Chalkbeat NY | Still, advocates argue that families aren’t to blame if nearby schools can’t provide bilingual special education support, noting that traveling long distances to secure services may not be tenable for younger children, and the city’s yellow bus system is notoriously unreliable. Plus, some families simply aren’t offered services at all if there are no available seats, according to Janyll Canals-Kernizan, director of the Robin Hood Project at Advocates for Children, who works with families seeking bilingual special education services.

“It’s not just that families are being offered something and they’re rejecting it because it’s far away. It’s also that [they] are mandated to receive these supports on their IEPs,” she said, “and they just never get it.”