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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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04.08.2013 | WABC-TV Eyewitness News | Art McFarland reports on the complaint filed by AFC against the NYC Department of Education for its failure to provide students with disabilities necessary behavioral supports as mandated by law. "The schools were not providing the appropriate behavioral...
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04.08.2013 | SchoolBook | Kim Sweet, Executive Director of AFC said, “There is still a massive access gap between higher- and lower-income districts,” she said. “If the city is really serious about broadening access to G&T programs for low-income children, they clearly have to do more than...
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03.22.2013 | Join Advocates for Children and the Center for Attention and Learning at North Shore LIJ/ Lenox Hill Hospital for a two-part training series on learning disabilities, evaluations, programs and related services. View flyer
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AFC testified before the City Council General Welfare Committee to urge city leaders to reject proposed cuts to early learning programs in New York City.
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03.14.2013 | Gotham Schools | "From what I am seeing here it looks like there are positive trends — but I’m not seeing everything here that I want to," said Maggie Moroff, who heads the ARISE Coalition of advocates. In January, Moroff submitted a Freedom of Information Law request to the Department...
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03.05.2013 | The International Visitor Leadership Program, which includes human rights activists from several countries in the Middle East and is coordinated by the Department of State, visited the offices of Advocates for Children of New York on March 5, 2013. The group met with AFC's Executive...
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03.04.2013 | Insideschools.org | In one recent week, Advocates for Children got four calls from families whose children had been suspended from the same charter elementary school (Hyde Leadership Charter). A parent from another charter school called to say that her son had been suspended three...
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02.21.2013 | Gotham Schools | Still, the end of the strike brings a new set of challenges. Thousands of students, many with special needs, have been out of school for the duration of the strike. Now that the buses are running, those students are able to get to school, where they face transitions...
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01.23.2013 | New York City’s school bus drivers are striking. A few weeks ago, we urged you to follow the story and get updates from the DOE on alternative options for families that rely on yellow bus service to travel to and from school. AFC is continuing to push the Department of Education for a...
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02.15.2013 | Gotham Schools | For the striking drivers, returning to work would mean getting paid for the first time in weeks. For families, “it means a return to their normal routines,” said Maggie Moroff, special education policy coordinator at Advocates for Children.“It means the students still...
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02.18.2013 | City Limits | Many of the schools featuring special citywide programs, including many high schools, are simply unavailable to students with disabilities. "Physical accessibility to school buildings is way limited and therefore access to model programs that other students have is also...
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11.28.2012 | Timesunion.com| AFC's Randi Levine illustrates, in this published letter to the editor, that although there is a need for the state to work vigorously to identify and punish anyone who is stealing from the preschool special education program, the state must not lose sight of the...
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02.14.2013 | NY1 | The DOE said that 2,300 students are signed up for the voucher program, but advocates said that many, like Adrian, struggle to actually use it. "There are a lot of problems," said Maggie Moroff of Advocates for Children. "First, they have to find a car service that will take...
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02.13.2013 | New York Daily News | Every day of the school bus strike, some 2,500 students with disabilities aren’t getting the education they need and deserve. This op-ed by Maggie Moroff, coordinator of the ARISE Coalition and special education policy coordinator at AFC, discusses the impact of...
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02.08.2013 | Gotham Schools | Even before the inclement weather, at least 2,500 students who attend schools in District 75, which serve special education students with the highest needs, “were still home,” Maggie Moroff, Special Education Policy Coordinator at Advocates for Children, said in her...
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Blog: Hardships mount for NYC families with special needs children due to school-bus employee strike02.11.2013 | New York Post | The threat of a prolonged strike also has advocates calling on the city to do more to help ensure that affected students — particularly those with the greatest challenges — are able to get to and from school. Despite the city’s attempts to disperse MetroCards and...
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01.17.2013 | New York Amsterdam News | Bernard Dufresne is one lucky young man. At 27 years of age, he is doing what he loves to do. Luckier still are the young people fortunate to meet him. For Dufresne, he’s just paying it forward. Dufresne is an education lawyer and staff attorney at Advocates...
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AFC testified before the Education Committee of the New York City Council about the cost of pupil transportation in NYC and the impact of the bus strike on the families we serve. AFC has heard from countless families struggling to get their children to and from school during the strike – a strike...
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02.05.2013 | New York Daily News | “If the city is saving that much money, they need to be doing more to get these kids to school,” said Kim Sweet, director of Advocates for Children. “It’s outrageous.” Read article
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02.06.2013 | Gotham Schools | After negotiating with the Department of Education for over a week, lawyers at Advocates for Children persuaded the department on Friday to authorize Rodriguez for all four taxi rides it takes to accompany her daughter to and from school each day.“This is an evolving...