News & Media

03.21.2023 | Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) released the following statement in response to the release of the New York City Department of Education (DOE)’s preschool special education data report for the 2021–22 school year:

Today, the DOE posted new data showing that 37% of preschoolers with disabilities—a total 9,800 children—did not receive all their mandated special education services during the 2021–22 school year, a notable increase from the prior year, when 30% of preschoolers were not fully served. For example:

• More than 6,500 preschoolers who needed speech therapy did not have a single session of this service before the end of the year, including 33% of all children needing bilingual speech therapy.
• 26% of preschoolers recommended for physical therapy, and 28% of those needing occupational therapy, never received it.
• Almost 1,300 children never received their mandated part-time special education teacher (SEIT) services, representing 19% of all preschoolers with this recommendation.

Importantly, these numbers only reflect those children who had an Individualized Education Program (IEP) in place by the end of the school year—and the data show that many preschoolers who were referred for evaluation due to concerns about their development had to wait months to get an IEP or never even made it that far into the process, with notable disparities by race. For example:

• 13% of Black preschoolers and 12% of Latinx preschoolers who were referred for the first time in 2021–22 had their cases closed without an IEP meeting ever taking place, compared to 7% of White preschoolers.
• 20% of Black children and 21% of Latinx children who were found eligible for preschool special education for the first time waited more than 60 days (the legal deadline) after consenting to evaluations for an IEP meeting to be held to determine what services would be appropriate, while 11% of White preschoolers did not have an IEP meeting in a timely manner.

While data for the current school year are not publicly available, we know from our work with families that long delays and legal violations remain common during this critical period in children’s development. Failing to provide these services has long-term ramifications for both individual students and for the City as a whole; when preschoolers with disabilities do not receive the help they need early in life, many will require more intensive—and expensive—interventions once they reach elementary school.    

“This winter, AFC has heard the same story from parent after parent: months into the school year, their preschooler is still waiting for mandated services to start, because the DOE has been unable to find a provider,” said Betty Baez Melo, Director of AFC’s Early Childhood Education Project. “In some cases, families are unable to even start the process of getting support in place for their child, because they cannot get an appointment for an evaluation.” 

Advocates for Children is urging New York City to invest $50 million in the upcoming budget to increase access to timely preschool special education evaluations and related services. The City should take steps such as launching more DOE evaluation teams; hiring more DOE service providers and teachers, rather than relying on outside agencies; and increasing payment rates for contracted providers to ensure children, including those who need bilingual services and those in underserved communities, receive their services where they go to preschool. 

“As policymakers consider next steps for early childhood education in New York City, they can’t forget that truly including children with disabilities in 3-K and pre-K programs means providing them with the support they need to be successful in these programs,” said Kim Sweet, AFC’s Executive Director. “This year’s budget should make the necessary investments to ensure preschoolers are not left waiting for the evaluations and services they have a right to receive.”

“It’s unconscionable that almost 10,000 preschoolers did not receive all of their special education services last year,” said Council Member Rita Joseph, Chair of the New York City Council Committee on Education. “We know this failure to support our youngest learners will only increase costs for the City in the long run, and we must act now. I look forward to partnering with the Administration to make sure there are enough service providers to meet the needs of every student with a disability.”

View statement as a PDF

01.25.2023 | January 25, 2023 (New York, NY) — Each year, roughly 7,500 New York City students spend time in foster care. This group has historically been overlooked in school reform efforts, despite having some of the most complex educational needs and bleakest academic outcomes of any student population. 

Today, Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) released a new report, Building on Potential: Next Steps to Improve Educational Outcomes for Students in Foster Care, providing an overview of the current — and dire —state of education for students in foster care in New York City. The report, which analyzes City data obtained through a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request, finds:

1. Over 40% of students in foster care are classified as students with disabilities, more than twice the Citywide rate, and they are over-represented in segregated special education settings.
2. During each of the 2016–17 through 2020–21 school years, roughly half of all students in foster care were chronically absent; between one in six and one in nine students in care missed more days of school than they attended.
3. Pre-pandemic, the NYC Department of Education (DOE) issued suspensions to students in foster care at almost four times the rate at which it issued suspensions to City students overall.
4. Students in foster care in grades 3–8 are more than twice as likely to receive the lowest possible score on the New York State tests—meaning they are performing significantly below grade level—than they are to score proficient. According to the 2017, 2018, and 2019 exams, nearly 85% of students in care are not proficient in math and four out of five are not reading proficiently.
5. Only 40.2% of students who entered ninth grade in 2017 and spent time in foster care while in high school graduated in four years, less than half the Citywide rate; one in five students with foster care experience during high school dropped out, more than quadruple the Citywide rate.
6. Academic outcomes for students in foster care who transfer schools during the year are even more alarming: of students who started 9th grade in 2017, spent time in the foster system while in high school, and transferred schools two or more times, a greater percentage dropped out (27.3%) than earned a diploma (only 18.2%) in four years.

“When the City removes a child from their home, the child is separated from parents, siblings, pets, and other loved ones, and often placed in an unfamiliar neighborhood with caregivers who are complete strangers,” said Kim Sweet, Executive Director of Advocates for Children of New York. “No matter the circumstances, this is a deeply disruptive and traumatic event in a young person’s life, making access to a stable, sound education tremendously important."

Even though New York City has legal custody of children in foster care and has assumed responsibility for their well-being, this population has frequently been overlooked. Indeed, until recently, there was not a single staff member at the DOE focused solely on students in the foster system. This past fall, the DOE took the crucial step of hiring a small team of staffers dedicated to supporting students in foster care, representing an important opportunity to begin to turn the tide for how the City educates this group of students. Today's report makes recommendations for how New York City can better support students in foster care now that this new team is up and running.

“If this group of students comprised their own school district, it would be larger than almost 90% of all other districts in New York State,” said Erika Palmer, Supervising Attorney at AFC. “But it would be a district in which barely one in five students is reading proficiently; less than half graduate high school in four years; and 38% of older youth are absent from school more often than they attend.”

As the report shows, a top priority for the DOE’s new Foster Care Team should be providing training for educators and school staff that increases their capacity to understand and address the unique needs of youth in the foster system. Other key recommendations from the report include guaranteeing door-to-door transportation for students in foster care; improving communication between schools, families, and foster care agencies; ensuring parents, foster parents, and agency staff have timely access to education records for students in foster care; ensuring students in foster care can access school-based behavioral and mental health services; and using trauma-informed practices and alternatives to suspension in schools. Given the importance of having accurate data when developing solutions to address the issues raised in this report, the report also recommends amending the City’s education data reporting laws to include students in foster care as a distinct group, as a recently introduced City Council bill would require.

“Having served as a foster parent and as an educator, I know all too well the challenges faced by children in foster care, and I take the troubling findings of this new report very personally,” said Council Member Rita Joseph, Chair of the New York City Council Committee on Education. “It’s clear we need to shine a light on educational outcomes for students in the foster system, and I look forward to moving forward the bill I introduced last month to require the DOE to publicly report data on students in foster care when they report on other student groups.”

“Youth in the foster system have enormous potential that too often goes unrealized because the systems charged with their care and education have failed to meet their needs,” said Erika Palmer. “The dire trends we see in attendance, exclusionary discipline, and academic achievement are by no means inevitable, and we’re excited to work with the DOE’s new Foster Care Team to make NYC’s schools a model of support for students in foster care. Youth in care deserve nothing less.” 

Read the report [PDF]
View the press release as a PDF

01.12.2023 | Today, Kim Sweet, Executive Director of Advocates for Children of New York (AFC), issued the following statement in response to the release of the City’s Fiscal Year 2024 preliminary budget: 

We are relieved that the City is not moving forward with certain planned cuts to school budgets next year at a time when students still need intensive academic and social-emotional support. 

However, we are deeply concerned that the Mayor’s Preliminary Budget does not extend funding for a number of initiatives that provide critical support to students and families. The Administration launched these initiatives with city funding that will expire in June, unless extended. 

• Mental Health Continuum ($5M): This innovative model, recently highlighted in the NYC Speaks Action Plan, is the first-ever cross-agency partnership (DOE, H+H, DOHMH) to help students with significant mental health needs access expedited mental healthcare in person and via video. It supports students at 50 high-needs schools through school partnerships with H+H mental health clinics, adding dedicated staff to provide students with timely access to mental health services, NYC Well hotline to advise school staff with mental health inquiries, Children’s Mobile Crisis Teams to respond to students in crisis, school-based mental health clinicians, Collaborative Problem Solving training to build school staff capacity to better manage student behavior, and culturally-responsive family engagement. At a time when we have a youth mental health crisis, this model is urgently needed.
  
  
• Multi-Faceted Immigrant Family Communication and Outreach ($4M): This initiative helps the DOE to better communicate with immigrant families through approaches such as using local ethnic media to share updates from the DOE, sending paper notices to families’ homes, reaching families over telephone and text message, and collaborating with immigrant-facing community-based organizations to create and launch information campaigns. Given that more than 329,000 public school students do not have a parent who speaks English fluently and more than 61,000 children of Limited English Proficient parents live in households without broadband internet access, it is critical for this initiative to continue.
  
  
• Shelter-Based Community Coordinators ($3.3M): Twenty-five of the 100 shelter-based community coordinators the DOE committed to hiring are funded with city funding. With more than 60% of students in shelter chronically absent, these coordinators, who are just beginning their work, can play an important role in helping students in shelter get to school every day and access needed educational support. At a time when the number of students living in shelter has grown and low attendance is a top concern, it is important to ensure the continuity of this new program.
  
  
• Early Childhood Education and Care for Children who are Undocumented ($10M): No child should be turned away from an early childhood education program due to their immigration status. The City should continue to be a leader in providing early learning opportunities to children, including those who are undocumented, by extending funding for Promise NYC.

With the youth mental health crisis and the recent influx of newly arrived students living in shelter, this is not the time to jeopardize funding for coordinators to help students in shelter, mental health services for students, communication efforts to reach immigrant families, and early childhood education for undocumented children.

As the budget process moves forward, the City should avoid further cuts to education and invest in areas such as reading instruction and intervention and restorative justice practices. Particularly at a time when the City continues to have unspent federal COVID-19 relief funding, schools should receive additional resources to meet these needs and certainly should not lose funding.

View the press release as a PDF

11.17.2022 | Today, Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) issued the following response to the release of the New York City Department of Education (DOE)’s suspension data report for the 2021-22 school year: 

The new suspension data released publicly this week indicate a decline in the number of suspensions issued to New York City students, down 23% to 25,117 since the 2018-19 school year, the most recent pre-pandemic year. This number does not capture off-the-books suspensions, in which schools are suspending students—instead of providing them the behavioral support they need—without documenting the suspensions and affording students the due process they are entitled to receive under the law. 

Furthermore, when viewed in conjunction with the NYPD school safety data during the same period, the overall number of exclusionary school discipline and police interventions in student behavior is deeply concerning. Indeed, there was the highest ever publicly reported number of “mitigated” incidents where School Safety Agents or police responded to student behavior—which could have and should have been managed appropriately by school staff—and then released the student back to school staff for further action: from 5,102 in 2018-19 to 8,223 in 2021-22, a 61.2% increase.  

The City continues to have considerable work to do to address substantial racial disparities in suspensions—which result in students losing valuable instructional time. In 2021-22, over half (51.6%) of superintendent’s (long-term) suspensions, along with 41.7% of principal’s suspensions, went to Black students, who comprised only 20.7% of the public school population (not including charter schools), compared to 52.0% of superintendent’s suspensions and 42.1% of principal’s suspensions in 2018-19.

School discipline disparities by disability status are worse than before the pandemic. Students with disabilities—who are about 21.0% of the student population—received 43.8% of long-term suspensions and 38.9% of principal’s suspensions in 2021-22, compared to 43.0% and 38.5%, respectively, in 2018-19.

Other troubling data indicate that 5,371 students were removed from class or suspended from school two or more times during the 2021-22 school year, resulting in multiple times these students lost crucial instruction time in the classroom. Additionally, there were 2,446 student removals from class or suspension from school where police were contacted last year.

“Many young people in our City experienced unimaginable trauma and are struggling with the return to in-person learning,” said Rohini Singh, Assistant Director of the School Justice Project at Advocates for Children of New York. “Experts have declared a youth mental health crisis, and it is urgent that the City and DOE respond in kind by prioritizing investments to ensure our children have access to and receive effective behavioral and mental health supports in schools.”

“It is critical that the City fully fund supports for students that can actually address the root cause of their behavior and keep them in the classroom learning,” said Dawn Yuster, Director of Advocates for Children’s School Justice Project.  “The City and DOE need to expand investments in restorative justice practices, the Mental Health Continuum, school-based mental health clinics, community schools, and other healing-centered school settings and practices instead of squandering money on ineffective and harmful practices that exclude young people from school and treat them more like criminals than students.”

View the press statement as a PDF