News & Media

12.20.2021 | Advocates for Children of New York and The Legal Aid Society commend the recent announcement that the New York City Department of Education (DOE) is creating a team dedicated to serving the unique needs of students in foster care. This announcement comes after Advocates for Children and Legal Aid released a report this year highlighting the urgent need for the DOE to launch an  office focused solely on students in foster care.

At the time of the report, the DOE did not have such an office, team, or even a single staff member dedicated to supporting youth in foster care, a group of students particularly in need of specialized support. More than 30 organizations, including foster care agencies, groups of educators, and organizations representing children and parents in Family Court, had joined with Advocates for Children and Legal Aid in calling for a DOE team to focus on this group of students and equip schools with the knowledge and resources they need to serve students in foster care and their families effectively.

The need for these services in New York City is great: approximately 7,000 students spend time in foster care during any given school year. They are disproportionately Black and Latinx and come from the city’s poorest communities. Only 42.2% of New York City students in foster care graduated on time in 2020, the lowest graduation rate of any student group and 36.6 percentage points lower than the rate for students not in foster care

The new team will serve as a point of contact for schools, families, and child welfare professionals with questions about students in foster care. They will be responsible for training and supporting school staff as to the rights of these students and their families, including their biological parents. They will support parent involvement with their children’s education and implement new tracking to improve academic outcomes. They will also be responsible for all policies that relate to children in foster care and be tasked with improving opportunities and programming tailored to those students. 

"Students in foster care are among the most vulnerable of New York City students, and they face tremendous challenges, ranging from trauma to frequent school changes, that can negatively impact their learning,” said Dawne Mitchell, Attorney-in-Charge of the Juvenile Rights Practice at the Legal Aid Society. “The creation of a dedicated office for children in foster care within the DOE provides these students with essential services and helps ensure that their local schools have the training and resources that they need to meet these students' needs, allowing them to be successful in both academics and social-emotional learning. We look forward to working with the DOE to create a greater network of support for children and families in the foster system.”   

“For too long, students in foster care have been overlooked by the DOE—with no staff to answer questions about their specific needs, help schools understand their rights, or develop programs to support them,” said Kim Sweet, AFC’s Executive Director. “With the right support, school can be an important source of stability to students in foster care at a time in their lives when so much is unfamiliar and uncertain. We look forward to working with the incoming administration to maximize the positive impact of this new team on the lives of children in care.”

View the press release as a PDF

11.30.2021 | Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) issued the following response to the NYC Department of Education’s posting of new data showing a need for more than 900 additional seats in preschool special education classes in the spring of 2022: 

New data released by the DOE show a projected deficit of more than 900 seats in preschool special education classes in the spring of 2022 for children with disabilities who have a legal right to such classes – even at a time when special education referrals and overall preschool enrollment are down due to the pandemic.  While the City and State have been expanding seats in general education prekindergarten classes, they have not met their basic legal obligation to provide preschool special education classes for children with disabilities who need them—leaving behind children with the most significant disabilities.

“The State and the City need to step up and address this legal violation,” said Kim Sweet, Executive Director of Advocates for Children of New York.  “This is the moment for the Governor and the Mayor to show they value young children with disabilities—that they will ensure there is a high-quality class for every child who needs one instead of leaving children on waitlists in violation of their legal rights.”

A bill awaiting action from Governor Kathy Hochul would help stop preschool special education programs run by community-based organizations (CBOs) from closing—a significant contributing factor to the shortage of seats.  In June, the New York State Assembly and Senate unanimously passed A. 8013 (Benedetto)/ S. 6516-A (Mannion) to provide preschool special education programs with a payment rate increase on par with the total school aid increase the Legislature approved for school districts—following years of underinvestment in preschool special education programs.  Today, more than 100 organizations sent a letter to Governor Hochul urging her to sign this bill.  With the Assembly, Senate, State Education Department, and more than 100 organizations united that preschool special education programs need equitable funding, it is time for the Governor to act. 

On the city level, we are pleased that Mayor de Blasio announced a new initiative to provide support to community-based organizations running preschool special education classes with the goal of having CBOs open 800 additional preschool special education class seats in the 2022-23 school year.  But the Mayor has not yet committed to paying teachers and staff at these preschool special education programs on par with their DOE colleagues, jeopardizing the ability of CBOs to open new classes.  CBOs are struggling to recruit and retain teachers and staff for the preschool special education classes they already run since their staff—who work over the 12-month school year serving young children with the most intensive needs in the City—could earn far more working in DOE schools.  The City must commit to increasing salaries so that CBOs will be able to attract the teachers they need to open new classes.

“Families of young children with disabilities wonder why there are no seats for their children, why their children’s teachers are paid less than other teachers, why their children always come last,” said Kim Sweet.  “The children waiting for seats are counting on the State and the City to act now.”

Read the press release as a PDF
Read the letter [PDF]

11.18.2021 | Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) issued the following response to the release of the New York City Department of Education (DOE)’s special education data report for the 2020-21 school year: 

The data released today show that 23,000 students with disabilities did not fully receive their mandated special education instruction by the end of the 2020-21 school year. While we are glad to see progress from January 2021, when more than 42,000 students with disabilities were not fully served, there were still more NYC students not receiving their full special education instruction in June than there were students enrolled in all of the Syracuse public schools. 

On paper, the report released today paints a better picture than prior years, when even more students were not fully served by the end of the school year. However, the numbers themselves fail to capture the full impact of the pandemic on students with disabilities, who often went without access to instruction or services for substantial periods of time, even if they eventually received services by the end of the year. Throughout the pandemic, we heard from families whose children had to wait weeks or months for an iPad and, in the meantime, received no instruction or services at all. Other families found that their children’s special education instruction or services simply did not translate over a screen, or that their children’s disabilities prevented them from accessing services remotely. Furthermore, the report shows a concerning decrease in the number of initial referrals for special education (9,457 in in 2020-21, compared to 21,922 in 2018-19, prior to the pandemic, and 16,097 in 2019-20), likely meaning that more students went without the help they needed.

Under federal law, the City has an obligation to provide students with disabilities with make-up services to compensate for what they lost, and to bring them to where they should be but for the disruption in learning since March 2020. One year ago, AFC filed a class action complaint in federal court asking the DOE to create a system to provide these make-up services (called “compensatory services” in special education law). However, the DOE has neither resolved the case nor taken adequate steps to ensure students get the services they need and to which they are legally entitled. 

While the DOE has announced that schools will be offering certain special education “recovery services” to some students after school or on Saturdays, the start date for actually providing these services has already been pushed back—the majority of schools have not yet launched their programs, and some may not do so until early December or later—and many parents remain in the dark as to what their school will be offering and when their child will be eligible to participate. 

The staffing and implementation of these recovery programs are being left to individual schools, meaning the type and quality of the recovery services available to any given student will vary based on the school they happen to attend. We are also concerned that many of the students hit hardest by the pandemic will not have access to these programs. For example:

• The DOE recently indicated that schools can choose to provide recovery services remotely, which will be of little benefit for those students who experienced regression precisely because online instruction was ineffective or impracticable for meeting their specific needs.
• Children needing bilingual services were especially likely to have missed out last year—for instance, the data show that 17% of students needing bilingual speech therapy did not receive a single session of this service in 2020-21, compared to 5% of students recommended for monolingual speech therapy—but many schools will not have bilingual providers available after school or on Saturdays.
• The DOE has not yet committed to providing bus service for after-school or Saturday services, despite the fact that many students will be unable to participate without busing due to the nature of their disabilities or because they live in shelters or foster homes far away from school. 

While special education recovery services, as currently outlined by the DOE, can be part of the solution, they will not be sufficient to meet the needs of all students with disabilities following multiple years of unprecedented educational disruption – or to meet the City’s legal obligation. We fear that the City is leaving families with no choice but to file administrative hearings against the DOE to get the full make-up services their children need and have a legal right to receive—putting further stress on an already over-burdened system, delaying the students’ access to these services as they navigate a hearing system that often takes more than a year, and favoring families who have the time and resources to hire an attorney and navigate a lengthy process. 

“The DOE’s plan for supporting students with disabilities in the aftermath of COVID-19 continues to fall short,” said Kim Sweet, AFC’s Executive Director. “It is critical that every student with a disability gets the extra help and make-up services they need, in a way that works for them and their family, without having to fight with the DOE to get them. The clock is ticking, and unmet needs from the pandemic will only snowball the more time passes.” 

View the press release as a PDF

10.18.2021 | Today, Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) released a new policy brief documenting the pandemic’s heavy toll on school attendance for students living in homeless shelters and calling on the New York City Department of Education (DOE) to direct federal COVID-19 relief dollars to overhaul the education support system in shelters, starting with hiring 150 shelter-based DOE community coordinators. 

The brief, which examines monthly attendance data released by the DOE pursuant to Local Law 10 of 2021, shows that students in shelter had significantly more difficulty accessing an education than their permanently housed peers during winter and spring 2021. Between January and June, overall monthly attendance rates for students in shelter were lower than those for any other student group and trailed attendance rates for students in permanent housing by 10.6 to 14.1 percentage points, depending on the month. While the lack of internet access in some City shelters undoubtedly had an impact on remote attendance, the attendance rate for students living in shelter who opted for blended learning (some days in school and some remote) was just 2.3 to 4.3 percentage points higher on their in-person days than on their days of remote learning. 

There were especially high rates of absenteeism at the high school level: 10th graders living in shelter missed more than one out of every three school days in winter and spring 2021, while 9th, 11th, and 12th graders in shelter were absent more than 25% of the time.

While the attendance rates of students in shelter during the pandemic were particularly troubling, barriers to consistent attendance are not new.  In both 2018-19 and 2019-20, more than half of students living in shelter—94% of whom are Black or Hispanic—were chronically absent, missing at least one out of every ten school days. 

Unfortunately, this trend has continued into the start of this school year; the average attendance rate of students in shelter during the first couple of weeks of school was only 73%. 

“Children get one shot at a quality education, and every day a student is absent is a day of instruction they can never get back,” said Jennifer Pringle, Director of AFC’s Learners in Temporary Housing Project. “These alarmingly low attendance rates make clear that the DOE’s current shelter-based support system is not sufficient. There need to be dedicated, well-trained staff on the ground in the City’s shelters who can help students reconnect with school and access the educational supports they need to get back on track.” 

At present, there are not enough staff working in shelters who have the skills and knowledge necessary to help families navigate the school system, address barriers to attendance, and resolve educational problems: just 117 shelter-based DOE Family Assistants are tasked with supporting the roughly 30,000 students who spend time in shelter each year. The number of Family Assistants has not grown over the past decade even though thousands more students are now spending time in the shelter system than in years past. As there are more than twice as many shelters as there are Family Assistants, these staff must divide their time among multiple shelter sites and are stretched very thin. The Family Assistant position is also very low paid ($28,000 for 10 months), making it difficult to recruit and retain qualified staff for the role. 

Fortunately, New York City is poised to receive tens of millions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funding specifically to address the needs of students experiencing homelessness—and the City has not yet decided how to allocate these funds. AFC, in partnership with 25 organizations, is recommending that the DOE use this funding to hire 150 new community coordinators to work on the ground in the City’s shelters and help students get to school every day. 

These coordinators would proactively assist families with getting school placements, bus service, and special education services in place as quickly as possible upon entering shelter and for the start of each school year; ensure that students are attending school regularly and help address barriers when students are not getting to school; and connect students to after-school programs, tutoring, counseling, and other supports. 

“New York City has long struggled to meet the needs of students living in shelter, and the pandemic has only exacerbated the many challenges these young people face,” said Pringle. “The good news is that the City now has funding to hire a new team of professionals who can help students succeed in school and break the cycle of homelessness.” 

Read the data brief [PDF]
View the news release as a PDF