02.27.2019 | Today, Advocates for Children is testifying before the New York City Council Committee on Mental Health, Disabilities and Addiction regarding the gap in access to direct mental health services and behavior supports for students with significant emotional, behavioral, and mental health needs. Read our testimony [PDF]
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02.25.2019 | Today, Advocates for Children and the ARISE Coalition (coordinated by AFC) are both testifying before the New York City Council Committee on Education regarding the provision of special education services. The City must do more to extend the vision of equity and excellence in education to students with disabilities and to ensure that the needs of students with disabilities are considered and addressed in every DOE policy decision.
Read AFC's testimony [PDF]
Read the ARISE Coalition's testimony [PDF]
02.14.2019 | AFC submitted testimony for the New York State Joint Legislative Public Hearing on the 2019-2020 Health Budget proposal, urging legislators to increase the reimbursement rate for Early Intervention providers to help ensure children can get their services in a timely manner. Read testimony [PDF]
02.06.2019 | AFC is testifying at the New York State Joint Legislative Public Hearing on the 2019-2020 Elementary and Secondary Education Budget proposal, urging legislators to increase investments in education initiatives such as positive approaches to discipline, preschool special education programs, prekindergarten, and support for Multilingual Learners, and to reject harmful special education proposals. Read our testimony [PDF]
12.18.2018 | AFC testified before the New York City Council Committee on Education, Committee on Finance, and Subcommittee on Capital Budget in support of the proposal to include $750 million in the FY 2020-2024 Capital Plan to improve school accessibility. Read our testimony [PDF]
12.17.2018 | Today, Advocates for Children testified before the City Council Committee on General Welfare regarding recommendations for supporting students experiencing homelessness. Read our testimony [PDF]
11.02.2018 | Today, Advocates for Children, along with more than 30 other organizations, sent a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio calling on him to provide busing for kindergarten through sixth grade students in foster care. For students who have been separated from their families, school has the potential to be an important stabilizing factor in their life, but the City currently guarantees bus service only to students in foster care who receive special education transportation. Read the letter [PDF]
10.23.2018 | Today, AFC testified before the New York State Assembly Standing Committee on Education regarding the current state of health, mental health, and physical education programs, services, and instruction in New York State’s schools. Our testimony discusses the need for the expansion of school-based mental health services and evidence-based approaches to student behavior. Read our testimony [PDF]
10.16.18 | Today, Advocates for Children is testifying before the City Council Committee on Education about the importance of improving the school transportation system, especially for students with disabilities, students in foster care, and students in temporary housing, and in support of a bill to provide real-time GPS bus location data to parents. Read our testimony [PDF]
The ARISE Coalition, which is coordinated by AFC, is also testifying in support of the bill, highlighting some of the trends Coalition members have seen that make this system so problematic for individual families and their children with disabilities. Read ARISE's testimony [PDF]
09.27.2018 | Today, AFC sent a letter to Chancellor Carranza regarding start-of-school problems with busing. The letter shared a number of cases that are illustrative of what families, especially families of students with disabilities, routinely experience. Although the DOE has tended to treat busing as ancillary to its core mission of providing a quality education to the City’s students, we see over and over cases in which busing problems keep students from school altogether, make students miss critical academic time by arriving late/leaving early, or relegate students – some with very complicated special needs – to uncomfortable, extended periods of time on buses, often impacting their readiness to learn and leaving their parents fearful for their safety. Read the letter