Chalkbeat this summer.

Can schools get extra academic help to students who need it most?

Many schools are offering tutoring and other kinds of academic interventions, but it doesn’t always reach the students who need the most help.

The road to academic recovery is coming into focus as data rolls in. So far, elementary school students seem to be recovering more quickly than middle schoolers, but students of all ages are still significantly behind where they would normally be on reading and math tests.

Katrina Abe, a math teacher in Houston, has seen that. Last year, her eighth graders needed extra help with seventh grade topics like interpreting graphs and understanding rates of change. Those concepts are harder to grasp virtually and without working in groups, which happened if students learned online or missed a lot of class the prior year.

This year’s class is noticeably behind last year’s, she said, likely because half of them had three different math teachers in seventh grade. To help, Abe is planning small-group instruction every day and more turn-and-talk time so students can problem solve together. She’s also going to review some fifth and sixth grade standards.

“We’re going to just take that slow, depending on their level,” she said.

Many schools are offering tutoring and other kinds of academic support, but data on which recovery efforts are working is limited. More than half of public schools said they provided high-dosage tutoring in a recent federal survey — a highly effective strategy — but schools often have trouble staffing and scheduling that support. Some districts have turned to virtual tutoring, but it often doesn’t reach students who need help the most.

Meanwhile, educators are keeping their eyes on the larger crop of teens who are behind in credits needed to graduate.

Will schools ramp up COVID relief spending?

Schools have an unprecedented pot of federal money to spend, but many are still struggling to put it to use. There’s a few reasons for that. In some states, money got stuck in red tape and arrived late. Elsewhere, schools are having a hard time finding staff to fill new positions, or hiring contractors to make building repairs.

Some districts that have been slow to spend say they’re planning to ramp up spending over time. Indianapolis Public Schools, for example, had spent only 10% of its federal COVID aid as of late June, mostly to avoid staff cuts and buy PPE. But the district says it has budgeted all the money, including to tutor more students.

Still, this aid doesn’t always feel like new money. New York City recently gave schools the OK to use $100 million in federal aid that was previously set aside for academic recovery to pay teachers, after announcing $215 million in school budget cuts.

This money also has been difficult to track: School district spending plans vary widely in quality and there’s often limited data at the state and federal levels.

But some trends are apparent. When FutureEd, a Georgetown University think tank, looked at spending plans for some 5,000 school districts in June, it found a quarter of federal funds were budgeted for staff, and another quarter were earmarked for academic recovery. Just under a quarter was set aside for facilities and operations, mostly to upgrade heating, ventilation and cooling systems.

How will the culture wars shape what students learn?

America’s latest culture wars are being waged inside schools.

Seventeen states now ban lessons on racism or sexism, six states restrict teaching about sexuality and gender identity, and 18 states don’t allow transgender students to play on sports teams that match their gender.

Peyton, a 12th grader who is part of a support group for Black queer youth in Alabama, said the laws send a clear message to LGBTQ students.

“It’s just enforcing that you’re not normal and society does not want you here,” they said.

In addition to making some students feel less safe, the laws are limiting what they learn.

Some teachers have curtailed class discussions about the oppression of Black people and Native Americans, and some schools are restricting students’ access to books by or about people of color and LGBTQ Americans.

The Biden administration has proposed new rules to protect LGBTQ students, but conservative states are expected to challenge those rules in court. Meanwhile, school districts that run afoul of the new state laws already are facing consequences, and more attacks are likely: Florida’s new law allows parents to file complaints or even sue if they believe their children are taught banned topics.

But for every lesson that is challenged, many more will never be taught as schools seek to avoid sanctions and controversy. In a new survey, 1 in 4 teachers nationally — and nearly 1 in 3 teachers in states with curriculum restrictions — said higher-ups told them to steer clear of contentious topics in the classroom.

As Andrew Kirk, a high school teacher in Texas, told Chalkbeat: “This chilling effect is already happening.”

Jessica Blake contributed reporting.

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

Maestros en Denver tratan de ayudar a estudiantes migrantes con la vivienda

2023-10-03T19:55:41+00:00

Chalkbeat Colorado es un noticiero local sin fines de lucro que informa sobre las escuelas públicas en Denver y otros distritos. Suscríbete a nuestro boletín gratis por email en español para recibir lo último en noticias sobre educación dos veces al mes.

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Conforme aumenta la cantidad de migrantes que llegan a diario a Denver, las escuelas están empezando a ver una cantidad significativa de estudiantes nuevos. Y a los educadores les preocupa cómo ayudar a las familias migrantes que alcanzan el límite del apoyo oficial.

En la Escuela de Lenguaje Dual Bryant Webster en Denver, algunos maestros dicen tener salones con 38 estudiantes—una cantidad mucho mayor que el año pasado. Un maestro que evalúa a estudiantes cuya lengua materna no es el inglés ha tenido que evaluar a 60 estudiantes este año, un aumento en comparación con un puñado en años típicos. Y están tratando de ayudar a estudiantes que han vivido experiencias traumáticas, aprendiendo a guiarse en un nuevo país y en un nuevo sistema escolar.

“Trabajas todo el día y solo quieres asegurarte de hacer todo lo posible con los recursos que tienes así que estableces relaciones con los niños, y tienes la conexión con ellos”, dijo Alex Nelson, un maestro de cuarto grado en Byrant Webster. “Luego te enteras de su historia”.

Los estudiantes que llegaron alrededor del comienzo del año escolar y estaban empezando a adaptarse están enfrentando un nuevo obstáculo y una nueva experiencia traumática. Las familias reciben solo 30 días de estadía en un hotel o albergue que la ciudad paga—para las familias que lleguen a partir del 4 de octubre el plazo será de 37 días. Pero luego tienen que encontrar otro lugar para vivir. En una ciudad con alquileres desorbitados donde muchos residentes antiguos también enfrentan dificultades para encontrar vivienda, los recién llegados a veces terminan sin un lugar donde vivir.

La primera vez que una familia migrante con niños en Bryant Webster alcanzó el límite de su cupón de vivienda, los maestros y una pasante de la escuela invirtieron horas llamando a albergues y a cualquier otro lugar imaginable para tratar de encontrar un lugar donde la familia pudiera quedarse. Se encontraron con listas de espera y muchas opciones que no llevaron a nada.

“No sabíamos lo que pasaba después de que el cupón [para la vivienda] se acababa hasta que una de las nuevas familias dijo: ‘Nuestra estadía se acabó y no sabemos a dónde ir esta noche’”, Nelson dijo. “Nunca habíamos estado preparados así que no sabíamos cómo manejarlo”.

La familia terminó yéndose a pasar la noche en un automóvil, aunque Nelson dijo que los representantes del distrito lograron conectar con ellos más tarde esa noche. Sin embargo, Nelson dijo que fue muy difícil para toda la escuela terminar el día así.

Como en la escuelas de la ciudad de Nueva York y otros distritos escolares alrededor del país, los representantes de las escuelas de Denver son de los primeros en recibir solicitudes de ayuda de las familias migrantes. En Denver, algunos maestros apenas empiezan a conectar sus esfuerzos con agencias sin fines de lucro, a través del sindicato de maestros, y con otras organizaciones, pero la coordinación sigue siendo esporádica.

Y hasta cuando trabajan juntos, hay obstáculos intimidantes. Después de la duración limitada de los cupones de vivienda que la ciudad les ofrece a los migrantes, los varios servicios sociales disponibles tienen diferentes reglas que pueden crear confusión sobre lo que pone en peligro o no el estatus legal de los migrantes. Y la posible coincidencia entre la ayuda para migrantes y el apoyo para las personas sin hogar en la ciudad es algo que los funcionarios de Denver están tratando de evitar.

Después de ayudar a la primera familia de Bryant Webster, los maestros se enteraron de que había más familias en la misma situación. Algunas organizaciones están ayudando, pero cada vez que una nueva familia se presenta, a los maestros les preocupa si podrán encontrar ayuda. Por lo menos tres más enfrentan la pérdida de su vivienda este fin de semana.

“Realmente puedes sentir el estrés de los niños. Altera todo”, dijo Cecilia Quintanilla, una maestra de educación temprana en la escuela.

Migrantes recién llegados esperan para que los procesen en el centro de admisiones para migrantes en Denver el 28 de septiembre de 2023.

Las escuelas se unen al esfuerzo de Denver de ayudar a los migrantes para que encuentren la estabilidad

En este momento, es difícil saber qué tan generalizado es el aumento de migrantes en las escuelas.

Los representantes del distrito escolar en Denver no respondieron a solicitudes de sus comentarios. Los maestros en Bryant Webster creen que han llegado alrededor de 60 estudiantes migrantes nuevos después del primer día de clases y siguen llegando. Otros distritos escolares en el estado están reportando grandes aumentos de recién llegados, el término que las escuelas usan para hablar sobre estudiantes que están llegando a Estados Unidos provenientes de otros países en los últimos meses.

El Departamento de Educación de Colorado no da seguimiento a esas cifras, y sus representantes dijeron que las escuelas no les han pedido apoyo para lidiar con esos aumentos.

Los representantes de la ciudad de Denver dijeron que hasta la semana pasada la ciudad estaba dando albergue a 456 niños menores de 16 años. La ciudad ha observado hasta 250 migrantes nuevos que llegan por día, pero las cantidades de niños esta semana no están disponibles.

En otra escuela de Denver, Escuela Valdez, la maestra Jessica Dominguez calcula que han recibido alrededor de 20 estudiantes recién llegados este año. Esta semana, se enteraron de una familia que había estado durmiendo afuera después de perder su albergue. Los educadores se quedaron despiertos hasta tarde tratando de encontrarles un lugar donde quedarse y lo lograron. Pero eso no siempre es así.

“Los niños son parte de esto ahora”, dijo. “Eso pone una cara diferente a lo que quizás pensemos es la falta de hogar”.

Dominguez no es la única persona que se siente así. El alcalde de Denver Mike Johnston, un exmaestro, dijo en una conferencia de prensa el jueves que ha visto a niños durmiendo bajo mantas con familias afuera del edificio Wellington Webb de la ciudad mientras esperan a que lleguen los empleados para pedirles ayuda.

“Ningún niño debería estar en ese contexto”, Johnston dijo.

Más temprano ese mismo día, en una centro de admisiones para migrantes en el nordeste de Denver, una cantidad constante de hombres, mujeres y niños llegaron para que los procesaran. El horario oficial es de 8 de la mañana a 5 de la tarde, pero el personal con frecuencia empieza antes y se queda hasta que todos tienen un lugar donde ir.

Algunos de los recién llegados tienen familia en el área de Denver y piden venir aquí o hasta se abren camino por sí solos. Otros se suben en autobuses que vienen de El Paso sin importar su destino y luego necesitan hacer un plan.

Ya hicieron un viaje riesgoso y superaron muchos obstáculos para escapar de situaciones peligrosas en sus países de origen.

Jon Ewing, un vocero con el departamento de Servicios Humanos de Denver, dijo que los recién llegados son inteligentes, habilidosos y bien organizados.

Los empleados de la ciudad obtienen datos básicos sobre los recién llegados, proporcionan información de contacto para servicios sociales relevantes, y los orientan a un albergue. Las personas solas podrían recibir 21 días de albergue gratis, y las familias podían recibir 30 días. Ahora las familias recibirán 37 días de albergue gratis, pero con más personas llegando cada día, las personas solas solo recibirán 14 días. La ciudad no está monitoreando lo que sucede después de eso.

“Treinta días no es mucho tiempo para organizar tu vida, y lo entendemos”, Ewing dijo en una entrevista antes del cambio. “Pero tenemos que mover a la gente. Hay un límite en lo que podemos hacer”.

Ewing dijo que el personal de la ciudad está trabajando para coordinar lo mejor posible las agencias sin fines de lucro, los servicios de la ciudad y el distrito escolar—hay chats de grupos grandes sonando todo el día.

Ewing dijo que la ciudad trata de asegurar que las personas entiendan lo costoso que Denver es para poder tomar decisiones informadas. Pero quizás tengan buenas razones para quedarse aquí.

Ewing dijo que los grupos de migrantes y de personas sin hogar son muy diferentes y enfrentan diferentes desafíos. A los recién llegados nunca los mandan a refugios para personas sin hogar, y muchos de los servicios se proporcionan por diferentes medio para responder a las diversas necesidades de cada grupo.

También hay diferentes fuentes financieras con diferentes reglas, en lo relacionado con proporcionar servicios a ciudadanos y residentes de EE. UU. sin hogar, en comparación con migrantes solicitando asilo u otro estatus migratorio protegido.

Y luego existen las inquietudes legales. Cathy Alderman, directora de comunicaciones y presidenta de políticas públicas en la Coalición para Personas sin Hogar en Colorado, dijo que a organizaciones como la suya también les preocupa que, sin querer, se proporcionen recursos que puedan afectar la habilidad de las personas de obtener un estatus legal. Esta es una preocupación común que escuchan entre los migrantes, y una sobre la cual Alderman y su equipo no tienen suficiente experiencia para manejar.

Sin embargo, Alderman dijo que algunas de las familias migrantes quizás puedan obtener ayuda con la vivienda a través de la coalición, pero cumplir los requisitos toma tiempo.

“El problema es que en este momento tenemos a [muchas personas] en el sistema esperando obtener vivienda”, Alderman dijo. “Ese sistema conecta [a personas] con vivienda basado en vulnerabilidades. Es un proceso. Indudablemente no se mueve rápido”.

Dijo que otro problema para las familias es encontrar vivienda asequible con varias habitaciones. Los cupones para la vivienda a largo plazo, como los de la Sección 8, con frecuencia no cubren una gran parte de los alquileres que la gente quizás encuentre en Denver.

“En Denver específicamente tenemos un cantidad muy, muy, muy mínima de vivienda realmente asequible”, dijo. “Tenemos muchas unidades a precio de mercado y de lujo que están vacías”.

Con todos los desafíos que los estudiantes migrantes y sus familias están enfrentando, los maestros dicen que agradecen que tantas personas estén trabajando para proporcionar ayuda. Pero también desearían estar mejor preparados para ayudar a los estudiantes y las familias que acuden a ellos con preocupaciones tan grandes.

“No tenemos lo que necesitamos para darles la bienvenida a estas familias a la mejor vida que estaban buscando”, Nelson dijo. “Realmente es difícil ver las consecuencias de eso”.

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado, cubriendo distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Erica Meltzer, la corresponsal jefa, cubre temas de leyes y políticas educativas y supervisa la cobertura sobre educación de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Erica por correo electrónico a emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Por qué la escuela de tus hijos quiere que solicites las comidas gratis

2022-07-20T16:59:00+00:00

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Agrega otro pendiente antes de que empiece la escuela: solicitar las comidas gratis o a precio reducido.

Este año, los líderes del distrito escolar están nuevamente recordándoles a los padres que llenen este formulario. Durante los últimos dos años, los estudiantes podían recibir comidas gratis en la escuela sin que los padres tuvieran que llenar el formulario — pero eso ya no será posible este otoño.

Beth Wallace, directora ejecutiva de servicios de alimentos y nutrición de las Escuelas Públicas de Jeffco, dijo que su distrito sirvió aproximadamente un 30% más comidas que antes de la pandemia.

Al mismo tiempo, ya que no se requirió llenar formularios de elegibilidad, los distritos notaron una reducción en la población identificada como elegible para recibir comidas con subsidio. En Jeffco, la elegibilidad bajó un 10% a aproximadamente un 28% de la población estudiantil en comparación con el año escolar 2019-20. En todo el país, los distritos han reportado situaciones similares.

Los líderes del distrito y defensores de los niños querían que el gobierno federal permitiera que las escuelas continuaran ofreciendo comidas gratis a todos los estudiantes, pero el gobierno volvió a activar el requisito de comprobar la elegibilidad de cada estudiante.

Los electores de Colorado votarán en noviembre por una medida para ofrecerles comidas gratuitas a todos los estudiantes, pero eso no cambiará nada para este próximo año escolar. Este otoño se requerirá que los estudiantes tengan un formulario nuevo completado en el distrito escolar a fin de determinar si son elegibles para recibir comidas gratuitas o a precio reducido.

“Va a ser un reto”, dijo Wallace. “Ahora tenemos niños de segundo grado que nunca han tenido que pasar por este proceso”.

Con la ayuda de algunos directores de los programas de comedores escolares del distrito, Chalkbeat obtuvo respuestas a algunas de las respuestas básicas sobre cómo todo funciona.

¿Quién tiene que llenar el formulario y cuándo necesita hacerlo?

Todo padre o madre que siente que necesita ayuda para cubrir el costo de las comidas en la escuela debe llenar el formulario. Este formulario pide la información sobre tus ingresos y el tamaño de la familia, y eso se usará para determinar si calificas. Una familia de cuatro personas califica para las comidas gratuitas si los ingresos del hogar son $36,075 o menos. El formulario también pide los últimos cuatro dígitos de un número de Seguro Social, pero no es requisito para recibir asistencia.

No hay fecha límite para llenar el formulario. En realidad, se puede llenar en cualquier momento durante el año escolar, pero los beneficios no son retroactivos. Si esperas hasta octubre para llenar el formulario, y se determina que eras elegible para recibir las comidas gratuitamente, de todos modos tendrás que haber pagado por las comidas que tus hijos consumieron desde el comienzo del año escolar hasta que el distrito aprobó tu solicitud.

Y haber llenado un formulario en el pasado no tiene ningún efecto. Los formularios nunca son válidos después del 30 de junio, y por eso si llenas uno en mayo (por ejemplo), se vencerá al final de junio. Es decir, cada familia tiene que llenar el formulario nuevamente después del 1 de julio.

Si una familia tiene un cambio a mitad del año escolar — por ejemplo, nace un bebé o se pierden ingresos — ellos pueden solicitar para cambiar de estatus ese año. Además, si cambias de distrito escolar a mitad de año, necesitarás llenar un formulario nuevo otra vez porque los distritos no comparten los formularios.

¿Hay diferentes opciones para llenar el formulario?

¡Sí! Muchos padres llenan los formularios en línea, pero tu distrito debe tener copias en papel disponibles también. Además, algunos distritos (como Jeffco) han preparado computadoras en las que los padres pueden llenar estos formularios y recibir orientación.

Muchos distritos también ofrecen los formularios en varios idiomas. Si necesitas ayuda para llenar el formulario, o quieres pedir una copia en papel o en otro idioma, llama al departamento de servicios de comida de tu distrito.

¿Quién puede ver la información que incluiré en mi formulario?

Dependiendo del distrito escolar, usualmente una o dos personas son quienes leen y procesan los formularios, dijeron los líderes.

Los líderes escolares tienen que reportar cuántos estudiantes solicitaron y cuántos son elegibles para que el gobierno federal pague por sus comidas, pero esa información se le envía al gobierno de manera colectiva. Los departamentos federales no reciben copias de los formularios llenados por los padres. Los directores de distritos dicen que las escuelas no comparten los formularios con los funcionarios de inmigración tampoco.

Aparte de eso, los auditores del estado a veces piden ver algunos formularios de un distrito solo para verificar que los esté procesando correctamente. “No se fijan en ninguna otra información”, dijo Tony Jorstad, director de servicios de nutrición del distrito escolar 27J.

Si no califico para comidas gratis, o si mi hijo no consume la comida de la escuela, ¿por qué debo llenar el formulario?

Los líderes del distrito señalan que aparte del costo reducido por comidas escolares, hay otros beneficios para las familias y para las escuelas.

Por ejemplo, una familia que califica para comidas gratuitas o a precio reducido podría también calificar para waivers o descuentos en varios servicios de la escuela o el distrito, y para actividades como deporte, transporte y tecnología. Fuera de la escuela, las compañías de internet también ofrecen acceso a internet con descuento si los niños califican para comidas gratuitas o a precio reducido.

La cantidad de fondos que las escuelas reciben del gobierno federal, el estado y el distrito puede depender de cuántos estudiantes califican para comidas con subsidio. Los formularios también se usan para medir el índice de pobreza, que podría hacer que las escuelas reciban más recursos para los estudiantes.

Y hasta sin el programa federal que permitió que todas las comidas fueran gratis para todos los estudiantes, cuando una escuela tiene un nivel particularmente alto de estudiantes en pobreza, podría de todos modos ofrecer desayunos y comidas gratis para todos los estudiantes.

Si los departamentos de comida de las escuelas están recibiendo menos dinero, ¿habrá una diferencia en las comidas que ofrecerán?

Los directores de comedores escolares dicen que no. Aunque todos los distritos están anticipando que menos estudiantes comerán al mediodía porque menos de ellos calificarán para un subsidio, los funcionarios también esperan un aumento en el reembolso por cada comida (en comparación con la cantidad de antes de la pandemia).

No obstante, es posible que los menús se vean afectados por problemas en la cadena de suministro y el aumento en el costo de los alimentos.

“Realmente tratamos de planear nuestros menús según el reembolso que esperamos recibir”, dijo Jorstad. “Ahora mismo no estamos contemplando cambiar ninguna de las opciones de frutas y verduras de nuestro menú. Estamos bastante orgullosos de las frutas y verduras frescas que ofrecemos diariamente”.

Si las familias no califican para recibir comidas gratis o a precio reducido, pero de todos modos no pueden darles dinero a sus hijos para comer en la escuela, ¿las escuelas tienen alguna otra ayuda?

Los directores de comedores escolares del distrito dicen que es una pregunta difícil de contestar. Los padres deben acudir a las escuelas para hablar acerca de otras opciones. Las reglas federales previenen que los distritos escolares puedan dar comidas gratis.

A menudo una escuela puede permitir que un estudiante coma sin pagar en ese momento, pero le enviará una factura a la familia después. Antes de comenzar la pandemia, a muchos distritos escolares les preocupaba la cantidad de deudas que las familias estaban acumulando. Algunas escuelas cuentan con un presupuesto específico para estas situaciones. En otros casos, los distritos han recibido donativos para ayudar a saldar las deudas acumuladas por los estudiantes que no podían pagar.

“No tengan miedo de preguntar”, dijo Jorstad. “Pero lo primero, y lo más importante, es llenar ese formulario y dar la información para nosotros poder determinar si son elegibles”.

Yesenia Robles es reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre asuntos relacionados con los distritos escolares K-12 y la educación multilingüe. Para comunicarte con Yesenia, escríbele a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Dos hermanos hispanos querían ir a la universidad en Colorado. Aquí te contamos por qué solamente uno lo logró.

2021-12-02T23:47:15+00:00

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La alarma de Jimy y Luis Hernández los despierta antes de que salga el sol.

Los hermanos intentan moverse en silencio por la casa de sus padres en el noreste de Denver para no molestar a sus hermanos.

Luis, de 18 años, podría ver las noticias o ayudar a su mamá a preparar el almuerzo antes de salir hermano a la fábrica de cartuchos de tóner donde trabaja a tiempo parcial para ayudar a pagar la universidad. Está matriculado en la Metropolitan State University (MSU) en Denver.

Jimy, de 21 años, suele no pasar por la cocina porque se apresura a prepararse para su trabajo a tiempo completo pavimentando asfalto en una empresa de construcción. Él quería ir a la universidad, pero no pudo encontrar la manera de lograrlo.

Las rutas opuestas de los hermanos destacan los retos que enfrentan los varones hispanos para poder entrar a la universidad... y también para graduarse.

En Colorado, la mayoría de los graduados de secundaria hispanos siguen un camino más parecido al de Jimy. Menos de la mitad va a la universidad - una tasa inferior a la de los varones negros y las mujeres hispanas.

Jimy Hernández, en el medio, camina por la cocina de su casa de Denver mientras su mamá, Mariela Hernández, prepara burritos de chicharrón para la familia antes de que todos salgan a trabajar.

Pero incluso cuando entran a la universidad, como Luis, las probabilidades siguen estando en su contra. Solamente un 41% de los hombres hispanos que asisten a las universidades públicas de cuatro años de Colorado consiguen graduarse, según datos federales recientes. En los colegios comunitarios, menos de un tercio se gradúa.

Y todo esto resulta en enormes disparidades. Entre los estados, Colorado tiene una de las poblaciones más educadas, pero solo una cuarta parte de los residentes hispanos tiene una credencial universitaria, la cifra más baja de todos los grupos. Esto es en comparación con un 61% de todos los residentes de Colorado.

Esta diferencia supone un alto costo para las finanzas de las familias en un estado en el que 1 de cada 5 personas se identifica como de origen hispano. Además, tiene implicaciones para la prosperidad del estado. Para que Colorado cumpla su propia meta de que un 66% de sus residentes tengan una credencial universitaria, es esencial conseguir que más varones hispanos se matriculen y terminen la universidad.

En Colorado y en todo el país, sin embargo, los varones hispanos uniformemente se han pasado por alto en lo que respecta a la educación superior, dijo Wil Del Pilar, vicepresidente de política de educación superior de Education Trust.

“No creo que se hayan enfocado en eso”, dijo Pilar. “Si uno no está representado en la mesa o no empuja a la gente a pensar en esta población de estudiantes, creo que a menudo se les olvida que existen.”

Obstáculos a la educación superior

Múltiples razones llevan a que los varones hispanos a menudo no puedan recibir una educación universitaria.

Una de las barreras es el dinero. En Colorado, las familias hispanas tienden a tener ingresos menores al promedio del estado. Muchos varones hispanos quizás son los primeros de su familia en ir a la universidad. Ellos no pueden dejarse llevar por la familia para saber cuándo empezar a prepararse, dónde solicitar o cómo conseguir ayuda financiera.

Y a esto se le añaden las expectativas de algunas familias de que ayuden a sostener el hogar o a cuidar de los hermanos.

Si llegan al campus, los varones hispanos podrían descubrir que no hay mucha gente que comparte sus experiencias y entiende sus retos. Menos de uno de cada 10 profesores son hispanos, algo importante para que los estudiantes se sientan bienvenidos y para ayudarles a conectar con mentores que puedan guiarles.

5:51 a.m: Luis Hernández, a la derecha, mira las noticias mientras su mamá, Mariela Hernández, limpia la cocina antes de que ambos se vayan a trabajar a una fábrica de cartuchos de tinta y tóner. Su mamá y Luis trabajan en el primer turno del día para que él pueda ir a la Universidad Estatal Metropolitana de Denver.

Un camino nuevo hacia la universidad

Desde que eran niños, los hermanos Hernández entendieron que la universidad era una expectativa.

Como inmigrantes del estado mexicano de Zacatecas, sus padres Mariela y Jaime les recalcaron que hay que aprovechar todas las oportunidades en Estados Unidos. La universidad les abriría nuevas carreras en campos que estarían bien pagados y les aseguraría que iban a trabajar duro con sus mentes y no con sus espaldas.

“Mi sueño siempre ha sido que mis hijos tengan una vida mejor que la que yo tuve”, dijo Mariela Hernández. “Quiero que crezcan y hagan lo que les gusta, que no tengan que trabajar tanto como yo. Quiero que tengan una vida bonita.”

Pero la trayectoria de los hermanos Hernández resalta cómo el sistema universitario de Colorado (y del país) produce resultados desiguales, incluso dentro de la misma familia.

Luis ayuda a su mamá, Mariela, a trabajar en una fábrica de cartuchos de tinta y tóner. Ella le ayudó a conseguir el trabajo para pagar sus estudios en la Universidad Estatal Metropolitana de Denver.

Tres años después de graduarse del Denver Center for International Studies en Montbello, Jimy Hernández tiene una rutina diaria que no había anticipado. En la secundaria, Jimy era un estudiante con desempeño mediano pero se esforzaba y disfrutaba de la escuela. Él sentía que la universidad podía estar en su futuro. Consideró entrar en un programa de soldadura o en especializarse en artes culinarias o en convertirse en barbero.

Sus padres estaban involucrados en su educación. Ellos iban a todas las reuniones de padres y maestros y le animaron a triunfar.

Jimy trató de mantenerse involucrado en la escuela y en las actividades extracurriculares. Tomó el examen ACT y completó los cursos usuales de secundaria. Le gustaba especialmente la historia.

Los maestros y los orientadores académicos sugirieron que solicitara admisión a las universidades. Pero esa sugerencia no vino acompañada de asesoramiento práctico individual. Al no tener ayuda, no sabía por dónde empezar.

“Para ser honesto, los orientadores académicos realmente ayudaron más como los estudiantes de honor y todo eso”, dijo Jimy.

Jesse Ramírez, cuya Organización INSPiRE brinda mentoría para ayudar a estudiantes a entrar a la universidad, dijo que ha encontrado que muchos varones hispanos como Jimy simplemente son pasados por alto. Quizás alguien les hable de la universidad, pero rara vez se les proporciona ayuda práctica, dijo Ramírez.

La clave, dijo, es trabajar con los estudiantes y recordarles la universidad como opción constantemente para que no se desanimen. “Nosotros podemos mostrarles que, sea cual sea su pasión, una educación universitaria puede resaltarla”, dijo Ramírez.

Él ha encontrado que también ayuda tener hombres hispanos exitosos como mentores.

Sin nada de eso, Jimy nunca completó la Solicitud Gratuita de Ayuda Federal para Estudiantes (FAFSA), que abre las puertas a becas, y también a préstamos y grants del gobierno federal. Él solicitó algunas becas y recibió $1,000, pero no pudo decidir a qué universidad ir.

No sabía que las universidades comunitarias ofrecen muchos de los programas que le interesaban por una fracción del costo de las instituciones privadas con fines de lucro. Tampoco sabía por qué era importante llenar la FAFSA.

Lincoln College of Technology, la única universidad que trató de reclutarlo (privada y con fines de lucro), estaba económicamente fuera de su alcance. Un asesor le dijo a Jimy que graduarse con un diploma de soldadura le costaría unos $60,000. Esa cantidad de dinero era abrumadora.

Jimy sabía que ir a la universidad le permitiría ganar más dinero más adelante. Los datos federales muestran que los hombres con diploma universitario de cuatro años ganan en promedio casi $1 millón más durante toda su vida laboral que los que solamente se graduaron de secundaria. Y los graduados de una universidad comunitaria también ganan más.

Los hermanos Jimy y Luis se relajan en la mesa después de un largo día de trabajo y estudios.

Pero la realidad de renunciar a un sueldo fijo y asumir una deuda mayor le llevó a optar por trabajar. Fue cambiando de trabajo y finalmente aterrizó en la empresa de pavimentación de asfalto, que le ofrecía un sueldo de $21 por hora con beneficios y la oportunidad de progresar. Y su mamá dijo que está orgullosa de él — y de todos sus hijos — por lo mucho que trabaja.

Jimy se siente orgulloso de que su hermano pequeño esté logrando sus objetivos y sigue alimentando sus propios sueños universitarios. Pero Jimy no sabe por dónde empezar para volver a estudiar o quién podría ayudarle a saber cómo hacerlo.

Él recuerda cuando tuvo que decirles a sus papás que no iba a ir a la universidad. Podía sentir la decepción de ellos.

“Mis papás realmente no podían ayudarme”, dijo. “Luego, mi mamá entendió.”

Cómo Luis encontró un camino

Entonces, ¿cómo Luis consiguió entrar a la universidad, especialmente cuando se encontró con muchas de las mismas barreras que su hermano?

Luis también trabajó duro y trató de mantenerse activo. Fue parte del grupo que preparó el anuario de la escuela y tomó clases de inglés AP, geografía AP, y otras clases de nivel avanzado y universitario.

Fue uno de los pocos afortunados de su secundaria, predominantemente hispana, en ir a la universidad. En el año escolar 2019-20, aproximadamente una cuarta parte de los estudiantes de DCIS Montbello decidió obtener una educación postsecundaria, en comparación con casi la mitad de los graduados de las escuelas públicas de Denver.

Luis, a la derecha, toma notas en su clase de la tarde sobre atención informada por el trauma, donde el tema de la lección del día era la resiliencia. Él ha obtenido apoyo a través del programa Pathways to Possible para estudiantes desfavorecidos. No cree que hubiera podido asistir a la universidad si no fuera por el programa.

Aunque Luis apenas sabía por dónde empezar, el personal del Programa Pathways to Possible de MSU Denver se comunicó con él y le orientó sobre dónde ir, cómo pagar por la universidad, cómo elegir las clases y cómo matricularse en ellas.

Eso marcó la diferencia.

Mariela y Jaime celebraron el día en que Luis empezó la universidad llevando a la familia a cenar a un restaurante mexicano. Mariela sigue hablando de lo orgullosa que está de Luis.

“Es una bendición”, dijo Mariela. “Estoy agradecida con Dios, con mi esposo y conmigo misma por todo el trabajo que hemos hecho para que esté ahí.”

La graduación no es una garantía

Antes de la pandemia, solamente 1 de cada 5 varones hispanos terminaba una carrera universitaria de cuatro años en MSU Denver.

En su defensa, los funcionarios de la MSU de Denver dicen que sus estudiantes empiezan la universidad con más responsabilidades y retos en el trabajo, la escuela, la familia y la vida, y todo eso pueden dificultar el camino hacia la graduación. Dicen que la universidad también recibe en general menos dinero del estado para educar a cada estudiante que otras escuelas.

Michael Benitez, que dirige la oficina de Diversidad, Equidad e Inclusión de MSU Denver, dijo que el precio de la matrícula universitaria siendo menor que el de muchas otras universidades estatales. Eso ayuda a reducir la deuda y la carga de trabajo de los estudiantes, dijo. La universidad también programa las clases para acomodar a los estudiantes que trabajan, dijo Benítez.

Aun así, los varones hispanos se gradúan en tasas más bajas que cualquier grupo, excepto los varones negros, a pesar de que muchos estudiantes se enfrentan a circunstancias de vida similares.

Para impulsar las tasas de graduación y reducir las barreras, la universidad ha creado programas como Pathways. El programa Pathways, financiado con los fondos federales para el alivio del coronavirus, conecta a los estudiantes con orientadores académicos, ofrece orientaciones para estudiantes de primer año y proporciona ayuda financiera.

Luis dijo que el programa marcó una gran diferencia con solo ayudarle a entrar por la puerta. Pero el programa es minúsculo, con solamente 125 estudiantes, su demanda es potencialmente enorme. Es injusto, dijo Luis, que haya tan pocas oportunidades como Pathways, un programa que podría haber ayudado a su hermano.

“Pienso mucho en ello”, dijo. “Es triste que no haya podido ir a la universidad, porque realmente quería ir.”

Luis es un estudiante de primer año en MSU Denver, y espera convertirse en dentista después de graduarse de universidad. Trabaja tres días a la semana mientras asiste a clases a tiempo completo.

Luis se matriculó en otoño en MSU Denver como estudiante de primer año para hacer un sueño realidad: ser dentista. Siempre le gustó que le limpiaran los dientes cuando era niño y cómo se sentía después. Está tomando clases relacionadas con la medicina y espera ir luego a la escuela de odontología. Las clases son duras, dijo, pero su preparación en la secundaria le ayudó.

Para continuar en la universidad, Luis trabaja tres días a la semana. Eso hace que los días sean largos, lo que complica su meta más inmediata: graduarse. Estadísticamente, se enfrenta a un riesgo.

Los varones hispanos de las universidades de Colorado se gradúan a niveles muy inferiores a los de sus compañeros. Entre las universidades estatales de cuatro años, la MSU de Denver tiene la tasa de graduación más baja para los varones hispanos.

Un éxito en Georgia

Una escuela que ha estado a la vanguardia graduando estudiantes de primera generación es la Georgia State University. Esta institución educa mayormente a estudiantes de color que son los primeros de su familia en ir a la universidad o que tienen bajos ingresos. Sus estudiantes hispanos y negros se gradúan al mismo ritmo que los blancos.

Timothy Renick, que dirige el National Institute for Student Success at Georgia State, dijo que la universidad lleva cuenta electrónicamente de los factores de riesgo que cada estudiente enfrenta a diario, y esto incluye no cumplir los plazos de entrega escolares o tener problemas financieros. La universidad toma en cuenta 800 posibles riesgos. Eso significa que si una crisis laboral o de vida interfiere con los estudios, la universidad puede tratar de intervenir.

“En vez de esperar que los estudiantes en cada uno de esos casos diagnostiquen el problema y acudan a nosotros en busca de ayuda, nosotros nos estamos comunicando proactivamente con ellos en un plazo de 24 o 48 horas después de detectar uno de esos problemas”, dijo Renick.

En Colorado, ninguna universidad lleva notas tan detalladas sobre los estudiantes.

Los días de trabajo, Luis y su madre entran a trabajar en la fábrica a las 6:30 am. Él usualmente trabaja hasta la hora de almuerzo y luego se dirige a la casa para hacer la tarea o toma el tren para ir a sus clases. Su gerente le da flexibilidad para trabajar de acuerdo con su horario de clases.

Luis se levanta a las 7 de la mañana hasta los días en que no trabaja.

Luis se pregunta si podrá mantener el intenso horario de trabajo y de estudios a tiempo completo, pero dice que se siente equipado para hacerlo.

Él trata de ayudar en la casa o pasar tiempo con sus hermanos menores. En los raros días que tiene tiempo para sí mismo, dice que le gusta “disfrutar un poco de la vida.” Usualmente eso incluye ver un programa de televisión.

Dice que rara vez se siente demasiado cansado. Se apoya en la fuerza de su familia y en su orientador del programa Pathways. Tomó un seminario de manejo del tiempo, y por eso se siente preparado para controlar su agenda.

Sin embargo, le preocupa si podrá mantener el programa a largo plazo y qué retos podrían desviarle del camino.

Modelo de conducta para una familia extendida

Después de un largo día, los hermanos Hernández a veces pasan el rato juntos en el sofá. Luis suele hacer tarea en su computadora portátil. Jimy podría estar viendo las noticias o navegando en su teléfono.

También pasan tiempo con sus dos hermanos menores, Alejandro, de 13 años, y Brian, de 14. Los hermanos Hernández mayores tienen las mismas expectativas universitarias de sus padres para sus hermanos menores.

“Siempre les digo que se queden en la escuela y que hagan algo por sí mismos”, dijo Jimy.

Y Luis espera poder ser un ejemplo a seguir para sus hermanos, así como para otros varones hispanos que aspiran a obtener algún día un título universitario.

“Tengo mucha presión por ser el primero en ir a la universidad”, dijo. “Pero mis primos y hermanos me admiran y ven lo que estoy haciendo. Quiero ser una inspiración para ellos.”

School calendar check for 2024: Midwinter recess origins, a holiday-heavy April, and more

2023-12-20T01:01:31+00:00

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As New York City schools gear up for the weeklong winter break starting on Monday, some parents are already thinking ahead to days off later this year — and even next winter.

Typically, the new calendar isn’t out until the spring, but after a few years of delayed calendars and loud complaints, the Education Department released its calendars for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years early.

So, if you haven’t already marked it: the last day of school this year is Wednesday, June 26, 2024. The first day for the next school year is Thursday, Sept. 5.

Families were pleased to have the calendars for the upcoming years since many start their summer child care searches in January, and knowing the start of the school year is “part of the puzzle,” said Queens mom Tami M. Forman, who ran a nonprofit helping stay-at-home mothers return to work.

“For some families it helps to know for vacation planning,” said Forman, whose daughter is a junior at the Academy of American Studies and whose son attends a special education school with a different calendar. “But for the vast majority of NYC families, it’s really about planning care for the many weeks and days that kids aren’t in school but parents do need to work.”

As we head into the new year, here are some things to note about school breaks in 2024:

Midwinter recess, first spurred by 1970s oil crisis, carries on

As usual, New York City schools will close for the weeklong midwinter recess in February, starting with Presidents Day on Monday, Feb. 19. And as usual, this break can be stressful for families struggling with child care.

Midwinter recess dates back to 1978, when the Board of Education decided to do it as an experiment to save energy, according to a New York Times article from that time (though at least one Brooklyn district defied the order and remained open). To make up for the lost instructional time, schools added some days to the start and end of the academic year.

The February break became codified in 1991 as part of a cost-cutting deal between the city’s Board of Education and the teachers union. The deal deferred paying wages to teachers as a way to avoid thousands of midyear layoffs, according to reports.

From its start, midwinter recess has been a thorn in the side of many families who have to make child care arrangements. Grumbling over the week off was especially loud during the 1993-94 school year, when classes started late because of an asbestos crisis and then remained open during a snow emergency.

April could be lean month for instruction

Don’t expect a lot of instructional time this April. There will nearly be as many days off (10, including Easter weekend) as days in school (13).

Under a new contract between the city and the teachers union, Easter Monday was added to make a four-day weekend, starting Friday, March 29. Spring break was stretched from five days off to seven to correspond to Passover, starting April 22. In between those two breaks, schools will be closed on Wednesday, April 10, for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr.

But that’s not all: Much of the month for the city’s students in grades 3-8 will be filled with testing and most likely, test prep.

For those taking the state English language arts tests on paper, it will be administered right after Eid, on April 11-12. For those taking computer-based tests — which includes all fifth and eighth graders — the exams are being given April 9-24. (Paper-based tests for math will be May 7-8, and computer-based tests will be administered May 7-17.)

Next December’s calendar has a one-day school week ahead of break

While classrooms this Friday will likely be filled with sugar, movies, and perhaps a fair number of empty seats, the day before next year’s winter break could see even sparser attendance than usual.

Families planning ahead for next year’s holiday will be faced with a conundrum: what to do about Monday, Dec. 23, 2024. Schools will be open that day before closing the rest of the week, from Tuesday, Dec. 24 through Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (And fun fact: The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah will overlap precisely with the period from Christmas through New Year’s.)

The past two times in recent years that Dec. 23 fell on a Monday — in 2013 and in 2019 — schools were closed for the entire week, but things have gotten tight as the city has added other holidays to the school calendar (like Diwali, which will be on Friday, Nov. 1) and still needs to meet the required 180-day minimum of instructional time.

For teachers who are looking for alternatives to showing movies just before the break, there’s an array of project-based learning suggestions, such as making video games or a podcast, that John Spencer, an education professor at Portland’s George Fox University and a former middle school teacher, shared on his website.

“This is a chance to make something meaningful — something that your students will remember forever,” he wrote.

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

A broken system delays payments to nonprofits working in NYC schools. Kids lose out.

2023-12-15T14:52:25+00:00

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For the bulk of last year, Jahlil Younger barely attended his Bedford-Stuyvesant high school.

The 18-year-old fell in with the wrong crowd and was struggling at his “second chance,” or transfer, school serving over-age and under-credited students that couldn’t make a go of it at other schools.

Things changed in the spring.

During the last few months of the academic year, Brooklyn High School for Leadership and Community Service started offering an after-school program run by Inspiring Minds NYC. The local nonprofit began the program late in the year because of a broken bureaucratic contracting system. But as soon as the program launched, it tapped into Younger’s interests. He took music, cooking, and a class about politics. Younger felt understood by the adults from the organization. He opened up about things that he never felt comfortable sharing before, like his recent decision to donate a kidney to his mom.

Suddenly, he felt like he had a reason to show up.

“I’m not gonna lie: Before this program started, I wasn’t coming to school. I’d be in the school every other day or every two days,” said Younger. “I was hanging out with … people who are gang-affiliated, who just came home from jail and are going back.”

For years, nonprofits like Inspiring Minds have been hurt by the city’s notoriously complicated and lengthy contract and procurement process. Several organizations, however, said things have gotten worse recently. The delays especially hurt businesses owned by women and people of color, like Inspiring Minds, which don’t have deep cash reserves to stay afloat. These are the same organizations that the city is trying to encourage to vie for more Education Department contracts.

Mayor Eric Adams and Comptroller Brad Lander created a joint task force that issued recommendations last year to tackle the contract backlog. But nonprofits have yet to see results. New York state Rep. Stephani Zinerman, of Brooklyn, told Chalkbeat she’s exploring legislation to address “our obligations to pay people in real time.”

According to an Education Department flow chart obtained by Chalkbeat, there’s a 15-step process that can take nine months to a year from when an organization learns it’s won a contract until the contract is registered with the comptroller’s office before payments can be made. But that timeline has stretched out, many organizations say. Contracts have been arriving late to the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, which must approve them before they can be registered for payment, officials in the comptroller’s office said.

If Inspiring Minds had been in place at the start of the year, how much more could the organization have helped Younger, wonders Katrena Perou, its executive director and a former basketball star at Penn State who has lived in Bed-Stuy for 20 years.

She also wonders how much it could have helped Brooklyn Leadership, which is currently in the state’s receivership program, giving the state control over the school until it meets specific benchmarks around its low graduation rates, high dropout rates, and behavioral challenges.

Inspiring Minds leads My Brothers Keeper for 47 Brooklyn high schools, holding monthly gatherings and providing professional development for teachers. Here, Katrena Perou (center) and others are at a field day event at Brooklyn Boys and Girls High School in June 2023.

Some organizations are hurting more than others

Brooklyn Leadership is part of the city’s “community school” program, where nonprofits are embedded on campus to offer an array of services to students, their families, and educators during and after the school day. This full-service model has proven effective in New York City, according to research, and the federal government has ramped up support of such programs across the nation.

Perou’s organization was awarded an annual grant of $377,000 for two years to be the school’s lead community partner. The grant was supposed to take effect in July 2022, but Perou didn’t learn that she won it until March 2023 — nearly a year later. And the money could not be carried over to the following year.

Perou’s organization won grants to work with two other community schools, Manhattan’s Quest to Learn ($237,000 a year) and Brooklyn Collaborative Studies ($220,000 a year), but has not received the funds for more than a year and a half, she said. She finally received an interest-free bridge loan through a city program for nonprofits on Wednesday, which is supposed to help cover up to three months of payroll, rent, and other critical expenses.

And Perou has yet to receive this year’s money for Brooklyn Leadership. She had to turn to a local foundation as a stopgap measure.

Perou worries that organizations like hers, which are often from the communities they want to help, are at a breaking point. Her organization’s reserves are tapped. She’s looked into traditional loans, but high interest rates and other requirements often make things more difficult for many local programs run by women and people of color, she said.

Because of the payment delay, Inspiring Minds is offering fewer services than promised, fewer field trips, less mental health support and tutoring. Families at the schools often don’t even realize that their kids are missing out, she said.

“I’ve always been a big advocate for the organizations from and of the community having a chance to receive community school contracts,” said Perou, who started Inspiring Minds in 2019. “There’s a certain level of connection we can make [with the students] because we’re from the same space.”

She continued, “But the system needs to change so that more BIPOC organizations can compete for these contracts. It’s an equity issue and contradicts the mission of community schools.”

Many programs are struggling. Nearly 115 community schools, including Brooklyn Leadership, are funded through a $45 million pot of federal relief funds. The other two schools that Inspiring Minds won contracts for were through a federal 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant program, which is distributing $15 million to about 78 community schools working with 41 lead community organizations, according to city figures.

The Education Department has been working with community organizations to complete outstanding contract registrations and “disburse funds as quickly as possible,” said spokesperson Jenna Lyle, noting that the state’s notification of 21st Century grant recipients had been delayed, throwing off the timeline.

“Where possible, we have worked to expedite the process,” Lyle said. “We are working to ensure continuity of service despite delays.”

Contract system’s ‘glacial pace’ forces some to close doors

Some organization leaders told Chalkbeat they’ve had to take themselves off of payroll to ensure their employees get paid. One nonprofit leader said her organization bowed out after the first year of the community schools contract because of the payment delays.

“I’d rather walk away than put my company in that situation,” the organization’s head said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Because of the passion we have for the work, we allow certain things to be done. But passion doesn’t pay the bills and keep the lights on.”

The time it takes — from the submission to a request for proposal to contract approval to invoice — is “a glacial process,” said Terrance Winston, the executive director of the Coalition for Community Schools Excellence.

Contract delays have similarly hurt the prekindergarten sector, which is also largely run by women of color.

City officials have tried to make it “more nimble,” Winston said. “It’s just extremely challenging.”

Larger, more established nonprofits tend to be better situated to withstand the delayed payments and can “marshall their networks” for help, he said.

“For smaller organizations — those that more accurately reflect the population they serve — it’s more of a crisis situation.”

Moreover, many nonprofit organizations are dealing with problems on multiple fronts, he said. As they’re fighting to get paid, they’re facing wage increases to keep pace with the market and inflation as well as overhead cost increases. Meanwhile, they’re dealing with children whose issues, related to the trauma and grief from the pandemic, are more complicated than ever.

“Young people are still dealing with lost loved ones, learning loss, and other challenges of developing adolescents,” he said.

Inspiring Minds interns from Research and Service High School surround Katrena Perou, the organization's executive director Student interns provide feedback, support program design, co-plan events, and mentor their peers.

Brooklyn Leadership students see a change in their hallways

Perou estimated that last year’s contract delay for Brooklyn Leadership translated into the school’s community losing about $300,000 that would have gone to extended learning time for students, professional development for teachers on culturally responsive practices, and other services for families.

The program’s delay has real consequences for a school under scrutiny and with such a high-needs population. Many of its students live in temporary housing and many have been involved with the criminal justice system.

“I feel like there would have been less fights, less drama, less chaos,” said Emerald Carrion, 19, who has found a space through the program where she can express her emotions. She felt angrier last year, she said. She would slam doors around the school and hurl epithets at teachers, security guards, and other students.

Younger also said he was “constantly” getting in trouble last year.

“There was so much rage and violence. You could feel the negative energy in the hallways,” he said.

“This year, I’m a better me,” he added, crediting Inspiring Minds with not only transforming himself but the school community. Now, he’s looking forward to screening a documentary about his neighborhood of Brownsville that students filmed during an Inspiring Minds class. It focuses on positive aspects of the area to counter negative stereotypes. The music class he’s taking has also transformed his lyrics from negative to positive.

“I feel like we shouldn’t have had to wait so long,” Younger said.

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

Detroit community groups have a long record of attendance work

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

Community groups have been working with Detroit school communities on absenteeism for more than a decade. Despite their limited staff and budgets, they help fill gaps in the strategies schools and the district use to improve student attendance, focusing on specific barriers, such as inconsistent transportation, food insecurity, and lack of clean clothes.

Every School Day Counts, a coalition of community organizations and schools across the city, has been at it since 2012. Early on, Rev. Larry Simmons and other church leaders involved in the group volunteered to drive students to and from school.

Lawrence Hood partnered with the group on transportation services when he was principal at Detroit Innovation Academy, a charter school on the city’s west side.

“We had scholars that were missing 10 days before the second quarter even began,” Hood recalled. Later on, he added, the school recruited workers from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to provide medical and dental services to families who regularly missed school for appointments.

From 2012 to 2014, when Hood ran Detroit Innovation Academy, the chronic absenteeism rate declined by about five percentage points, to 51.5%.

Urban Neighborhood Initiatives, a nonprofit based in Southwest Detroit, partnered with area schools to offer a range of after-school programs, including gymnastics, cooking, gardening, and art classes, said Alejandra Gomez, an education director at UNI. The group is now part of Every School Day Counts.

UNI spent years tracking attendance data across its after-school and youth employment programs and now has a team of 10 AmeriCorps members mentoring chronically absent students and assisting families in finding resources.

“Many of the parents have shared that it’s really difficult for them to pick up their kids right after school since they’re working, and so being able to have the opportunity to be able to pick them up a little bit later has been good for them,” Gomez said.

John Broad, founder of Helping Kids Go To School, sought out volunteers from Detroit-area churches to work as “attendance coaches,” mentoring families struggling to get their kids to school. The strategy, he said, drew inspiration from a similar concept in Hawaii.

From 2019 to 2021, the mentoring program helped Mackenzie Elementary-Middle School reduce its chronic absenteeism rate from 70% to 47.7%.

The following year, though, the rate surged to 84%, amid strict quarantine requirements. Broad said the group is eager to dig deeper into its work at Mackenzie and other schools, but has struggled recently to scale its volunteer staff.

“We may end up having to pay coaches a small stipend to help and maybe shorten hours to eight hours a week,” he said.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

RTD will let Denver-area youth ride free all year — to school, to work, anywhere

2023-07-31T22:36:12+00:00

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Denver-area youth will be able to ride for free to school, the mall, work, and just about everywhere they go beginning Sept. 1 under a new Regional Transportation District pilot program.

The free fares for youth 19 and younger riding buses and the light rail system will start following the conclusion of the RTD’s summer free fares for everyone campaign, designed to encourage the use of public transportation and curb pollution during July and August.

Until recently, youth customers ages 6-19 were eligible for a 70% discount fare and children five and younger could ride free with a fare-paying adult. Now, “youth customers ages 19 or younger won’t pay for RTD services during the pilot program implementation,” according to the RTD website.

The new pilot stems from a broader study on the structure of fare pricing and equity. Prices are going down for most riders and the fare structure is simplified to four price options.

In Denver, most high school students are ineligible for yellow bus service, limiting transportation options for them to get to school. Denver Public Schools pays for passes to ride public RTD buses to and from school, but students must live more than 2.5 miles from their school.

Facing driver shortages and rising costs, the Denver schools have cut bus service for some middle and elementary schools for the next school year and are offering limited service to the Denver School of the Arts. The district must still provide yellow bus service for high school students with disabilities, recent refugees who attend the district’s “newcomer centers,” and English-learning high schoolers in the district’s bilingual programs.

For free rides, drivers may ask kids to show a school- or government-issued ID, according to Bill Sirois, RTD senior manager of transit oriented communities.

RTD plans to collect ride data two ways: transportation operators will key in information on their keypads, and surveys will be sent out throughout the school year. RTD wants to know if riders are taking advantage of the opportunity and if their opinions have changed on using more public transportation.

“We’re excited and we’re hoping for big success. We’ve reached out to a lot of the school districts and got some good feedback in terms of contacts to work with to collect data and hopefully see some good results,” Sirois said.

RTD has projected that it will cost the system $3.5 to $4 million in the next year to offer free youth fares. The youth fare program ends Aug. 31, 2024. To continue the program, RTD officials want other organizations to help fund a part of the project.

DPS did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Last fall, RTD initiated the CollegePass program which provided unlimited free rides to all students whose universities opted into the program. Colleges paid for it in different ways. Some included a fee into a student’s tuition; other schools footed the bill.

The college program was renewed for another year with the addition of semester passes for higher education institutions that didn’t participate in the CollegePass program. The SemesterPass will be an opt-in program for individual students who use public transportation rather than the institutions paying for the entire student body. The pass costs $75 per student each month.

Sara Martin is an intern with Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Sara at smartin@chalkbeat.org.

Transporte público gratis para los niños: RTD no les cobrará a los jóvenes menores de 19 años

2023-08-03T14:52:00+00:00

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Los niños y adolescentes en el área de Denver podrán usar el transporte público de forma gratuita para ir a la escuela, al centro comercial, al trabajo y a casi todo lugar a partir del 1º de septiembre gracias a un programa piloto del Distrito Regional de Transporte (RTD, por sus siglas en inglés).

Las tarifas gratis para niños y adolescentes de 19 años de edad o menos que viajen en autobuses y el sistema de trenes ligeros empezarán después de que se termine la campaña de tarifas gratis para todos de RTD, diseñada para animar a que la gente use el transporte público y controlar la contaminación durante los meses de julio y agosto.

Hasta hace poco, los clientes jóvenes de 6 a 19 años de edad podían obtener un tarifa con descuento del 70 por ciento, y los niños de cinco años de edad o menos podían usar RTD gratis con un adulto que pagara su propia tarifa. Ahora, “los clientes jóvenes de 19 años o menos no pagarán por los servicios de RTD durante la implementación del programa piloto”, según dice el sitio web de RTD.

El nuevo programa piloto surge de un estudio más amplio sobre la estructura de los precios tarifarios y la equidad. Los precios bajarán para la mayoría de los usuarios, y la estructura tarifaria se simplificará a cuatro opciones de precios.

En Denver, la mayoría de los estudiantes de high school no cumplen requisitos para usar el servicio de autobuses amarillos, lo cual limita sus opciones de transporte para ir a la escuela. Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS, por sus siglas en inglés) pagan por pases para el uso de los autobuses de RTD a y de la escuela, pero los estudiantes deben vivir a más de 2.5 millas de distancia de su escuela.

Enfrentando una falta de conductores y un aumento de costos, las escuelas de Denver han reducido el servicio de autobuses en algunas escuelas medias y primarias el próximo año escolar y están ofreciendo un servicio limitado a Denver School of the Arts. El distrito debe seguir proporcionando servicio de autobuses amarillos para los estudiantes de high school con discapacidades, refugiados recientes que asisten a “centros para recién llegados” en el distrito y estudiantes de high school que están aprendiendo inglés en programas bilingües del distrito.

Para que usen gratis el transporte público, los conductores quizás les pidan a los jóvenes que muestren una identificación escolar o del gobierno, según dijo Bill Sirois, gerente principal de comunidades orientadas al transporte público de RTD.

RTD planea recolectar datos de los usuarios de dos formas: los operadores del transporte ingresarán información en sus teclados, y se enviarán encuestas durante el año escolar. RTD quiere saber si los usuarios están aprovechando la oportunidad y si sus opiniones sobre usar más el transporte público han cambiado.

“Estamos emocionados y esperando que sea un gran éxito. Nos hemos comunicado con muchos de los distritos escolares y recibido buena información sobre contactos con quienes trabajar para recolectar datos con la esperanza de observar buenos resultados”, Sirois dijo.

RTD calcula que le costará al sistema entre $3.5 a $4 millones ofrecerles tarifas gratis a los jóvenes el año que viene. El programa de tarifas gratis para jóvenes terminará el 31 de agosto de 2024. Para continuar el programa, los representantes de RTD quieren que otras organizaciones ayuden a financiar parte del proyecto.

DPS no respondió a solicitudes de sus comentarios sobre esta historia.

El otoño pasado, RTD inició el programa CollegePass que proporcionó traslados ilimitados para todos los estudiantes cuyas universidades eligieran participar en el programa. Las universidades pagaron por el programa de varias maneras. Algunas incluyeron un cargo en la colegiatura de un estudiante; otras cubrieron los costos.

El programa universitario se renovó por un año más con la adición de pases semestrales para las instituciones de educación superior que no participaron en el programa CollegePass. El SemesterPass será un programa para estudiantes individuales que usen transporte público, en lugar de que las instituciones paguen por todos sus estudiantes. El pase cuesta $75 por estudiante al mes.

Sara Martin es una pasante con Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Sara enviándole un mensaje electrónico a smartin@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.

Chicago Public Schools graduation rates hit record high, data show

2023-10-31T19:01:51+00:00

A greater share of Chicago Public Schools students graduated last school year than in 2022, reaching a new record, officials announced Tuesday.

The graduation rate of 84% — representing students who graduated in four years — was 1.1 percentage points higher than the graduation rate for the Class of 2022, when 82.9% of high school students graduated on time. The dropout rate for the Class of 2023 was slightly higher at 9.4% than it was for the Class of 2022, which saw 8.9% of students drop out between freshman year and graduation.

Chicago Public Schools’ five-year graduation rate for the Class of 2022 — which includes students who take extra time to finish their diploma either at a traditional or alternative school — was 85.6%, 1.6 percentage points higher than for the class of 2021 when it was 84%.

District officials announced the numbers with fanfare at Walter H. Dyett High School for the Arts, with CPS CEO Pedro Martinez flanked by Mayor Brandon Johnson and joined virtually by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

Martinez said the rising graduation rate was a sign that the district is continuing to recover from the pandemic, reminding the audience that the students in the Class of 2023 were freshmen as the pandemic started in 2020, followed by two school years of remote and hybrid learning.

“When you think about their last year, their senior year, was probably their most normal year, I want you to take these results and put them in that context,” Martinez said.

Cardona described the graduation rates as “promising signs for the future of education in Chicago.” He highlighted the district’s use of federal COVID relief dollars, which CPS has put toward several purposes, including covering teacher salaries and hiring more instructional staff.

The announcement came one day after Illinois state education officials released statewide data, including graduation rates that had also increased across Illinois. (The state and Chicago Public Schools calculate graduation rates differently, so Chalkbeat is unable to provide direct comparisons.)

Chicago’s graduation rate has steadily increased over time, hitting a record high in 2022 even as students have faced academic challenges connected to the pandemic. Tuesday’s announcement comes on the heels of another report that found a rising share of CPS students are enrolling in college.

Racial disparities among graduates still remain, though they are narrowing. Graduation rates increased for Black, Hispanic and Asian American students, while dropping slightly for white students — by .4 percentage points — compared to the Class of 2022. Rates also dropped for multiracial students by 5.7 percentage points.

Nearly 75% of Black boys graduated in four years, up from roughly 65% five years ago, according to district data.

Despite higher graduation rates, SAT scores dipped for the Class of 2023, to an average composite score of 914. The average score for the Class of 2022 was 927, according to district data. Separately, the district also saw slightly fewer ninth graders — 88.7% — who were on track to graduate by 2026. That’s compared to 88.8% of the class that’s one year older than them.

As the pandemic set in, the district relaxed some grading policies, as did other school systems across the nation — raising questions about how such policies may have contributed to CPS’s rising graduation rates. Martinez argued that an increase in students completing college-level credits was a sign students were held to a high standard. Just under half of the Class of 2023 earned early college credits, a 5% increase from 2022, according to the district.

One of those students is Zaid Orduño, who said at Tuesday’s press conference that he took college-level courses at Daley College during his time at Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy, through the district’s Early College Program. His classes at Daley included English, math, sociology, and psychology, and he ultimately earned an associate’s degree alongside his high school diploma.

Taking those classes, he said, inspired him to pass up his original plan of joining his family’s construction business and instead pursue a civil engineering degree at Illinois Tech, he said.

A wall at Walter H. Dyett High School for the Arts is dedicated to remembering a hunger strike held in 2015 to demand for the reopening of Dyett, which was closed at the time.

Dyett, located in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side, saw its graduation rate tick up by more than 3 percentage points, to 86%. Johnson noted how far the school had come since he and other community members participated in a highly publicized hunger strike in 2015 to demand that Dyett, then shuttered, reopen. He also recognized fellow hunger striker Ald. Jeanette Taylor, who now represents the neighborhood nearby in City Council and serves as the chair of the Committee on Education and Child Development.

“A hunger striker can turn into a mayor and an alderman, and more importantly, a hunger strike can lead to the success that we are experiencing with our students right here at Dyett High School,” Johnson said.

He also used the moment to once again advocate for expanding the Sustainable Community Schools Initiative that Dyett and 19 other schools are a part of. The program partners schools with a nonprofit that provides wraparound services for students and families.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Datos muestran que más de 90,000 estudiantes de NYC no han usado los recientes beneficios alimentarios por la pandemia

2023-10-30T12:08:35+00:00

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Las familias de más de 90,000 niños elegibles en la ciudad de Nueva York no han canjeado los últimos beneficios alimentarios por la pandemia, según datos obtenidos por Chalkbeat.

Esto significa que por lo menos $35 millones en beneficios potenciales siguen sin utilizarse y podrían caducar a principios del año que viene, haciendo que los neoyorquinos pierdan los fondos federales.

Los fondos, conocidos como Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT), se han otorgado en varios pagos desde 2020 para ayudar a cubrir el costo de las comidas para las familias cuyos estudiantes usualmente recibir comidas gratis en la escuela. Como las escuelas públicas de la ciudad de Nueva York ofrecen comidas universales, todas las familias son elegibles sin que importen los ingresos familiares.

Este año, el estado distribuyó múltiples rondas de fondos, incluyendo $120 por niño para el verano de 2023, así como al menos $391 por niño para el verano de 2022 y el año escolar 2021-22. (Pero los fondos de este último pago podrían ser de hasta $1,671 por niño según las ausencias relacionadas con el COVID o los días de aprendizaje remoto durante el año.)

En total, el estado ha emitido otorgado unos $5,400 millones en beneficios P-EBT desde 2020, con alrededor de un 60% de los beneficios otorgados directamente a familias de bajos ingresos que reciben beneficios federales a través del Programa de Asistencia Nutricional Suplementaria, o SNAP.

Los defensores han elogiado el programa por proporcionar un apoyo fundamental en todo Nueva York, especialmente cuando los efectos de la pandemia fueron una carga adicional para las familias en dificultad económica.

Pero entre las familias que no reciben SNAP, más de 90,000 estudiantes de la ciudad no habían usado los fondos del año escolar 2021-22 ni la asignación del verano 2022, de acuerdo con los datos estatales compartidos por el consultor educativo David Rubel y confirmados por la Oficina de Asistencia Temporal y por Discapacidad del estado (OTDA).

De las familias que recibieron tarjetas P-EBT por primera vez, 41,271 no habían gastado nada de los fondos. En cuanto a los que ya tenían tarjetas P-EBT, 49,465 tampoco habían usado los beneficios todavía.

Liz Accles, directora ejecutiva de Community Food Advocates, expresó su preocupación por la alta cifra de familias que aún no habían usado los fondos. A ella le preocupa que algunas hayan encontrado dificultades para usarlos, mientras que otras tal vez no sepan que los tienen o decidieron no usarlos.

Para muchos habitantes de la ciudad, el programa P-EBT ha sido un “salvavidas”, añadió.

“La gran mayoría de las familias de las escuelas públicas de Nueva York tienen dificultades económicas, y el costo de los alimentos es alto para todos”, dijo Accles. “Nuestra esperanza es que todos usen los beneficios”.

Rubel obtuvo los datos a principios de este mes solicitándolos en virtud de la ley Freedom of Information del estado, ya que le preocupaba que muchas familias podrían no saber que hubo pagos recientes, especialmente las no dominan bien el inglés. Él dice que ha seguido de cerca las noticias del P-EBT, pero que no estaba al tanto de pago del verano de 2022 hasta que se topó con un artículo de Chalkbeat al respecto.

“Si yo no lo sabía, ¿qué tal las familias del otro millón de niños de nuestro sistema escolar público?”, dijo él, y añadió que le preocupaba que muchas familias hayan perdido o tirado a la basura sus tarjetas P-EBT. “Hay mucho dinero sobre la mesa”.

Todos los hogares con números de teléfono en los archivos de su distrito escolar debieron recibir notificación por SMS cuando los beneficios estuvieron disponibles, según la OTDA. Las personas que estaban recibiendo los beneficios por primera vez recibieron instrucciones adicionales sobre cómo activar y usar sus tarjetas P-EBT. Las familias reciben otro texto si los beneficios todavía no se han usado seis meses después de recibirlos, según los funcionarios estatales.

El Departamento de Educación del estado también envió mensajes sobre los beneficios a todos los distritos escolares de Nueva York, añadieron los funcionarios.

De todos modos, las familias que no se hayan enterado de las ayudas, las hayan olvidado o aún no las han usado, todavía están a tiempo de usar los fondos de las asignaciones recientes.

Esto es lo que las familias necesitan saber:

¿Quién es elegible?

Todas las familias con hijos de K-12 que asistieron a las escuelas públicas de la ciudad durante el año escolar 2021-22 fueron elegibles para los beneficios de alimentos de ese año y el verano de 2022. Los que asistieron a la escuela el año pasado también fueron elegibles para recibir el beneficio del verano de 2023. También fueron elegibles las familias de los estudiantes en escuelas chárter, privadas, de otro tipo y programas de Pre-Kinder, que también reciben de comidas gratis a través del programa federal de almuerzos.

Las familias fueron elegibles sin importar su estatus migratorio.

¿Cómo se distribuyeron los beneficios?

Las familias que reciben beneficios del programa SNAP, de la Asistencia Temporal estatal o de Medicaid, recibieron sus pagos directamente en esas cuentas.

Todas las demás familias elegibles recibieron los fondos en una tarjeta P-EBT, que se expidió con su primer pago de beneficios.

¿Cómo puedes conseguir un reemplazo de tu tarjeta P-EBT estatal?

Los que hayan perdido su tarjeta P-EBT pueden obtener una de reemplazo llamando al 1-888-328-6399.

No hay fecha límite para solicitar una tarjeta de reemplazo, según los funcionarios estatales. Pero si necesitas una, los funcionarios sugieren pedirla lo antes posible.

¿Para qué sirve la P-EBT?

Los beneficios solamente se pueden usar para comprar alimentos.

¿Cuándo caducan los beneficios?

Los fondos P-EBT están disponibles para las familias por 274 días después de recibirlos, o aproximadamente unos nueve meses.

Cada vez que una familia gasta parte de los fondos, el saldo restante es válido durante otros 274 días, según las autoridades estatales.

¿Por qué deberías usar los beneficios?

Todas las familias deben usar los beneficios, no importa su situación económica, dijo Accles.

Los beneficios P-EBT, al igual que los cheques federales de estímulo que se distribuyeron durante la pandemia, le proporcionan beneficios a la comunidad que van más allá de los alimentos que compran, añadió. Aunque los fondos pueden ayudar a cubrir las compras del supermercado y otro gastos para comer, usarlos también es un estímulo para la economía local.

“Esto tiene un doble propósito”, dijo Accles. “Usar esos dólares nos ayudará a todos.”

Julian Shen-Berro es un reportero que cubre la ciudad de Nueva York. Para comunicarte con él, envíale un email a jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Meet Harry and Lucy, NYC’s tween wheelchair racers

2023-10-27T20:26:12+00:00

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Harry Houng-Lee has his eye on 2030. That’s when the 11-year-old will be old enough to race in the New York City marathon.

Harry’s family would often wake up early and watch the professional wheelchair racers in the marathon so he could see his own possibilities as an athlete.

Just before the pandemic, the Upper East Sider joined the Rising New York Road Runners Wheelchair Training Program, a free year-round program for New York City kids with disabilities ages 6 to 21. In less than four years, Harry has become a decorated racer, winning four gold medals at the 2023 Move United USA Junior Nationals. He set personal records in all five events.

He practices frequently in Central Park, and loves the feeling of the wind in his hair as he whooshes around, clocking in at about 20 mph when going downhill, he estimated.

“I get to go fast,” Harry said. “Wheelchair racing is a cool sport.”

In a city where accessibility is a constant challenge, the Road Runners’ wheelchair training program focuses on removing barriers. Working with the JDJ Foundation, the program provides custom-fitted racing chairs for the children — which cost upwards of $5,000 — and it also covers transportation costs to the weekly practices as well as the races.

For Harry, being part of the group has opened new doors as his confidence in the sport has grown. Besides traveling the country to national competitions, the sixth grader recently joined the track team at East Side Middle School. He is the only wheelchair racer at his school.

Harry felt fortunate that East Side, his local middle school, was fully accessible — and that it had a track team. He wasn’t able to attend his zoned elementary school, P.S. 198, because the multi-story building had no elevator. Instead, he had to travel to the Upper West Side to P.S. 333, The Manhattan School for Children.

Fewer than 1 in 3 New York City public schools are fully accessible to students with physical disabilities, according to a recent report from Advocates for Children, an organization dedicated to helping the city’s most vulnerable students. The group has been pushing for $1.25 billion to address major gaps in building accessibility in the city’s five-year capital plan, which is expected to be released on Nov. 1. (That funding would allow about half of the city’s schools to be fully accessible, according to the report.)

When Harry started at East Side Middle School, he never doubted that he’d join the track team. He’s well aware of “Tatyana’s law,” federal legislation passed a decade ago ensuring equal access to school sports for students with disabilities.

His mom, Jasmine Tay, reached out to the school about Harry joining the team, and said they were very “encouraging.” Still, she told them not to worry about the cross country season in the fall, since the team trains and competes off-road. She suggested that Harry could wait until track season.

But the school’s gym teacher insisted they could make accommodations, taking the more advanced runners on the road in Central Park so Harry could join, Tay said. They also changed the training routes so the team no longer used stairs.

“Harry was so thrilled, and I was so happy with the effort made for inclusion and just the attitude of the coach to make it work — not only changing the route, but also recognizing where Harry would be faster versus slower than the runners and building that into team drills,” Tay said.

“It was proper inclusion,” she said, “and I was surprised it was that easy — sad, I know.”

The joys of being part of a team

In practices, Harry enjoys zipping by his new school teammates on downhills and straightaways, though he’s not as fast uphill.

But he still enjoys spending time with his teammates he’s known for years from the Rising Road Runners wheelchair program, like Lucy Shannon, 12, from Hamilton Heights.

Lucy also learned about the sport when watching the professional wheelchair racers in the New York City marathon. And on Nov. 2, she’ll get a taste of crossing the marathon’s famed finish line in Central Park along with about 1,000 other kids in a 400-meter dash TCS Run with Champions, earning a medal at the end.

Lucy, too, had five first place finishes in Nationals in the summer.

While she enjoys the competition, that’s not the main draw of the program for her.

“It feels inspiring when I’m racing,” said Lucy, who is home-schooled. “I’m meeting so many new friends on my team.”

That team camaraderie is a big part of the program, said Marissa Muñoz, senior vice president of community impact at Rising at New York Road Runners. There are three coaches for the program, which had about 20 kids participating last year.

“I think it’s a pretty rare thing to have this extracurricular for these young athletes,” Muñoz said.

It’s among three programs run by Rising New York Road Runners where their coaches directly work with kids. The organization mainly works with schools where its free curriculum and professional development is used by school coaches who work with about 60,000 kids across the five boroughs.

Many of the kids in the wheelchair racing program, like Harry, stay with the program for years. Muñoz hopes more children will join the program and continue to build bonds.

“We’re just looking forward to continuing to work with them and grow over the years,” she said. “We want to see them reach their goals.”

For Harry, being around his cheering teammates gives him a boost.

“It makes me feel encouraged and happy,” he said.

And after Harry’s first marathon in 2030, he’s angling to go to the Paralympics in 2032, in Brisbane, Australia, where the Aussie-born tween hopes to represent Team Australia.

Correction: The national competition is called Move United Nationals, not Adaptive Sports USA Nationals, as an earlier version of this story stated.

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

How running track led this Bronx middle school teacher and coach full circle

2023-10-25T10:00:00+00:00

Running track changed the course of Elías Cruz’s life.

At his Bronx middle school, Cruz joined a track team started by his English teacher. Now a Bronx middle school English teacher himself, Cruz started a running team for his students in the fall of 2021.

He credits his middle school English teacher, Shawanda Weems, who started a track team at P.S./M.S. 15 through the Rising New York Road Runners’ free youth program. Besides its robust youth programming and races that Cruz’s students are training for, the New York Road Runners is renowned for hosting the TCS New York City Marathon; this year, the marathon is scheduled for Nov. 5.

Cruz recounted how he and his friends wanted to become fast runners, so they joined the running group immediately.

“Looking back on that one decision, it changed my life in countless ways,” Cruz said.

Cruz started teaching six years ago at New School for Leadership and the Arts, near where he grew up in University Heights. He became an English teacher, like his first coach, Weems, who continues to offer him mentorship and advice.

Cruz brought the Rising New York Road Runners program to his students about two years ago, when school buildings reopened to all students after the majority of New York City children learned remotely for more than a year.

Worried how the students would transition back to being in person after prolonged isolation, he thought track could be as transformative to his middle schoolers as it was for him.

“The need to develop their social-emotional skills, teamwork, and help them improve their physical and mental health was at the forefront of my thoughts,” he said. “It triggered the memory of middle school track with Ms. Weems.”

As a student on the track team, he bonded with friends outside of the classroom. They began to think about their health and what they were eating, and they formed “lifelong memories” at their track meets, Cruz recounted. His middle school teammates, Cris, Jose, and James, continue to be a “huge” part of his life.

“Till this day,” Cruz said, “we still speak of the many races at Central Park, Washington Heights, the dreaded hills of Van Cortlandt Park, the meets at Icahn, and the bus rides back to school after a day running.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

It’s amazing to hear that you still live and teach in the neighborhood where you grew up. How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

During my high school years, my track team would practice Monday through Thursday, and I would write down all our workouts, drills, stretches, and my own personal times in a little notebook. Every Friday I would go back to my middle school and help the younger runners — help them improve with what I learned. I would demonstrate to them how to do new drills, how to improve their form on old drills, and help them improve on their own individual events they wanted to run at their track meets.

Little did I know, I was already forming a culture of teaching within myself.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why, whether in the classroom or the field?

During our track practices, I love when we do our buddy runs. For this activity, the upperclassmen must find a buddy in the sixth or seventh grade and run with them for the practice. You can actively see the upperclassmen not only mentor the younger runners but also teach them all the skills I have taught them over years.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your school?

Our school is located in the northwest section of the Bronx. We are able to go outside for runs, have practices in local parks, and walk to some of our track meets at Van Cortlandt Park. Even with all these great benefits, we cannot escape the economic perils that hold back many Bronxites.

Our first year with the Rising New York Road Runner program, we began with a core of around 15 students. The following year, 2022-2023, our numbers ballooned to 40 or so students. After our first month of practice, it was immediately clear that we had a nutrition and running attire issue.

With so many of our student-athletes living severely under the poverty line, it was almost impossible for all of them to go out and purchase running sneakers, something they drastically needed. I still remember one of our returning runners confessing to us that he had to stop running because his feet were in too much pain for him to keep on going any longer.

Thankfully, with the partnership of the New York Road Runners, we were able to gift to our runners and many from our school student population brand new New Balance running sneakers.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

The best advice I’ve ever had is to make anything you do in the classroom or in practice engaging. A student who can’t wait to accomplish a goal is a student who has bought into your program and philosophy.

Have you ever run the NYC marathon?

Next year will be my first-ever marathon. I took a break from running to focus on teaching and just recently began running again. Slowly ramping up my mileage in hopes that in 2024, I cross the finish line of the New York City Marathon.

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

City will send migrant families to flood-prone, far-off tents

2023-10-17T00:44:36+00:00

This article is part of an ongoing collaboration between Chalkbeat and THE CITY.

Mayor Eric Adams announced two striking policy shifts for migrant families with children on Monday afternoon, in his latest attempt to get people to leave city shelters and discourage new arrivals from coming into them.

City Hall said it would begin distributing notices to families with children telling them they had to leave and reapply for shelter after 60 days, while families with children entering the system would be sent to a cavernous tent shelter at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn when it opens in the coming weeks. Until now, migrant families with children have been placed in individual hotel rooms spread out across the city.

Removed from the nearby neighborhoods of Marine Park and Flatlands, the flood-prone and marshy Floyd Bennett Field, a former airfield, is about a five-mile trip from the nearest schools.

In a press release, the administration called the forthcoming facility there a “semi-congregate setting,” saying that “privacy dividers with locks will be installed to provide approximately 500 families with children a place to stay.”

Other than as a brief emergency measure after Hurricane Sandy, the city hasn’t placed families with children in congregate settings since the 1980s, according to Josh Goldfein with the Legal Aid Society, a practice they fought to ban because of the dangers children face in such settings, like their vulnerability to sexual abuse.

While the city said that the notices would go out to migrant families, it would need state permission to send those to people who are currently staying in shelters overseen by the Department of Homeless Services.

The city would need a state waiver in order to dole those notices shelters overseen by the Department of Homeless Services, which is where the majority of migrant families reside. City Hall Spokesperson Charles Lutvak said they were working closely with state agencies but declined to say if the city had been granted such a waiver.

The new plan comes as the Adams administration has gone to court to try and suspend the city’s decades-old right to shelter for adults.

The Coalition for the Homeless and the Legal Aid Society slammed the city’s new plans.

“To be denied safe shelter after 60 days is devoid of any humanity and is a stain on our city’s long-standing reputation as a welcoming home for all,” said Redmond Haskins, a spokesperson for the two groups. “Private rooms, not open cubicles, are needed to ensure the safety of families with children and to reduce the transmission of infectious disease, among other obvious reasons.”

Haskins said they would consider seeking an injunction if the announcement violated a 2008 consent decree which dictates the rights families have in shelters, or other local regulations.

Sending families to the Floyd Bennett tent when it opens is “the best of bad options,” said an administration source not authorized to speak to reporters.

“The alternative may be people genuinely sleeping on the sidewalk,” the source said.

Unhappy New Year?

Adams’ announcement comes a month and a half into the new school year, with around 26,000 migrant students enrolled in public schools, who may have to move into shelters far from where they are enrolled. Depending on when the city begins distributing 60-day notices to families, they’re likely to begin expiring in the final week of the year.

While the city said the eviction notes would be accompanied by “multiple touchpoints with case workers over their 60 days to discuss their options and plan their next steps,” the news weighed heavily on some who learned about it through THE CITY.

Venezuelan migrant Jose Meneses, 35, said his 11-year-old daughter was finally adjusting to her new school a short walk from their shelter in Sheepshead Bay.

“It would be so traumatic for the kids, they just started to study,” he said in Spanish. “We left our country, the whole journey, and she’s just newly starting to integrate. It would be a huge trauma.”

It’s a terrible decision for parents to make mid-year, said Franklin Headley, the principal of VOICE Charter School in Long Island City where nearly 300 migrants are enrolled.

“Children build relationships with teachers and peers,” he said. “That’s going to be a hard decision for the families: do they interrupt the year and those relationships, or do they have to figure out a…form of transportation for their child?”

Jennifer Pringle, project director at Advocates for Children, a group that advocates for the city’s most vulnerable students, said trying to coordinate school buses for homeless families after they’re moved to a different shelter has historically proven a lengthy and complicated process.

“Now on top of that you’re going to have the additional chaos of having families reapply for shelter placement every 60 days,” she said. “It’s going to be very destabilizing.”

‘The only way to help’

While the city had taken various steps to force adult migrants to leave city shelters — moving them from hotel rooms with beds to vacant gyms, office spaces, tents, and warehouses with cots, and later reducing the amount of time they could stay in any one placement to 30 days before they have to return to the arrival center and apply for a new placement — it had until now refrained from deploying those tactics on families with kids.

Despite that, such families account for about 75% of the 63,015 migrants in shelters, according to data provided by the administration to the City Council last month, with 13,553 families living in 161 hotels across the five boroughs.

The state’s Office of Temporary Disability Administration, or OTDA, which oversees traditional Department of Homeless Services shelters, had thus far denied the city’s request to allow the city to issue 60-day notices at facilities it oversees. The majority of migrant families — 8,143 of 13,553 — were in facilities overseen by DHS, and thus would be spared from 60-day notices without further movement from OTDA. The office didn’t return multiple requests for comment over several days.

The 60-day notices will certainly target the roughly 4,200 families staying in so-called Humanitarian Resource and Relief Centers, or HERRCS, overseen by the city’s Health and Hospitals system, which are not overseen by OTDA. The city started opening up this new type of family shelter last October, starting in large midtown hotels including the Row, the Stewart, the Watson and the Roosevelt.

THE CITY reported last month that administration officials were mulling imposing 60-day deadlines on families with children, and the Daily News reported on Friday that the new rule was going to be announced imminently.

“For over a year, New York City has led the response to this national crisis, but significant additional resources, coordination, and support are needed from all levels of government,” Adams said in a statement. “With over 64,100 asylum seekers still in the city’s care, and thousands more migrants arriving every week, expanding this policy to all asylum seekers in our care is the only way to help migrants take the next steps on their journeys.”

Gwynne Hogan covers Brooklyn for THE CITY.

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

Is a schoolyard fight delaying debut of long-awaited West Harlem playground?

2023-10-11T14:46:00+00:00

This story was originally published on Oct. 11 by THE CITY.

A newly-renovated playground and field to be shared by three West Harlem schools has remained unopened and unused for months, as some officials say it’s tied to a fight over after-school access.

For more than a year, over a thousand students have been barred from the space next to 425 West 123rd Street — a 101-year-old building that houses P.S. 125 The Ralph Bunche School, M 362 Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science, and Engineering, and the charter KIPP STAR middle school.

Over that time it underwent $1 million worth of work funded through two rounds of participatory budgeting. The renovation was essentially completed in July, faculty members told THE CITY.

The field was slated to open in time for the new school year but has been locked up since, with just a few “punch list” items left, according to Kevin Ortiz, a spokesman for the city’s School Construction Authority. That includes adding soccer goals and nets, additional padding to the turf mat, and leveling off sections of the field, Ortiz said.

“There’s this brand new space that’s right there that everyone’s locked out of,” said P.S. 125 parent Mara Tucker, whose two kids, a fourth and second grader, have been playing in an overcrowded schoolyard instead of on their brand-new field.

A spokesperson for the city Department of Parks and Recreation said it’s expected to open in the next few weeks. The field is a “Jointly Operated Playground,” which means it’s maintained by both the Department of Education and the Parks Department.

“We thank New Yorkers for their patience as we work with the SCA to finish this playground project – we anticipate opening the park to the public in the coming weeks,” Parks’ Kelsey Jean-Baptiste said in a statement.

Some officials at the school, however, said the delay is tied into who will get to use the field after the dismissal bell — and fear the space will be gobbled up by pricey private sports leagues.

Adding to the confusion is the field is listed as “open” on the Parks Department’s website, and still says it has a baseball field. The Parks Department plans to update its website, which is outdated, an official said.

Who gets dibs?

A March email reviewed by THE CITY from the Parks Department to school officials states that the field would be exclusive to the schools from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m., at which time Parks staff would take over its care and maintenance.

Harold DeLucia, the dean and athletic director at Columbia Secondary School, was on the early committee that applied for $1 million in participatory budgeting funds to build the park starting in 2016. The school community banded together to get the funds, and should have control of the field after school, he told THE CITY.

“If you left it open to the school campus until 6 or 5:30 or anything after hours, you would now have students from the communities here having access to field space for extracurricular activities — things they wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to,” he said.

He fears expensive sports clubs will instead apply for the field space, which could block students from using it. The Parks Department spokesperson said the field schedule will be released once it opens — with no definite date.

Any request to have the DOE solely operate it for students would require approval from Parks Department commissioners, according to the email.

A spokesperson for the DOE declined to comment, but noted there are 272 jointly-operated playgrounds and parks across the five boroughs that are shared between schools and the public.

The principal at Columbia Secondary referred questions to the DOE press office. The other two schools’ leaders didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.

Meanwhile, the lack of access has been painful for students, who’ve gone over a year without the field. It’s also frustrated faculty and parents who told THE CITY they’ve been unable to get any clear information on what’s happening with the field due to bureaucracy and multiple agencies involved.

“To add insult to injury of already having such an overcrowded space and having to make do without it for so long already, it just feels really unkind to continue to keep the space from the whole campus, said Tucker.”

How an abandoned Brooklyn lot will become a future hub for student learning and urban agriculture

2023-10-10T21:15:58+00:00

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After a decade-long effort, the city will transform a once abandoned lot into a communal gardening and learning space for students and local residents in Brooklyn’s Bergen Beach.

The city broke ground on the 2.2-acre garden last year, and construction is now underway, said District 22 Superintendent Julia Bove, who has been working on the garden’s development for about as long as she’s been a superintendent. The concept came about after Carol Pino, a parent coordinator at P.S. 312, raised concerns about a nearby garbage-strewn lot, which was owned by the city’s Education Department.

“The community saw it as an eyesore,” Bove said. “We decided to make something that would be not only fitting for the students in the community but the adults in the community and the community at large.”

The distinction in scale is a key part of the project, and the community focus will set this “learning” garden apart from a typical school garden, officials said.

Having access to gardens or green spaces — from indoor windowsill gardens to outdoor vegetable beds — has become increasingly popular at New York City schools. Nearly 70% of public school buildings have access to such green spaces, with more than 1,200 schools reporting having a garden in the 2021-22 school year, according to the city’s Education Department.

But the ambitions for the Bergen Beach lot stretch beyond just an individual school, or even the district as a whole, officials said. Plans for the completed garden include a greenhouse, a fruit orchard, an outdoor classroom, a pollinator garden, a composting area, and a central space for farmer’s markets and other community events.

“Learning gardens are uniquely centered in communities, whereas school gardens tend to be insular to a particular school,” said Qiana Mickie, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Urban Agriculture.

The effort represents a step forward in urban agriculture and a potential model for other communities across the five boroughs, Mickie said. Though a handful of other learning gardens exist across the city, this is one of the first instances of the city taking an underutilized neighborhood lot and transforming it into a community hub for learning and urban agriculture, she added.

“It’s a really good example of how we can reimagine what farm-to-school is in New York City,” Mickie said.

And the benefits extend beyond just the classroom, she added.

“It becomes a place of resiliency,” Mickie said. “There are some natural co-benefits that come with a learning garden: flood mitigation, stormwater mitigation, access to growing, places for respite and healing.”

Those qualities could be especially important as New York City faces the effects of climate change. P.S. 312, the nearby Bergen Beach school where the effort to build a learning garden originated, was forced to evacuate after severe rainfall and flooding recently caused a smoking boiler.

(The school reopened shortly after the storm, and the “vast majority” of water issues across city schools were “minor, requiring only mopping,” according to Education Department officials.)

A rendering of what the planned learning garden near P.S. 312 in Brooklyn will look like.

Brooklyn gets back to its agricultural roots

The project has been a community venture from the outset, according to Bove, who remembers begging local elected officials for funding years ago — a request that was met with generosity, she said. In 2020, local elected officials allocated $9 million in funds to the project, according to the city’s Education Department.

With a planned opening in September of 2024, the new garden aims to offer south Brooklyn students a hands-on learning experience. It comes as Mayor Eric Adams has made healthy living a key issue in his plans for the city’s students and residents — and as NYC has received both federal and state grants to expand investments in equitable and locally grown school foods.

The Bergen Beach project also harkens back to New York City’s urban agricultural roots, Mickie said.

“Our five boroughs, historically, were farms or gardens. There was even windowsill growing for folks that lived in apartments,” she said. “But over the years, we’ve gotten disconnected to that, and what happens with students is they start to not know the cycle of their food.”

The learning garden hopes to change that. Students working in the garden will have ownership over plots of land, giving them opportunities to determine what is grown, officials said.

Students will be involved from Day 1, helping to seed the garden and care for the plants, Bove said. Early work, such as planting trees in the orchard, will also give way to future opportunities for students, like apple-picking field trips.

“The students can form a committee and say ‘We’d like to grow snap peas,’ and then learn all about the care and the cultivation of snap peas,” Bove said. “Maybe another school wants to grow tomatoes and spinach. Whatever it is, the idea is that student voices will be heard.”

The goal is to create a space for students from not just nearby schools, but surrounding districts, as well as others outside of school communities.

“We really did not want it to just be a school’s backyard,” Bove said, noting the garden will include local community partners by design.

Residents at a nearby retirement home, for example, could come in on weekends to help maintain the crops while classes aren’t in session, she added.

“Local residents are not only assisting to sustain it during the times that students aren’t there, but that they too can eat the fruits and the vegetables and give back to a community that they have lived in for their whole lives,” Bove said.

And once open, the learning garden can serve as a model for other boroughs and communities seeking to build communal green spaces that students can take advantage of, officials said.

“I see it as one thing that’s really great for a school community and a neighborhood community,” Mickie said. “But it will also become a part of a larger cohesive network — growing the green spaces in New York City.”

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

From hip hop to ‘Top Chef’: How two NYC after-school programs teach students about healthy eating

2023-10-06T19:00:00+00:00

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Kevin, a sixth grader at P.S. 146 in Queens who hopes to one day work as a doctor, said he’s always tried to study nutrition.

But it wasn’t until he participated in the Hip Hop H.E.A.L.S., or Healthy Eating and Living in Schools, after-school program last year that he found an engaging way to learn about it at school.

The program, developed in partnership between Columbia University neurologist Olajide Williams and hip hop artist Doug E. Fresh, relies on music to help teach students about healthy eating.

Though the music seemed “old” in style to 11-year-old Kevin, the lessons still resonated. He remembers the theme song particularly well.

“It was different from classical teaching,” said Kevin. (Chalkbeat is using his first name only for privacy reasons.) “It had more of a fun approach than just sitting there staring at a blackboard.”

What Kevin participated in was one of two after-school healthy eating programs that are being studied as part of a partnership between the after-school provider New York Edge and Columbia University. About 300 students across 20 school sites were provided with either the Hip Hop H.E.A.L.S. program, or NY Edge’s Food Explorers program, with their nutritional choices tracked over the course of 10 or more weeks.

Through the partnership, researchers aim to learn if the educational interventions from these programs can help kids make healthier choices, particularly at chain restaurants.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has also prioritized establishing healthier eating habits among the city’s young people. Since the start of 2022, the city has committed $1 million to integrating food education into schools in coursework, after-school programs, and more, according to a recent report.

Most recently, the city started its “Chefs in Schools” initiative, partnering with Wellness in the Schools to develop plant-based, culturally relevant recipes and train New York City public school chefs.

“These meals will provide more than just nutrition,” Adams said at a Tuesday press conference. “They will expose our children to flavorful and healthy eating — because food has to taste good. No one wants to eat boring food.”

Nearly 40% of NYC public school children were overweight or had obesity, with childhood obesity disproportionately impacting Black and Latino students, according to 2019 data from the city’s Health Department. Childhood obesity also increased during the COVID pandemic, studies have found.

To address the situation, researchers aren’t necessarily trying to stop kids from eating at fast food chains, for instance, but to help them make better choices.

Nationwide, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires chain restaurants to post nutritional information about their menus. But Williams, who is the vice dean of community health at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, said research has found those listings tend to inform the decisions of educated and more affluent individuals at higher rates.

Meanwhile, people who come from lower-income backgrounds or marginalized communities tend to have their purchases driven by other factors, like cost.

“There was even a paradoxical effect where sometimes folks in these lower income communities deliberately purchased the highest calorie items as a way to maximize caloric intake per dollar,” Williams said.

The focus on teaching students to navigate settings like chain restaurants is especially important as many kids in the programs live in “food swamps,” or areas with few healthy food options, Williams said.

“We’d love to have community gardens everywhere. I’d love everyone to get home and have a cooked meal,” he added. “But the reality is many people live in food swamps. They’re going to patronize food swamps, and it’s about how we get them to make better decisions within those swamps — within those limited choices.”

Getting creative in teaching kids about healthy eating

Williams believes that combining music and learning in the H.E.A.L.S program can help change eating choices.

“We all learn our ABCs through music, for example,” he said. “Our studies have shown that leveraging music creates not just immersion, but greater retention, greater learning, and a greater ability to influence behavioral change.”

Meanwhile, the Food Explorers program, which operates at New York Edge’s more than 120 school sites, targets different aspects around healthy eating.

It teaches students foundational nutrition facts, develops practical skills like using kitchen appliances, offers exposure to different cultural cuisines, and expands environmental wellness and agricultural knowledge, said Rachael Gazdick, CEO of New York Edge.

The program also incorporates fun and immersive learning experiences, like simulating the kinds of cooking competitions that students might see on shows like “Chopped” or “Top Chef.”

Gazdick recounted one such session she attended, where students prepared a vegetable pasta dish.

“I expected it to taste terrible, to be honest,” she said. “But they were so serious about it, and so good at preparing it. It was just phenomenal.”

The partnership is a critical step forward in understanding the impacts of each program, Gazdick added.

“Kids can’t perform in the classroom if they’re not feeling healthy, well nourished, and sleeping well,” she said. “All of those things tie into academic performance and overall joy in life.”

Studying kids’ food choices

How or whether students changed their dietary habits over the course of the two after-school programs was observed in two ways, Williams said. First, students were able to choose between different food options at the school sites, with options ranging from apples to Ring Dings. Nutritional information about the offered foods was posted clearly to simulate the menus they might encounter at chain restaurants.

Second, through a partnership with Applebee’s, students received vouchers for free meals.

Researchers tracked what students chose in each instance, though students weren’t aware their orders were being studied.

An initial pilot showed success in influencing student behavior, Williams said. Over the course of the programs, students generally chose more and more foods that had lower caloric intakes and higher nutritional values. Results of the broader study are expected to be finalized by the end of this year.

Students have also taken what they’ve learned in the programs and used it to teach their families, Gazdick added.

“You remember 100% of what you teach, but you only remember a certain percentage of what you hear,” she said. “Students continuing to cook, and take things home, and sharing it all with their parents is another level of this that is critical.”

Kevin, the sixth grader who participated in the program last year, said he’s been able to put the lessons into practice. He finds himself checking nutrition facts more often, sometimes finding sugar in products he didn’t expect, like milk.

“To be in the health field, you need to learn about the basic fundamentals about how to eat healthy,” he said. “I paid close attention, so maybe it can help me in the future with med school and other stuff.”

As for his trips to Applebee’s, Kevin said the program opened his eyes to the vast range in nutrition across different meals.

“Like the mac and cheese,” he said, “I felt that had too much sodium in it, so I chose more proper stuff.”

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

At six Illinois college campuses, advocates seek to create ‘comfort’ for foster care peers

2023-10-02T10:00:00+00:00

Grace Ward spent four years in foster care before enrolling at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2021. On campus, 200 miles south of her hometown of Rockford, she felt alone.

Before Ward entered care, she had missed three years of school and had briefly lived in homeless shelters with her mother. In her foster home, she was expected to prioritize chores over homework, babysit younger children, and call the police if a child was having a mental breakdown, she said.

A few months before coming to the university, she had a violent disagreement that involved her foster parent, leading Ward to end that relationship and head to school without knowing anyone well on campus.

“You kind of have to figure out and navigate for yourself now,” Ward said. “How do you find comfort in your life?”

Now a junior studying animal sciences, Ward has taken up a new role: peer advocate for youth on campus who have experienced foster care. The new gig, she hopes, will create the support system for others that she craved as a freshman.

Ward has joined the state’s new Youth in Care - College Advocate Program, or Y-CAP, which pairs peer advocates like Ward with other college students who have experienced foster care. The goal is for the advocates to check-in regularly with their mentees, help them navigate college life, and ultimately create a support system they’re missing.

A 2021 study found that of Illinois youth in foster care who turned 17 between 2012 and 2018, 86% enrolled in community college. Of those, just 8% graduated, according to the study conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. Students told researchers that they felt alone, largely weren’t aware of financial aid options, and that they needed more specialized attention.

As for what would help them, some interviewees said they wanted someone to help monitor their academic progress. Others said they wanted a support group, the study said.

“Young people with a background in foster care on college campuses are not getting the supports they need to be successful,” said Amy Dworsky, a senior research fellow at Chapin Hall at University of Chicago who co-authored the study and helped the state create the advocate program.

The state’s Department of Children and Family Services, or DCFS, launched the $200,000 program this year after its youth advisory board signaled that college-bound foster youth needed more support on campus, said Chevelle Bailey, deputy director of DCFS’s office of education and transition services. Some colleges have similar mentorship programs, but “there’s no consistency” across all Illinois campuses, Bailey said.

The program has launched one year after a new state law went into effect requiring each Illinois college to have a liaison that is charged with connecting students who are in foster care or are homeless with resources and assistance.

Department officials want colleges to be more “foster-friendly,” Bailey said, noting that foster youth need extra support in a new environment like college. These youth are at higher risk of dropping out of school, according to the U.S. Department of Education. In Chicago, which houses the most foster youth of any jurisdiction, 40% graduated on time from the city’s public schools last year, compared with 83% of all CPS students, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

DCFS contracted with Foster Progress — an advocacy organization for foster youth that runs its own high school mentorship program — to oversee YCAP on six college campuses this year. That includes University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois at Chicago, Northern Illinois University, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, Harold Washington College, and Kishwaukee College.

“One reason we started small is to make sure we do this right and not take on too much we can’t handle,” Kim Peck, DCFS’ downstate education and transition services administrator.

Nearly 20,000 Illinois children were in foster care as of last month, according to DCFS data. These youth have likely experienced abuse or neglect that led them into the system, and often cycle through multiple foster homes before they age out of care at 21.

So far, Foster Progress has hired three advocates on Ward’s campus, and they’ve identified four mentees, said LT Officer-McIntosh, program manager for Foster Progress. She’s expecting to hire a total of 10 peer advocates, who are paid $15 an hour, to support up to 100 mentees across all the campuses.

There are three parts to the mentor-mentee relationship, Officer-McIntosh said.

Advocates are supposed to hold regular check-ins, where they’ll track goals for what the mentee would like out of the experience and will also navigate college questions and deadlines, such as for financial aid.

Peer advocates and mentees will also pick a short group training they want, such as on resume building, and volunteer together so that they feel more rooted in the surrounding community.

Beyond this framework, program leaders want peer advocates and their mentees to figure out a support system that works best for them.

“Our goal with YCAP is to not tell them, ‘This is how you build community from our perspective,’” Officer-McIntosh said. “It needs to be rooted in the things that they identify, that they want out of a campus community and the experience in YCAP.”

Ward wants to help mentees with whatever they need to grow, whether that means being “a shoulder to lean on” or just instructions for how to do laundry.

Sometimes when she walks around campus, Ward thinks about how different her life is now. She wants her mentees to similarly feel like they have a “safe space” that doesn’t involve talking about required paperwork or upcoming court dates, if they don’t want to.

“It’s not something to be like, ‘You’re a foster youth,’ Ward said. “It is something to be like, ‘You have gone through challenges in your life; this is a time to ease those challenges, so you don’t constantly struggle and feel like you’re struggling.’”

Correction: Oct. 2, 2023: A previous version of this story said a 2021 study was conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago. The study was conducted by researchers at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Denver teachers scramble to help as migrant students face loss of housing

2023-09-29T20:50:43+00:00

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Editor’s note: On Monday, Denver Human Services extended the time that families can stay in city-provided shelter to 37 days, a week longer than previously. The change applies to people who arrive on or after Oct. 4. However, due to the large number of people arriving daily, individuals without children will get to stay in city-provided shelter for just 14 days, a week less than before.

As the number of migrants arriving daily in Denver rises, schools are starting to see a significant number of new students. And educators are worried about how to help them as migrant families encounter the limits of official support.

At Denver’s Bryant Webster Dual Language School, some teachers report classes of 38 students — a lot higher than last year. A teacher who screens students for whom English is not their home language has had to screen 60 students this year — up from a handful in typical years. And they’re trying to help students as they’re dealing with trauma, learning how to navigate a new country and a new school system.

“You work the whole day and you just want to make sure you do the best with the resources you have and so you build relationships with kids, and you have the connection to them,” said Alex Nelson, a fourth grade teacher at Bryant Webster. “Then you find out their story.”

Students who arrived near the start of the school year and were starting to settle in are facing a new challenge and a new trauma. Families get just 30 days in either a hotel or shelter paid for by the city. But then they have to find another place to live. In a city with soaring rents where many longtime residents also struggle to find housing, new arrivals sometimes find themselves with nowhere to go.

The first time a migrant family with children at Bryant Webster ran out of time on its housing voucher, teachers and a school intern spent hours calling shelters and everyone they could think of to try to find a place for the family to stay. They encountered waitlists and a lot of dead ends.

“We didn’t know what happened after the voucher expired until one of the new families said ‘our stay is up, and we don’t know where to go tonight,’” Nelson said. “We’ve never been prepared so we didn’t know how to handle it.”

The family ended up leaving to spend the night in a car, though Nelson said district officials were able to connect with them later that evening. Still, Nelson said it was really hard on the entire school to end the day that way.

Like in New York City schools and other districts nationwide, Denver school officials are on the frontline receiving requests from migrant families for help. In Denver, some teachers are just starting to connect their efforts with nonprofits, through the teachers union, and with other organizations, but coordination is still sporadic.

And even when working together, there are daunting obstacles. After the limited duration of city vouchers for migrants, the different social services available have different rules that can create confusion about what might jeopardize migrants’ legal standing. And the potential overlap between help for migrants and support for the city’s homeless population is something Denver officials are trying to avoid.

After helping the first Bryant Webster family, teachers heard from more families in the same situation. Some organizations are helping, but each time a new family comes forward, teachers worry if they’ll be able to find them assistance. At least three more are slated to lose their shelter this weekend.

“You can just feel the kids are stressed. It disrupts everything,” said Cecilia Quintanilla, an early childhood teacher at the school.

Denver has seen up to 250 migrants arriving per day this week, but it’s unclear how many are children.

Schools join Denver effort to help migrants find stability

Right now, it’s hard to track how widespread the surge of migrants in schools really is.

District officials in Denver did not respond to requests for comment. Teachers at Bryant Webster believe they’ve had around 60 newcomers arrive after the first day of school and counting. Other school districts in the state are also reporting surges of newcomers, the term schools use to refer to students arriving from outside the U.S., in the last few months.

The Colorado Department of Education doesn’t track those numbers and officials said they have not been asked to provide support to schools dealing with these surges.

Denver officials said that as of last week the city was currently sheltering 456 children under age 16. The city has seen up to 250 new individuals arriving per day this week, but numbers for children aren’t available for this week.

At another Denver school, Escuela Valdez, teacher Jessica Dominguez estimates they’ve received about 20 newcomer students this year. This week, they learned about a family that had already been sleeping outdoors after losing their shelter. Educators stayed up late into the night trying to find them a place to stay and ultimately were successful. But that may not always be the case.

“Kids are being involved now,” she said. “That puts a different face to what we might think is homelessness.”

Dominguez isn’t the only person who feels that way. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a former educator, said at a press conference Thursday that he has seen kids sleeping under blankets with families outside the city’s Wellington Webb building as they wait for staff to show up so they can ask for help.

“No kid should be in that context,” Johnston said.

Early that same day, at a migrant reception center in northeast Denver, a steady stream of men, women, and children arrived for processing. The official hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but staff often start earlier and stay until everyone has somewhere to go.

Some arrivals have family in the Denver area and ask to come here or even make their own way. Others get on buses in El Paso regardless of destination and then need to make a plan.

They’ve already made a hazardous journey and overcome many obstacles to leave behind dangerous situations in their home countries.

Jon Ewing, a spokesman for Denver Human Services, said the arrivals are smart, resourceful, and well-organized.

City workers collect basic information about the new arrivals, provide contact information for relevant social services and direct them to shelter. Individuals are eligible for 21 days of free shelter and families are eligible for 30 days. The city isn’t tracking what happens after that.

“Thirty days is not a long time to sort out your life, and we get that,” Ewing said. “But we have to move people through. There is a limit to what we are able to do.”

Ewing said city staff are working to coordinate as best they can between nonprofits, city services, and the school district — there are large group chats buzzing all day.

Ewing said the city tries to make sure people understand how expensive Denver is so they can make informed decisions. But they may have good reasons for wanting to stay here.

Ewing said the migrant and homeless populations are very different and face different challenges. New arrivals are never directed to homeless shelters, and many services are provided through different channels in order to be responsive to each group’s needs.

There are also different funding sources with different rules, when it comes to providing services for U.S. citizens and residents experiencing homelessness, versus migrants seeking asylum or another protected status.

Then there are legal concerns. Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said that organizations like hers are also concerned about inadvertently providing resources that would then make people ineligible for earning legal status — a common worry they hear from migrants, and one that Alderman and her team don’t have enough expertise to help navigate.

Still, she said that some of the migrant families might qualify for housing assistance from the coalition, but qualifying takes time.

“The problem is we have so many in the system right now waiting for housing,” Alderman said. “That system makes housing matches based on vulnerabilities. It’s a process. It certainly doesn’t move fast.”

She said that another problem for families is finding affordable housing with multiple bedrooms. Longer term vouchers, such as Section 8 vouchers, often don’t cover a large portion of the rents people might encounter in Denver.

“In Denver specifically we have a very, very, very minimal stock of really affordable housing,” she said. “We have a lot of market rate and luxury units that are sitting empty.”

With all the challenges migrant students and their families are confronting, teachers say they appreciate that so many are working to help. But they also wish they were more prepared to help students and families who come to them with such big worries.

“We don’t have what we need to welcome these families to the better life that they were searching for,” said Nelson, the teacher at Bryant Webster. “It’s just really hard to see the consequences of that.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Many schools went all in to fight chronic absenteeism. Why are kids still missing so much class?

2023-09-28T11:00:00+00:00

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Last year, Santa Fe schools put in a lot of work to try to get students to show up to school consistently. It was a priority after chronic absenteeism doubled during the 2021-22 school year, compared to before the pandemic.

The New Mexico district hired two additional attendance coaches, for a total of five, to help every school form a team focused on boosting attendance. Those staffers got extra pay and training. And schools used COVID relief funds to reward students who improved their attendance with incentives like a pop-up science exhibit hosted by a local children’s museum.

But despite those efforts, the share of students who missed 10% or more of their school year, the threshold New Mexico and most other states use to define chronic absenteeism, didn’t budge. Just over half were chronically absent — the same as the prior year.

“We know we still have work to do,” said Crystal Ybarra, the district’s chief equity, diversity, and engagement officer, who is overseeing the attendance initiative. “We’re still trying to figure out the steps post-pandemic. Everybody wants to see a quick fix, and that’s just not how initiatives work.”

What happened in Santa Fe highlights multiple challenges schools nationwide are encountering as they try to drive down stubbornly high absence rates. Students’ mindsets about attending school in person every day have shifted, staff say. Families are more likely to keep sick kids home. In some places, more families are experiencing economic hardships and housing instability.

Emerging state data, compiled by Chalkbeat, suggests that the stunning rise in students missing school did not come close to returning to pre-pandemic levels last school year.

Chronic absenteeism worsened in at least 40 states during the 2021-22 school year, according to data compiled by Thomas Dee, a Stanford University education professor, in partnership with the Associated Press. The needle hasn’t moved much in the handful of states that have released data for last school year so far.

In New Mexico, for example, chronic absenteeism shot up to 40% two school years ago and remained at 39% last year, compared to 18% the year before the pandemic. Similar trends have emerged in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Virginia.

“The consequences of kids being sporadically in school and not fully engaging take a while to really shift,” said Hedy Chang, the executive director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that focuses on raising school attendance. “It’s definitely not something that happens overnight, and may take longer than we would like.”

Illnesses other than COVID, such as RSV, as well as confusion over when to send sick children to school, likely played a role, school staff and attendance experts said. Many families got in the habit of keeping kids home if they had any symptom of illness. When Los Angeles Unified school officials talked with 9,000 families last year as part of an effort to reduce chronic absenteeism, non-COVID illness was one of the three major themes that came up.

“We went from this place of requiring students to be out for certain symptoms that they might have in the 2021-22 school year,” Ybarra said, “to trying to navigate what was appropriate and what wasn’t this past school year.”

Elevated mental health struggles also likely contributed. Some students feel a lingering disconnect from their school and peers. School refusal seems to have intensified following the pandemic, some parents and educators say. In Santa Fe, many students who missed class or asked to transfer to the GED program last year reported feeling anxious about coming to school, Ybarra said.

Now that more schools provide devices to every student and post assignments online, some students have also come to believe that they can take a few days off and still stay on top of their work.

Greg Moody, a school official in Florida’s Orange County district who oversees attendance, said the ability to do assignments remotely had contributed to a “shift in mindset” about the importance of showing up to class every day. In his district, chronic absenteeism nearly doubled from 21% the year before the pandemic to 40% in the 2021-22 school year.

Amana Levi, who helps Orange County schools address truancy issues, said parents report a variety of reasons their kids stay home. But last year she frequently heard: “Well, my child needed a day off.” Sometimes that stemmed from a mental health issue, she said, and sometimes it didn’t.

In response, Levi is hosting an online training for parents that will talk about why attendance matters — for academic and other reasons — and what parents can do if they get a letter saying their child has missed a lot of school.

“It’s important that we impress upon parents: We get it, we’re all here, we’re all experiencing similar types of things,” Levi said. But her message is: “You’ve got to come to school. We are here to help as much as we can.”

Schools seek more input on attendance struggles

Schools that started attendance initiatives last year that haven’t gotten the results they wanted should try to figure out why that may be, Chang of Attendance Works said. Staff can look at how many students were directly affected by such efforts, and talk with students and families about what worked and what didn’t.

In Santa Fe, Ybarra is hoping to build on some of the positive changes in school culture that she observed last year, while making adjustments to the district’s overall strategy.

Attendance coaches realized that they previously hadn’t taught many staff members to reach out to students about attendance. So this year, they trained entire schools to do it.

With the help of a $500,000 state grant, Santa Fe is sending home letters to recognize students for good attendance and remind families to return after longer school breaks. The district also hired an organization to train high school teams to watch ninth grade attendance — a challenging transition year for many teens — and will pay staff extra to make home visits to freshmen.

School staff are prioritizing chronically absent kids for evaluations to see if they need extra academic help, or support for a disability. The goal is to “try to make them more successful so they feel like they can return,” Ybarra said. In the past, those students were often overlooked.

And last month, school officials met with students from two schools struggling with attendance to listen to some of the barriers that keep them from going to school regularly and what has been helpful to get them back on track.

Students reported getting sick, lacking transportation to school, having family problems, facing mental health issues, and caring for siblings. One middle schooler pointed to the benefits of having a day to do catch-up work when they returned from a long period of absence.

“I didn’t feel so behind when I went back into the classroom,” the student told school staff.

Orange County schools tried something similar this summer by paying a dozen social workers to call the families of students who missed 20 or more days of school last year.

The goal was to figure out what had kept students from attending and offer support “so we could start with a fresh slate,” said Juliane Cross, a senior administrator in the district’s social services department.

Social workers heard many of those families were moving around a lot, struggling to afford stable housing — a common issue in the Orlando area that has intensified in recent years. Other parents worked nights and couldn’t wake their kids up in time for class.

Social workers connected families to housing resources and made sure they knew about the federal program that offers help to students experiencing homelessness. It’s an initiative Cross hopes to repeat.

“Several of the parents were just like ‘Wow, thank you for calling,’ as if they were really surprised that this effort was made to just check on them and try to address that attendance situation,” she said. “They appreciated having that interaction.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Homeless and suspended in California

2023-09-27T09:00:00+00:00

This story was published in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates inequality.

Federal education law explicitly seeks to help homeless children and youth stay in school, in the hopes academic opportunity will allow them to break the cycle of housing instability.

Taking them out of class could worsen their chances of success.

But an analysis of data in California shows the state’s homeless students are suspended at higher rates than their peers.

California schools suspended more than 12,000 students who were identified as homeless in the 2021-2022 school year, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of the most recent data available. That means nearly 6% of all homeless students were suspended compared to roughly 3% of all other students.

And in about 20% of school districts across the state, homeless students were suspended at rates at least double the district baseline in recent school years — in some cases, far higher. The disparity persisted in some districts as overall suspension rates rebounded after school closures earlier in the pandemic.

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act — the federal law promising equal access to education for homeless students — requires schools to remove obstacles to those students’ education, whether by arranging transportation to school or waiving normally required paperwork.

There’s no ban on suspensions — but they’re hardly in keeping with the spirit of the law.

“The whole point of the McKinney-Vento Act was to ensure that students that are experiencing homelessness are in school,” said Lynda Thistle Elliott, a former state homeless education coordinator in New Hampshire. “It’s really important to look at in what instances do we actually remove students from school, which is the one thing they really, really need to make a difference.”

And the figures in California may only scratch the surface, since many homeless youth aren’t identified as such by their school system and struggle without federally required help.

Earl Edwards, an assistant professor at Boston College, said that when he interviewed students experiencing homelessness, he found that the threat of school discipline often discouraged them from telling teachers or other staff about their housing status.

“They would say, ‘I didn’t tell the school anything about what was going on, because every time I got to school, they was yelling at me for being late,’” he said. “[Discipline] actually deteriorates the trust that those kids have, when they’re being punished, a lot of times, for being impoverished.”

California educators said their school systems have already implemented disciplinary reforms that emphasize reconciling students with their classmates and teachers while preventing behaviors that could result in punishment. Still, many noted that nothing in state law mandates school officials to adjust how or whether to discipline a student based on their homeless status.

“There’s no requirement for educators currently to, per se, consider housing,” said Jennifer Kottke, who helps to train districts on homeless education law through the Los Angeles County Office of Education. But she added that educators ought to consult colleagues who work with homeless youth to weigh “what’s happening in the lives of the students” when deciding how to respond to behavior.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which tracks school discipline data nationwide, does not break it out by housing status.

But California, which has the third-highest rate of student homelessness in the country, is not the only state where available data suggests children and youth without stable housing are more likely to experience discipline, too.

Students experiencing homelessness in Washington were suspended and expelled at almost three times the rate of their housed peers, The Seattle Times reported in a 2022 article produced as part of a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and the Times, Street Sense Media, and WAMU/DCist. And studies in Florida, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Texas and Washington found similar results.

Homeless students, high-stakes suspension

A student who qualifies under the U.S. Department of Education’s definition of homelessness — which includes children forced to share housing because they lost their own — may be suspended more frequently than their stably housed peers for a number of reasons.

Homeless students may change schools, disrupting opportunities to build meaningful relationships with adults or fellow students. They may miss school days, causing them to fall behind academically and socially. They may experience other trauma related to losing their housing, whether it be a sudden eviction or domestic violence.

Racial discrimination could also play a role. African American students in California are disproportionately suspended from schools — and are overrepresented among homeless students, too.

Accessibility is another potential factor. Students receiving services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are both more likely to receive a suspension than peers and are more likely to experience homelessness.

As a result of those disparities, guidance under California law encourages educators to consider students’ disabilities before disciplining them.

Educators interviewed for this story said they cannot divert a homeless child to an alternative other than a suspension where the law requires one.

Still, nothing prevents schools from examining the broader picture of students’ lives in situations where suspension is not mandatory. Cynthia Rice, legal director at the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center, said current California law already guides school administrators to consider contextual factors like a child’s home life before issuing a suspension.

“Whether or not you would suspend a kid for getting into a verbal altercation, you would look at whether or not the nature of that altercation had something to do with his or her homeless status,” said Rice, previously with California Rural Legal Assistance, a nonprofit law firm that has represented students in litigation challenging school discipline policies. “To just kind of separate those two things completely? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Rice said she would argue that school districts receiving McKinney-Vento funds must take into account the housing status of students when deciding whether and how to discipline them. But most school districts do not have a formal policy to that effect, she said.

Federal law recognizes that students experiencing homelessness often must overcome formidable obstacles to attending class. For example, children without stable housing may find it difficult to catch a ride to school. That’s why federal law guarantees them such transportation, including to the school they attended when they lost housing.

School discipline can jeopardize that right.

Thistle Elliott, who now works as an advocate for homeless youth, said some New Hampshire districts revoked students’ transportation temporarily because of behavioral issues.

“A district could say, ‘Well, this isn’t working out, because we’ve got behavior issues. Maybe the child or youth needs to attend school where they’re temporarily residing and not their school of origin,’” she said. “But remember that, in making those decisions about the best placement for attending school, it’s the placement that is in the child’s best interest, not in the school’s best interest.”

And that’s assuming educators know a child is without stable housing. A 2022 investigation by Public Integrity estimated that hundreds of thousands of children who are eligible for assistance because of their housing instability may go unidentified in schools around the country. That means schools may also suspend students without knowing they qualify as homeless under federal law.

A disconnect between homeless support staff and school discipline could be costly. Numerous researchers have linked school suspensions to long-term negative consequences.

One recent study found that students in schools with higher suspension rates were more likely to be arrested and incarcerated as adults. Another concluded that receiving more severe exclusionary discipline decreased the likelihood of graduation. Yet another found that just one in-school suspension predicted a significant risk of failing a standardized test.

Districts, data, and discipline

One immediate consequence of California’s emphasis on reforming school discipline is that district administrators know that anyone, including parents or the press, can see their suspension statistics online.

The state has put suspension rates on an easy-to-search website – and put schools on notice that high rates will trigger “differentiated assistance,” an accountability plan designed to improve that metric.

“Our suspension rates are high on the California School Dashboard – full transparency,” said Chuck Palmer, the senior director of student services and innovation at El Dorado Union High School District in Placerville, where homeless youth in recent years have been suspended at rates roughly four to six times those of students presumed to be housed. “We’re going to see ourselves in the red in a lot of our schools, and that’s not acceptable.”

But district administrators interviewed for this story were quick to argue their discipline data was incomplete or misleading, failing to capture subtleties in how many homeless students they suspend and why.

For example, Fresno Unified in California’s Central Valley suspended 109 homeless students in the 2021-2022 school year, a frequency twice the rate of suspension for all other students.

Caine Christensen, who was the district’s director of student support services when interviewed by Public Integrity this spring, said homeless students only appear to be disciplined disproportionately because the district has so few of them. (Christensen has since left the district.)

That assertion is not backed up by the district’s statistics. Public Integrity’s analysis found that Fresno’s tendency to suspend homeless students more than housed peers is not a fluke of small cohort size. A statistical test that takes into account the total number of homeless students showed a significant difference between suspension rates for housed and unhoused students in the 2021-2022 school year.

Other school administrators said that steps they took before resorting to suspension aren’t evident from top-line statistics, nor are their efforts to return children to the classroom quickly.

The Placer Union High School District northeast of Sacramento suspended 14% of the 112 homeless students enrolled in the 2021-2022 school year — almost three times the rate for all other students in the school system. Trent Wilson, who serves as the district’s executive director of educational services, noted that virtually all those suspensions were shortened, served at least partially on school property or preceded by suspension alternatives such as meetings with counselors.

Another district said relatively high suspension rates for homeless students reflect the rigor with which their staffers serve that population and record state-mandated data.

San Juan Unified in Sacramento County suspended homeless students for defiance-only behaviors — a broad category that covers actions that “disrupted school activities or otherwise willfully defied” a teacher or other school authority — at three times the rate for all other students in the 2021-2022 school year.

Dominic Covello, the district’s director of student support services, said San Juan Unified may appear to suspend homeless students more than other districts because personnel trained to follow federal law are identifying homeless students more effectively than other districts’ staff. He said the data also doesn’t capture a district-wide shift toward more in-school suspensions and fewer out-of-school suspensions. And he suggested that San Juan Unified is more faithful to the Education Code definition of willful defiance than other districts.

“I’ll just say that you can take any incident of defiance and disruption, and you can suspend that student for something else under the Ed Code,” he said.

The California Department of Education has acknowledged that some school district officials may seek to manipulate their discipline statistics so that rates of suspension and expulsion appear lower. In February, the state launched a tip line for those wishing to report school districts they suspect are masking how frequently students are disciplined.

Recognizing trauma, seeking alternatives

At Elk Grove Unified southeast of Sacramento, nearly 13% of homeless students were suspended in the 2021-2022 school year compared to about 4% of the remaining student body.

“You’re dealing with families who are unhoused — a level of trauma and instability in their lives that can be all-consuming,” said Tami Silvera, the district’s liaison to homeless students. “That has a trickle-down effect to their children, and then how their children are able to manage when their families are having such a difficult time.”

She said the district aims to reach students upstream of the disciplinary process as a result, whether by offering therapy or access to a small district food bank — and connecting students to similar resources outside of school.

At Placer Union, Wilson said school counselors attend regular meetings where staff discuss how to respond to student behavior and consider factors like housing.

“We’ve done, absolutely, things where we know that a kid’s living situation is such that we were not going to suspend at home and [instead we] do something entirely different,” Wilson said.

El Dorado Union’s Palmer also emphasized prevention. One of the district’s strategies: Get kids plugged into school activities like sports to strengthen their ties to adults on campus as well as fellow students, and make sure they know resources are available if money is a barrier. The district suspended 24 of 128 homeless students enrolled in the 2021-2022 school year.

At Hanford Joint Union High School District, 35 miles south of Fresno, an administrator pointed to logistical issues that may lead to suspensions of homeless students.

District Superintendent Victor Rosa said it’s possible some students without a stable home are suspended because they’re caught with prohibited items they bring to school, having no permanent home to store them.

“For some of these kids, especially if they’re truly homeless, they have all their stuff on them,” Rosa said, “so sometimes it’d be a situation where you got caught with a vape, but then you have a knife, or you have something else on you that then just lends itself to us not really having any alternative options” except to suspend.

In 2021-2022, the rate of suspension among the district’s 87 homeless students was more than twice the rate for other students.

Rosa said his goal is to change Hanford’s culture and its formal policies, moving away from immediate punishment and toward alternatives like a drug treatment course.

“Our board policies are still a little antiquated from a standpoint of ‘Two fights, you’re expelled. Two marijuana offenses, you’re expelled’ — the type of things where other districts have moved forward already to another means of correction,” he said in a November 2022 interview.

In Fresno, Christensen said the district employs clinical social workers assigned to foster and homeless students. Staff try to keep housing-unstable students in the school they currently attend to strengthen their relationships with peers and adults.

A union official said the district’s approach has several shortcomings.

Manuel Bonilla, the president of the Fresno Teachers Association, said Fresno officials speak of using “restorative practices” to prevent students from facing suspension, but fail to implement steps that would allow students to make amends and reestablish trust when they disobey school policy. After a teacher removes a student from class, he said, “there’s no accountability. What happens is, a student is back in your class 15-20 minutes later. That’s not restorative.”

Plus, teachers on the front lines may not be aware of a student’s housing status.

Bonilla said teachers are often left guessing about the circumstances driving disruptive behavior and forced to decide how best to respond by themselves.

“Eventually, [teachers] reach a breaking point, like, ‘Oh, my goodness, what am I gonna do?’ You’re just surviving at a certain point,” he said.

Tumani Heights, the Fresno Unified district liaison to homeless students, said teachers can access records showing a student’s housing status and can ask school social workers for information. In Fresno schools that have restorative practice counselors, she said, children who have been disciplined can attend a meeting to discuss support they need “as well as try to repair whatever harm was done.”

But one thing that would help homeless students the most might not be within school districts’ control: gaining stable housing.

“Especially when we’re looking at our families who are transient, a lot of them have evictions and different things that they’re facing,” Heights said. “Being able to help them and link them to stable housing sometimes can be a barrier.”

Reform, backlash, and what’s next

California won praise from school discipline reform advocates in 2014 when it became the first state to ban suspensions for children in kindergarten through third grade and to eliminate expulsions for misbehavior known as “willful defiance.”

The state later expanded those protections. California law now shields students up to fifth grade from willful defiance suspensions. There is a moratorium on that type of discipline for sixth through eighth graders through 2025.

Lawmakers in at least seven states are going the other direction, proposing stricter disciplinary measures that would make it easier for educators to remove students from class, according to reporting by Chalkbeat. Those measures are pitched as a response to student misbehavior after the trauma and disruption of the pandemic. Critics say the bills will do more harm than good.

Federal policy on discipline, meanwhile, has vacillated.

Obama-era guidance from 2014 urged schools to avoid zero-tolerance disciplinary policies. The Education Department under Secretary Betsy DeVos rescinded those guidelines during the Trump administration, citing an interagency report that found the measures “likely had a strong, negative impact on school discipline and safety.” Research on the impacts of the Obama-era school discipline guidance is limited and broader evidence on the effects of reducing school suspensions is mixed.

The Biden administration in May released a document summarizing recent investigations into racial discrimination in student discipline, saying such discipline “forecloses opportunities for students, pushing them out of the classroom and diverting them from a path to success in school and beyond.”

But some observers said the document is light on specific policy guidance or even marks a retreat from prior efforts to reduce suspensions. The letter “does seem to signal a more conciliatory federal approach to discipline issues as public schools struggle to respond to heightened levels of violence and misbehavior,” wrote Boston College professor R. Shep Melnick in the journal Education Next.

In California, a law that went into effect in January requires schools to notify attorneys, social workers, and others when a foster child receives a suspension notice.

That can help county education officials detect patterns in discipline that might otherwise go overlooked.

Allyson Baptiste, a homeless youth advocate who works for the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, said the law incentivizes school administrators to explore alternatives before taking students out of class.

“We’re making sure that if you are suspending or expelling a foster youth, you better make sure that you really, truly followed the letter of the law, and that you did what you could have done to try to prevent the expulsion or suspension,” she said.

“My hope is that something like that is created at some point for homeless youth as well,” she added, noting that homeless students do not have social workers or attorneys to notify.

For now, Baptiste is urging the district administrators to go beyond the minimum requirements of state law and tell their district’s liaison to homeless students when a child they support is suspended. Some districts consult the county superintendent’s office in those cases, too, though it is not required.

But without a law for homeless children like the foster-student notification, Baptiste and her colleagues in the county office of education likely won’t learn about all suspensions until the state updates its online data portals.

Long after the school year ends — and too late to try to intervene.

Amy DiPierro is a data journalist at the Center for Public Integrity.

Journalist Ian Whitaker contributed to this article.

Chicago Public Schools enrollment is stable for first time in more than a decade

2023-09-20T02:26:40+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and statewide education policy.

Enrollment in Chicago Public Schools is flat for the first time in more than a decade, according to preliminary data obtained by Chalkbeat.

New preliminary numbers for this school year show just over 322,500 students are registered at CPS schools. The data represents enrollment as of the end of the day Monday, the 20th day of the school year, when the district traditionally takes its official count. On the 20th day of last school year, 322,106 students were enrolled according to official data.

CPS enrollment has been in decline for 12 years, so this year’s shift is significant.

In the past decade, the district’s student body shrunk by 20%, with the district seeing multiple year-over-year declines of roughly 10,000 students. The dramatic contraction began after the 2011-12 school year, which was the last year CPS saw a bump in enrollment, from 402,681 to 404,151 students. Last year, Chicago lost its standing as the nation’s third largest district.

Enrollment now appears to be leveling off in Chicago. In the past year, the city has welcomed thousands of migrant families from the southern border and in July, a top mayoral aide suggested that newcomers were boosting enrollment in schools.

A district spokesperson, however, said enrollment changes are due to multiple reasons and cautioned against attributing the shifts to “any one group of students.”

“We will offer more analysis and context to our enrollment figures later this month,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said in a statement. “We are honored and privileged to serve each and every student.”

It’s too early to tell if this is the start of a new trend, said Elaine Allensworth, who studies education policy and is Lewis-Sebring Director of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.

“If it’s just a one-time pause in the trends of declining enrollment, it might not have a big overall long-term effect, but it’s really just hard to say right now since we don’t know what will happen in the future,” Allensworth said.

Thinning enrollment was driven by factors such as dipping birth rates and other population changes. With the onset of the pandemic, districts across the country enrolled fewer students, with more than 33,000 students falling off Chicago’s rolls since the fall of 2020.

Shrinking schools have left CPS officials and mayors to contend with how to best fund classrooms, especially as student needs grew during the pandemic. Enrollment has long been a determining factor for how much state and federal money a district gets. Mayor Brandon Johnson has been an outspoken critic of tying enrollment to funding, but past mayors have funded schools within CPS based on how many kids they serve.

Even with fewer students, the district’s budget has grown to $9.4 billion. That’s roughly flat compared to last year’s budget, but up from a decade ago when it hovered around $6 billion. A new state funding formula and a wave of pandemic recovery money have helped offset enrollment declines. Though state money is increasing, the district has recently seen fewer dollars than expected due to lower enrollment and increased property wealth.

According to preliminary enrollment data analyzed by Chalkbeat, there are 5,767 more students learning English as a new language this school year than last year. That’s a sizable jump: CPS has historically enrolled an average of 3,000 new English learners annually, a district spokesperson said.

CPS officials said they do not track immigration status of students. They have pointed to the growth in English language learners as one sign of newcomers, but emphasized that not all English language learners are newcomers.

The district enrolls migrant students in three ways. First, like any student, migrant children can enroll directly at schools. They can also make an appointment at the city’s new welcome center housed inside Roberto Clemente Community Academy High School on the West Side.

Finally, enrollment teams are going to families’ homes, after receiving information from the city’s Department of Family and Support Services about those in need of help who can’t make it to the welcome center, said Karime Asaf, chief of the district’s Office of Language and Cultural Education.

Schools across the district have historically struggled to meet state regulations for providing proper support for English learners. When finding a school with the right program for English learners, officials try to stay within a two-mile radius of the child’s home, Asaf said.

Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, which provides extra support for kids and families at a handful of Southwest Side schools as part of the district’s sustainable community schools initiative, said they’ve noticed an increase in migrant families among the parents they serve who don’t have stable housing.

Last year, the organization placed a case manager part-time at a high school in Back of the Yards that needed extra help with parents as they enrolled more migrant students, said Sara Reschly, deputy director of the group’s community services division.

At Brighton Park Elementary School, case manager Lupe Fernandez said newcomer families currently have very basic needs, such as undergarments and help navigating the CTA. The school is planning to create a free “closet” where families can pick up things they need for free.

“If there are schools that have those strong community partnerships, you know, like that would be a place to start because then you can wrap services around the whole family,” Reschly said.

Asaf, with the district, said they are processing more school transfers among newcomers as those families find new homes or more permanent housing.

Preliminary data analyzed by Chalkbeat show this school year, nearly a quarter of Chicago Public Schools students are learning English as a new language — a figure that trumps other large districts. For example, 14% of students in New York City public schools, the nation’s largest district, were English learners last school year.

The preliminary data signals the continuation of another trend over the past decade: a decline in the share of students from low-income households. Preliminary data indicate that number is 67%, down from 73% last school year.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Where Memphis’ mayoral candidates stand on education issues

2023-09-14T11:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Memphis-Shelby County Schools and statewide education policy.

The mayor of Memphis doesn’t have a lot of say in how Memphis-Shelby County Schools operates. But candidates running for the position in the Oct. 5 election do have a lot to say about how the city and the district can cooperate to improve outcomes for the city’s students.

Some are calling for the city to take on a direct role in funding the district. Others want to see the city expand its contribution to early childhood education programs as a way to set students up for success.

Seventeen candidates are vying for the post, and early voting begins Friday.

Chalkbeat sent a questionnaire to all 17 candidates asking them, among other things, whether they’d support new funding to MSCS, and whether they would make any changes to universal preschool programming. We also asked how they planned to alleviate many of the barriers students face outside of school.

Fourteen of them responded (Carnita Atwater, Jennings Bernard, and Justina Ragland did not), and we’re sharing their responses in this voter guide. Other than formatting adjustments to improve readability, these responses have not been edited by Chalkbeat.

Click on a candidate’s name to read their responses to each question. To compare candidate responses to a specific question, click on that question.

Check your voter registration status here.

Find a sample ballot and polling locations here by entering your name or address.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois parent mentors kick off the school year, ready to get back into classrooms

2023-09-05T15:25:59+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and statewide education policy.

Last year, Pearlie Aaron volunteered as a parent mentor at the school her 10-year-old daughter attends — McKinley Elementary in Bellwood School District 88. Aaron got a chance to work with students on classroom assignments and receive professional development with other parent mentors for about two hours a day.

Now, Aaron is a program coordinator at McKinley for the Parent Mentor Program, a state-funded initiative run by Palenque Liberating Spaces through Neighborhood Action and the Southwest Organizing Project.

On Friday, Aaron and hundreds of other parent program coordinators — mostly Black and Latino women from Chicago and the suburbs — sat in a packed auditorium at Harry S. Truman Community College on the city’s North Side to celebrate the start of a new school year.

“When we talk about growing our own from within, this is the program to do that. We have such a shortage of teachers, it’s clear to see that these parents love education,” said Aaron. “These are future teachers sitting in this room.”

The Parent Mentor Program has around 2,000 parent mentors and staff in over 200 schools, at almost 40 school districts around the state, according to a press release. The organization works with 44 community-based organizations across the state to help recruit parents from their neighborhoods.

Through the program, community organizations train parents to work in their child’s school — experience that they can later use to work in classrooms as a special education classroom assistant or toward becoming a teacher.

Some parents have worked with local organizations to obtain a GED, learn English, and receive their credentials to become a paraprofessional in classrooms. The program already has helped more than 200 parents become paraprofessionals — helping fill much-needed positions, according to the group’s press release from last week..

A state database that tracks unfilled school positions over 2,600 paraprofessional vacancies across the state. According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, students with Individualized Education Programs are required to have a paraprofessional if it is included in their programs.

During the 2022 legislative session, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law a bill that lowers the age for paraprofessionals working in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade classrooms to 18 years old — part of a state effort to get more paraprofessionals into classrooms.

State Sen. Mike Simmons, a Democrat representing neighborhoods on the North Side of Chicago, showed up at Friday’s event to show support for the parent mentor initiative. During the spring legislative session, he and his colleagues pushed for the program to get more funding. Simmons said he is invested in the program and watching it expand in school.

“I’m tired of seeing our moms, especially our Black and Brown moms, expected to do ten different jobs. They are already being underpaid in the labor force, they are expected to take care of their children in a context where there is no universal child care,” said Simmons. “We need to compensate our parents for doing hard work that goes well beyond their households.”

The Logan Square Neighborhood Association founded the Parent Mentor Program in 1995. In 2013, the program was able to secure funding from the Illinois State Board of Education and has worked to either grow or maintain that amount of funding with the help of legislators.

At the celebration on Friday, Sabrina Jackson and other parent program coordinates said they are excited to continue recruiting more parents throughout the school year.

Jackson recruits parents to help out at 10 schools in the Englewood neighborhood, located on the South Side of Chicago.

The best part of the program is watching parents realize their own leadership potential by participating in schools, said Jackson.

“We help them enhance those skills and we help them breakout of being a parent just at home,” said Jackson. “By becoming a parent that is a part of the school and becoming a change agent for their child’s education, they see that their input matters. It’s really great.”

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

PODCAST: Food fight — the battle for better school lunches

2023-09-01T14:48:46+00:00

This originally aired on The Bell’s Miseducation podcast on June 13.

In 1946, President Harry Truman signed the National School Lunch Act. It aimed to “provide nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day.” More than 60 years later, Michelle Obama championed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which required schools to provide students with healthier lunches. Since 2017, New York City has provided free breakfast and lunch to all public school students.

These acts and reforms are great; they seek to ensure that all students receive nutritional meals at school. But in practice, let’s just say the results are… mixed.

Students sit and eat in the cafeteria every day, and yet conversations about education often leave out this crucial element of our daily lives as students.

In this episode I document the quality of school lunches through the perspective of those who eat them: students. I also chat with one of my teachers, who used to help develop school lunch menus and guided me in my search for answers about how lunchtime can be improved.

Get ready listeners, because we’re about to have a food fight!

Tovi Tankoano reported this story for the Bell’s Miseducation podcast as a sophomore at Marble Hill School for International Studies in the Bronx.

Colorado parents: Need help paying for preschool? Check out these programs.

2023-08-29T20:00:33+00:00

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Starting this fall, Colorado is offering 10 to 15 hours of tuition-free preschool to all 4-year-olds as part of the state’s universal preschool program. More than 40,000 families have already applied, but the application process is still open and will be available throughout the year.

But what if you need more class time for your child than just 10 to 15 hours a week?

There are several ways to get financial help for those extra hours. The universal preschool program will pay for up to 30 hours of preschool a week for some children. They must be from low-income families and fall into one of the following categories: English language learner, homeless, in foster care, or have a special education plan. Simply being from a low-income family is not enough to qualify for 30 hours.

We’ve compiled a list of other programs that may help cover extra hours of preschool, including Head Start, the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program, and, for Denver residents, the Denver Preschool Program. Summit County also offers tuition assistance for preschoolers, through its Summit Pre-K Program, though the application window generally runs from May 1-31.

Military families may be eligible for financial help through the Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood program, which is for families who can’t access military-operated child care programs because of waitlists or the distance from their homes.

Finally, it’s worth asking your child’s preschool if they offer scholarships or discounts that could help lower the cost of care.

For questions about universal preschool or adding extra hours, contact the universal preschool help desk at 303-866-5223 or the local group in your county that is helping run universal preschool.

Here’s a quick look at some of the programs that can be combined with universal preschool to provide students with full-day classes.

Colorado Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP)

What is it: A state program that helps low-income families pay for child care, including preschool. Parents must be working, looking for work, or attending school.

Who’s eligible: Families whose children are citizens or legal permanent residents and whose household income is 200% to 270% of the federal poverty line. That’s $60,000 to $81,000 for a family of four. Each county sets its own income criteria, so check here for details based on where you live.

Financial aid: CCCAP covers most of the cost of child care for qualifying families, with the amount varying based on how much care a child needs above their universal preschool hours. Families who qualify also have to pay a parent fee — a co-pay that varies based on income, family size, and the number of children in child care.

How to apply: Online in English or Spanish, or contact your county’s department of human services.

What to know about combining with universal preschool: Only some preschools participate in the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program. Ask the universal preschool provider you selected if they take CCCAP, or find the provider name in the universal preschool application and click on the “View More Information” link. A pop-up box will tell you more about the provider, including if they take CCCAP or offer other financial help.

Some families who qualify for CCCAP may not receive assistance because of funding shortfalls — particularly once federal COVID stimulus dollars run out in 2024.

Denver Preschool Program

What is it: A Denver program that provides sliding-scale tuition help for 4-year-olds in preschool regardless of family income.

Who’s eligible: Denver residents who have 4-year-old children attending preschool regardless of immigration status.

Financial aid: Tuition credits range from $36 to $1,227 a month for up to 12 months, and are paid to the school on the family’s behalf. Use the Denver Preschool Program’s tuition credit calculator to estimate your monthly tuition credit. Credits are based on family size, income, and the quality of the preschool selected.

How to apply: Online any time in English or Spanish, or contact the Denver Preschool Program at (303) 595-4377 or info@dpp.org. Applications in PDF form are available in Chinese/Mandarin, French, Russian, Vietnamese, Somali, Amharic, and Nepali.

What to know about combining with universal preschool: Apply to universal preschool first and once your child is enrolled in a preschool, apply to the Denver Preschool Program. This is necessary because the Denver Preschool Program application requires that families list the preschool their child is attending. Most Denver preschools participating in universal preschool also participate in the Denver Preschool Program, but there are a few that don’t. Check here to find preschools participating in the Denver Preschool Program.

Head Start

What is it: A federally funded program that provides free preschool, health services, and family support to children from low-income families, regardless of immigration status.

Who’s eligible: Children who are 3 to 5 years old in families with a household income at or below the federal poverty guideline. That’s $30,000 a year for a family of 4. Children who are homeless, in foster care, or whose families receive public assistance are also eligible regardless of income.

Financial aid: Head Start is a free preschool program that provides part-time or full-time hours to the children it serves.

How to apply: Search here for providers near you and contact the center directly to apply. For help finding a Head Start provider, call 866-763-6481.

What to know about combining with universal preschool: Only certain preschool providers offer Head Start. The universal preschool application also shows whether providers participate in Head Start. For help, contact the Head Start provider you’re interested in or the local group that helps run universal preschool.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

First day of school: Chicago Public Schools reopens under a new era of leadership

2023-08-21T21:28:02+00:00

Chicago Public Schools is officially back in session.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, the first Chicago mayor in recent history to send his children to public schools, kicked off the first day of classes by joining educators, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, and Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates outside Beidler Elementary School on the West Side.

Under a sweltering sun at 8:30 a.m., Johnson greeted parents and children in front of a chorus of reporters and cameras, before ringing the ceremonial bell to start the school year.

The joint appearance with Davis Gates, Martinez, and other district and union officials was unsurprising for the union-friendly mayor who came up through the CTU’s ranks, but still a break from the past when the union and City Hall officials would visit schools separately.

Despite the district facing a number of challenges ahead, including unreliable bus transportation, ongoing enrollment shifts, and an influx of immigrant students, Johnson focused on a new era of collaboration at the city’s public schools.

Later in the morning, after touring two other campuses, Johnson visited Kenwood Academy, where his son is now a sophomore.

Speaking to a history class, he likened the first-day icebreakers the teacher was doing to what he’s doing as the city’s new mayor.

“I hope that you will lean into the collaborative approach that your teacher is taking, because that is what we’re doing as a city,” Johnson told the students. “We’re building relationships, we’re collaborating so that we can make collective decisions together that ultimately can help transform people’s lives.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates, and other city hall, school district, and union officials pose for a photo inside a classroom at Kenwood Academy on the South Side.

CPS claws back from enrollment losses

Visiting Beidler was a symbolic choice for the mayor. The school narrowly escaped closure about a decade ago and is now part of a program Johnson wishes to expand: the Sustainable Community Schools initiative, which aims to provide wraparound services and more programming for students and families.

But Beidler is among several other schools in the program that have lost at least a quarter of their enrollment since the initiative started.

The official enrollment count will not be known until after the 20th day of school in September. But last year, 80,000 fewer students were enrolled in Chicago Public Schools than there were a decade ago and it is now the nation’s fourth largest school district. Chicago’s declining enrollment predated the emergence of COVID-19, but continued during the pandemic.

And for many parents and kids arriving at Beidler Monday morning, more pressing thoughts — like wishing for a great year — were at the forefront. Dondneja Wilson hoped that her daughter, who started preschool, would “grow, and learn, and have fun.”

“She likes kids a lot, so I feel like that’s going to be her favorite part,” Wilson said.

Dondneja Wilson and her daughter pose for a picture outside of Beidler Elementary School.

Last year, data from the last day of school in June obtained by Chalkbeat showed little change in overall enrollment. However, the number of English learners grew by more than 5,000 students. District officials have pointed to the increase as an approximation of how many migrant students have arrived on buses in the past year.

Chicago is seeing an influx of newcomers, many of whom are seeking asylum, arriving by bus from the southern border in Texas.

The number of bilingual teachers in CPS has dipped since 2015, even as the English learner population has grown, according to a recent Chalkbeat analysis. While 6,900 teachers have earned bilingual education endorsements — more than ever before, according to the district — it’s unclear how many are actually assigned to teach bilingual education.

Educators and immigrant advocates have expressed concerns about whether schools can properly support these new students. Jianan Shi, president of the Board of Education, said the city’s new welcome center for migrant students on the West Side has enrolled “hundreds” of newcomer students. He’s requested more information on the system’s overall strategy for supporting newcomers.

A classroom door welcomes students in Spanish at Kenwood Academy in Hyde Park.

Outside Beidler, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez told reporters that “the biggest challenge” is ensuring that all newcomers are registered in school, but he said the district is well-positioned to serve them, noting that Chicago has one of the largest bilingual and dual language programs in the nation. About one-fifth of the city’s students are English language learners.

“The challenge we have right now is, again, keeping up with all the new asylum-seekers that are coming in, going to them, making sure that we’re able to register them, assess them,” Martinez said. “But we’re doing that as we speak now.”

Transportation woes continue on first day

Transportation woes that have plagued the district for the last few years also cropped up on the first day, as parents reported problems with bus routes and trips that took more than an hour.

Laurie Viets, a CPS parent of three children – two of whom have transportation written into an Individualized Education Program – said the district promised to have all transportation issues resolved by last Friday.

However, Viets found out on Friday that one of her children, a seventh grader, was not going to have transportation and another child, a first-year high school student, would have a long bus route. Today, it took 70 minutes to get to school; it’s normally a 12-minute car ride, Viets said.

Viets said she wished Chicago Public Schools would have given her more time to prepare for changes in the transportation plans. Now, she won’t have transportation for one of her children for up to two weeks and she is concerned that her other child will be on the bus without air conditioning in extreme heat until they shorten his route.

The district’s bus problems stem back to 2021, the first year back to full-time, in-person school after COVID forced CPS to close buildings in March 2020. Students were left waiting on the first day and beyond for buses that never showed. In emergency mode at that time, the district began offering $1,000 stipends for rideshare services such as Lyft and Uber. But the transportation troubles continued well into the school year.

Last year, some 365 students were waiting for bus routes the first week of school and in September, district officials said they were still working to reduce 90-minute rides for some students.

The district has blamed and continues to point to a nationwide bus driver shortage as causing the transportation troubles. It signed a $4 million contract with a longtime vendor and bus-routing software company to try to fix the issues.

But last month, on July 31, district officials announced that it would not be able to transport roughly 8,000 students on the first day of school. They offered $500 monthly stipends to families of CPS students with disabilities or those in temporary living situations. Both groups are legally entitled to transportation. The district said at the time that 3,000 students had chosen the stipend option.

Davis Gates called the transportation troubles “a disaster” and a “failure of privatization.” CPS contracts with private bus companies to provide students with transportation. Davis Gates said she would like to see the district bring busing “in-house” and experiment with having its own fleet of buses that could start small by covering field trips and sporting events and then grow.

“These are Band-Aid approaches. I have not seen anything transformative or revolutionary in this space. And again, three strikes you’re out,” she said. “This isn’t a good way to start the school year with respect to transportation.”

The district has previously increased pay rates for bus driver companies, and is hoping to do so again this year. Martinez said he hopes that will help fill the driver shortage.

Viets, the parent worrying about her children’s transportation, said more needs to be done.

“Next year, if CPS is going to start by Aug. 21, by Aug. 1 they should know what the routes are,” said Viets.

If Chicago finalizes plans the Friday before the start of school, she said, the district is “not giving parents any kind of respect at all. They’re not giving us an opportunity to make other plans when they mess up.”

As Viets noted, the extreme heat also adds to worries about long bus rides. The weather also raises concerns about conditions inside buildings once students arrive.

Air-conditioning, aging buildings prompt push for green schools

With temperatures expected to reach 100 degrees this week, Martinez said his team worked “around the clock” to ensure classrooms are equipped with air conditioning this week.

Martinez said every classroom has at least a window unit, a key union demand during the CTU’s 2012 strike that was implemented a couple of years later by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Still, in some cases, hallways are not air-conditioned, Martinez said.

Johnson has touted “climate justice” as a key focus of his administration and reiterated Monday that includes schools.

“Having buildings that are retrofitted, as well as an economy that’s built around green technology, some of that is top of mind,” he said.

Davis Gates used this week’s weather forecast to illustrate climate change’s impact on the city and why it underscores the urgent need for a new CPS facilities master plan, which hasn’t been updated since 2018. She added that building greener schools will be one issue the union will bargain over ahead of its contract expiration in 2024.

The school calendar’s pre-Labor Day start is an issue Davis Gates would immediately bargain over, she said. The late August start date began in 2021, matching up with many suburban districts.

The union was not able to bargain over the school calendar in 2019, Davis Gates said. But the passage of a 2021 state law reinstating some of the CTU’s bargaining rights could allow the calendar to be back on the table. The union’s contract expires next June and it’s likely the district and new mayor will begin negotiations with the teachers this winter.

The larger issues that officials highlighted were likely not top of mind for many students, such as 5-year-old Pierre, who started kindergarten at Beidler.

Asked what he was most excited about this school year, Pierre replied, “Playing.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Summer Rising has brought joy for some, boredom for others

2023-08-21T17:05:10+00:00

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For Paul Trust, a Queens parent, the first day of summer school came with a surprise.

Last year, his three daughters couldn’t wait to head to Summer Rising, the city’s free summer program, each morning, he said. They enjoyed activities like a slime truck, which came to campus with a hands-on laboratory, and the water slides set up in the school yard.

But shortly after the girls began their program at a new site this year, P.S. 60 in Woodhaven, Trust could tell something had changed.

“By the end of the first day, they were like, ‘I don’t want to go back,’” he said. “It was just outright revolt.”

Summer Rising, which runs at hundreds of sites for six to seven weeks in July and August, has been wildly popular, providing students in grades K-8 across the five boroughs with academics in the morning and enrichment activities in the afternoon. It helped reframe what summer school could look like, no longer reserved just for academically struggling kids. This year, the city rejected roughly 45,000 applicants, after the 110,000 available seats were filled. (Some of those applicants eventually got spots as seats freed up, though others were left scrambling for child care.)

Most parents heap praise on the program for helping students learn over the summer months and assisting families with a free child care option. Many are also hopeful that the program will continue next summer even as federal relief money — which funds a big portion of the program — dries up this year.

But while Summer Rising continues to garner praise, some parents at multiple school sites told Chalkbeat they decided to withdraw their kids from the program this year. They cited morning assignments that bled into the activity portion of the day and a lack of activities or field trips — which some site providers said were affected by severe weather. The program’s success had in part relied on its blending of learning and fun, and some worried that balance had shifted for their children.

For Trust’s daughters, their time outdoors was limited to a small fenced yard, he said. Sometimes, they remained indoors all day.

“It seems like they just sucked the fun out of it,” he said.

Despite their complaints, Trust kept them in the program — but he said he was unsure whether he’d enroll them again if the program returned for another year.

It’s been difficult to find buses that can transport students for field trips, said Tanya Walker, a middle school programs director at Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, a community-based organization that provides enrichment activities at some Summer Rising sites.

The overall program was successful this year, but Walker said that access to buses Monday through Thursday was limited, with few buses available on Fridays. While that issue wasn’t new, trips often fell on Fridays, as did weather-related problems this summer. Most of their sites this year were only able to do between two and three trips altogether.

“Two Fridays were rained out, and one Friday they had a heat wave, so they couldn’t do any outside activities,” she said. “Not being able to provide that experience really does change the momentum and the joy of summer camp.”

Nick Ferreira, senior vice president of youth development at the Child Center of NY, a nonprofit that provided afternoon activities at P.S. 60 and other sites, echoed that heat advisories and air quality concerns affected outdoor activities. He also said that sharing school sites across multiple programs and organizations could have limited outdoor time as well.

Most of their sites have been able to conduct roughly five field trips over the course of the program, he said

Citywide, however, schools this summer have seen more field trips across the board, increasing by about 1,000 trips to roughly 3,000 in total, according to the city’s Education Department.

“As summer comes to a close, we’re thrilled that students across New York City have engaged in critical academic recovery and exciting enrichment activities and field trips this year,” said Jenna Lyle, an education department spokesperson, in an emailed statement.

The city also made available a “full catalog of supplemental materials” to help teachers, Lyle said, highlighting Minecraft Education, coding and computer science, financial literacy, mindfulness, civics projects, and other project-based learning experiences.

Parents continue to report positive experiences

Established by former Mayor Bill de Blasio during the pandemic, Summer Rising has been funded largely through federal relief funds that are set to expire next year, leaving the fate of the program in doubt. At its inception, the program intended to help students transition back to school after remote learning. Mayor Eric Adams, who has voiced support for year-round school, has talked about the importance of the program to prevent what’s known as the “summer slide” when it comes to academics.

“Almost 40% of what children learn throughout the school year is lost during the summer months,” he said at a press conference in July.

“It doesn’t mean that the summer must be boring, but it means that part of the continuation of learning should continue throughout the summer months,” he said. “Those summer months of just doing nothing, just hanging out at the park or just going to the local corners to stand by, that does not happen in affluent communities.”

Education research has shown that students learn less during the summer months, but some researchers remain divided over whether they actually lose ground. Research does show that summer school programs can have a positive impact on kids.

For many families, the program has remained a valuable resource and positive experience.

John Haselbauer, a Brooklyn parent who enrolled his 8- and 11-year-old kids in Summer Rising again this year, praised the convenience of the program.

“It’s been great,” he said. “To be able to send kids and keep them occupied in the summer, rather than having to find some expensive camp, or having them stay home to watch TV or surf the internet.”

His kids have gone on field trips roughly once a week, Haselbauer said, and his oldest child found the academic portion of the day especially engaging and fun.

Leonari Jones said her 8-year-old son has loved his first summer in the program at Conselyea Preparatory School.

“By the time I pick up my son, he’s nice and tired,” she said.

Some parents withdraw from program

But despite positive experiences elsewhere, a Brooklyn parent at P.S. 139 said their children repeatedly spent all day indoors, complaining that the only programming involved watching television and playing in the gym.

Their one planned field trip — a visit to the Brooklyn Museum — was canceled on the day-of due to concerns over rain, the parent said.

The parent ultimately decided to withdraw their kids from the program, adding, “I didn’t want them to be miserable for the rest of the summer.”

Tajh Sutton, a Brooklyn parent leader, said she enrolled her 10-year-old daughter in Summer Rising for the first time this year. Initially excited, her daughter quickly soured on the program, as her days often began with individual worksheets and assignments that she didn’t find engaging.

Sutton said she understood the need for additional academic support in the summer months, but wished her daughter’s experience had involved more project-based learning and exploratory field trips or activities.

“I had transparent conversations with my daughter about why they had added so much academics in the summer, but it didn’t change the fact that she just wasn’t having a good time,” she said. “I know I can’t speak for everyone, but my daughter and her peers certainly didn’t respond well to it.”

Since she works remotely and had flexibility, she decided to withdraw her daughter from Summer Rising. She was happy to give it up for a family that needed the spot, she said, though she hoped the program could incorporate more fun into learning as well as bolster other supports for students, like mental health care and resources for vulnerable students.

“It’s not enough to just have somewhere for kids to go,” she said. “Yes, that’s important. It’s a dire need, and without it, the circumstances for families worsen that much more.”

She added: “But just because a child has somewhere to go, that’s not the whole story.”

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

This Harlem community center is powered by asylum seekers for asylum seekers

2023-08-15T21:29:43+00:00

Since coming to the U.S. from Guinea four months ago, 18-year-old Sadio Diallo splits his time between school and volunteering at a community center in Harlem called Afrikana.

The center opened a year ago to help asylum seekers and is run almost entirely by volunteers who are themselves asylum seekers.

Many of them are students like Diallo, who is studying for a GED diploma. He spends his days at the center translating for recently arrived African migrants who speak Arabic, Wolof, and Pulaar, taking each asylum seeker through every page of their SNAP application for food benefits and assisting them through the process.

Omar Sarr, 33, is a trilingual asylum seeker who arrived in the United States in December 2022. He is now fluent in English and volunteers at Afrikana five days a week.

Diallo isn’t volunteering at the center because of Mayor Eric Adams’s recent call for New Yorkers to step up and pitch in when it comes to supporting the migrant crisis. He’s doing it because he feels compelled to do so.

“I come here because the asylum seekers need my help,” Diallo said. But like the city, which is straining to support asylum seekers, Afrikana is also grappling with overwhelming needs.

“We’ve been able to keep our doors open through prayer, but we need more help,” said Adama Bah, the center’s founder.

She is now hoping to get other civic-minded high school and college students in the area to consider volunteering.

Nearly 100,000 newly arrived asylum seekers have arrived since the spring of 2022, and an estimated 18,000 newly arrived students have enrolled in the city’s public schools since then, according to city officials. Adams said he’s expecting an uptick in the number of families with children to arrive before school starts next month.

Migrants process applications for other migrants at the center.

Some days, as many as 300 asylum seekers have come through Afrikana’s doors, said Bah. The center has become a hub in the community, with asylum seekers helping each other. She connects them with others in the area when they don’t know the answers.

When Spanish-speaking families, for instance, don’t understand how to navigate the Education Department’s Family Welcome Centers, where they must go to enroll their children in school, Bah sends them to Rosa Diaz, an East Harlem parent leader. When Diaz comes across families struggling with housing or food insecurity, she sends them to Afrikana.

“This has all been incredibly difficult for asylum-seeking families, and Afrikana is alleviating those challenges,” Diaz said. “When a family goes to Afrikana, I know they will not be turned away.”

Migrants get social services support and more at Afrikana

The center operates from a small run-down space near the corner of 145th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard, stuffed between two larger storefronts. There is no signage and no description of the building’s purpose. Inside, migrants sit in a makeshift waiting area spread among a group of donated and mismatched chairs.

Afrikana is open five days a week from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., according to fliers wheat-pasted around the neighborhood. However, migrants line up outside the center as early as 6:00 a.m. Bah said that she and her staff are lucky if they leave before 7 p.m. most days. They have no appointment system unlike most nonprofits and government agencies, and this means they can never anticipate how many migrants will show up.

Imam Omar Niass and Adama discuss the day’s plan to assist migrants.

At Afrikana, migrants can expect to receive medical attention, shelter information, and help accessing citywide social services. There is also a daily prayer led by Imam Omar Niass, who frequently visits Afrikana to volunteer and is known for housing hundreds of migrants in the last two years in his mosque. On Fridays, a food pantry is set up for migrants and other Harlem residents. However, most migrants come to have their SNAP benefit applications completed.

Before the application can begin, migrants must have an email address and create a Human Resources Administration, or HRA, account. Then it’s a three-step process: filling out the nearly 20-page written portion, scheduling an appointment for a phone interview, and then going to a Benefits Access Center to submit the required documentation. The process is completed over weeks.

Until recently, Bah’s main focus has been Venezuelan migrants coming to New York City via Port Authority, but with more asylum seekers from African countries entering New York City, the demographics of people needing help have shifted from Latinos to Black migrants. In her 18 years of experience doing this kind of work, Bah said she’s seen Black migrants being treated differently.

“They are constantly rejected from social services, they are turned away from shelters. One shelter didn’t have a functioning shower or air conditioning for these migrants for over a week,” said Bah. Because of this, Bah spends a large amount of time going back and forth with government agencies advocating for the same African migrants, sometimes for days, rather than assisting new migrants every day.

Diallo refers to Bah as “sister” and says that she is the reason he is in school. She’s also a driving force behind his volunteer work there.

“She has done a great deal for me, and here at Afrikana she is doing a great deal for others,” said Diallo, who dreams of going to college after he gets his GED diploma.

Bah first came into the spotlight in 2005, when she was the protagonist of a harrowing documentary that told the story of her arrest by the FBI, who falsely accused her of being a potential suicide bomber and “imminent threat to the United States.” Bah went on to write about how her father’s forced deportation back to Guinea affected her livelihood. Now Bah’s focus is on keeping Afrikana running.

Bah understands the pressure of staying in school while trying to seek asylum, but she also knows how important it is for migrants to pursue their education. After last week’s document drop-off at the HRA office, Bah took the 14 migrants with her to Manhattan’s Education Opportunity Center off of 125th street in Harlem. This center offers free programs for people to learn English, get their GED diploma, and prepare for college.

Bah personally escorted them to the center because of concerns about how migrants are treated there. Even after she walked with them, many later told her they left without enrolling in education classes, turned away without support or instruction on what to do.

The Education Opportunity Center did not immediately respond for comment.

Bah receives anybody who is interested in volunteering, but she says her most consistent volunteers, whom she refers to as her staff, are made up of asylum seekers also navigating the New York City shelter system.

“They’re desperate to keep busy and help people. I tell them if they want to help others, they must help themselves,” Bah said.

Eliana Perozo is a reporting intern at Chalkbeat New York. You can reach her at eperozo@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.

More students eating for free as growing number of states offer universal school meals

2023-08-10T21:51:28+00:00

The number of kids grabbing free meals from the San Luis Coastal Unified district is rising.

Before the pandemic, the district of 7,700 on California’s Central Coast served breakfast and lunch to around a quarter of its students each day. But that percentage shot up during the pandemic, when schools nationwide could give free meals to all kids. And it rose again last year, when California launched the nation’s first statewide free school meals program.

Today, between 50% and 60% of students in the district eat free breakfast and lunch each day. That includes students whose families could afford to pay before, and some students whose families struggled financially but “may not appear most vulnerable on paper,” said Erin Primer, the district’s director of food and nutritional services.

It’s a huge relief, Primer said, “to know that those families are taken care of, that I don’t have to get a call from the single mom who missed qualifying by $200.”

What’s happening in Primer’s district is likely to play out in many more schools across the country as several states prepare to launch their own universal meals programs this fall. Nine states will offer free breakfast and lunch to all their students this school year — a notable shift given that no state did so before the pandemic.

While lawmakers in several states have pushed back on the idea, arguing the cost is too high and that families who can afford meals should pay for them, more states are considering such proposals.

“There is a tremendous amount of momentum,” said Crystal FitzSimons, who oversees school nutrition work for the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center. “People didn’t want to go back to the way the program operated before, with lots of kids whose families are struggling not being eligible for free meals, unpaid school meal debt, and too much administrative work.”

(Read Chalkbeat’s accompanying coverage on the research on the impacts of universal free school meals.)

Why states are launching universal school meal programs

Before COVID, a growing number of schools offered free breakfast and lunch to all their students through a federal program meant to help high-poverty schools. In 2019, just under 15 million students attended schools that served free meals through this program, or around 30% of public school children.

But when the pandemic hit, federal officials gave all schools permission to serve free breakfast and lunch to all their students, regardless of families’ incomes. Many states found they liked the reduced paperwork for families and school staff, as well as the diminished stigma for students who ate the meals, since no one could tell which children came from low-income families.

There are other benefits. Past research has shown that serving free school meals to all kids can help families save money on grocery bills and reduce school suspensions. In some cases, it’s also been linked to higher student attendance rates and improvements in test scores.

But that federal permission expired last year, driven in part by congressional Republicans’ concerns about its cost. Similarly, some state lawmakers have stressed that schools have limited resources. They’ve also raised philosophical questions.

“Presumably we espouse individual responsibility,” North Dakota Sen. Michael Wobbema, a Republican, said earlier this year as the state debated whether it should cover the reduced-price copay for school meals. “And at what point in time do we just wave that away and make the state responsible?”

In North Carolina, when Marianne Weant has advocated for universal free school meals with the North Carolina Alliance for Health, fiscally conservative lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed similar concerns.

“We hear a lot: We don’t want rich kids to get a free meal,” she said. To that she replies: “Kids are kids, they forget their lunch sometimes.”

Another argument she’s used: Schools don’t charge kids for other essentials, like textbooks and laptops. “No one asks your mom if they make too much to ride the bus,” Weant added.

But the 2022 shift at the federal level prompted other states to pass laws to keep school breakfast and lunch free.

California and Maine were the first to do so, followed by — in chronological order — Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico, Vermont, Michigan, and Massachusetts. Colorado, notably, put the question to voters, who overwhelmingly said “yes.” Nevada, meanwhile, will use federal COVID relief funds to offer free meals on a temporary basis again this year.

Others may join them. Lawmakers in Illinois approved a universal school meals program in June that the governor is expected to sign soon.

One of the biggest draws of universal free meal programs is that they often increase the number of students who eat breakfast and lunch.

That seems to be happening in California. Last school year, California schools were on track to serve more breakfasts and lunches than they had the prior year, according to state data through April.

Several big California districts, like Los Angeles and Fresno Unified, saw increases in students eating breakfast and smaller upticks in students eating lunch last year, a recent survey by FitzSimons’ organization found — while large districts in other states without free meals saw declines as they returned to charging students.

Kim Frinzell, who directs nutrition services for California’s education department, said schools have reported that increase has come from both families that could pay, and students who qualified for discounted — but not free — meals in the past.

“You talk to people out in the community and it’s like: It’s so great I don’t have to worry about my child having to have money in their account or packing a lunch,” Frinzell said.

In the Sacramento City Unified district, middle-class parents who didn’t qualify for free meals before have said the money they are saving on groceries has helped them save for emergencies or afford other school activities for their kids, like field trips.

“For them to have two meals per day at school makes a huge difference for me,” Sara Goncalves, a teacher’s aide with two children in the district, told the Sacramento Bee this spring.

When more students eat school meals, districts also get more money back from the federal government. That’s allowed Primer in San Luis Coastal Unified to use higher-quality ingredients and a wider variety of popular foods, from blocks of cheese from a local creamery to short ribs from a nearby ranch.

Teachers and principals have told Primer that’s helped improve school attendance in some cases. At the district’s high school for students who are at risk of not graduating on time, for example, the addition of a chicken tamale dish to the menu motivated one student who struggled to come to school to keep showing up.

Just outside of Portland, Maine, the nutrition services director at Westbrook schools, Mary Emerson, has observed something similar. The uptick in meals her district serves has meant she can afford to offer more Halal options — the district serves many immigrant families from Africa and the Middle East — and higher-quality items that kids love, such as all-Maine fish sticks.

Her cafeteria lines are also running more smoothly, now that elementary schoolers aren’t punching in a five-digit code to get free meals. And she no longer has to spend time calling parents to say “oh, you owe $20.”

“I love it,” Emerson said.

Ultimately, some say a divide between states that do and don’t offer universal free school meals will likely remain unless Congress takes broader action.

“The school nutrition programs are national programs,” FitzSimons said. “Kids in Mississippi and South Dakota should have just as much access to school meals as kids who are in Maine and Colorado and California.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

How a Bronx summer jobs program prioritizes undocumented youth

2023-08-07T22:25:39+00:00

Like many 17-year-olds, Beatriz spent the last year searching for an internship.

Unlike many of them, her immigration status made getting one nearly impossible.

Without a social security number, most internships were out of reach. Beatriz learned about one through a recruiter visiting her high school, but she was too scared to tell the recruiter why she never submitted the application. (Because of Beatriz’s undocumented status, we are not disclosing her last name.)

“I felt so misunderstood,” Beatriz said. “I could tell when the woman came back she thought I just didn’t care.”

Beatriz eventually found an internship elsewhere: She was among 40 undocumented students participating in Beyond Rising, an internship initiative created by Oyate Group, an anti-poverty nonprofit focused on access to health care, food security, and providing resources to undocumented students.

Beyond Rising has nearly doubled its internship class since it opened in 2022 with 22 students, but the needs remain great. There are at least 11,000 undocumented teenagers enrolled in NYC public schools, according to the organization.

While New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program, or SYEP, had 100,000 spots, none were open to undocumented students. Beyond Rising’s mission is to offer undocumented students career readiness resources above and beyond the ones available to documented New York City students.

The five-week paid internship places undocumented youth in administrative offices at Fordham University and Lehman College four days a week. On Fridays, students head back to Beyond Rising’s Bronx headquarters where they participate in mentoring meetings, skills training, and resume preparation. They also take field trips, such as visiting the Museum of The City of New York’s exhibit, “This Is New York - 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture.”

Arefin, another intern this year, and Beatriz have been placed at Fordham where they’re working on a project called Her Migrant Hub, created by Fordham faculty, students, and female asylum seekers.

The work that many of the students have been doing this summer with the colleges is often connected to their own experiences and has given them opportunities to share what they’ve learned navigating the city as undocumented immigrants.

With the help of Fordham faculty and students, female asylum seekers developed a website that helps other female asylum seekers access health care and other social services regardless of their immigration status. Most importantly, they’re able to do all of this anonymously which keeps them safe since knowledge of their immigration status could have them deported.

From the work with Her Migrant Hub, Beatriz, and Arefin realized a specific community of young people weren’t being targeted: unaccompanied minors. Now, with the use of resources from Her Migrant Hub, they’re creating a pamphlet for unaccompanied minors — children who come to the United States without their parents or guardians. The handout covers basic “know your rights” information and includes a list of organizations and resources for newly arrived unaccompanied minors.

A Beyond Rising student holds up his new screen printed shirt.

“When we were designing the pamphlets and thinking about what resources to add, we kept asking ourselves, “What would I have benefited from that I never received?” said Beatriz.

The participants of Beyond Rising took part in a gallery walk and showcased their murals, drawing inspiration from their own lives to create their own collages.

Beyond Rising focuses on challenges faced by undocumented students

Beyond Rising aims to address common problems faced by undocumented students, such as not having access to a bank account, language barriers, and financial challenges.

Students are paid $2,500 over the course of their internship through a weekly stipend of $500 loaded onto a prepaid credit card. (The city’s Summer Youth Employment Programs runs a program called Pathways for students who face enrollment obstacles, such as not having social security numbers. The program aimed to reach 750 students this year with a stipend of about $500 for 60 hours of work.)

Jason Autar, Oyate Group’s chief operating officer, said that the choice to use a prepaid debit card for the students had a twofold mission: to keep students from carrying around $500 in cash, which could create unsafe situations, and to allow them direct access to their stipends.

For Arefin, the money will allow him to purchase a computer, a tool he’s hoping will simplify the college application challenges he’s going to face as an undocumented student. Having his own computer will keep him from having to share with his mother and siblings.

“I watched my brother struggle with applying for college and getting scholarships because of his status, so I know it’s going to be hard,” he said.

Beyond Rising has also hired employees who are able to empathize and provide solutions based on their own migrant experiences.

Alexander Reyes, Beyond Rising’s program coordinator, said the organization intentionally designed its application to be simple for students who might already be discouraged by poor grades, difficulties with English fluency, and involved applications. The application is short, it does not ask for a transcript, and students don’t have to submit letters of recommendation.

“This group of students may have the age but they don’t have the language, for us it’s about providing the access to meet them where they’re at based on their needs,” he said.

Arefin said knowing that the application didn’t require a transcript made him feel more confident.

Beyond Rising is open to students ages 16-20. That’s because some newly arrived students might be 19 but still in the 11th grade, said Reyes.

Augustina Wharton, the director of programs, said she went through all 312 applications for this year’s cohort.

“Every student was qualified enough, but we just didn’t have the resources to take them all,” she said. Bronx students were prioritized because of the organization’s ties to the community, she said.

A Bushwick Print Lab representative helps an undocumented student learn how to screen print.

Building community among students often living in shadows

The organization prides itself on creating a sense of community within its walls. On Fridays, students meet back at Beyond Rising’s Bronx headquarters where the students can be “just young people who want to dance and make art and explore architecture and engineering like any other students,” Wharton said.

On a recent Friday, students streamed into the office as Reyes prepared a breakfast of warm bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches, while Bushwick Print Lab prepared for the day’s activity: learning to screen print on T-shirts.

One student’s screen printing shirt

One student chose to layer a “Migrant Rights Are Human Rights” stencil on top of a bundle of flowers stencil to show how so much life had grown from an identity she was meant to fear.

Beatriz said that in 2017, during the Trump administration, she and her family feared for their safety and security like never before. As the oldest sibling, knowing her rights became more important.

She wanted to participate in this internship to share knowledge with her community about their rights as undocumented people.

“I’m learning about my own rights every day by being in this internship and that’s helping me help my community,” said Beatriz.

Eliana Perozo is a reporting intern at Chalkbeat New York. You can reach her at eperozo@chalkbeat.org.

Five key issues facing Memphis-Shelby County Schools as the new year begins

2023-08-07T02:00:00+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools students return to class Monday for the 2023-24 school year.

This one could be less turbulent than recent years, but no less consequential, as the district confronts key decisions about its next leader, the future of its school buildings, its strategy for improving student academic performance and wellness, and its budget for the post-pandemic era.

Here’s a closer look at five key issues that the district will face this school year:

Search for a superintendent is on — again

MSCS is still seeking applicants for its superintendent job, nearly a year after Joris Ray resigned amid a scandal.

The first attempt to find a leader unraveled, exposing disagreements on the board, fueling public doubts about whether the body could execute a search successfully, and forcing a hard reset.

The board remains committed to the national search it promised Memphians last year. Interim Superintendent Toni Williams, who had once been a finalist for the permanent job, won’t be a candidate. She agreed to drop out of the search under the terms of a new contract she signed to continue as interim leader through another school year.

So far, Take 2 of the search has been consistent with the parameters and the that timeline board members set out in their discussions: The new job posting, which went up at the start of August, reflects the leadership qualities board members collectively decided on, and all applicants will be evaluated against the board’s policy on minimum qualifications.

If the second attempt goes according to plan, applications will close by November, and a new superintendent will be selected by February, with a start date of July 1, 2024. By that schedule, the new superintendent would have a chance to ease into the leadership role during a transition period with Williams, who by that point will have led the district for close to two years.

School building projects will keep students moving

District officials will introduce a new facilities plan this school year that will propose ways to address a backlog of costly maintenance issues. A mix of construction projects, closures, and consolidations will likely affect thousands of students, requiring that some move out of their school buildings and into others.

MSCS is working with More for Memphis, a consortium spearheaded by nonprofit Seeding Success, to develop the plans and establish funding sources.

The plan will describe 110 school investments over the next decade, and officials say they are seeking millions of dollars in private funds for the first five years of facility upgrades and academic improvements. In addition to schools, the district may also consolidate administrative offices, reviving efforts started years ago with the purchase of the old Bayer Building.

Some school communities are already preparing for changes, separate from the new districtwide plan. Under agreements between MSCS and neighboring districts to comply with a new state law, Germantown High School is due to be replaced by a new building in Cordova, mostly paid for through local tax increases. Germantown Elementary and Middle schools will also close in coming years, as will Lucy Elementary School in Millington.

Meanwhile, LaRose Elementary will continue to accommodate students from Cummings K-8, where falling ceiling tiles forced the building to close for repairs just weeks into the 2022-23 school year.

And in Frayser, students at Trezevant High and at MLK College Prep High, which is part of the state’s Achievement School District for low-performing schools, can expect a new high school building in the coming years. Hanley, a K-8 school that was also in the ASD, is returning to MSCS.

The district’s broader plan is likely to address other Memphis schools that are currently in the ASD or expected to exit in coming years.

Academic needs will get a closer look

MSCS will remain focused on improving academic performance for individual students, but changes are also happening at the school and district levels to improve accountability for academics.

While MSCS students are making progress in their recovery from learning losses during the pandemic, math scores still lag, especially for middle schoolers.

And in reading, scores on state standardized tests have rebounded, but proficiency rates for the district have historically been among the lowest in the state. The reading test scores are particularly consequential for third graders, who face the risk of being held back if they don’t successfully complete certain intervention programs.

Interim Superintendent Williams has supported a review of district academic departments and initiatives with a focus on literacy. The review would look at where the district is spending funds for academic programming and assess how effective those programs have been. That assessment would inform the development of an academic plan that board members would monitor each month for progress.

At the school level, the district has expanded its own turnaround program, called the Innovation Zone, or iZone, to include several more schools, including four schools that have returned from the ASD. Schools in the iZone have a longer school day to provide more instruction for students and help the schools perform better overall.

The iZone expansion comes as new accountability measures take effect in Tennessee. The Tennessee Department of Education is expected to begin assigning letter grades to public schools this fall, after years of delays.

District will have to adapt to end of some federal funding

MSCS bolstered its budget over the last several years with some $775 million in one-time federal funds to help schools deal with the pandemic and support their recovery efforts. The dollars come from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund and are commonly referred to as ESSER funds.

Districts have until September 2024 to spend their funds, so officials have to wrap up the spending this school year.

MSCS has already budgeted funds for academic recovery programs, salaries for educational assistants in early grades, and improvements to schools’ heating and air systems. Early rounds of funding were used to buy computers and tablets so students could learn from home online. (Actual spending in the district has been difficult for the public to track.)

As the federal funds run out, Memphis and other districts across the country will have to decide which programs they can sustain with other funding sources, and which ones they will cut.

But the adjustment will be less harsh for Tennessee school districts, thanks to the state’s new school funding formula, which came alongside a $1 billion increase in education spending. Memphis was projected to receive about $114 million more in recurring funds through the new formula, which takes effect this school year.

City’s crises challenge student health, academic success

MSCS has spent more on social emotional learning and support for students, including new wellness centers as some schools. Mental health employees will get the salary schedule they sought last school year.

Factors outside of the district, though, continue to create obstacles. Youth homelessness in MSCS, for instance, has climbed to its highest measured count in four years, to 2,880 students at the end of the last school year.

Support services for Memphis students and families outside of the classroom have grown in importance since the start of the pandemic.

How Memphis and Shelby County tackle persistent social issues such as violence, policing, justice, and poverty will be a critical factor for student wellness and academic success in the district. Candidates in October’s crowded mayoral election have offered many ideas, including some that mirror existing MSCS programs.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

PODCAST: When cell phones are locked up at school

2023-08-04T21:09:54+00:00

This originally aired on The Bell’s Miseducation podcast on June 12.

When I was in seventh grade, something changed in my school. The administration at the Bronx Academy of Letters was implementing a strange new policy called “Yondr.” Haven’t heard of it? Neither had I.

Yondr is a company that makes lockable pouches for smartphones to create “phone-free spaces for artists, educators, organizations, and individuals.” The idea is that it helps with student learning by removing distractions from the classroom.

“We had found that students having cell phones was interfering with student learning.” — Amy Schless, principal of Bronx Academy of Letters

As you might expect, students had some questions about the new policy, many of which I was wondering myself: Is the Yondr phone policy underestimating student maturity? How is the policy affecting student-teacher relationships?

To get some answers, I talk to teachers, my principal, students who have experience with Yondr and even representatives from the company. Listen to this episode to for an inside look at the impact of restrictive cell phone policies on schools like mine.

Zainab Kuta reported this story for The Bell’s Miseducation podcast as a junior at the Bronx Academy of Letters.

Some NYC school bus temperatures rose to over 100 degrees amid heat wave, parents say

2023-08-03T18:05:31+00:00

Brooklyn mom Anjeanette Stokes noticed a few times last month that her daughter came home from summer school sweating and exhausted.

At first, Stokes attributed her daughter’s occasional overheated condition to the especially hot weather, but then her bus driver called last month and said their vehicle had no air conditioning. With few summer options options close to their Bay Ridge home, her daughter, an 8-year-old with Down syndrome, rides a yellow school bus for about an hour from P.S. 130 in Kensington each afternoon.

As an intense heat wave struck New York City last week, Stokes said she pulled her daughter out of school one day out of concern about the bus conditions. On another, her husband took their daughter to and from school using the city’s public buses, which are air conditioned. (Ordinarily, they take her to school only in the morning, as their pick up time is too early, Stokes said.)

“It made me really nervous that she was getting so overheated,” Stokes said.

School bus temperatures during the summer months have long been the subject of complaints, persisting in recent years as New York City has seen record levels of heat. Last week, as temperatures spiked to over 90 degrees, advocates say the heat became even more severe inside of school buses.

Roughly 47,000 students are riding yellow school buses this summer, according to Education Department officials. The buses primarily serve children with disabilities or those in temporary housing.

Under city law, air conditioning on school buses is required for students with disabilities whose individualized education programs, or IEPs, specify it for health reasons — a policy that has frustrated other families still concerned about the effect that heat could have on their children. City Council passed an amendment to the law in June to include all students with disabilities by 2035, the same year by which New York City plans to convert to a fleet of entirely electric school buses.

In the meantime, the extreme heat has led some parents, like Stokes, to face a difficult choice: Pull their kids out of summer programs on hot days, or risk potential health concerns. The issue became even more prevalent last week, said Rima Izquierdo, a Bronx parent and advocate, as city officials urged New Yorkers to remain cool and hydrated amid a National Weather Service excessive heat warning.

“I have parents texting me pictures of the NYC warnings being like, ‘What do I do with my kid?’” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Do what you need to do. Do what you need to do — because if something happens to your kid, you gotta live with that.’”

Izquierdo said her kids have come home dripping with sweat every summer for more than a decade.

As a PTA president at P176X in Co-op City, a District 75 school serving children with disabilities, Izquierdo now conducts bus temperature checks at the campus every year, including a trip last week that found temperatures on some buses reached more than 100 degrees. Multiple buses they inspected did not have working air conditioning, said Tom Sheppard, a member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy who accompanied Izquierdo that day.

One bus, Sheppard said, had an internal temperature of roughly 110 degrees.

Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle said more than 90% of buses used for summer transportation are equipped with air conditioning.

“Any student who is mandated to have air conditioning on their school bus is transported on a bus equipped with air conditioning,” she said in an email.

“Access to air conditioning on buses will be a priority as we move forward,” she added.

Sheppard said the city should take steps to ensure every bus has air conditioning during the summer, adding if even 10% lack air conditioning, it could pose health concerns.

“If we’ve got thousands of buses on the road, that means we’ve got hundreds of hot ones,” he said. “That’s a lot of opportunity for our young people to have heat related issues.”

Some complaints get traction

Sara Catalinotto, founder of Parents to Improve School Transportation, said some parents have had success advocating for their students to get onto buses with air conditioning, but added not all parents know where to go or that an IEP can include an air conditioned bus.

“A lot of parents don’t know their rights. They don’t know these channels of communication,” she said. “And really, it should be prevented. It shouldn’t really have to be such a struggle.”

Education Department officials said they address cases where air conditioning is not required by an IEP on an individual basis, and place air conditioned buses on routes wherever possible.

Stokes, the Bay Ridge parent, complained to the Education Department’s Office of Pupil Transportation, or OPT, early last week. The situation was resolved by Friday, and her daughter now has a bus with air conditioning. But she remains shocked it is only required for students whose IEPs mandate it, especially when it didn’t come up in any of her daughter’s IEP meetings.

“To me, that’s like saying, you need to have access to a water fountain on your IEP,” she said.

And while Izquierdo, too, said she’s been able to resolve some individual cases through contacting OPT, she expressed frustration with the long timeline toward a broader change. Each summer, she said, her phone rings non-stop with concerns from parents at her school. She worries that little will change before the new law goes into effect in 2035.

“It shouldn’t take 12 years,” she said.

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

These NYC teens overcame school refusal and made it to graduation

2023-08-02T10:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

Catherine had watched for years as her once high-achieving son’s relationship with school deteriorated.

Michael’s depression, anxiety, and ADHD made the transition to high school painful. Then the pandemic hit, and he spent his sophomore year at home in pajamas.

When schools fully reopened his junior year, Michael refused to return, and he was later hospitalized for attempting suicide. After that alarming episode, a psychiatrist gave Catherine pointed advice: drive your son to his Queens school every day, even just to see the building, or he may never go back.

“It scared me,” said Catherine.

Despite her son’s resistance, she made Michael get into their beat-up Hyundai Sonata and drive the 2.5 miles past the campus nearly every day for weeks. Eventually, he was able to step inside the school building and attend for longer stretches during summer school, with its less demanding schedule.

Then, remarkably, he returned full time for senior year.

Michael played chess with new friends. He went on the senior trip to a camp in Connecticut. He went to prom. While his attendance wasn’t perfect, he was a full-fledged member of the senior class, a development his mom credits to sticking with therapy and medications and eventually getting the accommodations he needed from his school.

In a moment that once felt next to impossible, Michael got his diploma last month and will head to community college in the fall. (Names in this story have been changed to middle names or pseudonyms to protect students’ privacy.)

Several families like Michael’s who overcame serious aversions to attending class — often referred to as school refusal — and made it to graduation told Chalkbeat they had to be determined and vigilant, navigating school mental health systems that are struggling to address worsening student needs since the pandemic without enough resources or updated guidance to meet this unprecedented moment.

Even before the pandemic, about 2 to 5% of children nationwide avoided school. Now, several social workers told Chalkbeat they are dealing with more extreme cases of school refusal than ever before, fueled in part by an alarming rise in suicidal ideation among city teens and contributing to a chronic absenteeism rate in New York City that hit 41% in the 2021-22 school year.

The consequences of missing so much school can be devastating. One longitudinal study estimated that a quarter of students who were chronically absent — defined as missing at least 10% of days — ultimately dropped out.

Meanwhile, the youth mental health system is bending under the pressure, with a shortage of hospital beds for youth in crisis and waitlists for therapists, especially for Medicaid patients, that are monthslong.

This means families rely on schools even more. But New York City’s school social workers and guidance counselors are often strained, with an average of one social worker per 456 students and one guidance counselor per 277 students, according to an analysis. National guidance recommends one school counselor and one social worker for every 250 students. For children with more extreme needs, the recommended ratio is one social worker to 50 students.

Balancing high caseloads and sometimes multiple schools make it hard to follow time-consuming best practices to treat school refusal, such as individualized transition plans with gradual exposure to school. And schools may miss early warning signs altogether.

Several social workers also told Chalkbeat that they do not have dedicated supervisors to regularly advise them on difficult cases, a common practice in clinical settings that could help prevent burnout, especially for newly minted staffers.

“I always go to a trusted colleague to run through a case during a time of crisis, just to bounce ideas off of,” said Dr. Jessica Chock-Goldman, a social worker at Bard Early College High School in Manhattan and adjunct professor at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. “If students who are newly out of their masters program, and do not have the training and background in how to properly assess a child for suicidal ideation or any high risk cases, how can we put full trust in this clinician?”

Myka, 17, returned to their Queens home for senior year after spending junior year at a residential therapeutic program in Utah.

Education Department officials confirmed that social workers have no direct supervisors, but said they have access to teams outside of their school in the superintendent and central offices for additional support. Central staffers host office hours with small groups and case conferencing sessions to discuss best practices and challenging cases, officials said, but they declined to provide how often these are held.

Officials also point out that every school has access to a mental health professional — though the fate of 500 social workers hired with federal relief dollars remains a question after that money dries up next year. Schools are focusing on breathing and mindfulness, and the health department plans to roll out teletherapy for high school students this year.

“We’re also working to improve attendance across our school system and ensure that every single student feels safe, seen, and welcomed every day in their school buildings and communities, and engaged in their classroom learning,” education department spokesperson Jenna Lyle said in an email.

In more than a decade working in schools, Chock-Goldman said she’s never seen the level of student need that she has in the past two years, and she’s worried schools are unprepared. “Kids spend more waking hours at school than any other place,” she said. “We’re the ones doing the work.”

Schools lack training to work with intense needs, some say

Michael’s freshman year guidance counselor was “well-intentioned,” but had little training or experience with school refusal, said his mom, a social worker herself. He started to avoid school that first year of high school, months before the pandemic, and exhibited signs that went unnoticed in elementary school.

His family transferred him in the middle of freshman year to a smaller Queens high school with a strong advisory program. Soon after, classes went remote, and Michael’s mental health spiraled. During his junior year, after Michael spent about a week in the hospital, the school social worker tried to connect the family with a day treatment program. Waitlists were too long.

His family considered various out-of-school learning options, such as a hybrid online and in-person model called Fusion and therapeutic boarding school. They also considered Mount Sinai’s Comprehensive Adolescent Rehabilitation and Education Service, known as CARES, which is a therapy-based school serving teens with severe emotional challenges. Because that program is an alternative school in the city’s District 79, kids earn class credits.

But the number of applicants to CARES, which serves about 50 teens, is often nearly as big as the program itself, said Dr. Kelly Mule, a psychologist at CARES and assistant professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine.

Michael didn’t want to attend any of these programs. He wanted to return to his Queens high school, but he didn’t know how.

By May of his junior year, as he took classes at home as part of the city’s program for students with medical conditions, Michael was able to walk inside the school building. He could sit with the social worker and work on Google classroom assignments, but he couldn’t make himself walk into the classrooms. He felt too awkward when people asked where he had been, Catherine said.

“Some of the teachers made comments, ‘I don’t even know this kid. Who is this kid?’” she recounted.

At CARES, for instance, teachers are trained on how to respond to kids after prolonged absences and follow their lead on workload, often in partnership with a child’s therapist, Mule said. While time-consuming and not foolproof, these strategies can shorten future absences.

But these best practices are often passed down by more experienced colleagues, she explained. That’s why in clinical settings, staffers with a licensed master of social work, have supervisors they meet with weekly to discuss cases — a resource missing for school social workers. To Mule’s surprise, she has met veteran school social workers who weren’t aware of city-funded programs for youth, such as Children’s Single Point of Access, a centralized system for finding mental health services.

“You can’t expect social workers to sustain their work with no supervision,” Mule said. “They need a seasoned supervisor who can connect them to resources that they have vetted and know work for a specific set of symptoms or needs.”

Mental health approaches can be uneven, even within schools

This past year at Manhattan’s High School for Environmental Studies, 17-year-old Myka was required to attend a guidance counselor’s lecture about suicide prevention and awareness. Myka, who was hospitalized for suicidal ideation in December 2020, the middle of sophomore year, thought making the lecture mandatory was “hilarious” and found the counselor’s delivery cringe-worthy.

Myka, 17, holds a fidget device called an infinity cube in their Queens backyard.

When schools went remote for the pandemic, Myka, who identifies as nonbinary, stopped attending classes online and barely left their room because “it didn’t make sense in my brain to do school at home,” they said. Instead of going back to their Queens high school, they spent several months at a wilderness program in Georgia, and then completed junior year in a residential therapeutic program in Utah.

But come senior year, they felt ready to return to New York City. Though they still suffered from social anxiety, depression, and ADHD symptoms, they had more coping skills and a stronger sense of self-advocacy through therapy and self work. That’s why the counselor’s lecture came as a shock.

“She said that telling someone ‘You’re being selfish’ when they tell you they’ve thought of hurting or seriously harming themselves was an okay way to respond,” Myka said. “It just wasn’t the message that should have been sent, and was a bit of a red flag in my book.”

The school social worker, on the other hand, was a source of comfort, helping figure out which accommodations on their special education plan were needed — and which weren’t. (The school’s principal declined to comment, directing questions to the Education Department.)

Myka didn’t, for instance, need classes with two teachers, a requirement that would have prevented them from taking most of their courses, including their favorite course: AP psychology.

Other accommodations were lifesavers. Myka took breaks during class to walk around or go to the social worker’s office. They were also allowed fidget toys in class, extensions on some assignments, extra time on tests, and specific instructions breaking down big projects into more manageable tasks. And their social worker brokered a meeting with Myka’s English teacher to allow headphones to cancel out class noise, as long as no music was playing.

“I do feel as though I am able to advocate for myself and feel heard, which is something I have received a lot of positive feedback about,” Myka said.

Myka will soon head to a dorm four hours away at SUNY Oneonta, where they plan to study psychology in hopes of becoming a therapist or social worker — inspired by their own experience in mental health treatment centers.

Krystal Folk, 31, a middle school social worker, poses for a portrait in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn.

Myka’s success story illustrates the difference a great school professional can make, what KIPP charter school social worker Krystal Folk tries to accomplish with her Bronx students.

As a young Black girl growing up in Brooklyn, Folk herself felt like it wasn’t culturally acceptable to get therapy, a mindset she’s trying to change through her own work.

“In our community it’s taken a long time to accept that we need mental health services,” she said. That’s why she considers it extra important that she disclose to her students her own depression and anxiety.

“They say, ‘No Ms. Folk, you’re fine.’ I tell them, ‘I’m clinically diagnosed,’” she said. “I think normalizing that we have feelings and anxieties is important. As corny and cheesy as it sounds, I try to be the person I wish I had at their age.”

Services beyond schools are still needed

For some students, school doesn’t offer the services they need. But after getting help elsewhere, they are driven to return by a passion for learning.

That was the case with Emma, whose mother, Beth, turned to a private therapist for her daughter’s ADHD, extreme anxiety, and suicidal ideation that led to school refusal. Emma attended the famed LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where there is one social worker for about 900 students, and one counselor for every 200 kids, according to an analysis. The school’s on-site mental health clinic closed during the pandemic, families said. (The school’s acting principal did not respond for comment.)

Beth credits her daughter’s return to school to dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, which helps patients learn to confront and change unhealthy behaviors. Emma first had access to the “life changing” therapy in her after-care program following hospitalization when she was a sophomore.

But another factor in her recovery was her drive to succeed at LaGuardia and her love of the school’s drama classes, which drew her to school even as dark times returned junior year, when fights with friends on social media followed her into the classroom.

“She considered pulling out of school,” Beth said. “But she didn’t want to give up on LaGuardia. She just put one foot in front of the other.” Being in the drama program remained a big pull: “To be able to spend half of your day working on your art, whatever your art is, the joy of that never diminished,” her mom said.

Emma is now planning to attend college in upstate New York and hopes to become a director or art designer, said Beth.

Echoing other parents of students who suffered from school refusal, Beth said, “We are cautiously optimistic.”

If you or someone you know is considering self-harm, please dial 988 for the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

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

Detroit school officials announce new partners for health hub expansion

2023-08-08T21:54:19+00:00

Editor’s note: This story was updated Tuesday, August 8 to disclose the Kellogg and Kresge foundations as financial sponsors of Chalkbeat.

Three regional foundations will help fund the Detroit school district’s new series of school-based health hubs, designed to provide students and families with timely and convenient access to medical services.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Kresge Foundation, and Children’s Foundation will provide the Detroit Public Schools Community District with a combined $1.8 million to develop 12 health hubs in neighborhood schools across the city, district officials announced Monday at a news conference at Detroit’s East English Village Preparatory Academy at Finney. (The Kellogg and Kresge foundations are supporters of Chalkbeat.)

The newly announced donations are in addition to the $2.76 million already earmarked from the Ballmer Group. Earlier this month, DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti announced at a community meeting on mental health and school safety that the health hubs would begin in the 2023-24 school year.

In addition to East English Village Preparatory Academy at Finney, the first health hubs will be launched at Southeastern High School, Osborn High School, Central High School/Durfee Elementary-Middle School, and Western International High School/Maybury Elementary School.

The remaining hubs will be launched in the next two school years.

At Monday’s news conference, Vitti heralded the health hubs as an “innovation” that will help the district in addressing chronic absenteeism, in which students have missed 10% of the school year, or 18 days.

In the 2021-22 school year, DPSCD recorded a 77% rate of chronic absenteeism, up from 63% before the pandemic, largely stemming from COVID quarantine and close-contact guidance the district observed that year. The district’s rate dropped to 68% this past school year; a positive direction, Vitti said, but still short of the district’s goal.

The health hubs, he added, will provide students and families within a three-mile radius of the site direct access to physical, mental, and dental health services that might otherwise impact a student’s attendance record.

“We had to move to a place of problem-solving, we can’t just accept these numbers,” Vitti said. “

“We believe resources can be provided best, most efficiently, with less bureaucracy, with less red tape in our schools because that’s where our children are at, and often that’s where our families are most comfortable.

“Our data is very clear: when students are absent less than nine times throughout the school year, they’re anywhere from three to five times more likely to be at grade-level performance in reading and math or to be college ready at the high school level.”

Andrew Stein, president of the Children’s Foundation, echoed the superintendent’s remarks.

“We know firsthand the need for the holistic suite of supports that the health hubs are providing,” Stein said. “And in particular, the critical role that a school nurse plays in really any school-based health strategy. The data is clear on the role nurses play in attending the physical and emotional health of students.”

The Children’s Foundation’s investment will support the creation of the health hub at Central High School, as well as funding school nurses at Central and four other DPSCD schools.

The Kresge donation will help fund the 12 health hubs, as well as establish a health hub at the School of Marygrove. Meanwhile, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation will support oral health services at all the health hubs and launch a districtwide oral health clinic in northwest Detroit.

The first five school health hubs will be phased into buildings during the school year. Each site will have a designated full-time coordinator who will assist students, families, and community members with accessing services. The hubs also will partner with local health care providers Ascension, Henry Ford Health, and the Institute for Population Health to staff the physical and behavioral health services at each location.

The coordinator will also work in tandem with school-based or districtwide attendance agents, to refer students and families to the health hub after phone calls home determine what barriers are preventing a student from coming to school.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@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.

Chicago eyes dramatically expanding its Sustainable Community Schools program

2023-07-31T11:00:00+00:00

On a recent July morning, students at Brighton Park Elementary prepared chicken tenders and honey mustard sauce with a visiting chef in the Southwest Side school’s gleaming kitchen. Later, some went to a boxing class, pairing off to spar on blue mats.

Next door, about 20 students on the school’s student voice committee huddled to brainstorm ideas for a campaign to reopen Chicago’s shuttered mental health clinics. They were getting a $1,000 stipend to participate.

And in a room downstairs, school moms enrolled in a free arts and crafts class folded colorful strips of paper into ruffles to decorate star-shaped piñatas.

The robust summer program is one upshot of the elementary’s status as a Sustainable Community School, a joint initiative of the Chicago Teachers Union and the district, in which 20 high-poverty campuses receive up to $500,000 a year. In tandem with local nonprofits, the schools offer additional after-school and other programs, steer families to services in the community, and seek to engage students and parents in school decisions.

Jade Maldonado, 9, center, gets pointers from her boxing instructor at Brighton Park Elementary on July 20, 2023, in Chicago.

Now, Mayor Brandon Johnson and his transition team want to expand the program, to as many as 200 of the district’s roughly 500 schools — a centerpiece of his promise to give a boost to the city’s often shrinking neighborhood schools. That’s even as proponents recognize that such growth would come with a major price tag, at a time when the district faces a murkier financial outlook.

A Chalkbeat analysis showed that through the turbulent past few years, this group of schools saw graduation tick up and attendance dip largely in lockstep with other high-poverty neighborhood schools, though the community schools started with lower baseline averages. So far, the overwhelming majority of those 20 campuses have not staved off steep districtwide enrollment losses, and many have been particularly hard hit — even as its proponents hope the model might help stabilize enrollment in the longer term.

School leaders such as Brighton Park principal Sara Haas say the initiative has been game-changing, paying for key staff, improving campus cultures, and forging stronger bonds to families and neighborhoods. Some are also upfront that their campuses have a way to go to become true neighborhood hubs with broad family involvement and a wide array of services.

Sara Haas, 39, is the principal at Brighton Park Elementary. She has served at the school for nine years, overseeing the rollout of the Sustainable Community Schools initiative.

Several evaluations of Sustainable Community Schools point to encouraging headway in implementing the program despite the pandemic’s upheaval — as well as difficulties in jibing with nonprofit partners and sometimes uneven buy-in from staff.

Chicago is part of a recent national push to expand what’s more commonly known as full-service community schools, led by teachers unions and other proponents. U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is also a fan.

Studies of the model nationally have shown promising gains in attendance, academics, and students’ sense of belonging at school. Others have yielded underwhelming results, drawing an unsurprising conclusion:

It’s all about how the model is implemented.

At Brighton Park Elementary, school leaders say thinking differently about what school can be is key.

“So much of community schools is about shifting your mindset and about how you approach the model,” said Haas.

Chicago eyes a community school expansion

In some ways, said Brighton Park’s Haas, the predominantly Latino campus was a great fit to join the pilot group of Sustainable Community Schools in 2018.

In keeping with the model’s emphasis on embracing restorative justice, the school had already started shifting away from punitive discipline. Over more than a decade, the campus had forged a close relationship with the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council — the nonprofit that would become its partner agency in the new initiative. The organization had run after-school and summer programs at the school and funded a part-time clinician position.

The council also offered input as Sustainable Community Schools was conceived, inspired by the 2015 fight and hunger strike that warded off the closure of Dyett High School on Chicago’s South Side. The initiative was ultimately enshrined in the teachers union contract.

Dyett and the 19 other participating campuses were chosen among open enrollment schools in communities where at least 80% of students qualified for subsidized school meals.

The program was built on the idea of supporting “the whole child” — and transforming schools into “community hubs designed to provide wraparound academic, health, and social support for the entire community beyond the traditional 9 am to 3 pm school day,” as the teachers union overview of the program puts it.

Each school paired up with a partner agency, which among other things staffed a resource coordinator to connect families with anything from rental assistance and local food pantries to adult education opportunities. Many schools would also use the added funding to bring on other key support staff: mental health and crisis response counselors, parent or community engagement coordinators, and restorative justice coaches.

The program was not the district’s first foray in building full-service community schools. Many of the pilot schools, including Brighton Park Elementary, were already receiving 21st Century Community Learning Center grants — federal dollars passed on by the state that have helped power the district’s separate Community Schools Initiative, which started in 2003. With roughly 200 schools, that longer-standing program is considered one of the largest community school networks in the country.

But schools receive up to about $150,000 through that older Community Schools Initiative – a fraction of the up to $500,000 funding boost in the union-district Sustainable Community Schools program. As a result, the scope of that earlier initiative is more limited, focused largely on expanding after-school and summer programs and services, and increasing family engagement.

“There’s just not enough money in the Community School Initiative model to address foundational issues of equity,” Patrick Brosnan, the executive director of the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council said. “In a perfect world, we need to move toward an expansion of both models.”

Students on the student voice committee at Brighton Park Elementary participate in an icebreaker activity as part of the school’s summer program in 2023.

For Chicago’s new mayor, the focus is on expanding the Sustainable Community Schools model. In fact, Brandon Johnson’s mayoral transition committee, on which Brosnan served, called for making that a district priority in a July report that did not mention the Community School Initiative.

Jen Johnson, the deputy mayor for education, youth, and human services, said in a recent interview with Chalkbeat that the administration’s vision is to work toward a “Sustainable Community Schools district,” even as she acknowledged the major cost of converting all or most campuses into full-service community schools. At current levels of funding, adding 180 schools to the initiative would cost $75 million to $90 million.

Sustainable Community Schools draw praise — and nuanced evaluations

Jhoanna Maldonado, a Chicago Teachers Union organizer and its Sustainable Community Schools point person, says the pandemic brought disruption — but also vindication for the model.

The schools and their community partners were better prepared than most to respond to families’ emergency needs — from food and housing assistance to internet access and laptops for remote learning. They were also often in better positions to address the heightened mental health needs of students and parents.

“That made really difficult work other schools were scrambling to figure out easier,” said Maldonado, a former teacher at Yates Elementary, one of the campuses in the program.

Chalkbeat compared some metrics at the 20 Sustainable Community Schools and at other neighborhood schools that had a poverty rate of 80% or more in 2018. Generally, these campuses have seen similar trends play out since 2018 amid the pandemic’s upheaval: Attendance dipped and chronic absenteeism spiked at comparable rates. Graduation at the high schools participating in the initiative ticked up at a slightly lower rate than at other high-poverty neighborhood high schools.

With the exception of Dyett and Richards high schools, the Sustainable Community Schools have not avoided the enrollment declines that the pandemic accelerated across Chicago. A number — including Brighton Park, Beidler, McCormick, Morrill, and Yates elementaries as well as Farragut and Uplift high schools — were particularly hard hit, losing a quarter or more of their enrollment since the initiative started.

Maldonado, the teachers union organizer, said the district needs better measures of students’ sense of belonging and pride in their school — rather than traditional metrics such as attendance — to capture the value of community schools.

“You walk into a school, and you feel a different vibe,” she said. “You see that people are having those tough conversations.”

Local and national evaluations of community school initiatives offer a nuanced picture, suggesting that smart and careful implementation is paramount to see payoff for students.

On the eve of the pandemic, an analysis of almost 20 rigorous studies of the model found some showed learning and school culture gains, and others showed little effect. Evaluations of Communities In Schools, a national program that works with about 200 schools in Chicago, found it led to academic and other gains in Chicago and in Wichita, Kan., but not in two other cities.

William Corrin, the director of K-12 education at the think tank MDRC, says research so far has not pinpointed why some schools appear more successful in rolling out the model. The mixed evidence likely reflects the heavy lift of getting that model right — and the fact that it takes time to see results.

“A school is a really complex system on its own, with many different players doing different work,” he said. “When you shift to a community school model, you are increasing the number of stakeholders working with students.”

In Chicago, evaluations of Sustainable Community Schools by the American Institutes for Research and the University of Wisconsin — largely based on interviews and surveys of staff at schools and partner agencies — found positive feedback as well as uneven implementation across campuses, though all studies stress the challenges of a pandemic-era rollout.

Educators, school leaders, and other staff reported embracing more culturally responsive teaching practices and offering more social-emotional and mental health support for children. The evaluations also captured pushback against restorative justice in some schools or a sense that educators needed more training and other help to introduce them.

Three principals told researchers that they felt their partner agencies were out to further their own missions rather than understand the needs of the schools and team up on pursuing them.

Campuses strive to get rolling out the model right

Carlos Reyes, a seventh grader on Brighton Park’ student voice committee, says the school’s emphasis on student wellness and leadership has shaped his experience there.

He felt better this past school year after he opened up about the death of his dog in a talking circle with sympathetic classmates. This summer, he also spoke at a City Hall protest as part of the mental health clinics campaign.

“I feel really accomplished when I get to speak out,” he said.

Carlos Reyes, 12, serves on Brighton Park Elementary’s student voice committee and is a member of the local school council. He was voted to the position by fellow students.

Meanwhile, Stephanie Concepcion Alonso, the mom of a Brighton Park Elementary first grader, got a job as a college mentor at nearby Kelly High — her alma mater and another Sustainable Community School — while she attended Harold Washington College. More recently, she tutored at Brighton Park Elementary, and come fall, she will work in its after-school program.

“Sustainable Community Schools has had this compound community-building effect,” said Brosnan, the head of the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council. “We are hiring from the neighborhood, and it becomes an engine for economic development in the community.”

Brighton Park Elementary made its part-time mental health clinician and parent coordinator full-time positions. It set up a “peace room” for talking circles and installed a washer and dryer to ensure clean uniforms for students.

Still, principal Berg says the rollout in some ways remains a work in progress. She wants the stable of student leaders the school is cultivating to be more involved in weighing in on school decisions. And while the school leans on a handful of active parents, she wants to see broader parental involvement.

At Richards High School, another Sustainable Community School on the Southwest Side, principal Ellen Kennedy says the program has been one of the most influential initiatives in her six years at the helm. It pays for a youth intervention specialist, parent engagement coordinator, a full-time clinician, after-school clubs, and tutoring. It has allowed the school to step up outreach to families and shift neighborhood perceptions of the campus — efforts that Kennedy credits for a 12% increase in enrollment since the program started.

“For us, Sustainable Community Schools is not this extra initiative,” said Kennedy. “It’s the way we want school to function and run on the regular.”

But Kennedy said that as a growing nonprofit with a citywide and national reach, Youth Guidance — the school’s partner agency, known for providing the Becoming a Man mentoring program — didn’t feel as connected to the local community and didn’t have the neighborhood presence the campus had sought. And she said “accountability issues” with programming Youth Guidance provides on campus also affected a decision Richards made this spring to replace it with the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council as its lead partner agency.

Two other Sustainable campuses had previously switched nonprofit partners.

In a statement, Youth Guidance noted it will continue to work with its other four partner high schools in the program and to provide mentoring at Richards, citing “an unwavering commitment to the city’s youth, families, and schools.”

Miguel del Valle, who stepped down as Chicago’s school board president in June, recently called for a closer look at the district’s nonprofit partners in both community schools programs. A former member of the Federation for Community Schools board, he says he is a passionate believer in the model. But he said he doesn’t believe all the partners involved in the district’s community school programs are delivering, though he declined to name specific nonprofits or share details about his concerns.

“I really feel we should have higher expectations of our community partners,” he said. “CPS has to keep track of how they are doing rather than leaving it up to principals.”

He also said many of the district’s community schools are not providing enough classes and services for parents and other residents to truly serve as a community hub.

Students play outside Brighton Park Elementary on July 20, 2023, in Chicago.

Some students on Sustainable Community School campuses said their schools need to work harder to make students feel involved in decision-making and to break with punitive discipline — central tenets of the model.

Rose Flores, a junior at Kelly High, said her school did not factor in student input before recent unpopular dress code changes. And she feels the campus has taken a harder line on student behavior post-pandemic. She recently got an in-school suspension for walking to class a few minutes late after she scrambled to change following gym class, she said.

Maldonado said the pilot campuses are “trying to break the mold of what school is from within the system.”

They are still expected to administer what the union considers too many standardized tests. They have contended with staffing shortages. And they have sometimes struggled to embrace the central idea of collaborating on key decisions with partner nonprofits, families, and students.

Still, she said, “This is the way forward for public education. It’s not perfect. It’s not easy.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s how NYC families can find free summer meal sites

2023-07-27T21:30:11+00:00

For many New York City families, the summer months come with added stress, as kids are out of schools where free meals are provided each day.

Across the five boroughs, free summer meal sites are working to alleviate that concern — and thanks to a texting service, families can quickly find the nearest site for their children. So far, the city has served more than 3 million meals, a pace matching last year, according to the city’s Education Department.

Summer meals are offered at a range of public schools and other community sites, serving free breakfast and lunch to anyone 18-years-old or younger. Other locations include city pools, parks, camps, nonprofit organizations, and more.

Families can text “FOOD” (or “COMIDA” for a Spanish-language service) to 304-304 to receive a list of the nearest free meal sites. No registration, documentation, or identification is required to access free meals.

The texting service comes from No Kid Hungry, a national campaign of the organization Share Our Strength. It compiles information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, state agencies, and school district websites, giving families convenient options nearby, according to a spokesperson for the campaign.

Families can also search city sites using an education department search tool.

Hunger issues have continued to impact families in the city, with nearly three-quarters of New York families reporting it was harder to afford groceries this past year, according to a recent No Kid Hungry poll.

In a statement, Rachel Sabella, director of No Kid Hungry New York, called the free meals program a “critical lifeline” for struggling families.

The texting service also includes information about how to get Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, which if eligible can provide families with additional monthly funds for food. The city, however, has been the subject of a lawsuit over delays in processing SNAP benefits.

Free summer meals will be offered at city sites until Sept. 1. Meals must be eaten on site at most locations, though some allow pick-up.

[Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter for the latest news on NYC public schools.]

Across the summer months, the city typically serves more than 7 million meals, schools Chancellor David Banks said at a press conference last week.

“We serve at parks and pools and schools,” he said. “Wherever the people are, our office of school food nutrition is there responding to the need.”

This summer, New York City public school families will also receive $120 per child in pandemic food benefits, according to state officials.

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

Need help with school supplies? Check out these Colorado events.

2023-08-02T22:21:11+00:00

Leer en español.

Shopping for back-to-school supplies is always a stressful time for parents.

This year, an annual survey from the National Retail Federation estimates that parents are going to spend nearly $900 per household, more than at any time in the past decade, on back-to-school shopping. While inflation can play a role, the association also found that parents are expecting to purchase more electronic devices or accessories than in the past as part of their back-to school-shopping.

Schools and organizations across the state are attempting to help parents with some of the basics. Below are some of the school-supply giveaways coming up.

If you know of another giveaway we should include on our list, email co.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Saturday, July 29

Time: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Where: Adams 14’s resource fair at Adams City High School, 7200 Quebec Parkway

The district is partnering with community organizations to offer school backpacks and supplies, food and clothing assistance, haircut vouchers, vaccines, and more.

Sunday, July 30

Time: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Where: Radiance Church in Commerce City, 8301 Rosemary St.

This church will provide food, free backpacks with school supplies, and haircuts to anyone in the community.

Saturday, Aug. 5

Time: 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Where: Town Center at Aurora, 14200 E. Alameda Ave.

Aurora Public School’s annual school kickoff will include free backpacks and school supplies to district students, low- or no-cost immunizations and vaccinations, and other free “goodies.” The event is also an opportunity to register children for school and meet staff.

Sunday, Aug. 6

Time: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Where: Mile High Flea Market, 7007 E. 88th Ave.

Nonprofit Adelante Community Development is partnering with Mile High Flea Market to co-host a back-to-school resource and health fair that will include free backpacks and supplies for preschool students through 12th grade, as well as basic health screenings for adults and children, and COVID vaccines. There will also be other resources and assistance with Medicaid and CHP+ applications on site.

Time: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Where: Wheelz Bar & Grill, 2490 W. Hampden Ave. Englewood

The event will feature a bouncy house and kids can get a free hamburger or hotdog with chips.

Sunday, Aug. 13

Time: 1 to 8 p.m.

Where: Heritage Lakewood Belmar Park, 801 S. Yarrow St.

The Colorado Barber Giveback brings together barbers ready to give kids free haircuts before school starts. The group is also partnering with other organizations that will be offering backpacks and school supplies. There will also be food and live entertainment.

Saturday, Aug. 19

Time: 2 p.m. until supplies run out

Where: 4801 W. 92nd Ave. Westminster

This annual event sponsored by several organizations is first come first serve until school supplies run out.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

¿Necesitas ayuda para conseguir los útiles escolares? Estos son algunos eventos en Colorado para ayudarte.

2023-08-02T22:26:37+00:00

Read in English.

La época de las compras para el regreso a la escuela es siempre estresante para los padres.

Este año, una encuesta anual de la National Retail Federation estima que los padres van a pagar casi $900 por familia en las compras para el regreso a la escuela, una cifra que es la más alta de la última década. Aunque la inflación puede ser un factor, la organización también descubrió que los padres esperan comprar más dispositivos electrónicos o accesorios que antes como parte de las compras del regreso a la escuela.

Las escuelas y organizaciones de todo el estado están tratando de ayudar a los padres con algunos de los materiales básicos. Aquí te mostramos una lista de los eventos que habrá dentro de poco.

[ ¿Tienes preguntas sobre la tutoría y si tu hijo se beneficiaría? Aquí hay algunas respuestas a tus preguntas. ]

Si sabes de algún otro evento en que estén regalando útiles y opinas que debe estar incluido, envíanos un email a co.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Sábado, 29 de julio

Hora: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Dónde: Feria de recursos de Adams 14 en la Escuela Secundaria Adams City, 7200 Quebec Parkway

El distrito está colaborando con organizaciones comunitarias para regalar mochilas y materiales, comida y ropa, vales para recortes de cabello, vacunas, y más.

Domingo, 30 de julio

Hora: 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Dónde: Radiance Church en Commerce City, 8301 Rosemary St.

Esta iglesia estará regalando comida, mochilas con útiles escolares y recortes de cabello a cualquier persona de la comunidad.

Sábado, 5 de agosto

Hora: 10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Dónde: Town Center en Aurora, 14200 E. Alameda Ave.

Este evento anual de las Escuelas Públicas de Aurora incluirá mochilas y útiles escolares gratis para los estudiantes del distrito, vacunas a bajo costo o gratis, y otros obsequios para los asistentes. El evento también es una oportunidad para registrar a los hijos en la escuela y conocer al personal escolar.

Domingo, 6 de agosto

Hora: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Dónde: Mile High Flea Market, 7007 E. 88th Ave.

La organización sin fines de lucro Adelante Community Development se ha unido al Mile High Flea Market para llevar a cabo una feria de salud y recursos para el regreso a la escuela que incluirá mochilas y útiles escolares gratis para estudiantes desde preescolar hasta el 12mo grado, clínicas de detección básicas para adultos y niños, y vacunas contra COVID. También habrá otros recursos y asistencia para llenar las solicitudes de Medicaid y CHP+.

Hora: 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Dónde: Wheelz Bar & Grill, 2490 W. Hampden Ave. Englewood

Este evento incluirá un brinca brinca y comida gratis para los niños.

Domingo, 13 de agosto

Hora: 1 – 8 p.m.

Dónde: Heritage Lakewood Belmar Park, 801 S. Yarrow St.

El evento Colorado Barber Giveback une a barberos listos para regalar recortes de cabello a los niños antes de que comiencen las clases. El grupo también está trabajando con otras organizaciones que repartirán mochilas y útiles escolares. El evento incluirá comida y entretenimiento en vivo.

Sábado, 19 de agosto

Hora: 2 p.m. – hasta que se terminen los útiles

Dónde: 4801 W. 92nd Ave. Westminster

Este evento anual es presentado por varios grupos que repartirán materiales a los primeros que lleguen hasta agotar existencias.

Yesenia Robles es reportera de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre temas relacionados con los distritos escolares K-12 y la educación multilingüe. Para comunicarte con Yesenia, envíale un email a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Wondering about tutoring and if your child would benefit? Here are some answers to your questions.

2023-07-20T18:46:52+00:00

Leer en español.

As educators look for ways to help students as they recover academically from pandemic interruptions, tutoring can play a key role.

But across the country, many leaders are seeing that some of the students who need the help the most aren’t taking advantage.

So, as parents, what questions should you be asking about tutoring and whether your student can benefit? Here are answers to some common questions.

When should I consider tutoring for my child?

Rhonda Haniford, associate commissioner of the school quality and support division at the Colorado Department of Education, said the first thing to keep in mind is that different tutoring programs are designed to achieve different goals.

While parents might think tutoring is only to help students who are struggling academically, sometimes programs are designed instead to keep students engaged, accelerate their learning, or hone in on specific skills or needs.

If a parent believes their child is struggling academically, Haniford said they should look at what their school offers.

“First, I would say meet with the school and talk about what they’re seeing,” Haniford said. “Talk about what’s working, what are the child’s strengths as well as where are their needs. And can tutoring help? It depends on what the tutoring program is designed to accomplish.”

Parent Keri Rodrigues said her five sons’ report cards showed good grades and that her boys were doing well. But when she asked them to read to her at home, she noticed two were struggling.

“These were things I could see,” Rodrigues said.

Rodrigues is co-founder of the advocacy group National Parents Union. She advises parents to trust their instincts and ask questions when they believe their children might be struggling. That means starting with more conversations with teachers.

When talking with teachers, Rodrigues said, one of the most important questions to ask is whether your child is reading at grade level, and if not, what is being done to get them there.

“Report cards often are not telling us this information,” she said.

Ashara Baker, a mother to a rising second grader and also a leader with National Parents Union, advises parents that if their child attends a school that has low state test scores, they should consider tutoring even if it seems like their child is doing well.

What questions should I ask to know if this might be a good tutoring program?

Haniford said the first step is to make sure that the goals of the tutoring program match your child’s needs.

After that, she said, parents should ask if their school has a diagnostic assessment of their child. Most schools do, she said. That information can guide tutors to a student’s needs and to build on their strengths.

Rodrigues likes to remind parents that they don’t need to be well-versed in education curriculum to start asking questions. She suggests asking if a program is using evidence-based practices, which are strategies that are based on research and have been proven to work, and if their reading programs are based on the science of reading, the research about how children’s brains learn to read.

“If you hear things like balanced literacy, that might be a problem,” she said. Balanced Literacy is an approach to teaching reading based on a debunked philosophy that reading is natural and requires encouragement. “Even if you just remember they should say ‘science of reading,’ you shouldn’t be intimidated.”

Some research shows that “high-dosage” tutoring programs may be most effective for students who need academic help. Usually that involves in-person instruction a few times a week.

Baker is leading an effort to get New York schools to make high-dosage tutoring available in public schools.

She said good communication is important. Her local district advertised a summer enrichment program, and her daughter attended. Baker knew her daughter was taken to get a library card and to the farmers market, and she heard about how much fun the kids had with water balloons. But Baker said she didn’t know the program was meant to be a form of tutoring.

“It can be fun, but you have to be checking in: How are we doing? Are we making progress?” Baker said.

She also suggests asking if tutors are trained and certified and finding out how many students are working with each tutor. Small groups are best, she said.

Haniford agrees about small groups. She said the most successful programs have no more than six students per tutor.

“They have a clear purpose and vision for what they want to accomplish, and it’s not a catch-all with too many students, because then students are not getting individualized attention,” Haniford said.

How do I know if my child is getting the most from their tutoring?

Baker suggests that parents make sure the tutoring program their school uses, or that they select from outside groups, does some testing that will measure improvement or where more help is needed.

The tutoring program she pays to help her daughter outside of school now gives parents regular reports about how things are progressing and how parents can help maintain the progress at home.

Jennifer Castillo, new principal of Boston P-8 in Aurora, said that the school has tutoring run by an outside group, but uses the school’s own teachers that are already familiar with their students.

“Having those relationships is very important,” Castillo said. “They know where those student’s gaps are, they know the reasons students are there. I think it’s important for the tutors and the student to be able to go to their parents and show that progress. After a month, I’m seeing an increase in scores or ability or confidence, whatever the issue. As a parent, hopefully you don’t have to ask in a strong partnership.”

Castillo said that if the program you’re considering has tutors who aren’t teachers in the school, parents might ask if there’s a way for the tutors and teachers to communicate with each other so that the tutoring help is aligned with what is happening in the classroom.

Should I wait to get my child into a tutoring program?

“There’s always that tug of should I wait a little longer? Maybe it was a rough year. Maybe it was a rough teacher,” Rodrigues said. “Things don’t get easier the more you wait. They get harder.”

This is especially true for younger children who need extra help to learn to read. Being able to read will help students learn more complex subjects later.

Haniford and Castillo believe parents should clarify why their child needs a break — is there a social or emotional issue, for example — and to look at various options to address the issue.

“Kids don’t need a break from learning,” Castillo said. Learning can happen all day, she added. “But we need to ensure they’re engaged and it’s not just sitting and listening. Taking the tutoring outside, making it more hands-on, or making it more applicable might help.”

Castillo also recommends that students understand the importance of tutoring and the benefits they should see themselves.

“The students have to want to be involved,” Castillo said. “Letting them have some ownership will help as well.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

This summer program fills academic gaps for NYC students (and pays them, too)

2023-07-14T20:45:21+00:00

Rising senior Nana Ama Gyamfi-Kordie started her freshman year of high school during a global pandemic and is now starting her college application process in the shadow of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings against affirmative action and student debt relief.

For her and many other New York City teens, the path to college feels bleak. But at least one local university is broadening its access by reaching out early — to 10th and 11th graders — and showing how important it is to provide students with extra academic and financial support even before college.

Gyamfi-Kordie is among 65 high school students participating in a summer program run by the Center for K-12 STEM Education at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. Called ARISE (which stands for Applied Research Innovations in Science and Engineering), the program promises students a leg up, with hands-on training, mentoring, and experience — all for free, making it more accessible for students across the five boroughs. While other programs offer possible scholarships once accepted, the ARISE program makes it clear that a full scholarship and stipend will be offered with their acceptance.

The program lasts seven weeks and is designed to increase access to high-quality STEM learning experiences for all students, regardless of need. It’s one of three free high school summer programs at NYU Tandon’s Center for K-12 STEM Education, which has an emphasis on working with teens from groups underrepresented in STEM fields such as students of color, girls, and those from low-income backgrounds. Of the three free programs, ARISE is the only one that also offers a stipend to students.

The program requires a college-type application and multiple interview rounds. The 6% of students who make the cut go on to conduct college-level research, practice expository writing, learn scientific methods, and are partnered with a Tandon student ranging from undergraduates to postdocs.

“I had never met somebody else who wanted to be a biomedical engineer before this program,” Gyamfi-Kordie said with a huge smile.

A first-generation American whose family is from Ghana, she said her older sister is the reason she learned about ARISE.

“My sister is the first person to go to college in my family,” said Gyamfi-Kordie, who attends Democracy Prep Charter High School. “She’s been through the system, and she’s teaching me how to go through the system, too.”

In 2022, her sister insisted she apply for Code Next, a free Google computer science education program for Black, Latino, and Indigenous high school students.

Code Next pairs students with a Google mentor throughout their high school years. Gyamfi-Kordie’s Google Code Next mentor told her about NYU’s K-12 STEM programs.

Aysha Naveed, an NYU rising sophomore in engineering and ARISE alumnus, offers advice to incoming ARISE students.

Warren Axelman, a rising senior at Essex Street Academy in Manhattan, said that because of the pandemic, he didn’t take a math class during his freshman year. The ARISE program is helping students like him fill academic gaps.

“Ultimately, it put me behind academically. My school doesn’t offer physics, and we don’t have APs either. I wanted to come to ARISE so I could have the opportunities I haven’t had at my high school,” Axelman said.

Sandra Labriel, a student from Queens attending Manhattan’s Professional Performing Arts High School, said, “because of COVID-19, my school’s academics don’t feel as strong as they used to be so I’ve been doing the College Now courses offered through my high school.”

College Now, is a partnership between NYC public schools and CUNY in which 17 campuses offer college-level courses to all students at the 35 partner public high schools.

Last year, she took two college-level classes, adding six hours to her full-time school schedule. For her final ARISE project, she is focusing on oncology research, in remembrance of her grandmother.

Summer program offers scholarships and stipends

The largest one-year drop in college enrollment rates in over 30 years was recorded between 2019 and 2020, as a result of the pandemic. While there was a small uptick in 2022, lawmakers and economists across the country are still very concerned. Incentives or encouragement offered to students could make or break their interest in applying for college.

That’s why incentives offered by the ARISE program such as free MetroCards, a $750 stipend, and access to the discount dining halls are imperative. The university intends those perks to enable students from low-income backgrounds to have the same access to STEM education as their wealthier New York peers.

Having access to the dining hall makes a big difference for Labriel because the food is as tasty as the dozens of nearby restaurants, but half the price, she said.

“The disparity was so huge when I was in high school. When it came to STEM programs, there was NYU’s full scholarship program which also offered a stipend or other programs that cost $4,500 for just one week,” said Aysha Naveed, an NYU undergraduate in engineering and ARISE alumnus who returned to teach this summer.

“Not only would I not ask my parents for that kind of money, but I didn’t want to ask them. It was too much.”

Naveed, the youngest of five children, learned about NYU’s summer STEM program from her older sister. She believes that participating in the program enabled her to get a full ride to NYU, giving her a college experience without debt, family separation, or strain on her emotional well-being.

Being close to her family was just as important as being able to afford college. While she also received a full-ride offer to Smith College, she feared the potential exclusion and emotional distress attending a predominantly white institution could bring.

So she elected to stay in the city instead. Her ARISE mentor continued offering guidance through her remaining years of high school. Eventually, the mentor helped her pick her civil engineering major with a concentration in environmental engineering and a minor in social public policy as a full-ride scholar.

Naveed smiles while sharing stories of her older sister’s help during her college application process.

Program looks for students with a passion for science

During their final week in the summer program, ARISE students present their projects in a colloquium of their peers while their teachers and mentors grade them. Program Director Ben Esner said many of the students’ projects are considered college-level projects.

“I call it the virtuous cycle. High school students are benefiting, the faculty are benefiting from the program, the Ph.D. students are benefiting,” said Luann Williams-Moore, the program’s assistant director.

“The program contributes to NYU’s academic enterprise,” Esner said.

While the 2024 dates aren’t out yet, Wiliams-Moore said applications launch Thanksgiving week, and close on March 4.

Perfect grades don’t guarantee acceptance into the program, Esner and Williams-Moore said. They’re looking for well-rounded students who have demonstrated an interest in science but haven’t had all of the access to put that passion into practice.

“We’ve had students tell us they didn’t realize how much they struggled with writing until they got here,” said Williams-Moore. “That’s the kind of student we want to support, the type that might not be great at writing but it’s clear they love science.”

Eliana Perozo is a reporting intern at Chalkbeat New York. You can reach her at eperozo@chalkbeat.org.

New wave of funds to teach 6,000 kids to swim at NYC public school pools

2023-07-11T14:54:18+00:00

This story was originally published on July 11 by THE CITY.

A bigger pool of city money will help up to 6,000 more kids learn to swim this year — while also training teens to become lifeguards amid a continuing shortage at public beaches and pools.

As part of the new city budget, the Department of Parks and Recreation’s Learn to Swim program is set to receive a $5.3 million boost which will, for the first time, open public school pools for free lessons and significantly increase swimming-class enrollment.

The expansion, which is included in the $107 billion spending plan agreed on by the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams late last month, would benefit up to 6,000 youngsters, in addition to the 4,600 who learned to swim last year, according to a Parks Department spokesperson.

Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue touted the lifesaving value of knowing how to swim and providing broader access to pools.

“We’re building swim equity across the city, bringing more kids and teens access to swimming instruction in their own neighborhoods,” Donoghue said in a statement.

Council Speaker Adrienne Adams pushed to fund more swimming lessons in her State of the City speech in March, with other Council members calling to open pools at public schools year-round. Council members also introduced bills to build more municipal pools, with a focus on underserved neighborhoods, although that could cost much more in the city’s capital budget, a spending plan for long-term, big-ticket items.

Students from various schools will participate in the programs, a Parks Department spokesperson said, though it’s not yet clear which pools will be used.

“When our students know how to swim, they can not only participate in fun and enriching water activities in the summer, but more safely move about their communities and this great city,” said Jenna Lyle, a Department of Education spokesperson.

Still Seeking Lifeguards

The program also will train teens who already know how to swim to be lifeguards, as the city grapples with its second straight summer shortage of lifeguards.

As of last week, a Parks Department spokesperson said 11 miles of beaches and dozens of outdoor pools were staffed by 750 lifeguards — about half the number desired.

The new funding will allow the Parks Department to hire 105 people, including 20 full-time aquatic specialists and 30 lifeguards, the spokesperson said.

The city’s seasonal guards — who work summers at the city’s beaches or outdoor pools — will be eligible for year-round gigs, according to the Parks Department.

The new money will also pay for new equipment and renting private pools in neighborhoods without Parks Department or public school pools.

A 2017 Health Department survey found that, in the five boroughs, a third of Black and Asian students, and a quarter of Hispanic students can’t swim — and “affordability and accessibility to swim lessons is critical for everybody,” said Shawn Slevin, the founder of the nonprofit Swim Strong Foundation.

Last week, a 14-year-old boy drowned at Rockaway Beach after the lifeguards whistled people out of the ocean because of a storm.

In May, two young boys drowned in the Hudson River, which has no lifeguards.

Slevin’s organization, founded 17 years ago, offers swim lessons and teaches New Yorkers of all ages about water safety.

While Slevin said she was encouraged by the city’s recent investment, she said a bigger splash is a must in a city surrounded by water.

“We simply do not have the appropriate infrastructure to teach our citizens how to be safe in, on, and around the water,” she said.

Michigan education budget contains some smaller-ticket items that could have big impact

2023-07-05T16:53:19+00:00

The most notable winners in Michigan’s $21.5 billion budget for K-12 schools will be the state’s neediest students, English language learners, children in high-poverty schools, and special education students.

But with smaller amounts, the budget also delivers money to benefit teachers, Detroit schools and other local districts, campus infrastructure, community-based advocacy efforts, regional education nonprofits, and rural districts. Those less-noticed budget items could have a significant impact on education across the state.

Here’s a closer look at the smaller-ticket budget items that are expected to have huge payoffs.

Money aimed at tackling the statewide teacher shortage

While a shortage of teaching applicants is a national issue, Greg Nyen, superintendent of the Marquette-Alger Regional Educational Services Agency in the Upper Peninsula, said the scarcity of educators is acute in Michigan.

“About 10 years ago, 23,000 teachers or potential teachers were in educational preparatory programs across the state,” he said. “Last year, there were under 15,000. Only about 20% end up completing their certification.”

As part of an effort to address the shortage, a number of districts will receive a total of $76.4 million to support Talent Together, a partnership among 48 school systems and nine universities that widens pathways for aspiring teachers.

“So often, when new teachers start, they don’t feel successful,” said Jack Elsey, founder of the nonprofit Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative. “Over half quit in the first year.”

The new collaborative aims to tackle barriers for prospective teachers, Elsey said, including paying for their training, offering paid apprenticeships in the classroom, and mentoring them while they are in those programs.

Districts will also be granted a total of $50 million to expand support for new teachers, school counselors, and administrators, including mentor stipends and professional development.

And the budget allocates $63.8 million to districts to increase pay for educators.

“Elevating salaries and making this career an attractive one once again makes the financial burden lighter and makes it feel like it’s worth the effort,” said Elsey.

Financial awards for teachers who have national board certification will be funded with $4 million. Eligible teachers in districts that apply for the funds will receive $4,000 and an additional $6,000 if they work in Title I schools, which have large concentrations of students from low-income households.

Paula Herbart, president of the Michigan Education Association teachers union, called the funding a proactive step in recruiting and retaining quality educators.

“It’s critical that we keep great educators on the job and attract talented people into this noble profession, and this budget agreement provides our schools with much-needed resources to help accomplish these goals,” she said in a statement.

Detroit community initiatives get support

The budget provides $6 million for a local or intermediate district to use on services from Get On And Learn, or GOAL Line, a program that transports students from northwest Detroit schools to free after-school programs. The nonprofit began in 2018 as an effort to get students to school and decrease absenteeism. But after listening to parent feedback, the group ended morning transportation and focused solely on after-school bus rides. In November, the organization’s waitlist was bigger than its enrollment due to financial constraints.
The budget will give $3 million to local districts to distribute to Detroit Parent Network, a nonprofit that works to engage parents in their kids’ education. Those dollars will help cover the cost of training for parents, health resources, support groups, civic engagement programs, and advocacy to families. The nonprofit also offers a literacy program in English and Spanish as well as workforce development.
The Legislature voted to give $2 million to the nonprofit group Brilliant Detroit for neighborhood-based tutoring and noninstructional services for children ages 3 to 12. The group transforms underused housing into neighborhood centers focused on early childhood development and kindergarten readiness.

Novi, Hamtramck and other district initiatives win funding

Novi Community School District will receive $1 million to support a wellness center that will offer onsite mental health support for students outside the regular school day, a medical clinic that will provide basic care to students with and without insurance, and a building wing for staff to destress and exercise. The center will also use the funds to offer onsite, after-school tutoring for students who can’t afford private instruction and will create a hub for families to access other health resources.
The budget allocates $2 million to Hamtramck Public Schools to hire accelerated-learning coaches for all eight of its schools. The coaches will lead targeted tutoring efforts in the district; work with teachers to model lesson plans and co-teach; and identify gaps in instruction. The money will also provide professional development for the coaches on data analysis, among other areas.
The budget provides $100,000 to a district to support the Student Advocacy Center of Michigan’s statewide helpline for families in “educational crisis.”
Dearborn City School District will receive $250,000 to support a cybersecurity certificate program.

Construction projects get a boost

The Detroit Public Schools Community District will get $6.5 million for essential structural improvements and renovations for Coleman A. Young Elementary and another $5 million for needed updates to its Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies School building.
Beecher Community School District near Flint will receive $2.5 million to fund the construction of a new high school to match money already raised through donations.
Waverly Community Schools in Lansing is set to get $3 million to build a new high school auditorium.
The budget provides $500,000 to Eastpointe Community Schools to build a new swimming pool.

Programs for rural and ‘isolated’ districts benefit

The budget provides $11.6 million in special weighted funding for instructional costs in rural and isolated districts.
A new rural-educator credentialing hub pilot program will get $15 million in startup funding. The program will provide free support to educators for credentialing and course fees. According to many administrators and a recent report, rural schools face unique challenges in attracting teachers.
The state created a school transportation fund and will deposit $350 million this fiscal year, $125 million of which will be spent by districts in the 2023-24 school year. The funds will likely benefit rural schools the most, which on average spend $200 more per pupil on transportation than nonrural districts.
Grosse Ile Township Schools will get $500,000 because students must cross a bridge to travel to their campuses, and the school system has not gotten funding under an existing allocation for isolated districts.

Other items

Districts including DPSCD will be awarded a total of $1 million to purchase tampons or menstrual pads to distribute free to students in school bathrooms.
Districts will receive $125 million total in grants to buy less-polluting buses.
More than $6 million in a new one-time pot of money will go to partnership schools which will be used to improve attendance, increase graduation rates, and reduce class sizes, among other targeted initiatives. Partnership schools are low-performing schools that operate under support agreements with the state to improve their operations.
Covenant House Michigan, a religious nonprofit that mostly serves students experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity in Detroit and Grand Rapids, will receive $1 million to support its residential education program. The organization offers shelter, educational and vocational programs, and support for survivors of human trafficking.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: July 5, 2023: A previous version of this story said a number of districts would receive a total of $10 million to support Talent Together. That number did not include money to support the organization’s Grow Your Own program, which will receive an additional $66.4 million.

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.

Newark school-based health center opens at Speedway Avenue Elementary School

2023-06-26T20:15:57+00:00

Hundreds of Newark children and their families now have access to a new health center located in a public elementary school in the city’s West Ward.

City and Newark Public Schools leaders on Monday unveiled the new Mary Eliza Mahoney Health Center at Speedway Avenue Elementary School. The opening of the new health center, which is available to all Newark residents regardless of health insurance status and ability to pay, comes at a time when a number of city families experience limited access to medical services and barriers to health care.

“We are excited about establishing a footprint here in the West Ward and engaging with residents here in our community,” said Ketlen Baptiste-Alsbrook, director of the Newark Department of Health and the new health center, during Monday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony at the clinic.

Newark residents can make an appointment at the new health center located in a public elementary school in the city’s West Ward.

In Newark, nearly 20% of residents under 65 do not have health insurance, according to U.S. Census data. The new health center is “the first step along the path” to tackle the problem among the city’s most vulnerable residents, Baptiste-Alsbrook added.

This is the first time the city has opened a health clinic in a Newark public school, according to City of Newark press secretary Susan Garofalo.

Black and Hispanic residents in New Jersey face barriers to health care and affordable medical coverage due to limited access to health care plans through their jobs, cost-related challenges, and transportation issues among other inequities.

Across the state, Black New Jersey residents are twice as likely to be uninsured and are more likely to seek coverage through public programs, according to research from the New Jersey Policy Perspective. The state’s immigrant communities are also the least likely to be insured and roughly 17% of Hispanic residents remain uninsured in the state, according to the New Jersey Policy Perspective.

Studies show that school-based health clinics can help improve student grades and attendance and reduce disparities by making health care more accessible to students from low-income backgrounds. The new Newark school-based health center is a partnership between the city and Newark Public Schools and is funded through American Rescue Plan dollars. It includes a small waiting area and four exam rooms equipped with medical devices and other equipment.

The clinic is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. to residents in need of adult, pediatric, and behavioral health care. Residents will be seen by one of two physicians — Dr. Rachel Tikum for family medicine and Dr. Ijeoma Onyeagoch for behavioral health care services.

“We’re trying to do more outreach in the community since [this clinic] is right here in the school and is more accessible. The fact that we take insured and uninsured residents and walk-ins is very promising,” Tikum said during Monday’s grand opening.

The new Mary Eliza Mahoney Health Center at Speedway Avenue Elementary School is available to all Newark residents.

The center has a separate entrance and exit from the elementary school that leads out into the parking lot on South Orange Avenue and “should not interfere with school activities,” city officials said.

City officials also said the school-based health center will support students’ mental health at a time where Black and Latino students have less access to mental health support than they did a decade ago.

Newark Public Schools teachers and staff can refer students to any of the clinic’s services. The clinic staff will also work with school nurses to identify potential needs, Baptiste-Alsbrook added.

Additionally, the district’s 2022-23 budget included increased staffing of social workers and counselors for any of its 38,000 students who may need behavioral support.

Residents interested in visiting the new clinic can make an appointment by calling 1-800- 734-7083.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Retiring workers find new life through University of Colorado Denver program

2023-06-26T16:00:00+00:00

Retirement can be about more than pickleball and world travel.

For some retirees, winding down a career could mean transitioning to other work or dedicating part of their time to passion projects, said Todd Matuszewicz, 60, who plans to retire soon. Figuring out which is next, however, is the hard part.

“After working for 35 years, at the end of it, there’s no exit strategy,” said Matuszewicz, a neon sign maker and former educator. “That’s not taught as part of education. They say here’s chemistry, here’s your history, but there was no one saying: We’re going to help you on the back side.”

But Matuszewicz found help through the University of Colorado Denver Change Makers program. The pilot program, which started this year, joins a growing list of programs nationwide that are helping older adults prepare for how they want to spend the next phase of their lives.

The program is a priority for school leaders who want to serve older adults because they want the school to be “a university for life,” said Anne Button, the program’s founding director.

Here and nationally, schools also have looked for new ways to bring in students. Some schools have faced declining enrollment since the pandemic, and lower birth rates will mean fewer college-age students to teach in the future.

While many people retire in their 60s, some live well beyond retirement, Button said. Many will also continue working, but don’t have a direction on how to use their skills without working full-time, Button said.

“Many people feel there’s a lot more productive time left,” Button said. “People at 60 really could have three decades left of productive years.”

The Change Makers program graduated its first class of 17 students in the spring, including Matuszewicz. The program, which costs about $3,200, has students meet two nights a week over four months. Students can audit classes, reflect on their accomplishments, and hear from guest speakers on topics such as aging, social-emotional health, and volunteering.

The program culminates in participants writing a 90-day plan on how to transition into their next job, wind down their careers, or find another purpose.

Terri Harrington, 66, said she’s tried to come up with a plan for what’s next. The program didn’t inspire a great epiphany for her, but allowed her to map out how she would begin to slow down.

“It set aside time for me to think about it,” she said. “They also had us do different projects like look back on your life and chart out the significant events.”

One of her happiest memories is cooking at the family farm in Nebraska, and she said that helped her realize how much she wants family to play a role in her retirement. Harrington said she wants to still work as an attorney, but also spend more time helping with her granddaughters and contribute occasionally at the family farm in Nebraska.

“I can spend more time there and spend more time with my family,” she said “I can work as little or as much as I want.”

For Matuszewicz, the class inspired him to try to find flexibility in his work schedule while still using the skills he’s acquired.

His goal is to step away from making signs and start a nonprofit that helps preserve Denver’s historic neon signs. The change would mean less hard labor, but would allow him to still be connected to the neon sign work he loves.

“I’m hoping to transition into more of the public face of it,” he said.

Matuszewicz plans to submit a grant proposal to the National Trust for Historic Preservation to help him start his nonprofit. He has plenty of work ahead of him figuring out how many neon signs need to be saved in the Denver area. He wants to ensure neon sign makers continue the tradition — he estimates there are only six sign makers in Denver — and that the city can keep its history.

It’s a busy but fulfilling retirement plan, Matuszewicz said. And he’s happy pickleball isn’t a part of it.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit district gets better at identifying homeless students, but study points to big undercount

2023-06-21T21:49:00+00:00

Recent efforts by the Detroit school district are helping officials identify more homeless students who would otherwise miss out on crucial support services guaranteed under federal law, a new research study found.

Roughly 5% of the district’s students were identified as homeless last school year, compared with around 1% nearly a decade ago.

But the researchers, from Wayne State University’s Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research, found that schools in Detroit continue to significantly undercount the number of students experiencing homelessness, as well as other forms of housing instability. Their conclusions are based on data from the Detroit Public Schools Community District and charter schools in the city, as well as interviews with families experiencing housing instability.

The researchers estimated that as many as 16% of the roughly 100,000 K-12 students in Detroit experienced homelessness or housing instability during the 2021-22 school year, with roughly three-fourths of those students not being identified as homeless by their school during that time frame.

That gap is critical, because it points to potential underutilization of support services available to those students. Under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, homeless students are entitled to several services and protections, including transportation to and from school, academic support, the right to remain in the school they attended at the time they lost their permanent housing, and the right to enroll in a school even if they lack proper documents.

Homeless students are more likely to be chronically absent, drop out of school, and be suspended or expelled from school. So ensuring students can get access to McKinney-Vento services can have long-term effects on their academic wellbeing, experts say.

Federal law defines homelessness narrowly

Detroit had about 10,000 homeless people before the pandemic, according to a report from the Homeless Action Network of Detroit, with roughly 20% identified as children under the age of 18.

This month, Detroit city officials launched a new office to help residents facing displacement find housing options, part of a $203 million affordable housing plan announced last year by Mayor Mike Duggan’ administration.

Nationally, the identification of homeless students declined during the pandemic as school district liaisons found it harder to reach and provide resources to homeless students.

The Wayne State study outlines several barriers students experiencing homelessness may face, including lack of awareness about available resources, parents’ reluctance to discuss housing challenges with school staff, and a lack of follow-through when parents do disclose their housing status.

The federal definition of homelessness also complicates the task of getting support to students. To qualify for services under McKinney-Vento, students must meet certain criteria that distinguish homeless students from those who are housing insecure. Homeless students are defined by the statute as “individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence,” whereas the housing insecure category can be broadly defined and include those who may have been evicted at some point before shortly finding housing.

The Wayne State report notes that while 16% of students in Detroit may have experienced housing insecurity or homelessness in 2021-22, only about 11% may have qualified for services under McKinney-Vento.

To increase the identification of students facing housing instability, the researchers recommend that Detroit schools strengthen relationships with parents and improve communication about the availability of services.

DPSCD expands its efforts, but runs into hurdles

DPSCD, for its part, has increased its efforts to identify homeless students in recent years by adding full-time staff to its homeless student office, adding a residency questionnaire with its student enrollment form, and publicizing information about available services through designated staff and resource rooms at individual schools.

These efforts are likely the reason DPSCD has been able to identify a greater share of its homeless students than Detroit’s charter schools, the study said. DPSCD identified about 29% of its students who experienced housing difficulties, the researchers estimated, compared with only 16% for the charter schools.

This school year, DPSCD identified over 2,200 students as homeless, compared with 765 in 2018-19, according to Superintendent Nikolai Vitti.

“We’ve definitely increased our numbers (of homeless students), because we’ve done a better job of engaging families and creating more awareness about the opportunity to be identified as homeless,” Vitti said at a school board committee meeting this spring. “But it’s natural to know that there’s a stigma that comes with that, and some parents are not comfortable.”

“We have done a better job over the years of identifying, but I would agree it’s still undercounted,” he said.

Vitti also pointed to the added hurdles families may face: A student or family member has to apply for McKinney-Vento services and be reviewed by a DPSCD staff member to be identified as homeless before they can qualify for support.

Those hurdles are compounded by a student’s “willingness to admit to homelessness,” Vitti said, as well as the limited resources available.

Despite recent budget cuts that have affected many of the district’s central office employees, Vitti said DPSCD will continue to staff its districtwide Office of Homeless and Foster Care by using grant dollars to hire contracted staff, as well as emphasize “relationship building, awareness and additional training for staff” and school liaisons.

Principals annually select a school staff member to identify and provide support services to students facing housing insecurity. Those staff will continue to receive monthly training on the inner workings of McKinney-Vento, mandated reporting, and available resources.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@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 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 2023-24 school calendar is out, and many teachers aren’t happy

2023-06-02T19:12:26+00:00

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The wait is over: New York City’s 2023-24 school calendar is live.

The first day of classes will be Thursday, Sept. 7, according to the calendar posted on Friday. Teachers are expected to report two days before that, education department officials said.

The state requires a minimum of 180 instructional days, but this year’s calendar has 182 days for students since several holidays fall on weekends. Under the teachers union contract, however, the end date remains unchanged. (Next year, the last day of school is Wednesday, June 26.) Because of this, many teachers are complaining about having to work more days than usual.

Families and educators across the five boroughs have been eagerly awaiting news on the calendar, expressing frustration with the delay. Last year’s calendar was released slightly earlier, on May 31.

Before the pandemic, New York City’s school calendar was released in March or April. Other school districts that start after Labor Day approved their calendars in March, including Newark, Philadelphia, and Boston.

*angry mob outside of Tweed returns home* https://t.co/lupNYRE4ey
— Nathaniel Styer (@necs) June 2, 2023

Here are some other calendar quirks to be aware of:

Unlike in some years that are filled with days off in September, the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah falls on a weekend, so the only day off that first month is for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur on Monday, Sept. 25.
As in this school year, Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 7, is a day off for kids. (The year before that, students were supposed to be learning remotely that day.)
Veterans Day falls on Saturday, Nov. 11, so will not be observed as a school holiday.
There’s been a push to make Diwali a school holiday, but that holiday — observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and some Buddhists — falls on Sunday, Nov. 12, so it wouldn’t overlap with school regardless. (The state legislature has yet to approve that.)
Winter recess is from Monday, Dec. 25, until Monday, Jan. 1.
Lunar New Year once again falls on a weekend, on Saturday, Feb. 10, so there’s no day off for that holiday.
There will be days off sprinkled through spring for various holidays: Schools will be off for Good Friday on March 29 and for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr on Wednesday, April 10. Spring break, which coincides with Passover, is from Monday, April 22, to Friday, April 26. Schools are open for last two days of Passover, however, and some educators are worried that those who observe may have to take extra time off. (Education department officials said spring break doesn’t always cover the entire Passover holiday.) Some teachers also were upset about not having off for Holy Thursday and Easter Monday.
Similar to this year, schools will be closed for students on Thursday, June 6, and Friday, June 7 for “Anniversary Day” and “Clerical Day.”
Eid al-Adha falls on Sunday, June 16, so it will not be a day off for schools.

Under New York State law, federal holidays that fall on a Sunday are observed the following Monday, but if they fall on a Saturday, they are not observed on a weekday. When holidays that New York City schools observe but are not federal holidays fall on a weekend — such as Rosh Hashanah, Lunar New Year, and Eid al-Adha — students do not get a day off during the week.

The city is continuing its practice of going remote for snow days, though this year, the lack of snow meant no cancellations.

Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew expressed concern about the calendar in an email to his members, saying that the education department released it without having completed negotiations about how teachers should use extended time during the week. In recent years, they used an extra 155 minutes each week for professional development and family engagement. Without an agreement in place, Mulgrew said, that time will revert back to a prior agreement of using 37.5 minutes on tutoring or small group work after school on Monday through Thursday.

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

Success Academy calls 911 on students in mental health crisis, writing its own rules

2023-05-23T15:15:00+00:00

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with THE CITY. It was originally published on May 23 by THE CITY.

In a panic, if she floors it, Marilyn Blanco can drive from her job at the Rikers Island jail complex to her son Ian’s school in Harlem in less than 18 minutes.

Nine times since December, Blanco has made the drive because Ian’s school — Success Academy Harlem 2 — called 911 on her 8-year-old.

Ian has been diagnosed with ADHD. When he gets frustrated, he sometimes has explosive tantrums, throwing things, running out of class and hitting and kicking anyone who comes near him. Blanco contends that, since Ian started first grade last year, Success Academy officials have been trying to push him out of the school because of his disability — an accusation similar to those made by other Success Academy parents in news stories, multiple lawsuits that resulted in settlements and a federal complaint.

When giving him detentions and suspensions didn’t stop Ian’s tantrums, Blanco said, the school started calling 911. If Blanco can’t get to Ian fast enough to intervene, a precinct officer or school safety agent from the New York Police Department will hold him until an ambulance arrives to take him to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation — incidents the NYPD calls “child in crisis” interventions.

The experience has been devastating for Ian, Blanco said. Since the 911 calls started late last year, he’s been scared to leave his house because he thinks someone will take him away. At one ER visit, a doctor wrote in Ian’s medical file that he’d sustained emotional trauma from the calls.

Citywide, staff at the Success Academy Charter School network — which operates 49 schools, most of them serving kids under 10 years old — called 911 to respond to students in emotional distress at least 87 times between July 2016 and December 2022, according to an analysis of NYPD data by THE CITY and ProPublica.

If Success Academy were run by the city Department of Education, it would be subject to rules that explicitly limit the circumstances under which schools may call 911 on students in distress: Under a 2015 regulation, city-run schools may never send kids to hospitals as a punishment for misbehavior, and they may only involve police as a last resort, after taking mandatory steps to de-escalate a crisis first. (As THE CITY and ProPublica reported this month, the rules don’t always get followed, and city schools call 911 to respond to children in crisis thousands of times a year.)

But the regulation doesn’t apply to Success Academy, which is publicly funded but privately run and — like all of the city’s charter school networks — free to set its own discipline policies.

The consequence, according to education advocates and attorneys, is that families have nowhere to turn if school staff are using 911 calls in a way that’s so frightening or traumatic that kids have little choice but to leave.

“Sure, you can file a complaint with the Success Academy board of trustees. But it isn’t going anywhere,” said Nelson Mar, an education attorney at Legal Services NYC who represented parents in a 2013 lawsuit that led to the restrictions on city-run schools.

Success Academy did not respond to questions about the circumstances under which school staff generally call 911 or the criteria they use to determine whether to initiate child-in-crisis incidents.

Regarding Ian, Success Academy spokesperson Ann Powell wrote that school staff called EMS because Ian “has repeatedly engaged in very dangerous behavior including flipping over desks, breaking a window, biting teachers (one of whom was prescribed antibiotics to prevent infection since the bite drew blood), threatening to harm both himself and a school safety agent with scissors, hitting himself in the face, punching a pregnant paraprofessional in the stomach (stating ‘I don’t care’ when the paraprofessional reminded him that ‘there’s a baby in my belly’), punching a police officer and attempting to take his taser, and screaming ‘I wish you would die early.’”

Powell also provided documentation that included contemporaneous accounts of Ian’s behavior written by Success Academy staff, photographs of bite marks and a fractured window, an assessment by a school social worker concluding that Ian was at risk for self-harm, and a medical record from an urgent care facility corroborating the school’s account that a teacher had been prescribed antibiotics.

Blanco said that Success Academy administrators have regularly exaggerated Ian’s behaviors. When he was 6, for example, Ian pulled an assistant principal’s tie during a tantrum, and school staff described it as a choking attempt, according to an account Blanco gave to an evaluator close to the time of the incident. Each time Success Academy has sent Ian to an emergency room, doctors have sent him home, finding that he didn’t pose a safety threat to himself or others, medical records show. (Success Academy did not respond to questions about the assertion that staffers have exaggerated Ian’s behaviors.)

Blanco knows that Ian is struggling. No one is more concerned about his well-being than she is, she said. But villainizing her 8-year-old only makes the situation worse.

“It’s like they want to tarnish him,” Blanco said. “He’s just a child, a child who needs help and support.”

“Things are already hard enough” for Ian, Blanco continued. “Kids born with special needs — they didn’t choose that walk of life. Ian didn’t pick this. They don’t have the right to punish him for it.”

Strict discipline

Back in 2020, when Ian was 4, Blanco was thrilled to get him a spot at Success Academy. She and Ian live in the South Bronx, in the same neighborhood where Blanco grew up. At Ian’s city-run neighborhood school, P.S. 62, just 14% of students passed state reading exams last year.

Success Academy, which has avid support from many parents and is led by former New York City Councilmember Eva Moskowitz, promotes itself as an antidote to educational inequality, offering rigorous charter school options to kids who might not have other good choices. On its website, the network advertises its students’ standardized test scores (pass rates for Black and Latino students are “double and even triple” those at city-run schools) and its educational outcomes: 100% of high school graduates are accepted to college, the network says.

Success Academy administrators say that strict and consistent discipline policies are essential to kids’ learning. Students are required to follow a precise dress code and to sit still and quietly, with hands folded in their laps or on their desks. When students break the rules, the school issues a progressive series of consequences, including letters home, detentions and suspensions.

Once students are accepted through the Success Academy lottery, the network is required to serve them until they graduate or turn 21, unless they withdraw or are formally expelled.

But critics, including parents who say their kids were pushed out of Success Academy schools, have long claimed that the network achieves its academic results by getting rid of students with disabilities — especially those with mental health or behavioral challenges that make it impossible to follow the school’s rigid comportment rules. In 2015, The New York Times reported that a Success Academy school in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, had drawn up a list of students with the heading “Got to Go.” The network’s officials responded to the report by saying that the list had been a mistake, and that the school’s principal had been reprimanded.

A year later, a group of parents, accompanied by then-New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, filed a complaint against Success Academy with the federal education department, claiming that the network discriminated against students with disabilities, including by threatening to file child welfare reports and to call 911 on children if their parents didn’t pick them up on demand. (The investigation is still open.)

In 2019, the New York State Education Department found that Success Academy had failed to provide mandatory services for students with disabilities and refused to follow orders issued by hearing officers.

Success Academy did not respond to questions from THE CITY and ProPublica about the investigations.

Critics have paid less attention to the fact that Success Academy is not subject to city rules governing 911 calls — an exemption the network takes full advantage of, according to accounts from parents, attorneys and two former staff members who spoke to THE CITY and ProPublica.

“The path is detentions, suspensions, parent meetings. A 911 call is the next step in the escalation,” said Livia Camperi, who was an English teacher at a Success Academy school in Brooklyn until March. Camperi said she was fired because she disagreed with a new principal about increasingly “draconian” discipline practices. On the day she left the school, an assistant principal called an NYPD safety agent on a middle school student who stayed seated after being instructed to leave a classroom, according to Camperi, who showed THE CITY and ProPublica text messages from students and staff that corroborate her account.

In response to questions about this incident, Powell, the Success Academy spokesperson, wrote that the student was shouting and banging on a desk. Educators “were concerned that the student wasn’t following directions and might become violent so they called school safety,” Powell wrote. “It is appropriate to involve school safety when there are possible safety issues.”

Powell did not comment on the circumstances under which Camperi was fired.

Falling behind

In Harlem, Ian started struggling at Success Academy just a few weeks into first grade. He’d never been aggressive before he started school, Blanco said. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he’d attended kindergarten online. When schools went back to in-person instruction, he was a high-energy 6-year-old who couldn’t follow Success Academy’s strict rules requiring him to sit still and stay quiet. By the end of first grade, he’d been suspended nearly 20 times.

The more Ian got in trouble, the worse he felt about himself and the worse his behavior became, Blanco said. He started falling behind because he missed so much class time during his suspensions, according to his education records. At home and at school, he said that teachers disciplined him because he was a “bad kid.”

At first, Blanco worked hard to cooperate with the school, she said. She was worried by the change in Ian’s behavior, and she thought that school staff had his best interests at heart. But then an assistant principal called her into an office and told her that Success Academy wasn’t a “good fit” for Ian, Blanco said to THE CITY and ProPublica, as well as in a written complaint she sent to Success Academy at around that time. (Success Academy’s board of trustees investigated the complaint and did not find evidence of discrimination against Ian, according to a September 2022 letter to Blanco from a board member.)

“That didn’t sit right,” said Blanco, who is an investigator at Rikers Island and is accustomed to gathering paper trails. She asked the assistant principal to put the statement in writing, but he told her she had misunderstood, she said. (Success Academy did not respond to questions about this incident.)

Several times, when the school called Blanco to pick Ian up early, staff told her to take him to a psychiatric emergency room for an evaluation. But the visits didn’t help, Blanco said. “You could be sitting there for six, seven, eight hours,” waiting to talk to a psychologist. Because Ian never presented as an immediate threat to himself or others, hospital staff couldn’t do much but refer him to outpatient care and send him home, according to hospital discharge records.

Eventually, Blanco found an outpatient clinic that would accept her insurance to evaluate Ian for neurological and behavioral disorders. She said she begged school staff to stop disciplining Ian while she worked to get him treatment, but the suspensions were relentless. Once, he missed 15 straight days of school.

At the beginning of Ian’s second grade year, Blanco reached out to Legal Services NYC, where Mar, the education attorney, took her on as a client.

Mar filed a complaint on Blanco’s behalf with the state education department, which concluded that Success Academy had failed to provide Ian with services required by his individualized education plan. He also represented her in hearings to determine whether Ian’s suspensions were for behavior that resulted directly from his disability, which ultimately reduced the number of days that Ian was barred from school. But there was little they could do about the fact that the suspensions just kept coming.

When parents of kids at city-run schools believe their children have been unfairly disciplined — including through inappropriate suspensions or unnecessary 911 calls — they can appeal for help first from the superintendent of their community school district or the city’s Department of Education, and then from the state education department, which oversees the city agencies.

Charter school families, on the other hand, often have “no opportunity for redress,” Mar said. In certain cases, students or parents can file a complaint with the State University of New York, which authorizes Success Academy’s charter and has the power to revoke it. But neither SUNY nor the state education department have regulations governing 911 calls, and SUNY will only consider a complaint if students or parents can show that a school violated the terms of its charter or broke the law — which is very difficult to prove in the case of 911 calls, since school staff have room for discretion in emergencies, including serious threats of suicide or self-harm.

“SUNY does not condone the use of 911 as a form of discipline and that is made clear when schools seek guidance. We also do not substitute our judgement if a school administrator believes a child in distress needs emergency services,” wrote Mike Lesczinski, director of communications for the SUNY Charter School Institute.

The state education department did not respond to requests for comment.

In January, Blanco called Mar again as she sped from Queens to Harlem. Ian had had another tantrum, and Success Academy had once again called 911. Mar raced to the school, where he and Blanco found Ian in a hallway, sobbing. Four uniformed police officers and two EMTs towered over him, Mar and Blanco said.

School staff said that they had isolated Ian in an office because he was behaving aggressively, and then he’d tried to open a window. “They claimed he was exhibiting suicidality,” Mar said.

But Ian told Mar and Blanco that he’d never planned to hurt himself; he just didn’t want to be confined alone in an office. “He was trying to do what any logical person would do,” Mar told THE CITY and ProPublica. “He wanted to get out of the situation.”

Blanco told the EMTs that she did not consent to them putting Ian in an ambulance. Instead, she drove him herself to the psychiatric emergency room at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital for an evaluation, she and Mar said. As with all the other ER trips, hospital staff evaluated Ian, determined that he wasn’t at risk of harming himself and sent him home.

Child welfare case

Shortly after the January 911 call, Blanco’s doorbell rang. It was a caseworker from the Administration for Children’s Services, New York City’s child welfare agency, there to investigate a report that Blanco was neglecting Ian’s medical care.

The allegation seemed absurd to Blanco, since Ian is under the care of a neurologist, was on waitlists for outpatient therapy at several clinics, and has been assessed multiple times by ER doctors who determined he was not at risk of self-harm, according to Blanco’s account and medical records. “I’ve done everything in my power to try and get him help,” Blanco said.

Because people who report concerns to child welfare agencies are typically kept anonymous and the investigation is still open, Blanco couldn’t immediately find out who made the complaint against her. However, Powell from Success Academy wrote that school staff reported Blanco for child neglect in January, after Blanco refused to allow EMTs to put Ian in an ambulance. (In this instance, the school had called a mobile crisis unit to respond to Ian before calling 911, Powell wrote, but the unit was not available.) School staff were concerned that, despite “Ian’s repeatedly exhibiting self-injurious behaviors,” Blanco had shown a pattern of “neglecting her child by failing to provide appropriate and necessary mental support for him,” Powell wrote.

Success Academy made a second child welfare report against Blanco in April, after another incident in which Ian’s parents refused to allow EMTs to take him from school by ambulance. In that instance, Powell wrote, lieutenants from the NYPD and EMS said that Ian needed to be evaluated in a hospital because he’d said he wanted to harm others, and that emergency services personnel would be required to alert the Administration for Children’s Services if Ian’s parents refused the recommended level of care.

“We had utterly no choice in the matter,” Powell wrote. “Declining to notify ACS when the police have specifically concluded there is a duty to do so would have been a flagrant, deliberate and criminal violation of our reporting duties.”

It’s not uncommon for schools to file child welfare reports against parents who refuse to allow their children to be taken from school by ambulance — even if the kids are in treatment and the parents believe that being forcibly removed from school would be traumatic and unhelpful, according to several education attorneys and parents who told similar stories to THE CITY and ProPublica. School employees, who are legally required to report suspected abuse or neglect, make thousands of unfounded child welfare reports each year.

“I don’t know if schools really understand how much pain they add to a stressful situation when they make a child welfare report,” said Jenn Choi, who works as an educational advocate for parents of children with disabilities. Ten years ago, Choi was subject to a child welfare investigation after a school bus attendant called 911 on her son, who’s autistic.

At Blanco’s apartment, the investigator peered into her refrigerator and cabinets and took Ian into a separate room to interview him alone. “It was very invasive and humiliating,” Blanco said.

She felt besieged by forces she couldn’t possibly withstand. “I know how this works. I’m a single mom, I live in the Bronx, I’m a minority, I’m a dark-skinned woman. So automatically, it must be a broken home,” Blanco said. “I’ve cried my eyes out. I’m not the person that I was prior to my son going into that school.”

The 911 calls and the child welfare case are taking their toll on Ian, too. He gets nervous now when he sees police cars on the street, Blanco said. “I’m law enforcement. I don’t teach him to be afraid of police.” In February, he told a therapist that the only place he feels safe is at home.

One month after the child welfare visit, things got even worse. Blanco was in Queens, heading to work to pick up some overtime, when the school called to say that Ian had had another tantrum. This time, she was too late to bring Ian home herself. He was in an ambulance, on his way to Harlem Hospital.

“I started having a panic attack,” Blanco said. “I just kept thinking about him being taken away by strangers and I’m not there. I don’t know if he complied and got in the ambulance of his own accord. I don’t know if they forced him. I don’t know what they’re telling him, what they’re doing to him, what they’re making him feel.”

She was crying too hard to drive, so she called Ian’s dad, who left a barbershop halfway through a haircut to pick up Blanco and rush to the hospital. When they arrived and Blanco saw that Ian was safe, her panic turned to something else. “I was so angry but at the same time I felt so defeated. I’m fighting a lost cause,” she said. “I felt so small and helpless that I couldn’t even defend my own child.”

Two weeks ago, Success Academy sent Blanco an email informing her that they requested a hearing to have Ian removed from school for up to 45 school days because he “is substantially likely to cause injury to himself and others while in the Success Academy community.”

Ian would be barred from Success Academy immediately, the email said, even though it could take up to 20 days to schedule the hearing, which will be held at the special education division of the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings. If the hearing officer agrees with Success Academy, Ian will miss the rest of the school year.

“I want to be clear that this action is not disciplinary in nature,” wrote Bridget McNamara, Success Academy’s head of school management, in the May 9 message to Blanco. “We believe Ian is currently not safe in his current school placement.”

To Blanco, the hearing seems like just another way for the school to get rid of her son. She thinks about pulling Ian out of Success Academy all the time, she said, but it feels like there’s no good alternative. She doesn’t want to give up on the idea of him getting a better shot than the one she got at a failing neighborhood school.

“I want him to get free of this cycle of disadvantage,” Blanco said. “I want to fight for my son’s rights and let them know that you’re not going to treat my child this way. I’ve made it my mission. You don’t get to pick and choose who you give an education to.”

Clarification, May 30, 2023: This story has been clarified in two places to specify that Success Academy called 911 when requesting an emergency response to students’ misbehavior, removing any ambiguity about whether the police were called directly.

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.

Migrants abruptly shuffled from Coney Island school to midtown office

2023-05-18T01:42:41+00:00

This story was originally published on May 17 by THE CITY.

Jose Materano, 33, hadn’t bathed in six days, and it was unclear when he might get to do so again.

Materano is one of about 75 asylum-seekers abruptly relocated from a Coney Island school gymnasium Wednesday morning to a vacant office space formerly used by Touro College across from Moynihan Train Hall in Midtown. Neither facility had showers on site.

But as he sat in the afternoon sun outside the new emergency migrant shelter, he said he was grateful to be here in the U.S.

“Even though they didn’t have space, they opened places to help us, so we wouldn’t be in the streets,” he told THE CITY in Spanish.

Materano said he was drawn to New York City by a cousin who arrived a year ago and is now working in a supermarket and renting a room in Queens.

His aim is “to work and become independent and give back to the country,” he said. “I’d work doing anything.”

The move from southern Brooklyn to the middle of Manhattan came after Mayor Eric Adams’s administration reversed itself, as first reported by THE CITY, just days after it began prepping six schools across Brooklyn to begin receiving migrants.

The sudden shift followed a day of parents protesting outside school buildings across the borough on Tuesday. Preparations to receive migrants had been underway at P.S. 172 in Sunset Park, P.S. 189 in Crown Heights, and P.S. 132, P.S. 17 and P.S. 18 in Williamsburg, while some asylum-seekers had already moved into to P.S. 188 in Coney Island and the former P721R Richard H. Hungerford school building on Staten Island over the weekend.

‘Life as usual!’

By late morning on Wednesday those plans had changed, and buses were lined up outside P.S. 188 to transport migrants to another location, said eyewitnesses on site.

Juan Carlos, a 29-year-old from Venezuela, was among those asylum-seekers bused from Coney Island to Midtown. After getting settled in, Carlos said the vacant office space was an upgrade from the gym where he had been staying. With ten people in his new room, he said, it was also more privacy than he’d had at shelters in Denver and El Paso.

“Where we are is better than where we came from. You always have to have a little patience,” he said in Spanish. “From here, they’re going to send us to another site. But for now we’re good.”

A City Hall source confirmed the about-face, saying school communities across Brooklyn would have access to their gymnasiums again in the coming days. They said it was unclear what might happen to all the cots set up there over the past several days there; school staff might have to fold and store them.

The Staten Island facility would continue to house migrants, as it is not an active school, the source said.

Spokespeople for Mayor Adams did not immediately return a request for comment.

By early Wednesday afternoon, parents at P.S. 17 in Williamsburg got a triumphant letter from school administrators.

“I can confirm that we will be getting our gym back very soon!” the note read, adding they were still waiting for official word from City Hall. “The facility will need to be broken down and disinfected, and since it is an emergency shelter location I cannot say that it won’t be utilized again in the future. But for now we will be getting back to life as usual!”

Brooklyn Councilmember Ari Kagan said Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol told him the city was moving away from housing migrants in school gyms for the time being, though Iscol said that could change if the city sees another surge in arrivals.

“All options are on the table. Everything is fluid,” Kagan said Iscol told him.

‘Tough decisions’

At a previously scheduled press conference on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the city’s strategy for housing migrants, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom denied the administration was changing course and declined to answer specifics about the use of public school facilities. The gyms had always been meant for short-term stays, Williams-Isom said.

“I’m not reversing strategy. The strategy was to have emergency sites for short-term respite, which always meant that people would move to another site when that became available,” she said. “So we are very consistent with our strategy and our planning and we’re gonna continue to do that so that I can assure that nobody sleeps on the streets of New York City.”

Williams-Isom implored other cities and towns to open their arms to migrants and help find locations where they could stay.

“We are in an emergency and we are at a breaking point,” she said.

Meanwhile, Councilmember Alexa Avilés (D-Brooklyn) said she was still waiting to hear directly from the administration about P.S. 172 in Sunset Park.

“It’s very messy and unclear what is actually happening,” Avilés said. What she did know, she said, was there were cots and supplies in the school gym but no migrants staying there.

“If you’re not going to use it, then take your stuff. We want to move the stuff out so we can use it for the kids. They’ve had so much disruption already.”

The Daily News reported earlier on Wednesday that city officials were considering using a shuttered jail building on Rikers Island to house migrants. The administration has also discussed using parks and airplane hangers to house migrants, according to previous reports.

Adams has repeatedly defended his administration’s handling of the migrant crisis, pointing to other cities like El Paso where asylum-seekers are sleeping in the streets.

At a press conference Wednesday, he said that 900 people had arrived in New York City on a single day recently, and 4,200 had come in the last week. All told, 41,500 asylum seekers are staying in 150 emergency shelters across the city.

“I’m willing to make the tough decisions and not get bottled down in what the optics are,” he said. “Whoever is telling us not to go somewhere, I have one question for them: ‘You tell me where we should go then.’”

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.

Seven school gyms are housing migrants or could soon. Parents and pols are pushing back.

2023-05-16T02:13:14+00:00

This story was originally published on May 15 by THE CITY.

Seven public school gyms are now either in use as emergency shelter for migrants or are being readied for use, all but one of them in Brooklyn — prompting pushback from parents and local officials.

Over the weekend, as border restrictions known as Title 42 expired, agencies transported migrants to P721R Richard H. Hungerford School on Staten Island, a City Hall official confirmed, quickly filling it to its 500-person capacity.

The next destination was the gymnasium of P.S. 188 in Coney Island, which neared its capacity by Sunday, according to City Councilmember Ari Kagan (R-Brooklyn).

By Monday, 67 cots were set up inside the gymnasium of P.S. 172 in Sunset Park, according to local Councilmember Alexa Avilés (D-Brooklyn). An additional four schools are slated to be used to house migrants as others fill up, according to the city source: P.S. 189 in Crown Heights, and PS 132, P.S. 17 and P.S. 18 in Williamsburg.

The decision by the administration of Mayor Eric Adams to resort to school gyms — after months of housing migrants in hotels, homeless shelters and facilities such as the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal — came with little notice to parents, school administrators and local elected officials, prompting alarm and frustration.

A spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams didn’t respond to a request for comment on the latest school sites selected to house migrants.

“Given all the potential facilities available, I don’t understand why primarily elementary schools are being used,” said Jessamyn Lee, 48, a Brooklyn public school parent who sits on the Panel for Education Policy.

“It’s undignified and inhumane,” Lee added. “There’s nowhere for them to shower and take care of their basic needs.”

Kagan said city officials told him P.S. 188 would be used for short-term stays of several days for up to 84 adults, but that more migrants may arrive after the people staying there move out. He said the city assured him mobile showers would be installed, likely on Tuesday.

“We cannot promise you even when they leave in a few days that this gym will be returned to the Coney Island community,” Kagan said. “We don’t know what to expect if more people will come. It’s terrible. It’s unacceptable.”

Adams’ office has not provided an updated count of recent arrivals, though through early May, more than 37,500 asylum seekers were staying in city shelters. Last week, Adams said the city had run out of space in hotels, with at least 140 emergency shelters in operation across the five boroughs, and was scrambling to identify facilities that have open layouts with more than 10,000 square feet.

Photos obtained by THE CITY Monday showed boxes of diapers and new cribs inside P.S. 172’s school gym in Sunset Park, seeming to indicate the facility would house young children imminently.

The photos caused newfound alarm for attorney Joshua Goldfein of The Legal Aid Society, who has been monitoring the rapidly evolving situation on behalf of Society client Coalition for the Homeless, to ensure the city’s right-to-shelter legal agreements are honored.

Anticipating a surge in arriving migrants ahead of Title 42’s expiration last week, Adams signed an executive order relaxing right to shelter regulations, by waiving the city’s requirement to provide bathrooms, refrigerators, kitchens and “an adequate sleeping area” to homeless families. Goldfein pointed to state regulations still in place that bar children from being housed in congregate settings, where they’re more susceptible to disease and abuse.

“Each time we have identified children placed in a congregate site, the city has told us we will move those families out,” Goldfein said. “I don’t understand why the city would be storing supplies for small children at a congregate shelter site.”

Goldfein subsequently asked city officials about housing children in the Sunset Park gymnasium and they told him they have no plans to do so, he said. He got the explanation that prepackaged pallets of supplies were sent to the school and happened to include items for children. Adams’ office didn’t immediately return a request for comment on the facility.

Councilmember Avilés said she had concerns about fire safety, student arrival and dismissal, and where after-school programs would be held.

“The community has been welcoming [immigrants]; we receive people every day,” she said. “But this situation is particularly untenable because of all these conditions.”

A spokesperson for the city’s Office of Emergency Management and the Department of Education referred all comments to the mayor’s office.

The schools the city selected thus far all have freestanding gymnasiums, according to multiple sources. One source at City Hall said it might not stop there: “They’re looking at parks and playgrounds if it gets worse.”

Several groups of concerned parents planned multiple rallies outside Brooklyn schools for Tuesday morning. Lee said she’s already seen online conversations online veer into vitriolic anti-immigrant and xenophobic territory, something that could have been headed off with more planning, she said.

“Unfortunately that is being directed at the migrants themselves,” she said. “I do worry about the safety of the asylees.”

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 schools handcuff and haul away kids in emotional crisis

2023-05-04T09:00:00+00:00

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with THE CITY. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

It was almost time for school pickup when Paul’s mom saw the text on the classroom messaging app: Paul — her 7-year-old — “ended up running out of class today and it escalated rather quickly.” Someone at the school had called 911. Paul’s parents could contact the main office for more information, the message read.

Paul’s mom remembers the physical feeling of dread, like ice under her skin. Paul — that’s his middle name — has a neurological disorder. He loves to cuddle with his mom and help take care of his baby sister, and he’s wild about Greek mythology. Like a lot of kids with developmental disabilities, he also has very big tantrums, hitting, spitting and throwing things when he gets upset. Since the end of first grade, he’s been in a special public school classroom in Brooklyn that integrates disabled and nondisabled kids.

The day of the message, in early December, Paul’s mom was so panicked that she couldn’t fully make sense of what it said. Why had the school called 911 instead of calling her? Was her child hurt? Had something gone terribly wrong? She wanted to run the last few blocks to the school, but her legs felt frozen. It was hard just to walk.

When she made it into the school building, she found Paul lying facedown on the floor of a computer room, his whole body heaving with sobs. She touched his back, and he screamed and tried to scramble away. Then he recognized his mother’s voice and jumped into her arms. “Mommy, don’t let them handcuff me,” he begged.

“I said, ‘What are you talking about? No one is going to handcuff you.’”

But that’s when she found out: Someone already had.

That afternoon, Paul had had a meltdown that started in his classroom and spilled into a hallway. When he didn’t calm down, someone called a school safety agent — an officer of the New York Police Department who is stationed full-time in the building. Paul knocked off the agent’s face mask and glasses, and that’s when it happened. The agent pulled out a pair of Velcro restraints and forced them over Paul’s hands.

Looking now, Paul’s mom could see red marks where the handcuffs had rubbed Paul’s wrists raw. But she felt more bewildered than ever. She must be misunderstanding, she thought. Who would handcuff a 7-year-old?

New York City officials have promised for years to stop relying on police to respond to students in emotional crisis. Under the terms of a 2014 legal settlement, schools are only supposed to call 911 in the most extreme situations, when kids pose an “imminent and substantial risk of serious injury” to themselves or others.

And yet an investigation by THE CITY and ProPublica found that city schools continue to call on safety agents and other police officers to manage students in distress thousands of times each year — incidents the NYPD calls “child in crisis” interventions. Unless a parent arrives in time to intercede, cops hand kids off to EMTs, who take students to hospital emergency rooms for psychiatric evaluations. In close to 1,370 incidents since 2017, students ended up in handcuffs while they waited for an ambulance to arrive, according to NYPD data. In several incidents, those kids were 5 or 6 years old.

Note: 2017 is the first year that the New York Police Department released data on all incidents where a school employee called 911 over a student in emotional distress, known as child-in-crisis incidents. Data Source: NYPD quarterly School Safety Act report. Credit: Lucas Waldron, ProPublica

Ten years ago, in the runup to the 2014 settlement, a group of parents sued the city’s Department of Education, claiming that schools violated their children’s constitutional rights and broke federal law by sending them to hospitals when they weren’t experiencing medical emergencies — in many cases in response to behavior that resulted directly from a student’s disability.

The experience was traumatic and humiliating for the kids, the plaintiffs claimed. Students were terrified to return to school; 6- and 7-year-olds thought they were being arrested. Two schools filed child welfare reports on parents who didn’t allow EMTs to put their children in ambulances.

Meanwhile, the hospital visits served no useful purpose, plaintiffs claimed. Students missed crucial class time only to wait for hours in emergency rooms — sometimes with seriously mentally ill adults — and then be sent home. At least one parent lost her job because she was repeatedly forced to leave work to rush to the hospital, and then she was stuck with bills for ambulance trips and ER services her child didn’t need.

As part of the 2014 settlement, the department issued a regulation that requires schools to make every effort to safely manage students in distress without involving police — including by deploying trained crisis response teams and allowing parents to speak to their children by phone if possible. Schools are never allowed to use 911 calls as a punishment for misbehavior. When cops do get involved, they must use the “minimum level of restraint necessary.”

Despite the promises and regulations, New York City public schools call 911 on students in emotional distress as often as ever, an analysis by THE CITY and ProPublica of NYPD data shows. Prior to the lawsuit, city-run and charter schools saw an average of 3,000 child-in-crisis incidents per year from 2005 to 2010 and an average of 3,300 incidents in the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years, according to court documents. Since 2017 — the first post-lawsuit year for which the NYPD reported complete data — schools have seen an average of 3,200 incidents per year. (The analysis excludes 911 calls made in 2020 and 2021, when schools operated on a remote or hybrid schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Schools are far more likely to call 911 on Black students, who make up less than a quarter of the student body but account for nearly half of child-in-crisis incidents and 59% of instances in which students were handcuffed since 2017, the analysis shows. And schools continue to call police to respond to young children: Last year, more than 560 child-in-crisis incidents involved students aged 10 or younger. In five cases, the kids were 4 years old.

Note: Data for all New York City child-in-crisis and handcuffing incidents covers 2017 to 2022. Data for student population demographics includes school years 2017-18 to 2021-22. Data Sources: New York City annual student enrollment snapshot and New York Police Department quarterly School Safety Act report.

“The things that needed to change did not change,” said Nelson Mar, an education attorney at Legal Services NYC who represented the plaintiffs in the 2013 lawsuit.

That’s partly because the Department of Education fails to hold schools accountable for not following its own regulations, Mar and other advocates said. Schools are required to file occurrence reports after calling 911 on students, but they don’t have to show that they took the mandatory steps to manage a crisis first. Unless parents have a lawyer or a paid advocate, they rarely know the reports exist, much less get the opportunity to contest a school’s account of an incident or to object if they believe school staff called 911 to punish a student they were fed up with.

In an emailed statement, Department of Education spokesperson Nathaniel Styer wrote that, if parents believe a school called 911 in violation of city rules, they should contact their school district’s superintendent, who oversees school leaders and can provide additional training. “Situations where young children are in crisis and/or are at risk of harming themselves or others are among the most difficult for our educators and school staff,” Styer wrote.

“Nevertheless,” Styer continued, “whenever there is evidence the policy hasn’t been followed, it will be reported and investigated, and we review every case where 911 is called to ensure that it was necessary and complied with our policy.”

But thousands of children are still being forcibly removed from schools each year, which means the oversight clearly isn’t working, said Amber Decker, a public school parent who was a plaintiff in the 2013 lawsuit and now works as an advocate for parents of kids with disabilities.

If schools were being held accountable for unnecessary 911 calls, “the numbers would have gone down,” Decker said. As it is, “there’s no consequences other than the ones you push for until you’re blue in the face or banging your head against the wall.”

To understand why police are so involved in New York City schools, you have to look back to the late 1990s. Rudy Giuliani was mayor, and schools were at the junction of two of his biggest campaign promises: to slash crime and to fix the education system. For students, that meant a “zero tolerance” approach to school misconduct.

In 1998, the city created a new division of the NYPD, transferring school safety operations — which had previously been managed by the Board of Education — to the police department. Agents were allowed to arrest students for all kinds of misbehavior, including spitting, talking back to teachers and cutting class.

Eighteen years and two administrations later, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio presided over a city that approached young people and police very differently. According to a 2016 mayoral task force that included the commanding officer of the NYPD’s School Safety Division, overly punitive practices weren’t making students safer; they were pushing vulnerable kids out of schools and into the juvenile justice system.

The task force pointed to child-in-crisis incidents as part of the problem. “With little mental health experience or training, and scant access to mental health professionals, ER overuse is the norm,” the task force wrote.

De Blasio promised to transform the city’s approach to school discipline by reducing the role of police and dramatically increasing the mental health resources available to students and teachers. “We’re revolutionizing our school system,” he said in 2019.

The revolution never materialized. In 2021, after New York City students experienced some of the longest school shutdowns in the country, the city hired 500 new school-based social workers to help respond to trauma connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. De Blasio’s was “one of the first administrations to recognize that schools are where kids with mental health problems land,” said Peter Ragone, a longtime de Blasio adviser.

But while the hiring push put the city ahead of many other jurisdictions, New York City schools still have just one social worker for every 475 students — close to double the National Association of Social Workers’ recommended ratio of 250 students per social worker.

The city’s current mayor, Eric Adams, announced a sweeping mental health plan in March that includes a “Mental Health Continuum,” a project that was conceived under de Blasio and rolled out last year to connect schools directly to mental health clinics and mobile crisis teams. But Adams’s proposed city budget, released a month later, included no funding for the project.

“It’s mind-boggling,” said Dawn Yuster, who directs the School Justice Project at the group Advocates for Children. “This would expedite care for young people with the most significant needs. If you’re going to say it, fund it.”

The mayor’s office did not respond to questions about the Mental Health Continuum, but Patrick Gallahue, press secretary for the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, wrote in an emailed statement that a new teletherapy program for high schoolers will “connect even more young people with services by reaching them where they are.”

Meanwhile, in 2022, City Council members acknowledged the need for more oversight of child-in-crisis incidents, introducing a bill that would have required school safety agents to document that school staff tried to de-escalate a crisis before involving police. But the bill never made it out of committee. (Neither Councilmember Diana Ayala nor Councilmember Rita Joseph, both of whom sponsored the bill, responded to requests for comment.)

When school staff don’t get the support they need from mental health experts, they often resort to punishing kids for behaviors they can’t control, Yuster said. It might start with “calling parents every day about a student’s behavior. Then they up the ante, calling to say, ‘We’re suspending for five days, and next time we’re going to call EMS if this behavior continues.’”

Not only do the escalating punishments violate city rules but they also destroy trust between students and schools, said Crystal Baker-Burr, an attorney who directs the Education Project at The Bronx Defenders, a nonprofit public defense agency.

“Even if a school is at their wit’s end,” Baker-Burr said, “sending a student to the ER is not going to help the situation. Getting police involved, handcuffing them, it doesn’t make anything better at school the next day.”

Three years ago, Baker-Burr saw the impact of 911 calls up close — on her 7-year-old nephew, Ethan. (Ethan’s family asked us to identify him by just his first name.)

In 2019, Ethan was a second grader at P.S. 157 in the Bronx. He was a gentle and sweet kid at home, but he got overwhelmed and acted out at school, said his mom, Jacqueline De Jesus. He’d hit other kids or run out of the classroom. Sometimes he’d bite himself. This was before he was diagnosed with autism, and his parents were still trying to figure out what to do. De Jesus asked the school for help, she said, but teachers told her that Ethan didn’t need to be evaluated for educational services because his schoolwork was at grade level.

Instead, De Jesus said, Ethan, who’s Black and Latino, got punished. Teachers yelled at him and sent him out of the classroom. He wasn’t allowed to join music or sports clubs or sign up for the after-school program. The school constantly called his parents to pick him up early.

De Jesus felt like the message was clear. “They didn’t want to deal with him,” she said. It seemed like the school was making it as difficult as possible for Ethan to stay.

When Jacqueline De Jesus’ second grader, Ethan, threw tantrums at school, staffers repeatedly called 911.

P.S. 157’s principal did not respond to a request for comment. The Department of Education declined to comment on Ethan’s experience, even though De Jesus signed a release allowing it to share information with THE CITY and ProPublica.

In April 2019, De Jesus got a phone call that shocked her. It was the school secretary, saying that an ambulance was on its way to take Ethan to the hospital. De Jesus was at work in Manhattan — a 40-minute cab ride away — so she called Baker-Burr, who went straight to the school. When she got there, Ethan was curled up in a ball underneath a desk, rocking back and forth and sobbing. His face was swollen and red from crying for so long.

Two uniformed police officers were “standing over my very small nephew,” Baker-Burr said. “They were saying things like, ‘Don’t lie to us, Ethan. When you’re older, we could arrest you for things like this.’”

Baker-Burr asked the officers to leave the room, then got down on the floor and convinced Ethan to come out from under the desk, promising that she wouldn’t let anyone hurt him. By the time the ambulance arrived, he was calm, talking to Baker-Burr about his new Five Nights at Freddy’s backpack. Baker-Burr rode with him to Lincoln Medical Center, a public hospital in the South Bronx, where a doctor interviewed him and sent him home with a note saying he was fine to return to school.

Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx

“They were like, ‘Why is this child even here?’ It was a colossal waste of time,” Baker-Burr said.

That didn’t stop the school from calling 911 on Ethan two more times in the next month, De Jesus and Baker-Burr said. Nor did it prevent De Jesus from being billed hundreds of dollars for ambulance rides and ER visits.

Eventually, De Jesus gave up and petitioned the city to move Ethan to a different school. “I didn’t want to send him somewhere he wasn’t wanted,” she said.

Calling 911 on kids “is the last thing any teacher wants to do,” said Kristen GoldMansour, a former teacher and coach who works with dozens of New York City schools to support inclusive programming for students with disabilities.

“The question is, how did we get there?” GoldMansour said. “There’s probably a thousand million things we could have done to avoid getting to that point.”

In fact, when students’ behavior or mental health needs get in the way of learning, federal law requires schools to intervene, proactively offering them evaluations and services like occupational therapy or a functional behavioral assessment — a detailed analysis of what triggers kids’ behaviors and the best strategies to prevent an emergency.

But getting the right services can be difficult or impossible — especially for parents who can’t pay attorneys to help them navigate the city’s convoluted system for students with disabilities. Instead, as THE CITY and ProPublica reported last year, kids who are disruptive or aggressive often get pushed out of mainstream schools and into failing special education schools that are packed with other students who have behavioral and mental health challenges. Even if they are capable academically, their chances of graduating with a diploma plummet.

Meanwhile, their odds of encountering police go way up: Special education schools, which disproportionately serve low-income and Black students, call 911 on kids in distress at four times the per-student rate of general education schools, according to a data analysis by Advocates for Children.

In Brooklyn, Paul’s parents are doing everything they can to keep him in a school with general education students. This is his chance to be integrated into mainstream life, his mom said.

On the day after Paul’s school called 911, his parents asked for a meeting with school staff and officials from the Department of Education — something they only knew to do because they were working with paid education advocates, they said. Paul’s dad went to the meeting, which was recorded on Zoom, with a list of questions: What kinds of restraints were used on his son? Could he see a picture of them? Would the school share its plan for responding to students in crisis or its policies on handcuffing kids? What if Paul had another incident — would staff call his parents before calling 911?

School staff said that they had tried to calm Paul down, but no one explained why the NYPD safety agent had become involved or why the school hadn’t called Paul’s parents first. The principal would only say that the school had done nothing wrong. “Protocols were followed,” she said. Everything was “by the book.” Meanwhile, she repeated a list of Paul’s transgressions: He had “assaulted” teachers, his behavior was “egregious.” (Paul’s parents asked us not to use their names or identify his school, in part to protect Paul’s privacy but also for fear of alienating education officials who hold power over Paul’s future school placements.)

After an hour, Paul’s dad was reduced to pleading: “Promise me, if this happens again, you have to call us,” he said. “I’m begging you. This is my son.”

Two weeks after the meeting, the Department of Education transferred Paul to a school that has more experience teaching disabled and nondisabled kids together. It’s a better outcome than many families get, Paul’s mom said. “We’re white, and we have a lot of resources to put toward our son. I have no idea how you would manage this situation without the resources to pay for help.”

So far, things at the new school are going well. Paul’s tantrums have not been quite so explosive, and his teachers seem comfortable managing them, his mom said. “They don’t shame him or drag him through the mud.”

Still, it’s impossible for her not to worry. If Paul was handcuffed at 7, what happens as he gets bigger and older?

She finds herself shutting away the memory of what happened in December. “It’s like this other, alternative reality,” she said. “I’m with my joyful, wonderful child, and I’m like, ‘How could this happen?’”

Sophie Chou contributed data analysis.

How to get mental health help in NYC public schools

2023-05-04T09:00:00+00:00

This is part of an ongoing collaborative series between Chalkbeat, THE CITY, and ProPublica investigating learning differences, special education, and other education challenges in city schools.

As the pandemic upended our understanding of education’s role in society, one point became remarkably clear: schools are the first line of defense for student mental health support.

But what isn’t always apparent is what help is available to the city’s nearly 900,000 public school students — and how outcomes can vary depending on the resources schools provide.

Chalkbeat and THE CITY, along with ProPublica, have been examining how public schools are a de facto mental health system for many families. To help explain what services are available school-by-school, we tracked dozens of data points related to mental health resources, and talked to families, educators, and experts about navigating the system.

All of New York City’s roughly 1,600 public schools, at a minimum, have access to a social worker or school-based mental health clinic, officials say, and the city will soon offer teletherapy for high school students.

But many families say getting services can be a battle, especially as mental health needs mount. One in five New York City children ages 3 to 13 had one or more mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral problems in 2021, according to unpublished data from a city health department survey.

“It’s a crisis,” said Brittany Kaiser, an art teacher at Manhattan’s Earth School, who says she and her colleagues need more support as they’ve noticed their pre-K through fifth-graders’ behavioral issues worsening.

That picture seems consistent throughout New York City. More than 1 in 200 New York City children lost a caregiver to COVID, an analysis from the COVID Collaborative found. Many young people are still reeling from prolonged isolation and lost schooling. The threat of gun violence, climate change, racism, and poverty weigh heavily on many kids. On top of that, thousands of children from asylum-seeking families are arriving at city schools with significant needs.

These challenges affect what happens in the classroom — and whether kids show up at all. Chronic absenteeism, when students miss at least 10% of school, remains much higher than pre-pandemic levels. Crippling anxiety leading to school refusal — when kids have an extreme aversion to attending class — seems to be on the upswing, parents say.

“We’re really looking for resources and support,” said Rasheedah Brown-Harris, a leader with the Bronx’s New Settlement Apartments Parent Action Committee whose Healing-Centered Schools Working Group is pushing for school-wide trauma-informed approaches. “We’re all trying to figure it out.”

Here’s what to know about getting your child school-based mental health support.

If you’re looking for school-based counseling, where do you begin?

Start with the people who know your child best, whether that’s a classroom teacher or other trusted adult in the school. Parents can also reach out to a counselor or social worker at the school, an assistant principal or principal, or the parent coordinator. Every school has a counseling plan with contact information on its education department homepage under the “reports” tab.

School staff may also flag children with significant emotional needs — just as when children have academic needs — but it can take time. In such cases, a school might deem a child “at risk” and provide short-term counseling as part of a process called “response to intervention,” or RTI.

Schools, though, don’t get extra funding for at-risk students, and they triage based on need. So getting services can feel like an uphill battle, parents say.

“The process can look very different for different students, and can require significant time, individual attention, and resources, and the fair student funding formula doesn’t take this into account,” said Kaiser.

Often it can come down to whether a counselor or social worker has openings — and many have been working through their lunch periods to meet the increased demand, educators said.

Fourth grade teacher Miriam Sicherman, at the Manhattan’s Children’s Workshop School, was able to get counseling earlier this school year for one of her students who witnessed neighborhood violence. But Sicherman isn’t sure the process would have been as easy a few months later, after her school received nearly 60 children, largely from asylum-seeking families who experienced some form of trauma.

What if a student needs ongoing support?

Receiving temporary, at-risk services could be a first step while a family begins the evaluation process for an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, mandating services, such as counseling.

Children with anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges could be eligible for an IEP under the “emotional disability” classification. The state recently changed the label of that classification from “emotional disturbance” to reduce the stigma of the classification, which overwhelmingly is assigned to boys of color. Three-quarters of those with the label were boys; nearly half (47%) were Black even though Black students make up less than a quarter of students citywide, according to city data from November 2022.

Anxiety or other mental health issues might also qualify a student for a 504 plan, which under the Americans with Disabilities Act provides accommodations for children with disabilities or impairments that substantially limits a major life activity.

For example, a child with major depression who has trouble getting out of bed might not need an IEP for a special education teacher, but could benefit from a 504 plan with accommodations such as counseling, partial credit, reduced workloads, or movement breaks, explained civil rights attorney Miriam Nunberg.

However, schools don’t get extra funding for students with 504 plans, so they might make families jump through hoops to get them. They often put the onus on families to get outside evaluations to qualify rather than do school-based ones, and they often make families renew 504 plans on an annual basis.

“That’s not supposed to happen,” Nunberg said.

What’s the difference between a guidance counselor and a social worker?

Social workers are trained to provide more intensive student support from a clinical perspective in terms of prevention and treatment than counselors. But at some schools, social workers don’t work directly with children, and instead work on initial IEP evaluations by conducting social histories and classroom observations.

Some guidance counselors support at-risk and students with IEPs in one-on-one or small groups, but they also focus on students’ academic progress, including helping on applications for middle school, high school and college.

“Their objective, fairly universally, is to see that a child progresses through the school,” said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, executive director of Counseling in Schools, which provides counseling services at roughly 70 schools across the city.

National guidance recommends one counselor and one social worker for every 250 students in a school. When students have more intensive needs, the preferred ratio is 1 to 50.

Systemwide, there are roughly 5,000 social workers and guidance counselors, an increase of 1,000 since 2014, education department officials said. Still, the citywide average is 277 students to one counselor and 456 students to one social worker, according to an analysis of public data.

The role of counselors and social workers can look different school to school, and some of these staffers are part-time, traveling to different schools. That means they might not be around on the day a child has a crisis.

Some social workers say their schools pull them away from counseling.

“I am ordered to fill in the gaps, from wake-up calls to data entry to disciplining students for dress code violations,” one social worker wrote in a Chalkbeat essay. “I’ve had to cancel counseling sessions to stand by metal detectors that children are required to go through, to monitor the hallways, or to ‘watch’ a group of suspended students.”

Are there other school-based resources for mental health services?

Nearly 390 schools have on-site health clinics that often include mental health services that are more robust than schools typically provide.

Another 330 schools have on-site mental health clinics, and the city is developing a $9 million telehealth program for high school students, a model becoming more common across the nation. (The school-based mental health clinics charge fees, but they take health insurance, Medicaid or offer a sliding scale for billing.)

There are also 421 “community schools” that partner with community-based organizations that often offer free counseling or connect students to services. (These counselors don’t factor into the student-to-counselor ratios.)

Very few schools, however, are able to provide long-term therapy, said Dr. Kelly Fradin, a pediatrician who worked in school health in the South Bronx and author of “Advanced Parenting: Advice for Helping Kids Through Diagnoses, Differences, and Mental Health Challenges.”

“What the schools are able to, or what I’d like them to be able to reliably provide, is to triage and bridge children to support…. To help families as partners, and say to the parents, ‘Is your child struggling with their mental health? Would they benefit from more resources?’”

School counselors play crucial roles responding to children in crisis, but also connect them to the right people outside of school, especially if a child is feeling suicidal, having restricted eating or possible anorexia, or experienced a trauma such as the loss of a parent.

But quickly getting outside services is not always feasible, as parents report long waitlists for therapists.

How to figure out if school supports student mental health

Other data points that could indicate how supportive a school environment might include “child in crisis” incidents (when schools call on police officers and EMTs to respond to students in emotional distress), as well as suspensions, which can be found in annual education department reports. In both of these cases, Black students and children with disabilities are disproportionately affected.

Changes to the discipline code during the de Blasio administration have curtailed the use of suspensions. But some educators say they need more training in alternative approaches, like restorative justice, which gives students space to talk through conflicts instead of more punitive discipline.

Some schools have restorative justice coordinators to help shift their culture toward this model. More recently, the city has looked to partnering schools with violence interrupters and mentors through its “project pivot” initiative.

Other factors can affect kids’ emotional wellbeing, like class size, school start times, access to outdoor space and gym, and whether a child is in an appropriate classroom setting, experts say.

“We know that when a child is not in the right learning environment, whether they’re too gifted for the class or struggling to keep up, they have more problems with self regulation and emotional regulation,” said Fradin.

What if you’re not getting the support your child needs?

If a school is refusing to give services mandated on an IEP or making it difficult to get or implement a 504 plan, parents can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, Nunberg said. Though, she acknowledged that can be a slow process.

Parents can call their district superintendent’s office for help and speak with a student services manager, advised Jenn Choi, who channeled her parent advocacy into Special Support Services, a consulting firm for families of students with disabilities. These staffers help with student registration and transfers as well as act as liaisons between schools and students in hospital, homeschool, or other special situations, among other duties.

Some families have transferred out of schools to find more supportive environments, but the Office of Enrollment does not necessarily make it easy to do that, Choi said.

The education department lists something called a “guidance transfer” for families with concerns that their children are not “progressing or achieving academically or socially.” Parents have to contact the Family Welcome Center for such requests.

Families can also apply to new schools during the regular application season. For example, there might be openings for rising 10th graders at certain high schools as enrollment is often in flux. Additionally, the city runs nearly 60 alternative high schools, known as transfer schools, which focus on students who struggled to succeed at traditional high schools and are at risk of dropping out. They often offer individual support, small classes, and wraparound services to push students to graduation.

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

How well does your child’s school support student mental health?

2023-05-04T09:00:00+00:00

Advocates call on Illinois lawmakers to fund after-school programs after state error

2023-05-03T20:17:52+00:00

After-school programs for 27,000 Illinois students may be in danger of running out of money after next year because of an accounting error made by the Illinois State Board of Education.

The error has caused a projected $12.4 million shortfall for 2024, according to a spokesperson with the state board. State Superintendent Tony Sanders says the state will use emergency COVID-19 funding to fill in the gap this year, but will not have new funding available in the future.

A coalition of community groups that provide after-school programming — who estimate the shortfall as much larger — are calling on Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Illinois lawmakers to use state dollars to fill the gap to help programs survive in the future.

If that gap is not closed, they say, programs that provide students with a safe space after school to participate in extracurricular activities, tutoring, and mental health services may not have enough funding after next year.

Afterschool for Children and Teens Now (ACT Now), a group of Illinois after-school advocates, says these programs serve mostly Black and Latino students who attend high-poverty, low-performing schools. About 66% of students in the programs qualify for free and reduced lunch.

Marie Snyder, a site coordinator at Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School — an alternative school in Humboldt Park — spoke about the importance of her school’s after-school programs for students during a press conference on Tuesday outside of the Pritzker’s office in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood.

Snyder’s school offers 12 after-school programs and five summer programs where students are able to take culinary arts, tutoring, basketball, and gardening.

“Not only do our students get to build relationships with each other, but with us. We all know that our city and our young people are in the midst of a mental health crisis,” said Snyder. “Our time invested enables us to observe our students for signs of trauma and stress and through our relationships we are able to encourage them to connect with mental health practitioners.”

In the past two years alone, Snyder said she’s been able to help 50 students access mental health services based on needs they’ve expressed.

The programs at risk are funded through a federal grant called Nita M. Lowey’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers program. The state board says the error stems from the early days of the pandemic. In a normal year, grantees would have to give unspent money back to the state board at the end of the year so the state could fund next year’s programs. In 2020, the state allowed programs to carry over unspent funding.

Sanders wrote in a weekly message on Tuesday that the state board did not account for how the carryover funds would impact funding for 2024 until this year when it found a shortfall of $12.4 million for next year. State officials notified grantees of the error in April.

The 2019 grantees affected by the error are in 68 locations across the state, Sanders said in his weekly message, noting that 42 school districts have committed to using other funds to support after-school programming and another 13 are looking for alternative funding sources.

Chicago Public Schools, one of the grantees from 2019, said it will use other funds to continue growing after-school programs.

Susan Stanton, network lead for ACT Now, said at Tuesday’s press conference that after-school programs are vital to students and families. She called on the state legislature to put additional money toward after-school programs in the final state budget, which must be passed by the end of the session this month.

“There is no other option,” Stanton said. “We can’t let families and children pay the price for the mistake that was made by the government.”

Homelessness in Boulder Valley School District hits highest level since Great Recession

2023-04-28T20:11:10+00:00

This story originally appeared on Boulder Reporting Lab and is republished here with permission.

This school year, more than 750 students or their guardians in the Boulder Valley School District have reported they either lack stable housing or are homeless, according to district officials. That’s more students than at any time since the Great Recession.

The uptick in student homelessness comes as city and county rental assistance programs are nearly out of money. Meanwhile, inflation has driven up the cost of everyday basic needs, such as food.

“It’s a reckoning for the community. We have not seen family homelessness like this for many, many years,” said Julie Van Domelen, the executive director of Emergency Family Assistance Association, a Boulder-based nonprofit that provides financial support to families.

The number of homeless students is calculated based on those who qualify for the McKinney-Vento program. Under federal law, the district must provide students enrolled in the program access to certain services, such as free meals and transportation to school. Student homelessness reduces academic performance, among other negative consequences.

The McKinney-Vento data can be compared across time and school districts. It counts the number of students who are staying in shelters, hotels or doubling up due to economic hardship. It also counts the number of unsheltered students, which is more rare than the other situations.

For much of the last decade, the number of homeless students in the Boulder Valley School District had been steadily declining, from 1,024 during the 2010-2011 school year to 290 during the 2020-2021 school year, according to state data. That’s a drop from 3.5% to 1% of the district’s student population of approximately 30,000.

That number spiked to more than 1,400 after the Dec. 30, 2021 Marshall Fire, which destroyed more than 1,000 homes in Boulder County. Most of those students were doubling up with other families. About 20 students displaced by the fire still qualify for the McKinney-Vento program, according to the district.

The enrollment of more than 750 students in the McKinney-Vento program this school year is an indication that student homelessness is on the rise. The district says resources to help those students — such as free transportation and rental assistance — are just about maxed out.

For instance, the district has already had trouble providing transportation for students due to the national shortage of bus drivers. It is currently contracting with HopSkipDrive, a vehicle-for-hire program, to get students to schools. The district is planning to seek grant money in order to continue providing free rides to school.

“We have to make sure we get a hold of every grant available to be able to help with transportation,” Ema Lyman, a McKinney-Vento liaison at the Boulder Valley School District, told Boulder Reporting Lab.

Lyman said the district used federal stimulus money from the American Rescue Plan Act to hire a second McKinney-Vento specialist, which helps connect students and their families to services. The school district is deciding whether to keep that position, which was temporary.

Even so, housing assistance is becoming more scarce. Boulder County ran out of federal rental assistance money this month, and the city of Boulder has spent nearly all its rental assistance money for the entire year in a matter of months.

“In theory and on paper, we have a lot of resources. But they are maxed out,” Lyman said.

Boulder County to give out limited rent assistance

On any given week, Van Domelen of the Emergency Family Assistance Association said about 600 households come to the food bank. That’s nearly twice as many people as prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. This year, the nonprofit is planning to spend $3.4 million in financial assistance, most of which is used for housing assistance, she said. That’s about three times as much money as in prior years.

“Safety nets like EFAA are supposed to be there for the vagaries of life — the shock to a household, a medical bill, a cut in hours,” she said. “None of our safety nets are really designed to substitute for full-time jobs that are not enough to pay for housing, food and basics. So I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Boulder County has $726,000 available for rental assistance through its Next Steps program, which is a collaboration between Boulder County Housing and Human Services, the St. Vrain Valley School District and the Boulder Valley School District. The money will be available to households earning up to 30% the area median income — about $26,000 for an individual living in Boulder County and more for families.

The county hopes to serve about 41 families with this money during the 2023-2025 grant cycle, providing them just enough support to help them move through a crisis, according to Jim Williams, a spokesman for Boulder County.

“For some families, that might look like assisting with arrears and three months of forward rental assistance to keep them in their current unit after they have experienced a financial setback due to illness,” Williams wrote in an email to Boulder Reporting Lab. “For other families, especially those that are already paying hotel expenses on their own, a deposit and housing navigation to overcome any lease up barriers they may be facing is what is needed.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the county gave tenants and property owners nearly $18 million in rental assistance. It stopped accepting applications in January 2023.

In recent months, the number of eviction case filings in Boulder County court has reached the highest levels in years. Many of the tenants showing up in housing court this month are already living in some of the city’s most affordable apartments, leaving them with few more affordable options if they want to stay in Boulder.

In the last decade, the median cost to rent a place in Boulder has increased faster than the median income of its residents, according to the U.S. Census. In 2021, the city’s rental vacancy rate was less than 2%, which is below the national average.

Lyman said she has worked as a McKinney-Vento specialist for 13 years. She said she has also lived in Boulder for more than 40 years.

“I’m fairly acquainted with how the demographics have changed, and how housing prices have gone up year after year,” she said. “A big percentage of students who are unable to get housing, for whatever reason, move away.”

John Herrick is senior reporter for Boulder Reporting Lab, covering housing, transportation, policing and local government. Reach John at john@boulderreportinglab.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.

Indianapolis neighborhood calls for a community-run school after years of instability and discontent

2023-04-14T11:00:00+00:00

James Whitcomb Riley School 43’s future changed merely by chance.

Edison School of the Arts was slated to take over the school in the fall. It would have been yet another change for the school that community members say was enacted by Indianapolis Public Schools without their input.

But Edison fell into chaos earlier this year, when parents accused its executive director Nathan Tuttle of using a racial slur, while students and staff said he created a hostile working and learning environment. Last month, IPS and Edison nixed the plan for Edison to run School 43 as an autonomous school in the district’s Innovation network.

Over the past decade, the major storyline of School 43 has been one of instability, high staff turnover, low test scores, and declining enrollment. But the collapse of Edison’s plan has left community members in the tight-knit Butler-Tarkington neighborhood with an unexpected, albeit small window of opportunity to change the trajectory of its K-8 school.

And this time, they say, it will be different: Instead of waiting for the district to drum up its latest fix for School 43, they’re making demands for exactly what they want for the school — and explaining how they plan to bring change themselves.

A group of advocates known as the Butler-Tarkington Education Committee have also submitted to the district their vision for School 43, and are working with the district on a memorandum of understanding about how to overhaul the school for at least the 2023-24 school year.

A James Whitcomb Riley School 43 parent speaks at a town hall at the MLK Center about the school’s future on April 5, 2023.

Essentially, their plan is to create a community-led school with a neighborhood school advisory committee and a coordinator in charge of community partnerships that already exist — such as tutoring, literacy efforts at the local community center, and the neighborhood’s mental health support center. Their plans, which they’re still developing and discussing with neighborhood residents, are similar to a model used by another IPS school community that banded together in 2017 to help run its own school without a charter operator.

“We’ve been patient,” said Sabae Martin, who graduated from School 43 more than 50 years ago and has worked for years to revive it. “And we’ve worked with them long enough to learn that unless we take the bull by the horns, we’re going to continue to get gored.”

The district did not respond to a request for comment about School 43. But IPS school board member Hope Hampton, whose District 3 includes the school, told community members that they have her ear at a recent public meeting about the school.

Neighborhood seeks organized effort for community-run school

One window into the school’s troubles is its decline from an A rating with the state in 2012 to an F by 2016, a grade it retained through 2020, the last year the state used A-F letter grades for accountability. It cycled through five principals in a five-year period from 2014 to 2019.

Just 1.5% of students were proficient in both English and math on the state’s 2022 ILEARN test.

But the school has also enjoyed a strong web of neighborhood support for years. Butler University College of Education students help staff the library. A mentoring program through the National Council of Negro Women has helped middle school girls believe in themselves. Another alumna, Brenda Vance Paschal, helped launch a journalism program.

The community itself is anchored by a number of churches, the MLK Center, and lifelong residents.

The school has plenty of partnerships and caring organizations, said Jim Grim, a member of the committee who helps run the Indiana Community Schools Network, at a recent meeting.

“The missing ingredient,” he said, “is the coordination.”

Community schools across the country are based on the idea that the schools serve as neighborhood hubs for a variety of educational, family, and social services. The federal government’s Full Service Community Schools grant program, among other efforts, supports such schools.

In addition to its long-term plans for the school, the Butler-Tarkington Education Committee has a seat on the interview committee for the school’s new principal, which should be placed by the end of May, said Allison Luthe, executive director of the MLK Center.

The model that School 43 advocates are envisioning closely resembles the community-run model at Thomas Gregg School 15. There, community members and the John Boner Neighborhood Centers stepped in six years ago to take their neighborhood school into their own hands. Today, School 15 is one of the few Innovation schools in IPS that isn’t a charter.

Getting to that point took many community meetings and hard work.

But James Taylor, the CEO of the John Boner centers, said that process led the School 15 community to realize it could not only influence the school, but take ownership of what it provides to students and families.

Now, Taylor says, the school has community support embedded in the school that can direct families to services such as housing assistance or tutoring. The school itself has also become much more open to assistance from the community, Taylor said.

But the Thomas Gregg model might not work for School 43 and the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood, he added.

“We looked at our ingredients, and we ended up at Thomas Gregg,” Taylor said. “Their community needs to explore what kinds of ingredients they have and make their own recipe.”

And some Butler-Tarkington community members bristle at the mention of becoming an Innovation school, a term that for many means becoming a charter. Notably, Thomas Gregg is not run by a charter operator.

How the community gets IPS on board with its desires, however, is “the $64,000 question,” said Vance Paschal, who like Martin graduated from School 43 over 50 years ago.

“We first want them to be accountable and to listen and to just trust us, since we have trusted them and they have failed,” she said. “We’re on the ground. They’re like the generals out in D.C., we’re the troops out here who are fighting.”

Staff need help with student behavior, parental involvement

The school’s challenges inside classrooms underscore community concerns.

Staff at the school said they’re dealing regularly with behavioral issues among students and need more people in the building.

Endia Dunner, the school’s assistant principal, said at the recent meeting that teachers are running themselves ragged. Having more people in the short-staffed school to provide more support would boost teachers’ own mental health and morale, she noted.

”They just need a little bit of time so that they can make sure they stay healthy for themselves, for their own families, so that they can continue to come back day after day after day,” Dunner said.

Staff from James Whitcomb Riley School 43 listen to a community member speak at a town hall at the MLK Center on April 5, 2023.

Johnnie Rivera, a parent at the school, said his son struggles in class because of distractions.

“He says the teachers have to keep pulling the kids out of the classroom because of the kids behind him keep acting up,” he said after the community’s first town hall. “And he’s like, sometimes, I can’t learn nothing because they have to keep stopping.”

Rivera said he’s thought about transferring his son to a different school if it doesn’t get any better.

Hampton told community members at the meeting that she hoped to hear from them so she could be an advocate for the school as well.

“It’s sad to hear some of the things that you’re dealing with, but the commitment and the passion means everything,” she said.

Residents hope efforts to restore School 43 will help more than the school itself.

“It’s possible it can come back,” said Martin. “And you know what, we’re going to end up with a better neighborhood because of it.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@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.

Newark’s summer school program to focus on learning loss, enrichment

2023-04-28T20:08:34+00:00

With the warmer months fast approaching, Newark is gearing up for summer school and parents can anticipate programs to help students recover academically and prepare for the next school year.

Registration for Newark Public Schools summer school began April 27, and summer school will run from July 5 to Aug. 4. The district released a complete list of programs in its online brochure.

As in past years, the district will hold mandatory summer classes for struggling students, programming for students with disabilities, and optional programs for all students led by community partners at various Newark schools.

This year, Superintendent Roger León said the summer school program will “accelerate” learning and help students recover from the learning loss experienced due to the pandemic.

León also stressed the importance of attending mandatory summer school for those students who may be at risk of falling behind. The extra instruction is intended to help to fill academic gaps, reinforce skills, and better prepare students for the next school year, the district said.

Mandatory summer school is usually based on attendance, grades, and student achievement on assessments, as well as recommendations of staff and parents, according to Nancy Deering, the district’s acting communications director.

The district will monitor the progress of students this summer and create an impact study during the summer or by the start of next school year.

Last year, over 10,000 students attended the district’s summer school; there are roughly 38,000 students enrolled this year. Newark held programs at 15 elementary school sites where students received academic instruction from the morning until noon and activities until 3 p.m. such as dance and swimming, with several community based partners.

The district also offered a STEM Academy and a Summer Visual and Performing Arts Academy. And some students participated in field trips to Turtle Back Zoo, the Liberty Science Center, and the Newark Museum.

What families can expect this summer

Not all school sites will be open for summer school, but the district plans on opening more sites than last year throughout the city so parents can limit the amount of travel for their children. Students can report to the school closest to their home this summer, León said.

During the day, students will receive breakfast at 8:30 a.m. and lunch at noon. Academic instruction will take place between 9 a.m. to noon. Students interested in participating in extra activities will be able to do so between 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. with an option for an extended day from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The Extended School Year program will also be available this year for students with disabilities. Students in this program require services beyond the traditional school year — as per their Individual Education Plan — and will receive academic and behavioral support in the morning.

High school students interested in participating in the summer credit recovery program will be provided with more information at their school.

This year, incoming ninth grade students can participate in the summer bridge program to help middle school students transition into high school.

Students interested in participating in summer programs must register before May 15.

León says teachers are critical to summer success

Newark is currently accepting staff applications for teachers interested in working summer school and soliciting applications for community organizations looking to host afternoon activities for students.

The “attendance of teachers is critical” to student participation in summer programs, León said.

Teachers will work between 8:30 a.m and 12:30 p.m. and community partners between noon and 6 p.m.

“We are creating all the programs and we need as many people who feel they can help to join us,” León added.

Transportation options are available to students

Some students may be eligible for transportation based on the distance between their home and summer school site.

Students eligible for transportation will receive confirmation of the shuttle pick up and drop off locations with their “Enrollment Confirmation Letter,” according to the district.

Extended School Year students will receive transportation as outlined in their Individual Education Plans. The Office of Special Education will work with families to set up specific transportation arrangements.

Last year, transportation was not provided for the Extended Day Program that runs until 6 p.m. Families were responsible for arranging student pick-up from this program.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

‘Girls know what they want’: New Jersey girls expand programming to support local youth

2023-04-04T10:30:00+00:00

Growing up in Ecuador, Karen Otavalo struggled to stay motivated in a country where opportunities did not come as easy for girls.

Otavalo paid attention in class, did her homework, and got good grades – the usual things students do to get ahead in school. But Otavalo, now a sophomore and a participant in Chalkbeat’s Student Voices Fellowship program, couldn’t help but feel something was missing from her education.

She wasn’t getting hands-on experience and opportunities to practice what she was learning, making her feel ill-prepared for her future.

Otavalo’s opportunities expanded when her family moved to the U.S. in 2018. Now, she is helping give other New Jersey girls the opportunities once out of reach for her.

She is one of 10 high school and college girls from New Jersey chosen to participate in a program designed to develop girls’ leadership skills. The New Jersey Justice Collaborative for Girls is a state-funded leadership and advocacy program that empowers young women to be leaders and is fueling Otavalo’s dreams to help vulnerable communities in the future.

After moving to the U.S., Otavalo and her family ultimately ended up in Newark, where she struggled to learn English and adapt to the culture. Despite the language barrier and a pandemic that disrupted her high school experience, Otavalo moved out of Newark’s English Language Learners program and to Science Park High School where, she says, her opportunities have been endless.

The N.J. Justice Collaborative for Girls, with funding from the state’s division on women, hired the 10 high school and college students, who also form part of a youth advisory board responsible to research, review, and analyze grant applications from nonprofit organizations looking to empower New Jersey youth through activities, programming, and outreach. Through the funding, the collaborative pays each girl $35 an hour for their work.

Under the guidance of the collaborative’s senior director, Aysha Khan, the girls were tasked with selecting three organizations, one in each geographical region in New Jersey, for a $30,000 grant to help expand leadership and advocacy opportunities for girls in the state.

It was important to have young women like Otavalo make these decisions, Khan said.

“Girls know what they want. They know the roadmap for what it takes for them to thrive,” Khan added. “It’s on us as adults in this space to take a step back and facilitate and organize a space for them to use their voice.”

The work started last summer when the collaborative first convened to receive training before delving into the applications. Each girl in the group was paired with a mentor, who helped guide them through the grant selection process and develop their passions or work on their self-esteem as they got to know each other.

The girls vetted grant applications from 10 organizations and dived into everything from their financial stability to their letters of recommendation and their plan to create empowerment programs for young girls. By September, the group had chosen the organizations.

Funding for this grant started with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Rape Prevention Education grant funds and was given to the N.J. Division on Women’s Rape Prevention Education program. The division then chose the collaborative to hire and organize the statewide group of teens to make the final decision on which nonprofits would get the grants.

As youth experts, the group also shared what they thought organizations should focus on. The discussions led the young teens to share their struggles and relate to similar experiences of marginalized girls in New Jersey and beyond the face. Some girls shared their feelings of being patronized and dismissed when they talked to school administrators and another mentioned holding back her opinions when adults were in the room, according to the collaborative.

“I felt very professional because before I was just learning from a PowerPoint presentation or a book and I felt like I wasn’t doing anything,” Otavalo said. “Like being actually involved in the choice of which organizations will be best for our community is really the outstanding experience that I got from this.”

Now, the girls are working on creating an evaluation component to analyze the long-term impact of the programs they funded. Most recently, Otavalo and her team presented their work at NGO Committee on the Status of Women forum, an annual symposium for nonprofits that runs parallel to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women conference.

Although the program ends in December, Otavalo said the work she’s done so far inspired her to start her own youth leadership club at her high school. Her club will focus on an advocacy project every month starting with a clothing drive in April.

The young teen feels her opportunities have grown since moving to Newark and is looking forward to pursuing a career in humanities or international relations as a result of her work through the program.

“It was very eye-opening,” Otavalo said. “I’ve never been in a program like that before.”

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Newark school board approves $1.3 billion budget with increases for teaching positions, ed-tech

2023-03-31T10:30:00+00:00

The Newark Board of Education approved a $1.3 billion 2023-24 budget on Wednesday that includes an increase in funding to expand teaching positions, as well as an increase in payments to charter schools.

The spending plan for Newark Public Schools also includes increased transportation spending, adding an additional grade level to schools, a prekindergarten expansion in several schools, and more funding for students with disabilities and English language learners.

Residents will be able to vote on the budget in approximately four weeks during this year’s school board election on April 25.

The budget is designed to support Superintendent Roger León’s 10-year plan, which is known as “The Next Decade” and is in its third year. The district said it expects to receive more than 38,000 students next school year across its 62 schools. León said they plan to use funds to “aggressively” tackle learning loss driven by the pandemic by continuing to support programs such as tutoring.

The budget also includes funding for the district to provide new Chromebooks for certain grades and renovations to classrooms and other parts of school facilities.

In the budget, roughly 86% of the district’s funding next year would come from a projected $1.2 billion in state aid included in Gov. Phil Murphy’s budget proposal released earlier this month. That represents an additional $114 million in state aid, or an increase of about 11%, from last year. State lawmakers have until June 30 to approve the governor’s budget.

The district’s budget is supplemented by $138.3 million from local property taxes, which remains the same for the third year in a row. It also includes an extra $44 million in combined revenue from the district’s excess fund balance of $33.9 million, as well as separate federal and local revenue of $10.1 million anticipated for the upcoming school year.

Despite the increase in state aid, Newark remains $27.7 million short of the budget recommended by the formula in New Jersey’s School Funding Reform Act, said Valerie Wilson, the district’s school business administrator. Regardless, Newark taxpayers will see no increase on their property taxes for the third year in a row under the 2023-24 budget, but Wilson warned that will be an exception rather than the norm moving forward.

The district has until October 2024 to use up its remaining federal COVID relief, which the district has used on technology, teaching and learning, security, and to improve aging facilities. Board member Vereliz Santana called the federal funding a “once in a generation” opportunity that has helped Newark schools improve and recover from funding deficiencies experienced when the district was under state control.

Budget prioritizes tutoring and technology

District leaders said they will continue working on bringing students up to speed following the pandemic and are placing extra emphasis on high-dosage tutoring — or one-to-one tutoring at least three times a week — next school year.

León said he expects to see more students attending tutoring (after and before school) in the next school year.

“High dosage tutoring is extremely important towards accomplishing the goals of all of the deficiencies that students may have because of the learning that they have lost,” León said.

The budget includes León’s plans to spend an extra $1 million to expand pre-K at 11 elementary schools, and another $3.2 million to increase the number of grade levels in eight schools.

León also said his team plans to allocate funds for wraparound services for students in pre-K to grade 3 and provide more summer school programming for middle school students and eighth graders transitioning into high school.

Students in kindergarten, fifth, and ninth grade will be issued new Chromebooks next school year as part of the district’s continuation of a one-to-one Chromebook initiative for all students.

Newark hiring more aides for students with autism

The budget’s largest spending category is $470.8 million set aside for salaries, including the hiring of new teachers, aides, and support staff.

Newark expects to open 220 additional instructional positions next school year consisting of 141 new teachers over last year’s plan. The positions include the addition of 46 aides to help with its autistic students (as Newark experiences a spike in autism cases), an extra five positions for administrative positions, and another 28 for school support.

In total, the district is budgeting for 3,084 teacher positions, 315 positions for aides, 377 administrative positions, and 782 positions for school support.

At the start of this school year, the district welcomed 600 new teachers, but from May to October of last year, 325 employees resigned, according to data from the Newark Teachers Union.

The budget includes $154.2 million to cover increased health benefits. It also includes $870,000 for travel expenses and $17.4 million for professional development, the maximum allowed expenditures for these categories.

Charter payments to rise by over $11 million

Charter school payments make up the district’s second largest expenditure at $353.8 million, an $11.8 million increase from last year.

The state approved the expansion of two Newark charter schools this year allowing the schools to increase enrollment at their campuses by a combined 532 seats.

According to state estimates, the district should budget for $384 million in charter aid. But Newark schools “feels confident” the budgeted amount will cover charter expenses, Wilson said. If costs rise, the district could face an additional $30 million in cuts to the budget, Wilson added.

In August, the board of education spent just over $7 million on a contract with 20 transportation companies to service 126 routes to schools. In January, the district launched a monthly bus pass for its high school students.

Newark focusing on renovations, English learners

Newark will open the Nelson Mandela Elementary School this fall, which will be located at the former University Heights charter school location, and will enroll students in pre-K-4 grade in its first year. The new school is part of the district’s broader plan to open more schools and expand others.

In addition to that new school, the district plans to upgrade its schools, purchase new classroom furniture, and begin renovations in buildings, cafeterias and other school areas by committing an extra $26 million this year for the work.

Another $9 million this year is set aside for facilities initiatives such as renovations for the pool at the Chancellor Avenue annex, across the street from Weequahic High School and the West Side High School Greenhouse.

Additionally, the district continues to work on installing contactless water fountains across all its schools. Last October, the district approved a $5 million contract to install them district-wide.

Roughly 20% of Newark students have disabilities and require additional support such as in-classroom aides and speech therapy services.

The district projects students with disabilities will continue to grow in the district, and are allocating an extra $1.9 million to hire 30 special education teachers. An additional $1.5 is set aside to hire 46 full time employees to support these students.

English language learners make up 25% of the district’s total population and are expected to grow as the city’s demographics change over time. The district is committing an extra $2.2 million to hire 36 bilingual teachers, and an additional $1.6 million to hire 26 ESL teachers.

Additionally, León is launching a newcomers next school year to provide students personalized support to learn and grow within the district and community.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

NYC extends deadline for youth jobs program. Here’s what to know.

2023-03-31T17:58:09+00:00

This story was updated to reflect the new deadline.

New York City extended the deadline for its Summer Youth Employment Program, or SYEP, which provides paid jobs and career exploration programs for young people ages 14-24.

Young people have until April 14 to apply, officials announced Friday.

This year marks the $236 million program’s 60th year and will again be open to 100,000 young people – making it the largest public youth jobs program in the nation. The program will run between July 5 to Aug. 12 and from July 12 to Aug. 19.

One new feature this year is an effort to pair LGBTQ youth with affirming jobs, though specifics are scarce. Officials said they’re still working on the details based on how much interest they get, which can be marked on the application.

City officials also plan to nearly triple the number of slots for a small program that offers paid opportunities for youth who are undocumented.

How do I apply?

Youth can apply online here.

The types of programming and pay depends on the participant’s age. Dozens of community-based organizations oversee programming and find work sites that are willing to host youth workers.

What kinds of opportunities are available?

Younger youth, who are 14 to 15 years old, spend 12.5 hours a week gaining work readiness skills and learning about different careers. They also participate in project-based learning, which often involves finding a problem in the surrounding community and creating solutions. These teens are paid up to $700.

Youth ages 16 to 24 are paired with jobs through one of dozens of community-based organizations. Those organizations line up work sites, such as retailers or local businesses, that are willing to host youth workers for the summer. These young people are paid the city’s minimum wage rate of $15 an hour and work 25 hours a week – meaning they can make up to $2,250 by the end of the program.

Work sites range between public, private, and nonprofit organizations. Last year, a majority of jobs – 45% – were in the nonprofit sector. Private jobs were most commonly in retail, followed by day cares and camps, hospitality, tourism and health care, according to a report on last year’s jobs program published by the Department of Youth and Community Development, or DYCD, which oversees SYEP. Other opportunities included jobs in media and entertainment, business and finance, arts and recreation, real estate and technology.

In the public sector, about 4,600 youth worked last year for the education department, such as working with staff, in school kitchens, and in maintenance. In the public sector, nearly 4,000 youth last year worked for city agencies or mayoral offices. Nearly 120 youth worked for City Council members.

Applicants are asked to list their top three career choices and the provider they want to work with.

Am I guaranteed a spot?

No. The program has 100,000 open slots, but applications typically exceed that number. DYCD has received more than 126,000 applications so far, according to an agency spokesperson. Last year, the agency received roughly 167,000 applications.

Once applications are submitted, youth are chosen through a lottery system.

However, some young people who might be facing certain barriers to employment don’t have to go through the lottery system and can be directly referred to the jobs program through a city agency they’re working with. This includes youth who are homeless, in or aging out of foster care, are involved with the court system, and in families that are receiving preventative services through the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, such as support for mental health needs, substance abuse, and domestic violence.

Just like other young people, these youth also participate in either career readiness programs or are paired with jobs through a program called SYEP Emerging Leaders.

I am undocumented. Am I eligible for this program?

Generally, no. The program is only open to New York City youth who are legally eligible to work in the United States — an issue that has caused some advocates and lawmakers to push for more opportunities for undocumented immigrant youth. As of 2019, 77,000 undocumented youth ages 16-24 lived in New York City, according to estimates from the Migration Policy Institute.

However, a fraction of undocumented youth will have access to a small DYCD program this summer. Last year, the city agency quietly offered stipends to 282 high schoolers who “face obstacles” in applying to SYEP. The program, called SYEP Pathways, provided up to 60 hours of a paid work readiness and project-based learning program for students attending a handful of schools that already offered CareerReady, which is a year-round program that helps students gain career readiness skills.

This year, officials are hoping to expand that program to 750 children. Community organizations directly recruit youth for this program.

Because of federal regulations that limit how much you can pay someone without work authorization, students who participated in this small pilot were paid $552. Officials did not immediately explain how students can sign up for this summer.

Children’s Aid was one organization that oversaw programming for 25 teens in last year’s pilot program. They developed projects, “listened to presentations from a variety of professions, went on educational trips, and presented what they learned at the end of the summer,” said Sandino Sanchez, director of workforce development programs at Children’s Aid, in a statement.

While advocates have praised DYCD for offering some sort of opportunity for undocumented young people, they’ve also raised concerns that the pay is inequitable compared with other youth participating in SYEP. But there might be other, private options for undocumented youth where they can receive more money.

For example, an organization called Oyate plans to pair 60 undocumented youth this summer with jobs at local college campuses, said Lymarie Francisco, a project manager at the organization who works with young people. Those youth will get $500 Visa gift cards each week.

Oyate received 312 applications for the program, prompting them to recently close the application, according to organization officials.

Eilen, a 15-year-old girl who participated in Oyate’s inaugural jobs program last year, said her job at Fordham University helped her become more disciplined about forming a daily routine. Additionally, the $500 gift cards allowed Eilen — who moved to New York City from the Dominican Republic two years ago — to help buy things around the house as her mother prepared to move them to a new home. She was also able to buy a new cell phone and pay for a gym membership.

“I didn’t have to ask my mom for anything,” she said in Spanish.

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

NYC parent coordinators are essential school workers. Many feel undervalued and underpaid.

2023-03-27T10:00:00+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

“Family engagement” and “parent empowerment” are not mere buzzwords to Ana Maria Aguilar.

They are her touchstones as parent coordinator at a Brooklyn elementary school, where she sees the faces of her own parents — immigrants from Mexico — reflected in many of the families at drop-off and pickup.

“They come in with such fear. I try to make them feel welcome,” Aguilar said. “As a brown woman, who is also an immigrant, I can relate to their stories.”

That kind of connection drew Aguilar to become parent coordinator at Sunset Park’s P.S. 24 in the fall of 2020, a decision rooted in her desire to give back to her community after losing loved ones to the pandemic. But she found a job remade in many ways by COVID, which caused some parents and students to fear being back in school and ushered in a host of new challenges for staff.

New York City schools created the parent coordinator position 20 years ago as a way to connect families to their children’s schools after then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg assumed control of the nation’s largest school system, abolishing the local school boards that had given parents some direct decision-making power.

The role, which typically varies from school to school, has become more critical — and stressful —during the pandemic. Nearly a dozen parent coordinators described how they became their school’s tech support, public health workers, and family therapists. They doled out devices and got families logged onto school accounts. They communicated with families about COVID-related protocols and quarantines, and were often the ones standing outside of schools each morning taking students’ temperatures and collecting health screeners. They fielded calls from families with concerns about returning to buildings and were the ones reaching out to parents when kids went missing from classrooms for prolonged periods of time.

And many are now charged with helping the thousands of migrant families that have entered the public school system.

Parent coordinator salaries, however, have not kept pace with the job’s demands, staffers say, or with inflation. Starting salaries for parent coordinators two decades ago were between $30,000 and $39,000 a year. That would be about $49,400 to $64,200 in today’s dollars.

New hires for parent coordinators start at $38,235, according to current job postings.

It’s not uncommon for parent coordinators to turn to public assistance or take on additional jobs, several school staffers told Chalkbeat. And unlike teachers, parent coordinators are required to work some weekends and nights, getting comp time rather than extra pay. They also must work summers and during school breaks, where they have to report in person to borough offices.

Ana Maria Aguilar (center), the parent coordinator at P.S. 24 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, helps organize events celebrating families’ culture.

“We’re helping struggling parents, but we’re also struggling parents,” said Aguilar, herself a graduate of Brooklyn public schools and a former parent/teacher association head of her childrens’ school. For the upcoming spring break, she will likely have to take personal days since she doesn’t have child care for her first and fourth graders.

The city recently reached a tentative deal with District Council 37, the union representing parent coordinators, along with other city workers, including school aides, cafeteria workers, and other staffers critical to the day-to-day functioning of schools.

Under the deal, union members will get a one-time $3,000 signing bonus and four years of 3% annual raises, with a 3.25% bump in the fifth year. The deal, which runs retroactive to May 2021, remains below the pace of inflation, which hit 6% last year. But it was higher than Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed 1.25% increase in his preliminary budget.

Members have until the end of the month to vote on the deal, which is largely expected to be ratified. Many parent coordinators, however, remain upset that the contract doesn’t address certain issues like their in-person work requirements during school holidays.

Parent coordinators are helping families process trauma

Though COVID protocols are no longer as time-consuming, parent coordinators are still helping families whose lives have been profoundly impacted by the pandemic over the past few years. They are also on the frontline working with the families of the 14,000 asylum-seeking students who have enrolled this school year, many of whom arrived with few belongings, a lot of trauma, and little English.

Parent coordinators are often part of a school’s team focused on tackling chronic absenteeism, which has become a major problem, with about 40% of children last year missing at least a month of school. And they continue to have other duties, including marketing their schools — which has become more important as enrollment has dropped. They organize school tours and help families with admissions questions, both those interested in coming to their schools as well as those who are graduating.

At the start of this year, before the city lifted vaccination requirements for parents to enter the building, de-escalating tense situations often fell to parent coordinators, said Jonathan Figueroa, who started in the role at P.S. 59 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, two days before the pandemic closed down campuses.

“I do feel like the job has taken on more. I see the burnout is real,” said Figueroa, who hopes to finish his bachelor’s degree and become a social worker. “But for me, it’s about being involved and advocating for my community.”

Aguilar began building routines during the pandemic that have continued to serve her school community this year, as it welcomed an influx of migrant students.

Her Mondays focus on community resources, providing information about food pantries or rent relief. Tuesdays touch on self-care: A recent workshop with New York University’s ParentCorps discussed the importance of helping kids hold onto their roots after coming to a new country. On Fridays, she leads “community walks” to sites such as the large manufacturing and shopping complex at Industry City or the office of their local City Council member. Weekends are for coat and food drives as well as “family fun” activities.

Like Aguilar and Figueroa, Erica Ramos became a parent coordinator during the pandemic, where her ability to listen and her bilingual skills were a great asset. She let parents “release their stress,” and tried to help them manage their fears and frustrations as the various guidance from the education department shifted. With several families still too scared to send their children back, Ramos geared up with masks and face shields to do home visits with counselors.

“I spent hours and hours on the phone listening to parents just terrified,” said Ramos, parent coordinator at Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts, a middle and high school in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights. “What was it going to look like? How were we going to keep students socially distanced? And there were all these Catch 22s. We had the windows open, but it was freezing. So parents were calling to complain that their kids were too cold.”

She continues to help families in whatever way they need. Amid growing concerns about an uptick in marijuana use across city schools, she recently held a family workshop on drug use organized with her school’s substance abuse prevention counselor. She’s become the point person for a school-based pantry, ordering the food and reaching out to families to let them know about it.

Erica Ramos, the parent coordinator at Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts.

Her full-time job as parent coordinator isn’t enough for Ramos, a single mom who lives in Bushwick, to pay her bills. Her paycheck every two weeks of $1,500 covers her $1,900 a month rent in Brooklyn, but leaves little left for food and other necessities. Ramos recently reapplied for food stamps, but missed an enrollment call from the program. The process of starting over feels too daunting, she said. She also works at a restaurant on Thursdays nights and for Sunday brunch. On Friday evenings or Saturday mornings, she cleans houses.

She’s been eyeing other positions in the education department because her current one, she said, is “illogical” in terms of how much they get paid for the work and time they put in compared to other school staffers.

“Why am I working full time for the city of New York, and I can’t afford to live in the city of New York?” Ramos asked.

A wave of parent coordinator job openings on horizon

For some parent coordinators, the role is a stepping stone, while they finish degrees or get other higher-paying school secretarial jobs. For some, it’s a second career, which gives them a cushion of savings. But many have been doing the job for the long haul, and as the position reaches its second decade, schools are bracing for a wave of retirements.

As part of last June’s agreement in Albany to extend mayoral control over the city’s school system for another two years, the state tweaked the hiring process for parent coordinators, requiring that each district’s parent advisory boards, known as Community Education Councils, approve each new parent coordinator.

Rosa Diaz, president of District 4’s Community Education Council in East Harlem, said the change has been fruitful in building relationships with the new parent coordinators.

“I see it as another opportunity to work together,” Diaz said, explaining that they tell the new hires, “If you need any support, reach out to us.”

Sara Sloves was a teacher at a Harlem charter school before becoming the parent coordinator at the Upper West Side’s Computer School in 2007. The job took on a different “energy” during the pandemic, she said, as families eagerly awaited her weekly newsletters with updates on the city’s evolving COVID guidelines. She started hosting meetups at local parks to help them feel connected to the school. She still sets up time on Fridays to meet families at local coffee shops, but more recently has begun to host breakfasts again at school.

“You need to have a kind and understanding soul at the end of the day,” Sloves said. “You have to be able to connect with people and want to do that.”

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

Looking for a summer job? Applications for One Summer Chicago are open until Friday.

2023-06-05T21:15:00+00:00

Update: City officials extended the deadline to apply to Friday, June 9. This story has been updated to reflect the change.

Chicago teens looking for a summer job can now apply online through One Summer Chicago — the city’s youth employment program, which has seen a decline in participation in recent years.

Applications opened Feb. 28 and are due June 9. The program will run for six weeks, from June 26 to Aug. 4, and any Chicago resident ages 14 to 24 is eligible to apply.

Last summer, 20,544 youth participated in the program, which offers jobs, internships, service learning, and career exploration programs, according to a new report released by the Department of Children and Family Support Services. Just over 16,000 teens worked jobs and internships, while others enrolled in programs aimed at career exploration and service learning.

Those numbers have yet to recover from a steep drop in participation in 2020 — when summer programs were virtual or hybrid. Roughly 20,000 youth got jobs through One Summer Chicago during the first summer of the COVID pandemic, compared to more than 30,000 in 2019.

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had hoped last summer would see a rebound, calling for a “summer of joy” when the application opened.

Mayor Brandon Johnson promised to double the number of youth employed during his first 100 days in office. Summer jobs and youth employment more broadly were key issues in the mayoral runoff election between Johnson and former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas.

Summer teen employment dropped across the country in 2020, but rebounded in 2021, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Still, the number of teens with summer jobs has been declining in recent decades. Prior to 2000, more than half of American teens worked summer gigs. Now, it’s around a third, the report found.

In addition to One Summer Chicago, Chicago Public Schools offers a wide range of summer programs — including academic catch-up required for students who failed certain grades — that got a big boost with federal COVID recovery money.

For more information about One Summer Chicago, the city has a list of frequently asked questions online.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.