{"id":13536,"date":"2025-09-25T10:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T14:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/advocatesforchildren.org\/?post_type=article&p=13536"},"modified":"2025-10-01T11:04:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T15:04:06","slug":"exit-interview-a-long-time-education-advocate-shares-her-assessment-of-nyc-schools","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/advocatesforchildren.org\/ht\/articles\/exit-interview-a-long-time-education-advocate-shares-her-assessment-of-nyc-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Exit interview: A long-time education advocate shares her assessment of NYC schools"},"template":"","class_list":["post-13536","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_type-afc-in-the-news"],"acf":{"component_standard_hero":{"":null,"excerpt":"","short_description":"","button":{"":null,"link_type":"page","page":{"title":"Li atik la","url":"https:\/\/www.chalkbeat.org\/newyork\/2025\/09\/25\/advocates-for-children-kim-sweet-exit-interview-nyc-schools\/","target":"_blank"},"file":null,"title":""},"image":13537,"disable_share_icons":false},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_wysiwyg":{"content":"Chalkbeat<\/strong> |\r\n

Kim Sweet, one of the city\u2019s most prominent education advocates, got into the field by accident.<\/p>\r\n

When she took a job at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest toward the beginning of her career in the late 1990s, she expected to work with adults with disabilities and mental health challenges.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI showed up and they said, \u2018You\u2019re going to do education,\u2019\u201d Sweet recounted. \u201cAnd from the very first call I had with a parent where I could help them through a difficult situation with their child\u2019s school, I was hooked.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

For the past 18 years, Sweet served as executive director of Advocates for Children, an organization that helps economically disadvantaged families \u2014 including immigrants and caregivers of children with disabilities \u2014 navigate the school system\u2019s labyrinthine bureaucracy. It also lobbies for policy changes to improve the system, from\u00a0reducing suspensions<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0expanding Education Department staff in homeless shelters<\/a>. And it wages\u00a0high-profile legal battles<\/a>\u00a0when city officials won\u2019t budge.<\/p>\r\n

Sweet, 60, stepped down from her post earlier this month and has not yet determined what she\u2019ll do next. Her replacement, Maria Odom, who helped run an organization that works with unaccompanied migrant children,\u00a0took the helm last week<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

On one of her final days at Advocates for Children, Chalkbeat caught up with Sweet about how much progress the city has made educating vulnerable children over the last 20 years, why the city struggles to provide required preschool seats for students with disabilities, and what she makes of mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani\u2019s vow to end mayoral control of city schools.<\/p>\r\nRead the rest of the article here<\/a>.","":null,"settings":""}}],"relationships":{"":null,"article_type":[83],"topics":false,"misc_topics":false},"misc":{"search_results":{"":null,"excerpt":"","featured_image":13537}}},"yoast_head":"\nExit interview: A long-time education advocate shares her assessment of NYC schools - Advocates for Children of New York<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/advocatesforchildren.org\/ht\/articles\/exit-interview-a-long-time-education-advocate-shares-her-assessment-of-nyc-schools\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ht_HT\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exit interview: A long-time education advocate shares her assessment of NYC schools - 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