for high-quality education and enrichment opportunities for young people, particularly those for from under-resourced communities in New York City. At Salvadori, we use the built environment to provide STEAM education services. That's STEM plus A for the arts and in our case, architecture to schools, after-school programs, and NYCHA community centers all across the five boroughs. Last year, we reached over 12,000 students at 145 different sites, several of them in districts represented by the committee. [clears throat] Through hands-on project-based learning, students develop skills in collaboration creativity and problem-solving just like architects, engineers, and designers. We are grateful for the council's support through CASA, digitally inclusion and literacy, after-school enrichment, and the speaker's initiative, which bring these programs to students across the city. We thank the committee and the council for their commitment to equitable school funding. Too often, schools serving students with the greatest needs lack the resources to provide a well-rounded education. Project-based STEAM learning requires robust materials and hands-on experiences for students. To support these efforts, we ask the council to expand CASA and digital inclusion and literacy initiatives so more young people can access programs like Salvadori. Thank you for your continued commitment to New York City students. Thank you for your testimony. Hello, chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the chance to testify on education priorities for the upcoming fiscal year. My name is Albania Jimenez. I'm the chief of advocacy and community mobilization at Literacy in Community or LINK, the lead organization of City's First Readers. LINK provides early literacy programs in all five boroughs, serving families with children from birth through age five. Our goals are empowering families to prepare their children for a school and instilling a lifelong love of learning. Over the past 12 years, the city has increasingly implemented educational programs that move into this space outside the traditional K to 12 framework. First, universal pre-K, then 3-K, and most recently 2-K. What we need now is a citywide framework that recognizes early literacy not as an optional enhancement, but as the heart of a child development system. Why? Learning to read it starts from birth. Over 80% of a child's brain is developed by age three, 90% by age five. And the research is clear. Experiences in the earliest years shape cognitive growth, executive functioning, and long-term academic, social, and health outcomes. The foundations of language development and reading ability are built long before a child ever enters a classroom. If we are serious about reaching the ambitious New York City Reads goal of universal reading proficiency by 2035, we must infuse early literacy into universal child care settings and into every child who system such as our pediatric public health system. We are here as LINK to support um we are willing to create with you guys a the education ecosystem. So, thank you. And I know you I know LINK is we have literacy zone in my office through the your work and we I I know the incredible work you do in our local libraries and the community, not just with the kids, but with the families, which is such a an incredibly important uh like part of your work that is the core of your work and I I I see the results firsthand. So, thank you for that work. Uh last We are ready. Please state your name for the record and you may begin. Good afternoon, Chair Drommowitz and the Education Committee. My name is Ashley Rodriguez. As a lifelong New Yorker, I have benefited from many DYCD from the programs and attended and graduated DOE schools. Between benefiting from all these programs, working with youth as a paraprofessional in Community School District 4, and with Children's Aid, an organization which is funded by DYCD, I was extremely disappointed when I saw the preliminary budget. The responses of agency does not support in regards to specialized programs for special education and LGBT students is completely unacceptable. These two populations contain some of our most vulnerable students. We need more social workers and support workers in our schools to help our students thrive and reach their full potential. Our students are still seeing the effects of being out of school due to COVID. Our students are struggling academically and with their mental health. Having more counselors, social workers, and support staff will help aid all parts of our students' learning. Please fund more arts programs. As a graduate of the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music, I can testify that music education is so important. I had to learn time management between doing my math homework and learning my clarinet solo. Also, my parents originally put me in music classes as a form of therapy to help me communicate and connect with the world around me. You never know which kid will participate in a choir or pick up an instrument and it truly changes their life. Please fund more after-school and career development programs, specifically in my home community of East Harlem. There's simply not enough work learning growth spots and students shouldn't have to travel. After-school recreational programs truly help parents, but also help students discover who they want to be in the world. A personal example I have is a mentor from my after-school program and introduced me to my local community board. I'm now the chair of the Youth and Education Committee, something I never would gotten involved in on my own. Growing up, I had an IEP and my mentors from these programs taught me that I'm so much more than labels. When I eventually came out and didn't have much support from my family, my mentors supported me and I found even more community through the LGBT Center's youth space. I'm doing more than my parents ever imagined and it's truly because of these programs. I do this advocacy so my students can have all the same opportunities I have and I won't stop until they do. Please fund youth programming in East Harlem and all of New York City. It truly matters. Thank you so much for your testimony. My son is also playing the clarinet. So, you got something in common. Um what I just need to know, what inspired you if you if you don't mind sharing, what inspired you to become a paraprofessional in our schools? I had a paraprofessional and she was awesome, so I just thought I might as well do it. I was approached by my old principal and I love it. It's fun. I'm I'm so glad and just like someone helped you, my friend, um you are now helping you work with one student. Yes sir. One 8-year-old who I think I'm getting some of the what I gave >> [laughter] >> many of my teachers, including you. That's right. >> [laughter] >> Wow, it's it's wonderful uh to see you testifying all of you, but Ashley, you especially, wonderful to see you testifying today and advocating just like the students for people who need advocates and helping students who need help. Uh and I'm I think I'm I'm so incredibly proud of you and I'm so thrilled at where you are and what you're doing right now. So, thank you for not just testifying, but for all that you're doing uh for our our youth in our city. Thank you. I thank you to this panel. Our next panel is Randy Levine, Gregory Brender, Dr. Khalidi Salas, uh Sheri Gibson, and Evan Stone. Okay. Okay, Randy, you may begin when ready. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Randy Levine. I'm policy director at Advocates for Children of New York. While we appreciate that the preliminary budget baselines funding for preschool special education services and Summer Rising, other impactful education programs still have funding set to expire this June. Immigrant family outreach, restorative justice, the mental health continuum, SEED, Learning to Work, and more must be extended and baseline this year. And given the pressing unmet needs we see daily in our work with families, the city must do more than maintain the status quo. To better support students and save money in the long run, the city should add funding to ensure every preschooler with a disability receives the services and classes they need. The promise of universal child care must not leave behind children with disabilities. $100 million to address the shortage of service providers for students with disabilities across grade levels. Mandated services are not optional. $20 million to expand effective reading intervention for middle and high school students. Families should not have to sue for private tutoring so their children can learn to read. $8 million to hire behavioral specialists. Schools should be able to call upon professionals with the expertise to support them in meeting students behavioral needs. $8 million to hire English language learner instructional specialists. Schools with high numbers of ELLs should have a dedicated professional ensuring these students receive appropriate academic support. $3 million for interim transportation for students in foster care awaiting school bus service. Students placed in the care of the city should be able to get to school. $2 million to expand travel training. Teaching students with disabilities to use public transportation promotes independence and expands access to jobs while reducing reliance on yellow school bus service. And $450 million in capital funding to make more schools accessible. Nobody should be turned away from a school because they can't get in the building. Our written testimony has more about each of these priorities. Thank you. Thank you. And I want to I want to repeat clarify $20 million for middle and high school students for reading interventions. Yes. So important. I don't think it's unclear to me whether the Department of Education is fully aware of the fact that so many of our middle schoolers and high schoolers are not reading on grade level and they need the interventions but they need their support centrally because right now the it's just well, let's just get them to to take the regions despite what they actually need in order to learn how to how to read. So I thank you for uplifting that. Everything else you've uplifted but I just particularly want to highlight that. Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify. My name is Gregory Brender here on behalf of the Daycare Council of New York. We're the membership organization of New York City's early childhood education provider organizations and we work towards a future where all children have access to high-quality early childhood education and the providers and the workforce have the tools and resources needed to offer it. We are thrilled that many of our member organizations are going to be part of the exciting expansions of early childhood education that we've long advocated for. However, we know these investments only succeed if early childhood providers and the workforce have the to operate sustainably and we look forward to working with both the administration and the city council to ensure these expansions create stability for the early childhood education providers. Our written testimony has many recommendations. I'll go through a few of them. In terms of stabilizing early childhood providers, we'd like to see cost escalators put into the current renewals of contracts. We're very glad that Department of Education is renewing contracts and that there's going to be a process involving providers for figuring out what the next RFP is going to look like. However, contracts are being renewed at their 2021 values and does not take into account increased costs for rent, utilities, insurance and other costs. So we urge the city to implement at least 3% cost escalators in the renewed contracts for birth to five programs. We also urge the city to ensure on-time payments and to increase advances to 75% of contract value which is the value guaranteed in the birth to five RFT RFP but it allows providers to plan if they get that early. Finally, we had a we really appreciated the conversation today about holding schools harmless from enrollment-based penalties since early childhood provider organizations do not control their own enrollment. We're urging that the city also hold provide early childhood education providers harmless from enrollment-based penalties and I hear that's the bell but we have a few more recommendations in our written testimony and really grateful for your work. >> We will certainly take a look at your written testimony. Thank you so much for for coming today and for testifying. We appreciate your testimony and your work. Thank you. >> The next panel is Kimberly Olsen, Anurima Bhidya San, Andrea Ortiz, Chauncey Young and Molly Sanek. Kimberly, you can begin whenever you're ready. Wonderful. Thank you so much Chair Drommowitz, City Council staff for the opportunity to testify today and happy Arts in Our Schools month. My name is Kim Olsen and >> Only one month? A whole month. Music, dance, theater, visual arts. We celebrate it all. >> year but please continue. I'm testifying today as part of the It Starts With the Arts Coalition calling on our city to improve arts education delivery and transparency in New York City. This means hiring certified arts teachers to help meet the class size mandate, funding the Support for Arts Instruction Initiative, reforming DOE's M-Tech contract process and baselining funds for DCLA to support cross-agency arts education efforts. Our city's access gap is a direct result of an accountability gap. Currently, our ability to track the impact of art of city investments in arts education is greatly hampered by a concerning decline in data transparency. While we advocate for the increased funding needed to reach every child, we simultaneously demand the restoration of arts education transparency metrics that have fallen away since the pandemic. Nearly 20 years ago to try to ensure that schools maintained arts programs after the elimination of Project Arts, the city developed the Arts Count Survey and annual Arts in Schools report. However, the amount of data that that is that was reported has shrunk significantly in recent years, especially since the pandemic. For example, New York City public schools no longer publicly reports on arts education participation rates, elementary instructional hours in the arts, family and parent involvement and arts education quality, just to name a few. We need to build upon the term and condition that's been included in schedule C to include these metrics. The disappearance of reporting since the pandemic has effectively shielded systemic inequities from public view stalling our progress towards universal arts access. Yet, what data we do have continues to show that less than a third of middle school students are meeting New York State Arts Learning requirements and that's not acceptable. The issues of transparency extend beyond offered instruction meaning opaque contracting processes for arts nonprofits and obscured timelines for approval that stretch 18 to 28 months long ultimately leading to lost ultimately leading to lost learning opportunities. We have a window of opportunity to to define our city's future and that starts with the arts. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good evening. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify. My name is Molly Sanek. I handle education and employment advocacy at Center for Independence of the Disabled New York. There are several interconnected barriers that contribute to New York City public school students with disabilities being twice as likely to drop out of high school as their non-disabled peers. There is a lack of accessible curricula and physical school buildings. There is there are critical staffing and resource shortages, a lack of available seats, significant backlogs in receiving mandated services and lack of long-term baselined funding for critical education programs. Funding programs for a year at a time puts communities in an inherently uncertain position. A program that is only guaranteed funding for a year is going to have more trouble attracting, hiring and retaining qualified staff. Simultaneously, students and families are asked to rely on the content of programs whose presence they cannot depend on. The impact of the uncertainty of how to invest in these programs is felt long before any cuts are actually made. Therefore, we stand with the Coalition for Equitable Education Funding in calling on the city to extend and baseline funding for critical education programs, the details of which are in my written testimony. We also echo several other funding asks made today including an a minimum $100 million investment to address shortage of service providers, a $2 million investment to expand the travel training program and expanded investments in school-based mental health clinics. We also would like to address the fact that as of right now around 69% of New York City public schools are exclusionary to students with certain disabilities and as a result ask for an additional $450 million in school accessibility projects to achieve the goal of making 45% of schools fully accessible by 2030. The rest of my testimony is submitted in writing. Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. Hello. I'm Andrea with the Dignity in Schools New York. Public schools should be places where young people feel safe, supported and able to learn. Yet, many yet for many students, particularly black, brown, immigrant, LGBTQIA and students with disabilities, punitive discipline and policing creates barriers to learning and undermines their well-being. Therefore, Dignity in Schools calls the city to expand school-based restorative justice, mental health supports and immigrant protections and redirect money away from policing into proven safety infrastructure. We urge the council million in restorative justice funding set to expire and increase funding by another 5 million bringing the total from 17.6 million to 22.6 million including 2 million for training and technical assistance and 3 million to support paid student leadership opportunities in restorative justice. These investments are achievable. By freezing hiring on school safety agents, eliminating vacancies and not backfilling through attrition, the city can save up to $90 million in one year to reinvest in these priorities. While we appreciate that the mayor's preliminary budget baselines funding for special education and summer program, it fails to protect restorative justice, the mental health continuum and immigrant family outreach while doing nothing to reduce school policing or surveillance. We also call on the city to protect immigrant students and families from President Trump's mass the and deportation plan, including strengthening immigration and prepared preparedness policies, offering comprehensive training for staff, students, and families, enhancing data privacy, and passing intro 798 to eliminate the NYPD gang database. Finally, it is clear that mayoral control has repeatedly failed communities, even under progressive leadership. Mayoral control has been responsible for budget cuts, reversal of integration policies, creating more charter schools, and cutting restorative justice programs. Therefore, we're asking for the city to fund a commission of parents, educators, students, advocates, experts, and researchers to engage communities in designing a truly democratic school governance systems to replace mayoral control. You saw many of our students testify here today. All of this would be able to be happening and and and more if we just allow students to lead. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next. Good evening, Chair Dromm, and New York City Council members. My name is Chancey Young, and I'm a Bronx parent and the director of the New Settlement Parent Action Committee. For nearly 30 years, the Parent Action Committee has been led by Bronx parents who believe that every child deserves access to a quality education. Our members are extremely concerned about the state of New York City public schools and are advocating for equitable funding at both the city and state level. The city needs to invest in our schools and our families, an investment in the social emotional supports for families and students. Our students [clears throat] and families need trauma-responsive care and culture-responsive healing-centered practices. We know that schools in our city are safe We need to know that our schools and cities are safe and a sanctuary for our immigrant families and students. We hope with the support and guidance of New York City Council that New York City public schools will remain a safe place for all students, regardless of their immigration status. >> [clears throat] >> We also join with the Coalition for Equitable Educational Funding in calling to the city to restore funding and baseline funding for key education programming, student success centers, learning to work, restorative justice, mental health continuum, reading intervention, early childhood education outreach, immigration immigrant family outreach and communication, and to make additional investments to support students with the greatest needs. Year after year, we have seen these programs cut and then restored for a single year, making it extremely difficult for long-term planning for the programs. A city budget is a moral document. It shows the city and our leaders' priorities. We need to ensure that we are investing in practices that heal and lift up our students and families and the end the school-to-prison pipeline. We ask you to invest in the future of our children and in the future of New York City. Thank you so much. Um Kimberly, I I just have a question about the arts. Um you were talking about arts education metrics. Um If you recall from my the the earlier in the hearing, you know, 500 hours ago, or if any of the It's true. Um Like do you relate the um removal of metrics for arts education to the removal of arts programs themselves? Do you see it as a correlation? Do you see one causing the other? In other words, when they started removing these metrics, did that cause the schools to divest or the system to divest from the arts? Or or tell me your analysis of that. >> Sure. I think to be honest, it's really hard to say because we simply don't have the data to be able to make informed decisions around that. I think what we found is that data and having these reports and the survey was intended to be an accountability measure for our school leaders who oftentimes are the ones making decisions as to what level of arts is present within our schools. However that idea has simply fallen away in the past two decades. And so it really depends on who is the school leader, who is the overarching superintendent as to how much it is valued within a school community. And until we have better metrics and I should say till we have that data restored in terms of what's being reported, we simply don't know. And ultimately, that's a disservice to our young people and a disservice to the workforce as well behind these opportunities. And do you think those metrics um were were satisfactory or do you think they could be more robust in terms of measuring again, not just input, as we said earlier, but output? Oh, 100%. I think that that was a nice starting place, but there's much to build from there. I think Chicago has a really incredible model called the Creative School Certification that looks at a mix of not only participation and access, but also quality of arts education. We simply just don't want students to have exposure to, we want them to have sequential, high-quality arts education learning opportunities. That's really the crux of what we're getting at. And until we have more information about that and that there is better reporting on this, we're not going to be able to get to universal access. What gets measured gets done, and we have to understand of where we're at. >> That's right. So we need to start measuring the arts in our schools cuz if it gets measured, it gets done. You met some students from LaGuardia High School here. You met some students who I'm sure engaged with their arts. You met an adult here who said that music was was one of the things that got him through high school. So I want to thank you all for your testimony today, and I will call the next panel. Is there here? Naveed Hassan, Yazmin Naji, Aracelis Lucero, John Harriman. Okay, Naveed, why don't you You're the closer. Oh, you're a team. All right, then have at it. You do you do you. Good evening, Chairwoman and members of the Education Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Yazmin Naji. I am the product of New York City public schools, the child of immigrants, and a constituent of New York City's 11th City Council District. And I'm the manager of education policy at the New York Immigration Coalition or NYC. The NYC is a statewide network of more than 200 organizations that support immigrants and refugees across New York State. For more than 30 years, we have worked to expand educational access and opportunity for immigrant students and English language learners. We also convene the Education Collaborative, a coalition of more than 30 organizations working directly with immigrant students, families, and schools across New York City. I'm here today with members of the Education Collaborative who will speak to what they are seeing on the ground in schools and communities across the city. Across those schools and communities, ELLs are a significant and growing part of the student population. In the 2024-2025 school year, more than one in six students in New York City public schools was identified as an ELL. These students are not only a significant part of our school system, they are central to the future of New York City as the next generation of leaders and workers. Immigrant students strengthen our schools every day. They bring languages, perspectives, and experiences that enrich classrooms, and in recent years, newly arrived students have also helped stabilize enrollment across the school system. But right now, there are two challenges we are hearing consistently across our network. The first is safety. Families are increasingly worried about immigration enforcement, and that fear is affecting whether students are showing up to school. The second is access to a high-quality education. Even when students are in the classroom, too many are not receiving the services they are legally entitled to. These challenges are interconnected. Students need to feel safe coming to school, and they need to receive the support they are entitled to once they are there. Our panel today will speak to both of these challenges and the steps the city can take to address them. Thank you. Thank you, Yazmin. So thank you, Chairwoman and members of the Education Committee. Uh my name is John Harriman, and I'm the director of school support for New York at the Internationals Network. And we are proud to work alongside the organizations in the Education Collaborative, New York Immigration Coalition. Internationals Network has 17 schools across New York City and has supported 20 more schools, together serving more than 20,000 students. One of our 17 schools is Ellis on the Kennedy campus, um which is celebrating this week the return of Dilin Contreras Lopez um to school um after a long time in detention. Um Internationals Network is an education nonprofit organization successfully supporting schools to provide immigrant and refugee students with high-quality education and with graduation rates consistently exceeding the city and the state averages. At this time, the students and families we serve are facing an incredibly challenging moment, including difficult and complex decisions, navigating daily routines, and formerly routine immigration appointments, concerns about ICE presence around school perimeters and on common paths both to and from school, and abrupt family separations due to detention and deportation. In a student panel a few weeks ago, students talked about the joy and safety of being in school with their teachers and with their classmates. And in strong contrast to the feeling of fear that they have with the presence of ICE in their communities. As a retired Internationals principal and speaking with other principals, I know these fears and concerns impact emotional well-being, attendance, and ability to focus on classwork, and that the needs of both students and families have shifted dramatically. We're grateful for New York City public school policy on non-local law enforcement, and we're also grateful for the incredible work that the city council members have done to support our schools and our students. Thank you for your consideration and for your continued support for our public schools and also for our newest New Yorkers. Thank you, John. Good afternoon, or now good evening, I think. Thank you to Chair Drommowitz and Soon it'll be morning again. >> [laughter] >> and the education committee for this opportunity to testify on behalf of immigrant children, youth, and families. My name is Araseli's Lucero. I am a public school parent, former New York City public school student, the daughter of immigrant parents, and now the executive director of Masa, a community-based organization in the Bronx that supports Latino and indigenous children, youth, and families to develop as strong learners and leaders so that they can contribute to the broader community. Why and we also offer KYRs in schools for parents and youth. While ELLs comp- um make up close to 17% of the student population based on 2025 data, only 50% 51% of current ELLs are graduating high school in 4 years versus the city average of 81%. We also know that many ELLs are performing well below their grade level in reading and math. Even though data show that multilingual students have the potential to outperform their peers when offered appropriate support. While some programs have While some progress has been made, we know we can do better. Simply put, English language learners are not receiving the required supports they need to thrive. Some ways ELLs aren't being properly supported are that overall schools struggle to provide bilingual or ENL services. Even when they do, English language learners are not receiving the required instructional minutes they are entitled to. Many teachers do not have specialized support or adequate training needed to serve English language learners. Families are often unaware of their children's language service rights and are kept in the dark about what is being done to ensure their children are thriving academically, and language justice continues to be an issue for immigrant families, and many parents aren't aware of their right to receive translation and interpretation services. At Masa, we provide academic and social emotional support to English language learners in grades K through 8 and their parents at our afterschool program. And we've come across parents who aren't even aware that their children are designated ELLs. They are not sure what they can do at home to help their children. And when additional support is available in schools, for example, on a Saturday program, they aren't always clear to parents that this is an option for their children, despite schools reporting to us that all of these programs are meant to be target ELLs as well. Thank you so much. All right, the closer, Naved. [laughter] Uh good evening, Chair Drommowitz, uh Council Member Wong, and uh members of the education committee. Thank you for holding this hearing. My name is Naved Hassan. I am a public school graduate from District 21, uh and English as a second language student back in the 1980s, uh parent to two public school kids in Upper Manhattan, and an elected member for the Panel for Educational Policy, which is the New York City Board of Education. I'm here to close our panel's testimony by translating the challenges my colleagues described into the concrete policy and budget solutions where the council must lead. As you have heard from Yasmine, John, and Araseli's, our immigrant and ELL students face a crisis of both safety and service. When a parent is afraid to take their child to school or a student lacks legally mandated ENL support, the city fails its promise of a sound basic education. To address these gaps, we urge the council to prioritize the following in the fiscal 27 budget. First, we must codify safety through interagency collaboration. Informal DOE policies are insufficient. We need a coordinated approach including the NYPD, MTA, yellow bus vendors, and more to ensure that students are protected while traveling to school, on field trips, and during afterschool activities. We ask the council to enshrine expanded guidance regarding interactions with non-local law enforcement into local law. Chancellor's regulations are not enough. Second, this must be supported by funding for mandatory training. We must ensure that every adult interacting with our students, from principals to bus drivers, knows exactly how to man- maintain a true sanctuary environment. Finally, we must bridge the instructional gap with an $8 million investment. We are calling for the creation of an ELL instructional specialist role. This funding would pilot uh the position in 50 high-need schools, providing specialized pedagogical coaching that our overstretched teachers and immigrant families desperately need. Immigrant students are stabilizing our enrollment and represent the future of our city. That future depends on actions taken in this budget. New York City must ensure students feel safe entering our schools and receive the high-quality education they deserve once inside. Thank you. Very good. Very good timing. Thank you for your testimony. Uh and two things. One, glad to see some Bronx representation here. Very nice. Is Bronx Is Bronx here, by the way, besides in this panel? Okay, we got one. Well, I I see your address on the slip, that's why I knew to say it. But that's I cheated. Uh but I also want to thank you for your work and support for Dylan, who is, as I said, 10 hours ago, uh we are so thrilled that he's returning to school, back uh back with his friends, back in his school community. I know you were part of that. So, thank you so much for your work and leadership um for for him. Thank you. >> Thank you. It's 301 days in in custody. Thank you. It's 301 days too many. Next, I'm going to call on Natasha Bouhossa, Eva Gray, Kyle DeAngelis, and Iman Gad. Is this the next one? Okay. Have you also planned in uh coordinate? No, okay. All right, so I'll start on my right, your left. You may begin. Uh whenever you're ready, state your name for the record, please. For sure. All right, good afternoon, Chair Drommowitz and members of the committee. My name is Iman Gad, and I'm the policy and advocacy manager at Girls for Gender Equity, or GGE. As a small, Black, queer, and immigrant-led nonprofit doing critical racial, gender, and sexuality justice in the context of today's hostile world, the funding we receive is imperative to the development and growth of Black girls and gender-expansive youth youth of color across New York City. Therefore, we sit before you today to request continued support from City Council for our fiscal year 27 youth programming so that GGE may continue to address the educational needs of young people across the city. We also urge you to support the Dignity in Schools campaign's call for a fiscal year 27 budget that fully invests in the public school resources and restorative practices that will protect our most vulnerable communities. Attacks against DI and racial justice work have led foundations to steer away from funding gender and racial justice work. We face a budget deficit, which underscores the urgency of securing multi-year funding and a stronger partnership with City Council to stabilize operations and sustain impact. The Alliance for Gender Equity, or AGE, is requesting $300,000 in the form of a new City Council initiative to sustain this work. AGE is a youth-led space for civic engagement, leadership development, and community building. In November 2025, we held a town hall with over 70 young people from all five boroughs. We heard from them in six priority areas with issues coming up that are of direct interest to this committee. Es- Es- uh Specifically, excuse me, a demand for more holistic, inclusive, and affirming curriculum for youth of color, as well as concerns about safety and discrimination in school policies. GGE is continuing to do the work and expanding our reach despite financial constraints. With that $300,000 to support the AGE initiative, we hope to continue equipping young Black girls, queer and gender-expansive youth to fight for a New York City that is resilient against harmful national forces working against them. We are also requesting $350,000 towards our Young Women's Advisory Council program funded by Young Women's Leadership Development Initiative for political education empowerment, $200,000 towards our Sisters in Strength Survivor program, $100,000 towards our Sports Training program, and $215,000 funding. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Iman. Thank you. Uh good evening, Chair Drommowitz, Council Member Wong. Uh my name is Kyle DeAngelis. I am honored to be testifying here tonight, but I have to say I'm even more honored to be a third-grade teacher at PS/MS 368, the Bilingual School in Harlem. Uh unlike the students that I have the privilege of teaching, it's safe to say that I'm old enough to remember what New York City schools were like way back in 2020 and 2021. Uh in those years, when the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and the racialized police violence converged, a common refrain emerged in the education world, and you can say it with me if you remember it, too. We're not going back. That forward commitment contained boundless promise, the promise that we would not revert to an education system that treats students as numbers on a spreadsheet, but rather we'd build a new system in which trauma-informed care, culturally sustaining practices, and academic excellence would all go hand in hand. Six years later, that commitment has yet to be realized. This council, working in tandem with the Carranza administration, has the opportunity to start rectifying that broken promise. The Dignity in Schools campaign, with whom I'm testifying today, is calling for a number of budgetary investments that would transform our schools into the safe and just schools our students deserve. $80 million to hire school climate coordinators in 500 priority middle and high schools, baseline the remaining $6 million in restorative justice funding set to expire, and increase funding by another $5 million, bringing the total from $17.6 million to $22.6 million, including the addition of $2 million for training and technical assistance, and 3 million to support paid student leadership opportunities in restorative justice. By freezing the hiring for school safety agents, eliminating vacancies, and not backfilling through attrition, the city can save up to $90 million in 1 year to reinvest in these priorities. Additionally, we're calling for the city council to protect immigrant students and families by strengthening preparedness policies, offering comprehensive trainings for NYC PS staff, students, and families, enhancing data privacy, and passing intro 798 to eliminate the NYPD's gang database. And let me say, as a classroom teacher, I'm personally interested in the magic doorbell that makes people stop speaking immediately. Well, it didn't make you stop speaking immediately, so I guess it's not that magic. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. Thanks Kyle. >> [laughter] >> Can you make sure your microphone's on, please? Oh, I'm sorry. There. Thank you, Kyle. Thank you. Always a teacher, always helping out. Look at that. Can't help it. I love it. Hi, my name is Eva Gray, and I'm a special education teacher at a high school in District 17 in Flatbush. I'm here to support Dignity in Schools advocacy for restorative justice funding, funding for immigrant family outreach, and mental health services. I'm also an NYC teaching fellow, and I'm a graduate student at Brooklyn College. New teachers are facing burnout at a massive level, and honestly, uh, experienced teachers as well. The current model of, um, of integrated co-teaching frankly doesn't close the gaps in education faced by students with disabilities. Right now, schools face a chronic, face chronic absenteeism, which often stems from poverty and housing insecurity. We need resources within our schools that support creating welcoming communities for our students, including those with disabilities and those with immigrant backgrounds. Right now, we have one social worker at my school who works at nine different campuses, and we have teachers who are burned out and simply don't have the time bandwidth to support youth with mental health and behavioral challenges that impede learning. Uh, we have an administration that's quick to suspend students and expel them for preventable issues, which are often escalated by police who assume students are violent. Uh, we need schools to create, uh, we need schools to be inviting communities um, that invite students in their classrooms so that they can benefit from the curriculum that the DOE has already invested in, and um and the experience of the amazing educators that are in our schools already, um, and the support staff within, within the building as well. Honestly, uh, we need mental health resources and immigrant outreach, as well as restorative justice, and we to, and we need these programs because, um, the DOE needs needs to retain educators and provide true quality education for all students. Thank you so much. Thank you for your testimony, a fellow New York City teaching fellow, fellow special education teacher. Thank you so much, Eva, Kyle, Iman. Thank you so much for your testimony today. I will now call the next panel of It's It's It's the penmanship. Uh, Vama Nike, Jalynel Betray, Sandra Mitchell, uh, Imani Wilson, uh Charlotte and Charlotte Pope. Okay. Can we start with the Bronx? I know I I Let's start with the Bronx, all right? Bless you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here, honored to be here, because I saw your name on that voting, that voting form, and I checked it. I I filled in the circle. You know what it was. So, thank you for having this space for us to to testify. I am a returning Uh, don't mean to interrupt you. Can you make sure to state your name for the record? I'm sorry. My name is Chaplain Sandra Mitchell, and I'm the chaplain that always has on all the colors. They're like, "We're not wearing that." So, I'm always in trouble. But, um, my name is Chaplain Sandra Mitchell, and I'm from the Boogie Down Bronx, born in Harlem but raised in the Bronx. I was a foreign exchange student from Harlem to the Bronx, and I began teaching at five. My friend from Puerto Puerto Rico to the Bronx, she taught me Spanish, and I taught her English, at five years old. And so, um, I'm here today on behalf of the parent action committee with the New Settlement New Settlement Committee. And, um, I'm here with a lot of communities but uh I love the parent action committee cuz it has given me access to Dignity in Schools to make the road to Yaya, and I've seen them grow up. I will be returning back to college, and I will be the student with the disability. I have it, it doesn't have me. So, I want to see investment for people with disabilities like myself, um, as far as dyslexia is concerned. I don't have dyslexia, but I lost my sight, and now I can see you again. And um I'm just so excited about this panel, about this committee, because I feel in my spirit that you have your eye on the prize, and you're going to make things happen. You're going to fix it in 2026. So, I want to know I want to know how much is going to be allocated for people with disabilities as far as dyslexia is concerned. A lot of my colleagues in in the community and in also politics, they have dyslexia. They're ashamed. They don't want anyone to know. Also, I am a mental health consultant, and also I deal with, um, policy. Just because a person acts a different way doesn't mean that they they should have a label. So, I want to know what policies will you put in in place to make sure that people are not misdiagnosed. I know a lot of people who are, especially college students. They just pull an energy and more kind of stuff, and they just get the label. And it's it's disintegrating to their soul. So, I want to know, is anyone thinking about this? Dyslexia? And also labels of mental health. I want to know that, and I I'm not sure people are thinking about it. They say, "Oh, those people." But, I'm one of those people that was mislabeled, and so I want to say, "We need to make sure that we have the mental health continuum in all schools and also on our jobs, because this life is stressful, and we don't need more stress. So, I have a feeling that you are thinking about it. You might not have written anything about it, but I think you're thinking about it, because mental health should just be like going to get a checkup. So, that's my that's my take for the Bronx. >> [laughter] >> Uh, thank you for your testimony, and I, you know, I'm not sure Well, I do know what other people in New York City think. We all love all of our students, and especially in this council where we're you're fighting, uh, for every dollar and all of the policies and the oversight to make sure all of our students, especially those with disabilities, get the support that they need and deserve. Um, and you used the phrase what other people say is those kids. And you, or those students, those people, and you'll notice I never say that. I say our kids. I say our students, our neighbors, because it is all of our collective responsibility, uh, to support our students and our neighbors, um, so that's that's the values of of me, of this council, and that's behind all of the work we do. So, I I I appreciate that question. Thank you. Can you make sure your your There you go. Uh, thank you, Chairman Dromm, and the Ways and Means members of the committee for the opportunity to provide this testimony today, or tonight. Um, my name is Jalynel Betray, and I'm the policy analyst and compliance specialist at Hispanic Federation, a Latino nonprofit membership organization seeking to advance and empower Latino communities through program and legislative advocacy. As a leader in Latino advocacy, our network has grown to over 780 member and partner organizations nationwide, including 200 located here in New York City. The vastness of our local network has led to the creation of our HF LED Latino Education Advocates Lead Coalition, consisting of leading educational advocacy organizations committed to improving Latinx academic outcomes and opportunities in New York State. A major priority for LEAD is ensuring that the needs of Latino students are met by identifying and supporting effective practices through public policy advocacy, research, and the advancement of a shared educational agenda. Today, in alignment with our mission to advocate for Latino students, we strongly request that the City Council City City Council allocates a total of $5,507,000 in fiscal year 27 for the Latin curriculum initiative, which is building a a a culturally responsive K-12 curriculum that reflects the histories, contributions, and lived experiences of Latina communities in New York City. This upcoming fiscal year marks the third year of the Latin curriculum initiative. Now, more than ever, as Latino students face increasing political and social threats, it is vital to strengthen school experiences for children and youth of all backgrounds by providing interdisciplinary curricular framework that empowers learners of all ages to study, understand, and appreciate the history, culture, and intellectual contributions of Latinx. New York City operates one of the largest and most diverse school systems in the United States. Currently, New York City K-12 public school system serves over 900,000 students with over 40% identifying as having Latin American and/or Caribbean heritage. Within the student population exists a shared sense of Latinidad pride and connection to culture. However, despite the large presence of Latino students in New York City public schools, their diverse histories and leadership and contributions to our city and beyond remain underrepresented in classrooms. If you can finish your last thought, please. >> Okay. To successfully meet the goal of fiscal year 2027, we strongly urge that the council approve the request for $5,507,000 for fiscal year 2027 for Latinidad for the Latinidad curriculum initiative. Not only will this funding be vital in sustaining the implementation of the program, but it will also ensure that every Latino student feels heard and seen in their classrooms. And we thank you for your time and look forward to working with you all to serve Latino students through cultural and equitable initiatives. Thank you for your testimony. Uh our next panelist Madison Pinkney, and Helia Botsaris, Paul Anthony Urbanek, and Lori P. >> [snorts] >> Are you a team that has prearranged your order? Uh can I go first? I can >> You sure can. Okay. Um hello. Nice to see you all all all um thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about the fiscal year 2027 preliminary education budget. My name is AJ Botsaris from Bayside, Queens. I just graduated from Townsend Harris High School, and I attend NYU right now. I'm a former DOE student with a disability, as well as a member of the Youth Council of the Transitional Alliance. I'm here to advocate for an increase in funding for travel training, which helps students with disabilities learn the skills needed to navigate public transit and travel independently. Travel training is currently offered through NYC public schools using one-on-one instruction to teach students with disabilities how to navigate public transit between their homes and schools while building their sense of confidence and agency. I was eligible for bus service via the DOE Office of Pupil Transportation from kindergarten to 12th grade, and between 6th and 12th grade, I was involved in three separate bus accidents. Each time it took upwards of 2 weeks for that service to resume, and in the interim, our ability to attend school was vastly compromised. OPT would consistently fail to answer phone calls, provide parents with incorrect information, habitually arrive late to student homes and school, and make it near impossible for students to attend school in conditions as simple as heavy rain. For students that solely rely on OPT transport, it would be in their best interest to train them for MTA service. Not only will that rectify these situations, but it will provide them with a life skill that will open doors for developing independence. As a student with an individualized education plan myself, as well as generalized anxiety disorder, I was promised travel training services upon admission to high school. However, these promises never came to fruition, and due to my irrational but insurmountable fears of MTA transit, it wasn't until senior year of high school that I independently overcame that fear and was able to ride home myself. I missed out on countless extracurricular activities and was even ridiculed by my peers for my inability to independently travel. Travel training is an invaluable skill for students with disabilities that will improve their experiences in DOE schools and empower them to achieve their goals. I'm calling on the city to invest $2 million into the expansion of travel training to better serve our students with disabilities. Investing in this service will allow them to travel between home and school, internships, and eventually post-secondary education or employment. Ultimately, this is a fantastic way to foster independence, agency, self-advocacy, and determination within our students. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you so much, AJ. I know and I know you have to go, but I do want to thank you, every You can you can go cuz the thank you's for you, and for everyone just to understand that every time a student gets up here and says I have or I had an IEP or I have a disability, it does an incredible service for all those other students who who need help and are either ashamed or afraid to to say something to say what they need and advocate for themselves. So, I want to thank you um for not just your advocacy for the $2 million uh dollars um uh for the program, but but just for getting up here and being an example for other students with IEPs. So, thank you. >> Thank you. I'm very lucky that my mom is educated in uh special education, and I was raised to be proud of myself, so. Thank you. Thank you. Can you make sure you uh that push the green button. There you go. Good evening, Mr. Danoitz. Um and I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak about review about the education budget for the upcoming year. My name is Paul Anthony Urbanek, and I am a former New York City public school student with a disability. I have AST to be specific, and I am a member of the Youth Council for the Transitional Alliance. Today, I'm here to discuss the need to increase funding for travel training, which helps students with disabilities learn the skills needed to navigate public transit and travel independently. Learning how to independently navigate New York City is important for so many reasons. A, it opens possibilities for people. B, it builds a sense of self-worth. C, it saves the city money. And D, sometimes it means a lot more. When I was younger, I would travel around the city with my mother on trains and buses. I loved going around um the city with her. When my mom got sick with a cats with cancer, she would trust me to go to the store alone to buy groceries and to go to church to say her prayers. When I was 18, my mother passed away, and I had no one else. Then I entered the foster care system. At that time, my school became very protective of me, and they didn't think I was ready or in the right condition to to be travel trained. I didn't agree with them, and I felt like I was being cheated, and that my future was being was being delayed against my wishes. It took me more than 4 years for the Department of Education to finally travel train me, even though I continuously asked them to be travel trained. The DOE kept telling me I just need to wait. Again, this was during the pandemic, so they they that was one excuse. All this time, I had to rely on Access-A-Ride to go anywhere, including to my job I had at the time. Anyone who knows knows you can't rely on Access-A-Ride. I would ask myself, if my job believes in me and allows me to complete my work, then the school should believe in me as someone who is capable of using uh the city's transit system. It wasn't until 2022 Thank you. Can you finish your last thought, please? >> Thank you. >> So, eventually, I was travel trained, and I want to say too many students who are taught to who are who are To others, you can read the rest of my testimony. I'm sorry. Okay. You don't have to apologize. Thank you. We'll accept your written testimony. Yeah. There's no need to apologize. Thank you so much for your testimony this evening. Okay. I'll go on to the next panelist, please. Hello, and thank you. My name is Madison Pinkney, and I'm an attorney at Advocates for Children of New York, and I'm here testifying today on behalf of the Transitional Alliance, which is a coalition of more than 20 organizations that are dedicated to improving transition planning for students with disabilities in New York City. I'm here to discuss the need to increase uh funding for travel training, which helps students with disabilities learn how to independently travel, which exponentially expands their post-secondary opportunities while reducing the reliance on the yellow bus school system school service. Um travel training is currently offered primarily through um NYCPS District 75's travel training program, which uses one-on-one instruction to teach students with disabilities how to navigate public transit. However, this program is small, serving only a fraction of the students who need it. Through our work at the Transitional Alliance, uh we've seen firsthand how travel training can change the trajectory of a student's life. Uh I worked with a high school junior who dreamed of becoming a chef, and she was accepted into an after-school vocational program that would give her hands-on kitchen experience, but the program didn't offer transportation, and she had never learned to navigate public transit safely on her own. Uh her parents tried to get travel training, but they couldn't access it, and so they worked tirelessly to travel train them travel train the student herself, um successfully teaching her how to take public transit. Um this wasn't transportation, but because she could get there, she could participate, and because she could participate, she could align um she could get a um future aligned with her goals, but many stu uh parents don't feel equipped to teach these uh skills to their children. Um and while NYCPS offers a range of internships and work-based learning opportunities, most of them don't provide transportation, and without the ability to travel independently, many students with disabilities are effectively shut out. And this is combined with the limited capacity of the travel training program in District 75. And therefore, we're calling on the city to invest $2 million to expand access to travel training so that it can serve more students with disabilities. Investing in travel training will support the independence of these students their ability to travel between home and school, to internships, and ultimately post-secondary education and employment. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much for your testimony. I'm going to call the next panelist Pamela Coke, Allison Garb Garbar G, Avani Naik. And as they're coming up, you know, as the Transitional Alliance uh testified, I just want to update you on Local Law 18 of 2023, a bill that I passed that allows the Department of Education to electronically transmit IEP and assessment data to the college of the student's choice. Um and we've been working with CUNY uh on a memorandum of understanding and by the end of this year uh this school year, they have testified that all students with IEPs going to CUNY that the information will automatically uh be transferred to CUNY. So, CUNY will now have the data necessary to proactively reach out to the students with disabilities, make sure they know what their rights are, what accommodations are available, and ideally use that assessment and IEP data to provide accommodations at the college level. Um so, to all the people working on the transition from high school to from high school to college, I want to first thank you and second remind you that you have an ally in a former special education teacher and someone who has passed legislation to to make that transition easy and a systemically easy, not um just by requiring teachers to check more checkboxes, but by making the systems talk to one another so that our students can get the best education possible and the accommodations that they need and deserve. Um we will go from right to left on this panel. You may begin when ready. Great, cuz I was the opener. Um so, thank you, Chair Denuwitz and Council Member Wong. And I've actually really enjoyed hearing all my fellow New Yorkers talk as well. My name is Pam Koch and I am the faculty director at the Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food Education and Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University. Since FY20, we have had generous support from the City Council for our Food Education Hub. Take a moment and think about the last time that you ate. Maybe you had a meal that nourished you, so you're your best version of yourself and fully present. Or maybe you are hungry with thoughts about food clouding your mind. Maybe you had a quick snack with calories, but few nutrients, so feel foggy. All New York City school students deserve to be well-nourished so they are fully present and ready to learn every school day. Sounds simple? It's not. Many New York City families are stretched thin, limiting their food budget. Federal programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program SNAP are being cut. Many communities have limited access to fresh, whole foods where it is easier to get chips and candy bars than apples and carrots. We eat what's available, hence 2/3 of school-age children's calories are from ultra-processed foods. In the 2022-23 school year, they launched the Chefs Council to create uh school meal recipes that showcase the cultures of New York City with fresh, cooked, plant-forward meals and launched a roadmap for food education. Since then, we have moved into action. Schools received grants for food education, working with our food education coalition members to get students inspired by gardening, cooking, and advocating for food equity and justice. From 2023 to 2025, the Chefs in the Schools program placed 70 chefs in schools, working with kitchen staff and preparing schools. This school year, we have been continuing this and what we need is to keep this momentum going is to continue funding our Food Ed Hub for $250,000, expand food education grants to reach all students, and increase support for school food service members who feed our children. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Uh Chair Denuwitz, members of the Education Committee, good evening. Thank you for your continued support for food and nutrition education across New York City. My name is Val Manayak and I'm a graduate student at Teachers College, Columbia University and also an intern at the Laurie M. Tisch Food Center. Working at the Tisch Food Center in the policy and communication sphere has been one of one of the highlights of my nutrition schooling as it has allowed me to see the possibilities of my future career as a dietitian and nutrition education advocate. I'm thrilled to be here with the Food Ed Coalition and endorsing the key following policy initiatives. First, we implore the Council to expand access to grants for food and nutrition education for New York City public schools. Growing up, I never saw myself South Asian culture represented in the cafeteria food I was served, the lessons plans I was taught, and the books I was assigned to read. And also saw firsthand the quiet and unsettling grip that food insecurity had on my fellow students. We have the opportunity to change this narrative through increasing funding for food education programs and this need is also heightened with the loss of federal SNAP Ed. Increased grant funding for new food and nutrition education is vital to ensure that this important work continues. Second, we call on the Council to invest in school food service workers. A comprehensive review of New York City's food service workforce would help to evaluate career pathways, titles, wages, kitchen staff student ratios, and professional development opportunities. Finally, we urge the Council to strengthen food and nutrition education in NYC by renewing funding to the Food Ed Hub. With this renewed funding, future interns and students like myself can continue to continue to explore careers within policy and education and build meaningful education and connections with the Food Ed Hub's through educators, community advocates, and nonprofit directors who are the heart of making positive change within New York City's food sphere. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you Valma. And thank you, Chefs in Schools. A good got a good program. I visited a a few months ago at PS 95 in my district and the the way the kids they our kids love like good food and it's it's almost a no-brainer and like you know, you were sort of saying in your testimony, our kids love good food. They don't need the ultra-processed stuff. We just provide them the opportunity to experience it themselves. So, I so thank you and thank you for that work. Right. Okay. >> [clears throat] >> Um Chair Denuwitz, members of the Education Committee, thank you for your time and the opportunity to submit this testimony. My name is Allison Garbarini and I'm a research associate at the Tisch Food Center, where a leader in food and nutrition education and school food research. Um since 2019, City Council has funded our Food Ed Hub, which promotes collaboration and resource sharing in the food nutrition education space. The Hub is home to our Food Ed Coalition, a group of more than 300 food nutrition advocates, program leaders, and school community members. Uh we're thrilled to join our coalition in endorsing the following policy initiatives. First, we ask the Council to expand access to grants for food nutrition Ed. New York City provides grants for schools to hire external food nutrition education providers. Our coalition brings these providers together for meetings and provides workshops on research-backed components that can make their programming more likely to inspire positive food choices. Increasing funding for these programs is vital. Only 456 of about 1,800 New York City schools currently receive support. With the loss of federal SNAP Ed, increased funding for food nutrition Ed is more important than ever. Secondly, we call on the Council to invest in school food service workers. Our research findings show that adequate staffing and livable wages are needed to retain school food staff. This support will have positive downstream impacts, improving school meal quality, meal participation, food security, and food nutrition Ed. Finally, we urge the Council to renew funding for the Food Ed Hub. In addition to supporting our coalition, the Hub uplifts food nutrition Ed in many ways. Uh we host impactful events like conferences, community gatherings, and professional development opportunities. For example, on June 1st this year, we'll host with New York City public schools a food nutrition education summit at Teachers College. Uh this will bring together food Ed providers, teachers, and admin from 456 schools with the food Ed grants. We also amplify the voices of food nutrition Ed through our weekly digest, blog, and social media to an audience of nearly 11,000. We operationalize our research and share policy recs, curricula, and online tools that bring food nutrition Ed to life in New York City classrooms. With renewed funding, we'll continue to build community and capacity, facilitating collective action, and advancing health equity and nutrition security for all. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Just beat the buzzer. Very good. Thank you for Now you can breathe. Thank you for your testimony today and for of course for the work that you do. Thank you. Uh our next panel, uh Violet Violet LaHive, Miles Toussaint, Cassie Schorner, Lisbeth Lucero, Luis Safoi, Michelle Kraus, and Megan N. Sorry for the buzzer. It's Maybe you're a doctor. I don't know. Oh. Oh. Did you bring food? It's a trick question cuz I wanted it to be yes, but you're not supposed to have food in here, so it's a trick. Um do you have a secret order that you you collaborated on beforehand? No, okay. I'll start from my right and move on. So, we'll start with you. Good evening, uh Chairman Denuwitz and esteemed Council. My name is Miles Toussaint and I'm a chef with Wellness in the Schools. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today. My role places me inside school kitchens across New York City, where I get I work alongside school food service workers to prepare meals at scale. I see both what is possible and what is challenging within our current system. School meals are one of the largest public nutrition programs in the city and they should be a cornerstone of every child's school experience. Many students For many students, these meals are not supplemental, they are essential. Ensuring their quality and consistency is a matter of both public health and educational opportunity. Delivering high-quality nutritious meals requires more than good intentions. It requires well-supported a well-supported workforce right now. Many school kitchens are operating with limited staff, tight schedules, and insufficient resources. These constraints make it difficult to cook from scratch, introduce fresh ingredients, or consistently meet higher standards for meal quality. Investing in school food services is one of the most effective ways to strengthen this system. Adequate staffing leaves livable wage wages would allow kitchen to operate more efficiently, reduce burnout, and create the conditions needed to improve the food being served. We also recommend a comprehensive review of New York City's food service workforce. This review should examine career pathways, job classifications, wages, kitchen staff to student ratios, and access to professional development. A stronger workforce structure will directly support better outcomes for students. When we build this right system, when the staff are trained, we end up with the greater result and a certainly more positive result. Thank you, Miles. >> [clears throat] >> Good evening, Chair Drommowitz and members of the New York City Council Committee on education. My name is Louisa Foy, and I'm a chef with Wellness in the Schools. Thank you for the opportunity to testify tonight. In my work in New York City public schools, I spend my days not just cooking, but connecting with students. Talking with them about what they're eating, encouraging them to try new foods, and helping them build healthy habits that can last a lifetime. For many of these students, the meals they receive at school are the most consistent source of nourishment in their day. That's why nutritious school meals must be treated as an essential part of a of a child's every of every child's education. When students are well-fed, they are better able to focus, participate, and thrive in the classroom. When they are not, learning becomes that much harder. This is not about food, this is about equity. Every child deserves access to fresh, healthy meals prepared with care, regardless of their background or neighborhood. I've seen how powerful a well-prepared meal can be. When we serve flavorful, culturally relevant foods, students are more willing to engage, try new things, and feel respected. But I've also seen the strain on school kitchens when staffing is limited. When there aren't enough hands, it becomes harder to prepare meals from scratch, harder to connect with students, and harder to delivery deliver the equity that our children deserve. That's why we are calling on Council to invest in school food service workers. These workers are at the heart of the system, yet they are too often under-resourced and underpaid. Adequate staffing and livable wages are critical to ensuring that school kitchens can function effectively and that students receive the meals they need. We also urge a comprehensive review of New York City's food service workforce, including career paths, job titles, wages, kitchen staff to student ratios, and professional development opportunities. Strengthening these systems will allow us to improve meal quality quality, expand food education, and better support students students' health and well-being. >> Thank Thank you, Louisa. Thank you so much for your testimony today. Appreciate it. Good evening. Make He Make sure your microphone's on. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you, Chair Drommowitz, and Council Member Wong, and the Education Committee for this opportunity to speak and for your ongoing commitment to public education. My name is Megan Nordgren, >> [laughter] >> and I'm with New York SunWorks. We are a nonprofit that builds hydroponic farm classrooms in New York City public schools. In our farm classrooms, we use hydroponic technology to educate students and teachers about the science of sustainability and and bring quality STEM education through the lens of urban farming as they grow delicious and nutritious vegetables right in the classroom. We're now partnered with over 350 schools here in the city, reaching 140,000 students, and we are in every single City Council district, very proudly. Two weeks ago, the New York Board of Regents passed new requirements for climate education, ensuring that kindergarten through 12th grade students will learn about the causes, impacts, and solutions to the climate crisis. This requirement will go into effect in the 2027-2028 school year. And as an organization that's been bringing climate education into the public schools for 16 years, we applaud this decisions. Students and teachers statewide overwhelmingly support an increased focus on climate education to achieve a greater understanding of the causes, impacts, and solutions. It is our responsibility to prepare students to confront the challenges of our times, and science is our greatest tool. However, these new climate education requirements currently represent an unfunded mandate. And our schools, many of which are already undergoing major financial strain, you know, are going to be expected to implement new curriculum and train educators without funding. Organizations like ours, New York SunWorks, are uniquely positioned to help bridge this gap. New York SunWorks works directly with the public schools to provide hydroponic classrooms and training. By investing in programs like ours, the city can ensure climate education is not only implemented, but implemented effectively and equitably across all five boroughs. >> Thank you so much for your testimony. Good afternoon, Chair Drommowitz and members of the Education Committee. My name is Violet Hive, and I'm the coordinator of the Coalition for Community School Excellence. We are a network of advocates and nonprofit partners committed to sustaining and strengthening the community school strategy in New York City. New York City's Office of Community Schools, or OCS, now supports 419 schools across the city. Community schools are centered centered on community and family voice, grounded in evidence, responsive to local needs, and built with infrastructure for long-term impact. They are also a cost-effective investment with strong returns for students and families. Despite this growth and success, the system faces ongoing challenges, including instability in federal and state funding, inefficient contracting and procurement systems, and understaffing at OCS. These barriers limit the city's ability to fully realize the potential of the strategy. We urge the city to make to take three key actions. First, expand OCS staffing from 20 to 28 positions, and move forward to a fifth a 15 to one program to manager to program manager to provider ratio. This would strengthen oversight, improve contract timelines, and stabilize provider partnerships. Adding dedicated data analysts would also improve evaluation and accountability. Second, the city should partner with community-based organizations to redesign procurement processes ahead of fiscal year 2028 contract renewals. Streaming contract streamlining contract registration and payment systems will reduce financial strain on providers and allow them to focus on service delivery. Third, the city should expand the community school strategy to additional schools while maintaining fidelity to the model. And finally, city action must be paired with state investment. We urge city leaders to join us in advocating for fully funding and modernizing foundation aid alongside creating a dedicated community schools funding stream. Thank you for your time and commitment to New York City students. All right. Thank you so much for your testimony. Thank you, Violet. Sorry. Good evening. My name is Michelle Crouse, and I am a social worker in the Disability Justice Program at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. Thank you, Chair Drommowitz and members of the Council and to the Education Committee for the opportunity to testify. I will focus on systemic gaps in school-based mental health services for students with disabilities and the urgent need for sustained, transparent, and adequately funded supports. Let me first introduce NL, a 6-year-old Latino student who came home from his District 75 school with unexplained bruises despite having a one-to-one paraprofessional. His school cannot account for the injuries. Since then, he has experienced significant emotional and developmental regression and is afraid to return to school. At the same time, his mother has received conflicted reports about his academic functioning, and her requests for appropriate behavioral support services that previously led to meaningful progress have gone unanswered. This is not an isolated incident. It reflects broader system failures, inconsistent service delivery, lack of accountability, and insufficient access to appropriate mental health and behavioral supports. Currently, between 7,000 and 10,000 students are classified as emotionally disabled in New York City public schools, though need far exceeds this number. Up to 40% of high school students report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. Despite this, the city has not established a comprehensive, adequately resourced continuum of school-based mental health care. Existing investments remain fragmented and time-limited. Students face long wait lists, inconsistent access, and disruptions in care, as we've heard pretty much all day. According to the NYC controller, 71% of schools do not meet the recommended ratio of one social worker per 250 students, and 53% do not meet the recommended recommended ratio for guidance counselors. Um Can you finish that just that last thought? >> Sure, sure. 5 seconds, please. Um in addition to funding caps, there's a lack of transparency and centralized data. The Department of Education does not currently provide clear, accessible information on mental health service availability. >> Thank you. univa unal unalization or outcomes. >> Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your testimony. I I I just got to say I love I love the uh like diversity of causes on this panel, and they're all so important and require critical investment for my city. So, I just want to thank you again. Please continue. Chair and members of the New York City Council on Education Committee, thank you so much for the opportunity to submit this uh public comment. My name is Lisbeth Lucero. I'm the Deputy Director of Advancement and Communication at the Urban Assembly. I'm here to highlight the impact of the Urban Assembly and to express our deep gratitude to the Council for its successful support of Bayside Affinity funding for the fiscal year 2026 budget. In making this funding reoccurring, the city has responded to the voices of students, educators, and communities, and have recognized the essential role that Affinity organizations play in strengthening New York City public schools. This stability allows organizations like ours to plan, innovate, and deliver impact with greater consistency and reach. Across our 23 schools serving nearly 8,000 students, the Urban Assembly advances a model with public education that integrates social emotional learning, post-secondary readiness, and targeted ninth-grade success systems. Together, our family of unscreened public school achieved a 92% average graduation rate this past school year. In addition, the Urban Assembly serves as an innovative hub within New York City public school education ecosystem. By developing, piloting, effective practices across our network, our organization helps drive forward-thinking solutions that benefit not only our schools, but the broader system. The Urban Assembly's approach demonstrates how intentional data-informed systems, combined with whole-child support, can create meaningful, scalable impact. Our work strengthens schools, supports educators, and ensures that students not only graduate, but are prepared for what comes next. I encourage the Council to continue investing in partnering with organizations like the Urban Assembly that deliver proven results for New York City students. Thank you so much for your time and for your continued commitment to educational equity. Thank you, Lisbeth. And say hi to David for me. Good evening. Um thank you, Chair Drommowitz, and thank you to the whole committee. Um my name is Cassie Schwaner. I'm the Executive Director of Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. We are one of DOE's primary partners in delivering restorative practices to New York City's public schools. At Morningside, we work to create healthy school climates and culture, and yes, that means circles, but it means so much more. All of which I think demonstrate the necessary practices that we're urging you to continue. We help schools combat racism, homophobia Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, just to name a few. And as you heard from the young people today, and thank you for being such attentive listeners, um those all seem to be on the rise. We assist parents in developing vital skills in conflict resolution. We set up peer mediation programs at all grade levels. We train hundreds of teachers in tier one. We work with D75 schools, where we have seen nonverbal kids participate in circle practice. Truly amazing. I could continue this list, but the point I want to leave you with tonight is this. We are living through a catastrophic time in our city, in our country, and our world's history. Our SEL needs and emotional and mental health needs are absolutely overwhelming right now. Not only for the families terrified by ICE, but all the unhoused families whose children whose children go to our schools, and also the families of trans kids, also the littles who will be diagnosed at some point as being on the autism spectrum or having ADHD, but right now don't have a name or remedy for the shame that they experience in their classroom. The neuroscience is clear. Our brains are hardwired for connection. It's a fundamental base layer of safety from which we are capable of growth and learning. We need to be in relationship, but we often don't know how. When students connect, they feel safe. They have a voice. They're seen, and we know that we can relax the amygdala's flight or fight response. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for bringing brain science into it. >> Absolutely. And you'll see more of it in my res- written testimony. >> I I can't I can't wait. You just They gave me a little PTSD of grad school. >> [laughter] >> You can handle it. >> uh you're right. It was fine. Thank you so much to this this panel uh for your testimony. I'm going to call the next panel, Morgan Little, Paul McKenney, Assenat Gomez, Virgin Virginia Johnson, Michael Extract, Lauren Brazier. Okay, is there any more? On deck. All right. Adriana Aviles, Ellen McCue, Adela Rami- Adela Ramirez, Barbara M, your address is unknown. You wrote unknown address, if that's helpful. Uh and Elijah Nishura. All right. Well, let's let's do another. Okay, Rima Izquierdo, Lupe Hernandez, Chinedu Obiofuma, um Naya Berg, and Dr. Brenda Triplett. That was the Price Is Right music, by the way. Case anyone missed the reference. Thank you. >> [laughter] >> Appreciate it. I know, they're not jumping the shark. Whoever says $1 first, by the way, you have can have the gavel. Let's do this. It'll start on the right, and we'll go down my right, your left, and we'll go all the way down. Okay. Hello, and thank you. My name is Ginny Obiofuma. I'm the Special Education Policy Manager at Advocates for Children of New York, and I'm speaking today on behalf of the ARISE Coalition, which I coordinate. ARISE comprises parents, teachers, academics, advocates, and allies who've worked since 2008 to advocate for systemic solutions to challenges faced by New York City public school students with disabilities and their families. Those challenges are numerous, and the city must make the investments needed to provide every student with a special education evaluations, services, and programs they have a legal right to receive. But I want to use this time to discuss the particular challenges posed by the lack of school buildings that are accessible to students, families, educators, and community members with physical disabilities. Today, more than 35 years since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, only about a third of New York City public schools are fully accessible. When schools are inaccessible, students often have have to travel long distances to receive their education and miss out on opportunities to build formative relationships with students in their own communities. Inaccessible schools also raise employment challenges for educators and staff with physical disabilities, while limiting opportunities for relatives and community members with physical disabilities to attend important gatherings like PTA meetings or school plays. 5 years ago, the situation was much worse, with fewer than one in five schools fully accessible. So, we are encouraged by the city's progress with the funding allocated to school accessibility. However, the $800 million in the 2025 to 2029 capital plan is insufficient, given that New York City public schools itself estimated that at this pace, it would take 10 five-year capital plans to reach full accessibility. Conversely, $1.5 billion in sustained funding for school accessibility would enable us to achieve this in half that time. We are asking for the city to allocate at least an additional $450 million in the 2025 to 2029 capital plan for school accessibility projects, bringing the total investment in the current capital plan to $1.25 billion. With that money, the city can make an estimated 45% of New York City public schools fully accessible by the end of the current plan, and come that much closer to realizing the promise of the ADA. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Obias for that. And I do want to thank you actually for also distinguishing and articulating physical disabilities cuz disabilities can look like a lot of different things. So, I just want to thank you for articulating physical disabilities and clarifying that. Thank you. Thank you. Uh thank you, Committee Chair Just move the microphone a little bit closer. Move the mic closer. Don't you You don't have to move your head closer, yeah. They Yeah, move the whole thing, yeah. >> [laughter] >> Um thank you, Committee Chair Drommowitz, for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City or BBBS of NYC. My name is Lauren Brazer and I'm the director of the Workplace Mentoring Program. I'm here today to advocate on behalf of the thousands of young people that we serve across all five boroughs and to request that City Council support our organization's enhanced request of $1.33 million, an ask we are making in direct response to losing critical federal funding. We are additionally submitting a $90,000 Speakers Initiative request to increase recruitment of volunteers in Queens. Uh recent research from Harvard University and the US Department of Treasury revealed that BBBS mentoring model closes the socioeconomic gap by 2/3 among the most powerful interventions documented for breaking cycles of poverty. BBBS mentees are 20% more likely to enroll in college and experience a 15% increase in their lifetime earnings when compared to their non-mentored peers. I oversee the Workplace Mentoring Program, which matches high school students with corporate volunteers to prepare them for post-secondary success. And every day I get to see special moments like big supporting their littles to update their resumes, prepare college applications, or practice for a job interview. I've seen so many moments when a student's eyes light up and they finally feel excited and hopeful for the future again. And they get they're with the help of their mentors and the impact shows up in the classroom. Our school partners tell us what a difference our program makes sharing that the seniors in our program regularly outperform their peers in areas of college and career readiness. I feel lucky to work at BBBS of NYC where I get to be a part of making these impacts. I did not have a mentor in high school and like many of my peers, I took on crippling financial debt to afford my education and looking for funding from you all to continue that so young New Yorkers don't have to make that choice. Thank you. Thank you. So, and you're and you articulated something more important than any test scores like that change in a child's face if the face lighting up and smiling. So, thank you for sharing that. My turn? If you wish. Sure. Thank you, Chair Drommowitz. You waited this long, you might as well start [laughter] talking. I certainly did. I was actually going to say I really admire your stamina and the whole the whole group here. Um Anyway, good evening. My name is Michael Exton. I'm a co-president of the Parents Association of the Clinton School, Manhattan's District 2. I want to start by acknowledging that many schools and students in the city face far greater challenges than ours. I've seen many of them today. Um I'm speaking today because even a well-functioning in-demand school like Clinton cannot meet the class size mandate under the current conditions. At Clinton, many classes have as many as 34 students. The school's explored every option reconfiguring space, adding classrooms, adjusting schedules, but the conclusion is clear without reducing enrollment or adding significant new space, compliance isn't possible. So, we need to be honest about the tradeoffs. There are only a few viable paths, reducing enrollment at overcapacity schools or expanding to additional space. I understand that reducing seats at popular schools is very controversial. Um but if we're serious about smaller class sizes and about equity, we can't maintain the status quo and expect different results. There's also a critical structural issue. School funding is tied to enrollment. If you reduce the number of students without adjusting funding, you're asking schools to do more with less. That's also a setup for failure. And this matters for students. Overly large classes make it harder to attract and retain excellent teachers and harder to meet the needs of students across a wide range of learning levels and abilities. Uh The range That range is a strength, but in large classes, it makes truly differentiated instruction much more difficult. Uh if the DOE is committed to equity, it must align class size goals with enrollment, space, and funding. I agree I'm I'm sorry. I urge the Council to require school level implementation plan that does exactly that. If we want smaller classes, we have to make the structural decisions that allow them to exist. Otherwise, we're setting setting schools up to fail at a goal that we've set for them and ourselves. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Hi. Hi. Can Good evening. Thank you. Thank you to Chair Drommowitz and members of the Education Committee for the opportunity to submit this testimony this evening. My name is Dr. Brenda Triplett. I'm the Senior Educational Director um for educational um achievement and partnerships at Children's Aid, um one of the largest child welfare agencies in New York City. Um I am a retired public school administrator with nearly 35 years of service to children and families. And now, I work to improve outcomes for approximately 500 school-aged youth in foster care across New York City, predominantly in the Bronx. Um I would I would like to recognize the progress made to prioritize the educational rights of youth in foster care, a long-fought victory by advocates across the city. However, there's still a significant gap in providing adequate guaranteed transportation to youth in foster care waiting in OPT bus route. This is my seventh year raising the issue in this seat before this committee. I don't have a lot more time, guys. Today, I would like to focus on youth in foster care with multiple disabilities and special needs. Many of these high acuity acuity children wait for weeks and even months for adequate school transportation. And in the meantime, many are placed in private cars driven and/or chaperoned by child welfare staff who are who are not appropriately trained for this responsibility. Recently, I co- I served as a co-chap- chaperone for first-grade student, Abby, on her commute from Queens to her foster home in the Bronx. Abby's nonverbal. She has multiple disabilities including hydrocephalus and severe dermatitis. I witnessed staff struggle to safely May I continue? Just finish your last thought, please, doctor. Sure. Changing her school was not an option as there were no openings in District 75 school. In partnership with Advocates for Children of New York, I urge the city to include $3 million to guarantee reliable, appropriate, safe bus transportation to students in foster care, especially prioritizing those students with the highest needs. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Triplett. All right, one of the other guys with the book recommendation from earlier. Yes. Thank you, everyone. New York City needs money. Can Can you make sure you state your name for the record, sir? Idella Ramirez. There you go. New York City needs money, but raising property taxes is not a solution. I agree with Council Member Wong, we should be cutting unnecessary spending, but not placing more bur- uh but not pers- uh not placing more burden on working families. The real solution is prevention and prevention starts with financial literacy. There is no salary big enough if we don't know how to manage money. When we teach financial skills throughout middle and high schools, we build habits early. By adulthood, students are prepared for the real world. Right now, most are financially literate and that's why they don't understand how their parents sort of complain. Taxing billionaires isn't the answer either. We should be learning from them and they and inviting them to be role models so our youth don't grow up dependent on government support. I'm living proof of what financial education can do. In 2011, the SBA under Mayor Bloomberg reached out to me. I told them I needed to learn financials because I had a business with no structures. Within a week, they sent me to Lehman College in the Bronx where Mrs. Lerda Martinez taught me financials and Excel. That changed my life and that's when I became an author creating a workbook. Once I implemented financial systems in my business, I found my why. I asked myself, why schools never taught me this? We spend about 1.4 million per year for every teen who ends up in detention. My financial literacy workbook would cost the the DOE about $16 million to implement citywide. If we prevent just eight kids from entering the systems in the first year, the program pays for itself. And if we need help with the initial cost, that's where we can invite billionaires to contribute. I am also reaching out to Mrs. Oprah Winfrey to explore implementing my workbook in her school in South Africa because financial literacy shouldn't Just finish that last sentence. Okay. >> Financial literacy shouldn't >> shouldn't stop uh should follow every child in the world. >> Thank you so much. Thank you very much. All right. >> Hi, how are you? >> Hi. My name is Adriana Aviles. And I am what is considered by the DOE a parent leader. I'm sorry. Good evening, members of the education committee. Thank you so much for having us long. It's first time here. This is really long day, but um I am considered by the DOE a parent leader as Mr. Wong knows. What does that term mean? I have been involved in countless parent organizations ever since my daughter was uh in kindergarten and now she's a freshman at Savannah College of Art and Design. I can go through the alphabet soup in the DOE. There [snorts] are countless and I'm currently in my first year within the citywide Council of High Schools and in my last year as a president of District 26 Presidents' Council. Most of these I've been elected to serve and I'm still very involved locally in my son's two schools, one in high school, the other in middle school. And additionally, I am involved citywide as well. I have [snorts] three children. My daughter, the art student. My son in high school is somewhat about academics and our current eighth grader is a sports kid. Today I come to you as a parent who has experienced many failures as well as successes of the DOE. And to sound the alarm. I come to to sound the alarm and to plead for your collaboration support and accountability. It's not going to cost any money here. When it comes to the DOE and their plunge into the deep waters of AI without giving to our children safety flotation devices. And this comes on the helm of the new high school called Next Generation Technology High School. Our daughter, I'm going to tell you our story. Our daughter was a junior in high school when I did realize the devastating impact of chat GPT AI. As a child suffering from the impact of COVID and to her social socialization, she did take comfort in the virtual spaces for friendship. These same spaces gave her a false comfort. She did form an abusive relationship with an AI character which made her feel less and demoralized her to the point where she did suffer emotionally. There's nothing like getting that phone call from the school that your child wanted to self-harm and she was taken via ambulance to the hospital psychiatric emergency room. This has been our journey and I plead as a parent to please demand transparency as well as safety plans put in place from the DOE in regards to AI. Thank you very much. Adriana, thank you and thank you for sharing such a a personal story uh with with our city. Thank you. Good evening. >> No pressure, but I think you're the last one. Great. I would like [snorts] to thank you Unless [laughter] in person. I think we have some Zoom, but like uh no pressure. Go go ahead. We'll see We'll see what you got. Wonderful. Uh thank you for allowing me testimony and for listening to all of us. It's 8:09. Um my name is Nyberg. I'm the executive director of New York Appleseed. Uh I am submitting testimony on behalf of the Integration Coalition, which is a coalition that we convene to address school segregation and advance integration. I'm here today to call attention to a critical gap in the proposed education budget, the lack of dedicated investments to advance school integration and inclusion. Specifically, we are calling for a baseline funding of 2 million annually beginning in fiscal year 2027 and continuing for 3 years to support implementation of laws passed by the Council in 2019 that bolstered integration planning and initiatives. There is a track record of success for diversity planning initiatives that had access to state or city funding to support community engagement, planning, implementation. Examples such as Arts and Letters 305 United, District 13's larger diversity efforts, District 15 diversity plan have demonstrated what is possible when communities work intentionally towards integration, and what is possible when they have the funding to do so. And all those examples, school districts that either received or some type of state funding awarded in 2019 or some type of state funding and both those funding streams have since expired. The City Council has historically been a crucial partner in advancing integration. They passed the School Diversity Accountability Act in 2015. And uh tied to my ask is the 2019 two local laws 224 and 225. One established the permanent School Diversity Advisory Working Group that would hold annual hearings and report on its recommendations. And the other was that so that every school district was allowed a city diversity working group. Uh with the mayor and chancellor expressing willingness and understanding to support remedies for historic school segregation, a 2 million annual investment is a modest but essential step to operationalize these laws, uh turning existing mandates and data into real community driven plans and programming across the system. In addition to our call for funding, I'll just really quick uplift what's already been said. We also believe that uh schools are not only should be integrated but also inclusive. So we echo the ask for the additional 450 million um for school accessibility projects in the capital plan. Thank you for your time. And I have uh our written statements here that I can give >> Thank you so much for your testimony. Thank you to this final panel for your late night testimony. You all did great. Uh this concludes the in-person portion of our public testimony. We will now move to remote testimony. If you are testifying remotely, please listen for your name to be called. Once your name is called, a member of our staff will unmute you. You may then start your testimony once the sergeant-at-arms sets the clock and cues you to begin. Phoebe Assenza, you may begin once you are unmuted and the sergeant cues you. You may begin. Uh good evening. I'm Phoebe Assenza. I'm a parent at PS 889 in Brooklyn, which is located in DOE District 22. Um here today because our school's class size reduction efforts are being undermined by DOE enrollment decisions. Um by denying our school's request to cut our pre-K program by one section and reducing our kindergarten classes from three sections to two, the DOE is maintaining an overcrowding problem that our school and our parent community are trying to fix. Right now, our second graders are on track to be placed in two classes of approximately 33 students each next year. Um in order to comply with the law, our principal and our superintendent, our local superintendent, have asked the DOE's enrollment office for relief. Instead, we were assigned three kindergarten sections of 25 students each when our building can really only physically support about two sections of 20. Uh so I want to be direct with this committee. We need you to press the DOE to align enrollment decisions with class size law requirements. Schools should not be forced to make a choice between manageable class sizes and space for enrichment. And local superintendents should not be powerless to cap intake at schools that are already over capacity. We know smaller classes are fundamentally and objectively good for students, they're good for teachers. Our school has done everything it can to accommodate the mandate only to be denied funding for new teachers, new construction, and enrollment caps. So this has caused families to leave our school and our district, our local district. Um for families of neurodivergent kids in particular, uh for which a classroom of 33 students, even if it's an ICT classroom, it's still anathema to their educational needs. And the overcrowded classrooms have driven some families to pursue private school instead of engaging with the public system. Uh so I'm asking this committee to use its budget authority to attach real conditions. No new DOE dollars without enrollment accountability. And >> Thank you for your testimony. Time has expired. for every overcrowded school in the city. Thank you for the time. Thank you so much. And as a reminder to everyone on Zoom, the the sergeant will call time. Um but additional testimony can be uh submitted a written testimony can be submitted online. Uh the next person I'll call is Roe Ford. You may begin. Hi, good evening. Hi, good evening. I'm at PS 889 in Brooklyn, New York in District 22, one of the three worst districts in the city for class size compliance. I want to take you on a tour tonight of my kids' school where 53% of the kids are in economic need. So it's been a long hearing. I've been on since 9:30. I know you've all been in the room since then, but I'd ask you to imagine tonight being 7 years old trying to focus at 2:00 p.m. when your lunch ended more than 4 hours ago cuz your school is so overcrowded that your lunch starts at 10:00 in the morning. Imagine being 5 years old in kindergarten in a class so crowded over the legal limit being told it's acceptable. We learned today it's acceptable because a new school is in the capital plan. And that school won't open till you're in middle school. Imagine being a teacher with 33 kids in front of you. For perspective, that is more than all the city council members that came in attendance throughout the day today, all the DOE, and all the SCA staff on the dais combined. These are actual examples from my kids, their teachers, and at their at their school. And while few people mentioned today that the chairs there at the dais in City Hall were uncomfortable, at PS 889 students take music in a room with no furniture because of overcrowding. There's no space for it. Next year, unless something changes now, third grade is projected to have two classes of 33 kids each. DOE is requiring the school to admit 20% more kids than the school has seats for. Because this is a budget hearing, I'm asking the council to press DOE on a basic question, using our school as a case study. How can DOE deny our school's request for class size funding? $0 granted because of a lack of physical space, but at the same time insist that we continue to accept far more children than our school has seats and rooms for. Our principal and superintendent both requested to reduce enrollment for the next school year based on the building's physical limits, but someone at DOE denied it. And DOE also had a class size webinar and asked parents citywide to submit feedback on class size. Many of us did. We never received even an acknowledgement of our messages. We emailed, we followed up. I even wrote to the chancellor directly, no response. So, Chair Drommowitz, I want to ask you I want >> Thank you for your testimony, time has expired. I want to ask you this directly, who is responsible for making these two completely contrary um uh things at DOE? Surely there's a middle ground that we can demand now before releasing another dollar to DOE. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you so much. Uh Janice Wyman, you may begin. Thank you, Chair Drommowitz and the members of the committee, um for this opportunity to testify at today's um preliminary budget hearing. I'm Janice Wyman Shorenstein, the chief executive officer of the Education Through Music. For the past 34 years, Education Through Music has made high-quality in-school music education a reality for 350,000 children who would otherwise have a limited or no exposure to the arts. We do this by partnering with under-resourced schools in New York City to create a comprehensive, high-quality, and sequential music program that serves as a core subject and reflects the needs of children. We also hire high-quality music teachers and place them at a fraction of the cost that a school would normally have to pay. We are currently in 51 Title I schools. 95% of ETM students are students of color, 23% have special needs, and 85% are living below the poverty line. The benefits of music education are undeniable and far-reaching. Research evaluations and our schools' partners' testimony continue to demonstrate that music supports children's cognitive, social, and emotional development in robust and certainly incredible ways, and we do have data. We have collected data, and we have found that students who have uh take music education do far better in language arts, English language arts, and in mathematics, as well as in attendance, than students from comparable backgrounds and in comparable schools. Beyond these general benefits, music has shown to play a critical role in helping migrants, and we do serve migrants as well, and students from low-income backgrounds feel a greater sense of belonging in schools and increasing their engagement and overall well-being. Uh thank you so very much for partnering with us in the opportunity to testify today. We thank you for the support you have given us in the past, and we look forward to your continued support in the future. Thank you, and I have seen your pro- First of all, congratulations on your new position, and I have seen uh the work of your program at PS 103, and and what what our kids are doing there is just uh incredible, incredibly moving. Um I see the I see the parents in the audience when I attend are incredibly moved as well. So, your your your your organization's doing wonderful work for our children. So, thank you for that. Thank you. Um our next witness Our next uh person to testify is Benjamin Tucker. You may begin. Good evening. My name is Ben Tucker. Thank you to Chair Drommowitz and the City Council Education Committee for allowing me the opportunity to testify at this hearing tonight. I'm here representing Graham Windham. We've been providing support and services to children and families in New York City for 220 years. I'm sharing testimony tonight on behalf of my colleague, Dawn Grant, who is the supervisor of education services at Graham. As an agency representative of Graham, I know how important it is for students to have reliable school transportation starting as soon as they are placed in foster care or when they switch placements. For students in care, being able to stay at their home school can be a critical source of stability during a very difficult and traumatic time for them. State and federal law recognize the importance of this stability by requiring New York City public school districts to provide transportation. However, it could take weeks or months for this transportation to be arranged. There's a few examples demonstrating why the city must provide interim transportation for students in foster care who are still awaiting bus services. We have foster parents who face repercussions at work because they are busy escorting students to and from school. There's agency staff that are kept from doing other important work because they're spending 4 hours or more every day arranging transportation for foster care students. Students are often unable to use the ride share unless they have a chaperone available to them. And so, some of the feasible solutions that we're suggesting is the city contracting with transportation providers that are already using vetted drivers, um such as KidCar, who operates in New York City and doesn't require additional chaperones, using ACS or other city agency-owned vehicles uh that include escorts, uh which is what's done for children in the children's center, um creating a dedicated interim transportation services for those students who are awaiting their bussing services, hiring chaperones, or reimbursing the parents, the staff, and the chaperones who are stepping up to fill the gap. There's much more that the city could be doing to support students in foster care, and we ask the city invest $3 million to provide interim transportation uh for students in foster care who are awaiting bus service. Thank you very much. Thank you, and thank you for timing it perfectly. Uh our next panelist, Tanisha Grant. You may begin. Good evening, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Tanisha Grant, and I am the founder and executive director of Parents Supporting Parents New York, a Black woman-led organization built by parents for parents. We are proud to stand as a member organization of the Coalition for Equitable Education Funding and support their funding recommendations. Let me be clear, PSPNY is not theoretical. We are on the ground every single day doing the work this system has failed to do. We are educating Black parents. We are organizing Black families. We are helping our community understand how to navigate a system that was never designed with us in mind. I know what it feels like to be unseen in classrooms that lack care and cultural understanding, especially as a former foster care child. Um and when I became a parent at 18, I realized that this system didn't just fail children, it failed it abandoned parents too. So, we built something different. Not just a seat at the table, we built our own table. And now I'm here to say your budget must catch up to the reality we are living and and the anti-Blackness we are dealing with. First, fund parent empowerment like it actually matter matters. Black parents are still being left in the dark about Title I funding, school leadership teams, parent advisory councils, and CECs, and then blamed for not being engaged. Let's be honest, this is not a parent problem, this is a funding and access problem. If you are serious about equity, then invest in parent leadership, grassroots organizations, and real culturally responsive outreach. Back up because of PSPNY, we we are already doing the things without the resources. Second, stop playing with the Black Studies curriculum. Fund it fully, implement it properly. Our children deserve to see themselves in their education every single day, not just during February. And if teachers are not trained and schools are not held accountable, then it is just another empty promise. Third, our children deserve dignified learning environments, not buildings that exclude them. We need fully ADA accessible schools and sensory-friendly stand-alone spaces for students with autism. And I'll send in the rest. Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much, Tanisha, for your testimony. Our next panelist is Diana Diaz. You may begin. Thank you, Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to present testimony today. My name is Diana Diaz, and I am the director of the Early Care and Education Institute for the Committee for Spanish Children and Families. Our team supports child care and early learning programs [clears throat] and family access to child care birth through school age in our work as a child care resource and referral agency and as a family child care network. As the state and the city leaders are making historic commitments to address the child care crisis for families, we want to to take the time to ensure that systems are developed in a way that sustains the existing quality care programs and builds towards the equitable thrive system that can truly deliver the promises being made. CHCF continues to hold concerns about equitable incorporation of family child care programs, both affiliated and independent, in New York City child care system design. This modality of care is a necessity delivered deliver to K and ultimately realize universal child care. I will refer to our full testimony for further details on what we are seeing, but a few points I would like to raise here today. As a result of 3K and 4K planning that that largely fell in meaningful incorporate FCC, it is estimated that over 13,000 FCC programs closed between 2014 and 2019. Mostly female personal color of color and immigrant led sector has been willfully held to some of the lowest wages across all occupations in the state. This includes 20% of affiliated providers and 80% who remain independent. A recent New School report found that current media take-home pay for family daycare providers in New York City is over 19,000 and roughly 15,400 for group family. When accounting in their additional hours worked by providers, the median hourly rate for family daycare providers is $4.81. In group family providers >> Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony. Uh Janelle Barth, you may begin. Hi, thank you so much, Council members. I am a parent to a current second grade student at PS 8 89 in District 22 in Brooklyn. I'm concerned about class sizes at my child's school. As of right now, our three second grade classes will be consolidated into two classes of 33 students each next year. In order to get closer to compliance with the class size law, both our principal and superintendent asked the office of enrollment for relief by capping kindergarten enrollment to two sections instead of three. Instead, we were assigned three kindergarten sections, each with 25 students when our building can only support two sections of 20. When we advocate for our children, we are met with platitudes about our excellent teachers being able to rise to the occasion or promises of future actions with no clarity on how and when they will be executed. Meanwhile, prime real estate lots across our district are scooped up for a luxury apartment development, which will only exacerbate over-enrollment problems within our schools. The DOE continues to do little to create space for the hundreds of overcrowded schools like our own. While the DOE and SCA continue to argue about who is at fault, our children lose out on the rich educational experiences and personal attention they would receive with smaller class sizes. There's clearly no concrete plan or timeline to ensure all of our children benefit from reduced class size. We need solutions that move forward from good intentions to action. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Next is Tamika Mapp. You may begin. Okay, Janelle, I'm sorry. Uh Tamika will come back to you. Jenny Valdez, you may begin. I just got a message that they can't hear Chambers. >> Okay, one moment, please. Please unmute the Chambers, please. All right. Tamika Mapp, let's try this again. Tamika >> All right, thank you so much, um Chair. Hi, my name is Tamika Mapp. I'm a district leader for the 68th Assembly District for part D and a parent. I'm here to speak about on the Respect Check, a living wage for paraprofessionals, and the reality families are facing with 2K and 3K. Respect Check is a step in the right direction. Acknowledge that paraprofessionals who support our most valuable children every day are underpaid and overworked. But let's be clear, our check is not a living wage. We need a permanent pay that reflects their value. At the same time, the city made a major shift. We moved children out of the family child care programs, but we did not move the support systems with them. Working parents once relied on these providers for before and after school care. Now, families are left scrambling, programs aren't fully prepared, and the very providers who are holding our community together are being pushed out without fair pay. We did replace the system, we created a gap. So, I'm asking for real solutions, pay paraprofessionals a living wage, restore before and after school care for 2K and 3K, and invest in family child care providers like the essential workforce they are. Because you cannot build a strong education systems on the backs of unpaid workers, and you cannot support children if you fail the people who care for them. And I submit my testimony for the rest of it. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Tamika. Next is Jenny Valdez. You may begin. Thank you and good evening. So, my testimony is going to focus on early care and education. So, new funding from city and state to strengthen 3K and pilot 2K programs offer an enormous opportunity to reach more families with the care they need. As New York advances its path towards universal child care, we urge city leaders to continue using data on child and family need, particularly those with the greatest need of early care, to inform how the city delivers and expands its ECE services. It is critical to approach a path to universal child care with a focus on those most marginalized by our existing system, including children with disabilities, immigrant families, and families experiencing housing instability or homelessness. We are grateful that the FY27 preliminary budget baselines 70 million for preschool special education services, evaluations, and staffing. This will be critical for reducing wait lists for services, which are currently in violation of the legal rights of children with disabilities. However, several key ECE initiatives from last year's budget have not been restored, and we urge the city and administration to restore and baseline $5 million for ECE outreach, as well as 10 million for the infant and toddler child care pilot, expanding child care access to families with children 0 to 2 in high-need neighborhoods. Securing a path to universality also requires the city to commit to essential systems reforms, including pay parity for ECE work, continuing to convert school day school year seats to extended day year-round ECE seats, and ensuring that family child care workforce is fully integrated and equitably compensated in any expansion efforts. Additionally, we join our partners in the Campaign for Equitable Education Funding in urging restorations for Learning to Work, for the SEED program, restorative justice, immigrant family communications and outreach, the mental health continuum, and student success centers. So, thank you for the opportunity to testify tonight. Thank you for your testimony. Uh Glendelis Valdez, you may begin. Good evening, Chair Dilan Wit and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity for today. My name is Glendelis Valdez, and I am the coordinator of youth services for the Committee for Hispanic Children and Families, and we work in close partnership with our schools, delivering wrap-around services through and beyond our school-based programs. CHCF demonstrates the value to add of connecting community-based partners with schools to comprehensively meet the unique needs of the students and their families. CBOs like CSCM strategically coordinate the funding and resources outside of the school budgets to serve the holistic needs of the students, the school, and the surrounding community. We thank the city for their efforts to baseline impactful programs for children and youth such as community schools, arts programming, the high-impact tutoring. However, the fiscal year 26 budget still left several programs vulnerable by extending and not baselining their funds. We call on the on the council to adopt Mayoral Mondani's proposed extension and baseline for summer programming and to restore and baseline for the following programs that are at risk of being rolled back or eliminated as of July 1st. Programs like learning to work, C program, restorative justice, mental health continuum, immigrant family, um communications and outreach, uh and also student success centers. Thank you for Thank you all for your time and have a great evening. Thank you for your testimony. Next, Lupe Hernandez. You may begin. Good evening. Thank you, Chair Drommowitz and the committee members that are still there. My name is Lupe Hernandez. She/her/eya pronouns. I am a New York City public school parent here talking in my own personal capacity, although I have held many roles as many others have spoke on the dais today as a parent leader. One of many of the things that I wanted to speak about today has been raised by the students and I just want to empower many of their voices. But as a parent of a student with disability, I want to raise the need for the respect for para check. I also want to raise as a as a member of the transportation for our students in temporary housing and foster care, uh the $3 million that's needed for interim transportation for those that are still in foster care. I also believe that the students spoke very highly about the Omni expansion and as a student of um as a parent of a student who rides the school bus, we also need to increase the funding for travel training. The Omni expansion um could be able to reduce some of the bus services, but it also should not be a either/or, meaning our students should be able to train and do the travel training program as well as still having their bus service as a backup. In order for our students to have access to all of our school buildings, we need to get the $450 million needed for accessibility capital plan. Less than 1/3 of our public schools are accessible and that is just not equitable. I would like to also lean in on what our partners are asking in regards to restoring and baselining the funding for learning to work programs. This provides the support for overage, under-credited students to help them earn a high school diploma and even develop a post-secondary plan. And that also really helps our students >> Time has expired. Thank you very much and I will submit the rest in written testimony. Have a good evening. Have a good evening, too. Thank you so much for your testimony. If there's anyone else present in the room who has not had the opportunity to testify but wishes to do so, please raise your hand or your virtual hand. Seeing no hands, I would like to note again that the members of the public can submit written testimony to testimony@council.nyc.gov within 72 hours of this hearing. Um I I I want to give a big thank you to the the sergeants who've been here for uh 11-plus hours, to to Grace, to Alejandro, to Andrew, to Theo, to Katie, to Aliya, and to Council Member Wong for sticking it out all the way till the end and for all your support and work. W- Yeah, Council Member Wong, that's right. Um there is clearly uh a lot of work to do in ensuring our city's education budget is meeting the needs of our students, is supporting the work of our students, and is transparent and accountable to us in the council and to us in New York City to make sure those dollars are going to where they need to go and that is directly to supporting our students. So, I want to thank you all again and with that, this hearing is adjourned.