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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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07.13.2015 | Chalkbeat New York | Finally, she contacted the nonprofit Advocates for Children, which flagged her case for the education department in February. Amira finally was evaluated the next month — two years after Barrett’s first request. “Two years in the life of a six-year-old is a third...
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07.07.2015 | WNYC Schoolbook | Maggie Moroff, a special education policy coordinator with the group Advocates for Children, said she was still waiting for more clarity around this whole process. "Obviously, parents had a horrible time getting the help they needed under the old system," she said. "...
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06.16.2015 | NY1 | A new report has uncovered major gaps in access to translation and interpretation services for immigrant parents in city schools. "Parents have a right to translation and interpretation services. Translation and interpretation services should be available in, at least, the top...
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06.12.2015 | City Limits | This month we celebrate commencement for thousands of high school students throughout New York state. Many will attend college, learn a new trade or enter the workforce. Graduating high school in New York is no small feat. Besides required courses, students must pass five...
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06.07.2015 | NY1 | Student advocates say hearing tests are not required in New York City public schools, so students with hearing problems can go undetected, and that can affect academic performance. “We’ve heard from audiologists that hearing impairments are much more common in students than...
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Page: PrivacyLAST UPDATED: January 20, 2012ADVOCATES FOR CHILDREN OF NEW YORK PRIVACY POLICYAdvocates for Children of New York ("AFC," "we," "us", “our”) provides a variety of services, making it easier for parents, guardians and other interested individuals and organizations to find out about New York City's...
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05.20.2015 | Capital New York | The group Advocates for Children on Wednesday settled a class action lawsuit filed more than a decade ago against the Department of Education on behalf of students with disabilities who were disciplined in city schools. The lawsuit, filed in 2002 during the Bloomberg...
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William (Bill) Jesinkey, the founding Executive Director of Advocates for Children and a leader in special education in New York City, died on December 25, 2014, at the age of 80. Bill was a brilliant and imaginative thinker and practical doer, who throughout his career was able to bring people and...
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Special education should not be a bar to admission or participation in a gifted and talented program. A student can have special education needs and be gifted and talented at the same time. This guide has been written to help you work your way through the system if that’s the case for your child.
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04.06.2015 | SchoolBook | “The City needs to find a way to provide access to these programs for a broader range of New York City's children,” said Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children. She said the city's expanded pre-k options could help by providing information on gifted...
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04.07.2015 | Chalkbeat New York | When students start to show signs of significant reading difficulties — they struggle to make sense of individual words and whole texts — then experts say they need frequent, specialized help with their basic reading skills. But that demands highly trained teachers...
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04.13.2015 | Gotham Gazette | Nick Sheehan, staff attorney at Advocates for Children, shares Chowdhury's view. Torres' bill, he said, would increase transparency "about how the City chooses to allocate its resources." He went further, saying the bill should also add ratios of social workers and...
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03.10.2015 | Chalkbeat New York | Special education advocates contend the annual reporting could provide needed context on how the department can improve its assessment and implementation of services for special education students. “We want to find out what the sticky points are in the process....
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03.10.2015 | City Limits | Further efforts to fix special education were made in 2007 and between 2010 and 2012, but these mostly administrative changes did not address the two biggest challenges facing the special education program: the delay in evaluating children for additional services, such as...
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03.05.2015 | WHEC Rochester | A report from Advocates for Children of New York recommends dropping two of the regents exams and only testing students in English, math and science. We interviewed one of the authors who also thinks some kids should be assessed for their classroom work instead of...
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03.09.2015 | On March 24, AFC's Junior Board and NYU Law School's Education Law and Policy Society will hold a panel discussing the experiences of undocumented young people, particularly those who arrived recently, as they enter the City and try to access their right to a public education. RSVP by...
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02.23.2015 | Brooklyn Independent Media: BK Live | Abja Midha (Advocates for Children of New York) and Kim Sykes (The New York Immigration Coalition) discuss how Build a Bridge tries to help immigrant parents with language translation in the school system. BK Live 2/23/15 from Brooklyn...
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03.03.2015 | Brooklyn Independent Media: BK Live | AFC Staff Attorney Bernard Dufresne appeared on BK Live to discuss school suspensions and proposed changes to the discipline code. BK Live 3/3/15: School Suspensions from Brooklyn Independent Media on Vimeo.
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02.23.2015 | Chalkbeat New York | “Overreliance on suspension is an issue that needs to be addressed for all public schools, including charter schools,” said Paulina Davis, a staff attorney at Advocates for Children who represents charter-school students in disciplinary cases... A report released...
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02.13.2015 | New York Times | Some civil rights and children’s advocates were less celebratory of the administration’s specific new policies, which they considered relatively minor, and more optimistic about the introduction of a team of educators, parents, police and city officials that is to...