Over the last two years, the New York City Department of Education (DOE) received an unprecedented infusion of more than $7 billion in federal stimulus funding, allowing the City to fund a number of critical education priorities. While some of this funding has been used for short-term expenses directly stemming from the pandemic — such as costs associated with reopening school buildings and accounting for the impact of lost instructional time — the DOE is also using these stimulus dollars to address student needs that existed long before the pandemic, many of which have historically been underfunded. Although the federal COVID-19 relief funds will run dry in October 2024, these ongoing needs will remain. Among other things, stimulus funding is currently being used to:

• Double 3-K enrollment and open new preschool special education classes to help address a longstanding shortage of seats for preschoolers with disabilities;
• Increase the number of community schools and expand access to summer enrichment programming;
• Hire 500 new school social workers, expand restorative justice practices, and enable every school building to have a nurse;
• Bolster supports for students with dyslexia, students with intensive sensory needs, and students living in homeless shelters; and
• Open new bilingual programs for English Language Learners and improve access to translation and interpretation services for immigrant families.

It will take more than $700 million per year to sustain new and expanded education initiatives that are making a difference for some of the City’s most marginalized students, and Advocates for Children of New York calls on elected officials at the local, state, and federal levels to start planning right away to identify funding to address this looming threat.