News & Media

10.14.2014 | The New York Law Journal | Finding the right educational services for a child with a disability isn't supposed to require an attorney. But it may when collaboration between parents and public school breaks down. That's when Caroline J. Heller, a partner at Greenberg Traurig, steps in. Heller, 41, heads Greenberg Traurig's pro bono program in New York and specializes in complex commercial litigation. Since 2006, she has devoted most of her volunteer legal work to helping low-income parents maneuver through a maze of federal and state laws to win the educational services to which their disabled children are entitled...Partnering with Advocates for Children in New York, Heller has represented some 20 children with disabilities in dozens of proceedings. In five instances, she appealed administrative decisions to federal court. She won two of those cases, settled another and has two more pending. So important is the issue to her that she joined the board of Advocates for Children in 2012. Read article

09.26.2014 | Tuscon Sentinel | “Some of these students may be staying here in the long run,” said Kim Sweet, executive director of the Advocates for Children of New York, a non-profit that focuses on education access. Unemployment drops from an average of 14 percent among adults without a high school degree to a little over 4 percent among those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the NCES. The national unemployment rate hovers around 7 percent. “It benefits our country to have an educated adult force," Sweet said. Read article

09.12.2014 | New York Post | About one in four NYC middle-school students — 52,292 out of 227,474 — are at least one year older than their peers because they repeated a grade, according to figures obtained by Advocates for Children of New York. And 8,644 junior-high students are at least three years older than other kids in their classes because they were held back several times. But the city provides only 446 seats in alternative programs for students who want to enter ninth grade but are more than 15 years old, according to city data. Overage middle schoolers are twice as likely to drop out, studies show. “They’re significantly older than their peers, they’re stuck with students who are 11 to 13 years old, and most of the Department of Education’s options are not available to them,” said Ashley Grant, a lawyer for the advocacy group, which got the data through a Freedom of Information filing. Read article

09.10.2014 | Chalkbeat | Nearly a quarter of the city’s middle-school students — or more than 50,000 pupils — have been held back from moving to the next grade at least once in their school careers, according to a new report by Advocates for Children of New York, which provides free legal and advocacy services for families. Last school year, more than 8,600 middle-school students were, like Daniel, three or more years older than most of their classmates...For a new schools chancellor who has made middle schools a priority, these older middle-school students present a daunting test. Like Daniel, they are more likely than other students to have a disability, to be black or Hispanic, and to attend a school in a low-income area, according to the report, which analyzed demographic data from the 2011-12 school year. The path to graduation for these students can look bleak: They have lower attendance rates than their peers and are two to 11 times more likely to drop out of school, according to statistics cited in the report. Read article