10.22.2012 | New York Daily News | Advocates for special education said that two years of test scores wouldn’t show anything definitively but that the Department of Education has failed to provide data on whether the program works or not. “DOE has been very stingy with the data,” said Advocates for Children executive director Kim Sweet. Sweet and other advocates have called on the city to release data on attendance and suspensions as well as details on what has worked during the reforms — and what has not. Read article
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Micaela’s Story
Micaela is a dual-language learner who is on the autism spectrum and needed an appropriate school placement for kindergarten.
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News & Media
AFC in the News
10.12.2012 | WABC-TV News | AFC client Ashton McKenzie was featured on WABC News. Ashton, who immigrated to New York from Jamaica in 2002, is banned from playing football at Dewitt Clinton High School because he aged-out of eligibility due to being unfairly held back in third grade.
10.02.2012 | Gotham Schools | Volunteer Melodie Ampuero, a project associate at Advocates for Children...praised the program and thought it could be expanded. She said she worried that the one-time service wasn’t enough. Volunteers were not instructed to follow up with the students they met to make sure the students actually applied to schools and made all of their deadlines. “Applications aren’t due until December and a lot can happen between now and then,” said Ampuero. “A lot of [the students in foster care] can fall through the cracks and if no one is there to follow up on them, then we have no idea of knowing if they still need assistance.” Read article
9.27.2012 | Gotham Schools | The hearing offered a rare view into ELL issues. Elsa Cruz Pearson, a staff attorney for Advocates for Children of New York, said the main way advocates get data is through an annual report that the Office of English Language Learners submits to the state. But the city was supposed to have submitted a report in the spring, and it so far hasn’t done that, she said. Read article
9.25.2012 | Insideschools.org | The reform has had the opposite effect in some schools, according to Maggie Moroff, special education coordinator at Advocates for Children, with neighborhood schools creating self-contained special education classes for just a few students. "Those classes aren't fully populated," says Moroff, and since children must stay in their zones, there is no one else to fill those seats. Read article
9.24.2012 | DNAinfo.com | "We're hearing from too many families that their children's preschool services were not in place at the beginning of the school year," said Randi Levine, a lawyer with Advocates for Children, which supports disadvantaged children in New York City... Read article
9.13.2012 | City Limits | This school year the city has undertaken a dramatic transformation of special education to try to improve student achievement. While applauding the push, these writers believe the city has to put more resources into the classrooms where special ed kids are now learning. Read article
9.12.2012 | New York Law Journal | Jamie Levitt, the President of AFC's Board of Directors, is featured in the New York Law Journal special supplement, "Lawyers Who Lead By Example." In her role on the Board, Levitt has helped to recruit Morrison & Foerster attorneys to represent parents at hearings seeking special education services for their public school children. "To me a child's education is the most important thing in their life," said Levitt. Read article
9.06.2012 | Insideschools.org | The aim of the special education reform--being rolled out in all schools this year--is to educate special needs children in the least restrictive settings possible, and, preferably, in their neighborhood schools. Is that what's actually happening? Not in all schools, according to Advocates for Children. Before school started, the group heard from 40 parents of incoming kindergarten students with disabilities whose zoned schools could not provide the type of class or services that the child needed. According to a statement issued by Advocates for Children, some schools are just not ready to accommodate all special needs students. Read article
9.05.2012 | DNA Info | Advocates who work with special needs children say the DOE's goal of mainstreaming is admirable, but they worry that many of the city's 1,700 schools are ill prepared to serve the broad spectrum of kids who are now enrolling, including some who need small, self-contained classes. Advocates for Children, which supports disadvantaged children in New York City, has received more than three-dozen calls this summer from parents who tried to enroll their child in their zoned school, as the DOE directed, only to be told that the school couldn't provide the services the child needed. "The problem we're facing is that not every zoned school can serve every zoned student," said Randi Levine, a lawyer with Advocates for Children. "Not every school can have a small class, and not every kindergartner is ready to be in a big class." Read article