12.11.2014 | Today Advocates for Children is testifying before the City Council’s Education Committee about diversity in NYC schools. Ensuring that students from diverse backgrounds have access to high-achieving schools and programs is critical, but is only one step. As the City Council strives to ensure that every school and program in NYC serves a diverse group of students, the City and DOE need to prepare schools to provide an excellent education to these students. Schools need resources, training, and the development of specialized programs to meet the needs of all students, including English Language Learners and students with disabilities. View testimony [PDF]
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11.13.2014 | Children born in 2010 are eligible to enter kindergarten in September 2015, and there are steps that families can start taking now to prepare for this important milestone!
From November 14th through December 3rd, the DOE is holding Kindergarten Orientation Meetings to provide information about the transition to kindergarten to families of students with disabilities born in 2010. Please encourage families to attend these meetings!
Advocates for Children of New York has updated two resources to help families with the transition to kindergarten.
Updated Kindergarten Admissions Guide:
All families with children born in 2010 are encouraged to participate in the DOE’s kindergarten admissions process. Families can apply to up to 12 schools using one application form. They can complete this application form online, over the phone, or in person at a borough enrollment office between January 7th and February 13th. This year, the online application will be available in ten languages. For more information, please review and share AFC’s Kindergarten Admissions Guide, available in English [PDF] and Spanish [PDF].
Updated Turning 5 Guide:
In addition to applying to kindergarten, families with children born in 2010 who have IEPs will be participating in a second process—development of kindergarten IEPs. For comprehensive information about the transition to kindergarten for students with disabilities, please review and share AFC’s Turning 5 Guide, available in English [PDF] and Spanish [PDF].
We also encourage you to review and share the DOE’s kindergarten materials:
- Transition to Kindergarten for Students with Disabilities: http://schools.nyc.gov/kindergartenspecialeducation
Both websites have very helpful information for families of children born in 2010.
We hope these resources will help you navigate the transition to kindergarten!
10.28.2014 | Today AFC will be testifying at the New York City Council Committee on Education's oversight hearing on special education instruction and student achievement. At Advocates for Children, we see again and again that when students of all ages have been failed by the system and still can’t read, they start making significant progress once they receive specialized tutoring, using evidence-based methods, in after-school settings or over the summer, or are placed in non-public school settings with expertise in teaching students with disabilities to read and write. The problem is not the children; it’s a school system that is not prepared to teach them effectively. The ARISE Coalition, which we coordinate out of AFC, has several concrete recommendations for the City to improve literacy rates for students with disabilities. We’re looking for the DOE to come up with a long-term plan for teaching all students, including students with disabilities, to read at or above grade level by the end of second grade. Read our testimony [PDF]
09.29.2014 | Today AFC is testifying before the New York City Council Committee on Education regarding guidance counselors in schools. We strongly support the City Council in publicly monitoring the number and distribution of guidance counselors, social workers, and school psychologists in New York City schools and would like to see the data that is eventually collected be used to expand access to academic and behavioral student support services. We also support the City Council’s call on the DOE to establish a comprehensive college preparation program to improve and expand college access for all students, particularly low-income students and students of color, and we want to be sure that students with disabilities and English Language Learners also are able to benefit from what the program has to offer. View testimony [PDF]
09.15.2014 | This afternoon, AFC will be testifying at a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Behavioral Health System Planning Forum on the need for DOHMH to work with the DOE to improve the mental health system for New York City’s students so they can stay and succeed in school. In our testimony, we request that DOHMH partner with the DOE to expand school-based mental health clinics and the number of mobile crisis response teams available for public school students. We also recommend that DOHMH provide training from experienced mental health professionals to school staff around trauma-informed care, positive behavior supports, and de-escalation techniques that will enable school staff to respond appropriately to students in crisis. View testimony [PDF]
9.10.2014 | More than 50,000 middle school students – a quarter of the students in New York City’s public middle schools -- have been left back at least once, and more than 8,500 students have been left back at least 3 times. Despite their significant academic and social-emotional needs, there are fewer than 450 seats in programs for over-age middle school students in the City’s traditional public and charter schools.
Today Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) is releasing a report, Sixteen Going on Seventh Grade: Over-Age Students in New York City Middle Schools [PDF], to bring attention to the unique needs of over-age middle schoolers and to provide the New York City Department of Education (DOE) with recommendations for improving outcomes for this population.
“Thousands of these students have been retained repeatedly, but without the additional support they needed to move on to the next grade,” said Kim Sweet, Executive Director of Advocates for Children of New York. “They’re stuck in limbo until many of them give up and drop out. Researchers have documented that dropout rates are two to eleven times higher among previously-retained students than their on-track peers. As the DOE focuses long-overdue attention on middle schools, we need new strategies to restore educational opportunity for the students struggling repeatedly to meet grade-level standards.”
AFC is also releasing a new publication for families, Guide for Over-Age Middle School Students [PDF], which explains the legal rights of NYC students and describes programs for over-age middle schoolers.
View the press release [PDF]
Read the policy report [PDF]
Read AFC's Guide for Over-Age Middle School Students [PDF]
08.13.2014 | AFC has updated our start-of-school fact sheet for families of students with disabilities, which covers concerns that typically come up at this time of year, such as what to do if a child does not yet have a school assignment or the school assigned says they cannot serve the child’s needs; how to find an accessible school; and arranging for specialized transportation. View the fact sheet in English [PDF] and Spanish [PDF].
07.29.2014 | Yesterday AFC submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Education regarding disproportionality under Section 618(d) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Our comments focus on racial disproportionality in the identification, placement, and discipline of children with disabilities in New York City. Both citywide data and AFC’s on-the-ground experiences indicate that New York City disproportionately identifies Black students with an Emotional Disturbance (ED) classification and students classified as ED are much more likely to be removed from mainstream environments and placed in highly segregated settings. Students of color, students with disabilities, and students of color with disabilities are also disproportionately suspended from school, and New York City has not consistently provided IDEA protections to the students with disabilities it suspends. View comments [PDF]
07.18.2014 | AFC has a newly updated "Know Your Rights" guidebook for immigrant families in the New York City public schools! The guide is available in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, French, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Urdu [PDF], and covers topics such as enrolling in school, services for English Language Learners and students with disabilities, and parents' rights to interpretation and translation.
For families seeking one-on-one assistance on educational issues, AFC's Helpline is staffed by education specialists who are fluent in Spanish and Chinese. We also have a telephone interpretation service for callers of other languages. This flyer [PDF] provides instructions in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, French, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Urdu on how to call the Helpline and request an interpreter.