Council Member Brewer Questions English Language Learner Programs

The young people I know just got jobs as security officers.

Very exciting, big deal, better than delivering, safer, etc.

From their perspective, more steady.

Second question is everybody has to learn English if you want to get a job.

Some of them are learning it from YouTube.

That seems to be a way.

But the adult literacy, can you bring us up to date on um cuts where you're looking?

Um obviously the feds have been very unfortunately uh cutting, and I think this is as important as all the other topics that we've been talking about today.

Yeah, I can start.

Um I don't have the in regards to just overall cuts, we don't have that, but we are happy to say that um via the Moya English Language and Learning Support Centers, um, we have added um and have extended and baseline funding for the for our English language support centers at 500k per library system.

We do have uh what we call We Speak, which is uh which is a a way for folks who might not be ready to join an adult literacy class, might be a bit too shy to speak out or speak openly and learn to try to learn the language and encourages people to um communicate amongst each other, but also learn about New York City civic engagement life and what other offices and agencies are doing around the city.

So it's a bit of a multifold way of of integrating new New Yorkers into our city.

Okay.

So the reason I ask you is it would be helpful because I know you bring information and agencies uh together to have a sense of where we are with in general the English L ELLs because it seems to me that if there are huge waiting lists, which there always have been, then that would be something that the council and the mayor should be looking at.

It is the one way that everybody can get jobs.

So I'd love to know again, it exists in different agencies, libraries, DOE, you, etc.

So is that something that you can work on?

Yeah.