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Julian’s Story
Julian is a 3-year-old preschooler with delays in his language skills, but the DOE failed to provide recommended services.
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11.01.2019 | NY Daily News | More than 15% of students with disabilities are missing out on instruction to which they are legally entitled, according to Advocates for Children of New York. The total number of neglected disabled children — 28,960 — is more than the entire enrollment of the Yonkers...
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11.15.2019 | Bronx News12 | If you have a child, chances are they will deal with bullying at some point -- but making sure your child gets the help they need is a struggle for many. Gena Miller, attorney with Advocates for Children of New York, represents the families of bullied children. She says...
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11.20.2019 | amNewYork | Education advocates urged lawmakers to push to fully fund ‘foundation’ aid during a round-table discussion at Bayside High School in Queens on Tuesday. The meeting was the last of five round tables held to discuss school needs before a Dec. 3 state senate public...
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11.27.2019 | NY1| Errol Louis discussed the homelessness crisis in the city's public schools with two advocates, Raysa Rodriguez, of the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York, and Randi Levine, of Advocates for Children. Watch video
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12.10.2019 | City Limits | City public and charter schools identified 114,085 kids — one-in-10 students — who experienced homelessness at some point during the 2018-2019 school year, according to state data published by Advocates for Children of New York; 85 percent of the homeless students were...
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12.14.2019 | NY Daily News | “It’s clearly not helping students in crisis, or helping school staff respond to and prevent further crises,” said Dawn Yuster, school justice director with the non-profit Advocates for Children. “That’s what we’re hearing from school staff.”The DOE’s crisis teams are...
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12.16.2019 | The 74 | The special education system in New York City is vast, serving upward of 200,000 students across K-12. Its handling of these students’ individual learning needs has been widely criticized, with recent reports exposing skyrocketing special-education-related complaints and...
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12.18.2019 | Queens Daily Eagle | A lack of affordable housing is driving a homelessness crisis across the city, where families with children account for the majority of people staying in New York City Department of Homeless Services shelters. Tens of thousands of other homeless families lived...
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12.21.2019 | CNN | In New York City alone, over 114,000 students were identified as homeless in the 2018-19 school year, according to New York State Education Department data posted by Advocates for Children of New York, a local nonprofit organization. That's one in 10 students, and 85% of them are...
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01.02.2020 | Chalkbeat NY | There’s already a shortage of more than 300 seats in special education pre-K classrooms in New York City, and about 30 special education pre-K programs have closed in the past few years, according to Advocates for Children. The nonprofit sent a letter last month to...
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12.15.19 | Raw Story | When Bloomberg took office in 2002, there were over 5,000 homeless families. By the fall of 2013, a few months before he left office, there were close to 12,500 families living in shelters.Today, there are 34,000 children like Shamari living in city shelters. According to...
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Coalition for Multiple Pathways to a DiplomaAdvocates for Children of New York (AFC) leads a statewide coalition of educational and advocacy organizations and families who have come together to urge the creation of multiple pathways to a diploma in New York State, each of which holds all students...
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Page: Pro BonoPro BonoAFC provides free individual case representation where legal action is necessary. However, AFC legal staff only has the capacity to provide free representation to a limited number of families. Our Pro Bono Partners Program was created to allow AFC attorneys to partner with law firms...
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Resource: Early Inequities: How Underfunding Early Intervention Leaves Low-Income Children of Color BehindThis December 2019 policy report finds that children under the age of three with developmental delays or disabilities are less likely to receive critical services that could help them to reach their full potential if they live in low-income neighborhoods of color.
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Early Childhood: Children Ages 0-5Advocates for Children of New York’s Early Childhood Education Project provides individual case assistance, community education, and policy advocacy to improve access to early childhood education for low-income children (ages 0–5) so that students can enter...
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Page: Policy & InitiativesPolicy & InitiativesAdvocates for Children of New York (AFC) works to change education policy so that the public school system serves ALL children of New York City effectively. AFC’s attorneys and education specialists help thousands of families each year to resolve obstacles to their...
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11.1.19 | Chalkbeat | Some advocates cheered the continued decline in suspensions, and added that more social support is needed.“Going forward, it is critical that the city build on these promising results by creating a solid infrastructure to institutionalize them and make the necessary...
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10.28.19 | Patch | The "stubbornly high" total reflects a more than 70 percent increase in student homelessness over the last decade even though the school system's homeless population shrank by about 600 kids compared to the prior year, says Advocates for Children of New York, the nonprofit that...
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10.28.19 | Wall Street Journal | About 29% of New York City’s homeless children passed state tests in reading last spring, compared with 49% of other city students, according to the nonprofit’s analysis. It said similar disparities persisted in math, and only 57% of homeless students graduated high...