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Micaela is a dual-language learner who is on the autism spectrum and needed an appropriate school placement for kindergarten.

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AFC in the News

NYC Mayor Adams shouldn’t let programs for migrant students, mental health expire, advocates say

03.22.2023 | NY Daily News | Mayor Adams shouldn’t let school programs that help tens of thousands of students expire this year, says a coalition of education advocates, attorneys and other services providers. 

“With the pandemic having exacerbated the need for mental health support for students and with the increase in newly arrived immigrant families, thousands of whom are living in our city’s shelters, the need for these programs has only grown,” read the letter spearheaded by Advocates for Children and signed by more than 60 organizations. Read article

NYC’s Summer Rising program gets admissions overhaul

03.22.2023 | Chalkbeat NY | Randi Levine, policy director for Advocates for Children, said her group was happy about the end of the first come, first served enrollment process. She said many families who “needed more support to apply” didn’t get spots, including the very people who were supposed to be prioritized, such as children in shelters. 

“We heard from families living in shelter and immigrant families that they did not know about Summer Rising in time to get seats for their children and heard from staff at shelters that when they went to help families enroll, the seats were already gone.” Read article

64% of NYC’s bilingual special education students didn’t get all of their services last year

03.20.2023 | Chalkbeat NY | Still, advocates argue that families aren’t to blame if nearby schools can’t provide bilingual special education support, noting that traveling long distances to secure services may not be tenable for younger children, and the city’s yellow bus system is notoriously unreliable. Plus, some families simply aren’t offered services at all if there are no available seats, according to Janyll Canals-Kernizan, director of the Robin Hood Project at Advocates for Children, who works with families seeking bilingual special education services.

“It’s not just that families are being offered something and they’re rejecting it because it’s far away. It’s also that [they] are mandated to receive these supports on their IEPs,” she said, “and they just never get it.” Read article

How NYC’s school bus delays help drive chronic absenteeism and missed learning for students with disabilities

03.15.2023 | Chalkbeat NY | The city says that if a student is absent or late due to a transportation issue, their absence is coded differently in the attendance system to ensure students are not penalized. But absences due to busing issues are still included in citywide chronic absenteeism rates — and the children still miss out on hours worth of instruction. 

Janyll Canals, an attorney at Advocates for Children, echoed this point. “Busing does have an impact on chronic absenteeism for students with special needs,” she said. Read article

NYC Schools Chancellor warns of funding cuts as enrollment declines

03.15.2023 | Gothamist | Still, advocates are calling on city officials to do more than soften blows. “At a time when New York City is receiving an increase in education funding from New York State and continues to have unspent federal COVID-19 relief funding, schools should receive additional resources to meet the needs of their students—and certainly should not lose funding,” said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children of New York. Read article

Child care aid that allows migrants to seek work at risk of being cut in Adams budget

03.13.2023 | NY Daily News | “At a time when New York City has seen an increase in immigrant families, the city should be increasing, and certainly not decreasing, funding for this initiative,” said Betty Baez Melo, director of the Early Childhood Education Project at Advocates for Children of New York, “so that children are not excluded from programs based on their immigration status.” 

Roughly 40% of the thousands of newly arrived children are 5-years-old or younger and could lose access to early childhood programs after June, advocates said. Their parents, too, would miss out on child care services that enable them to find work, housing, navigate immigration systems and adjust to life in the city. Read article

Black and Latino infants and toddlers often miss out on early therapies they need

03.07.2023 | The Hechinger Report | Indeed, low-income Black and Latino children in New York City are much less likely to get timely early intervention services — or at all, according to a 2019 report from Advocates for Children of New York. Pacheco suspects that some therapists don’t want to come to her neighborhood because of inaccurate beliefs about high crime rates. “A lot of us parents like it to be in person, but a lot of these therapists don’t want to come out to the neighborhoods,” she said.  Read article

Tens of thousands of N.Y. young children with developmental delays are not getting critical services

03.06.2023 | NY Daily News | Betty Baez Melo, who leads early-childhood work at Advocates for Children, called for a higher figure for in-person services because teletherapy, while critical during the pandemic, can cause a “two-tiered” system where some kids work with providers at home or in programs, while others receive help only online. 

“Getting physical therapy through telehealth can be more challenging,” she said, “and it requires really having an active parent so they’re learning through the provider remotely.” Read article

Her child had an active shooter drill. Months later, she realized he thought it was real

03.03.2023 | The Today Show | Maggie Moroff, senior special education policy coordinator for Advocates for Children of New York, says open communication between parents and school staff is vital, particularly for students who are neurodivergent or have disabilities. 

"It's easy to forget that the drills have real impact on the students," Moroff tells TODAY.com. "There needs to be more conversation, more dialogue, more understanding before and after that potential impact." Read article

58% of NYC’s youngest children don’t receive all of their Early Intervention services

02.28.2023 | Chalkbeat NY | “We’re at a point where thousands and thousands of children are waiting for services and in some cases never receiving their services,” said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children, a group that has pushed for reforms to the Early Intervention system. “We’re seeing statewide systemic violations of children’s rights.” 

Advocates also contend that one source of ongoing service delays is that providers are continuing to lean on telehealth services even in cases where face-to-face support is needed. 

“We’re creating a two-tiered system,” said Betty Baez Melo, who directs the early childhood education project at Advocates for Children. She noted that families in low-income communities have struggled to get access to providers who are willing to provide in-person services and argues the state should create financial incentives to encourage face-to-face services, a move supported by city officials. Read article