Councilmember Wong questions Summer Rising attendance and waitlist outreach

Councilmember Wong, followed by Councilmember Wilson.

Okay, thank you, Chair.

My question, my first question is regards to the attendance for the summer rising.

Okay, so we have over 150,000 applicants were submitted from March 3rd to March 27th.

My experience with summarizing is that quite often some kids don't show up, and then meanwhile there are other kids in the waiting list.

They're expecting a phone call, and they never get the call.

So my question is who does the outreach, the YCD, or is the school's job?

Because when I call the school, I get the runaround.

So thank you for that question.

You know, I think it's important to note that this is a collaborative program model between New York City Public Schools and DYCD and ensuring that there are supports and services for all young people.

And also summer is a very different model in itself, right?

It is not a requirement.

to show up every single day.

We have families that utilize space and weeks and days differently than you would say after school, which is a year-round component.

Another thing is that the wait list is also factored in with other components, such as ensuring that we are prioritizing youth that are in special needs,

students in temporary housing, you know, families that will be able to have opportunity to have those seats that they probably would have never used before.

And it is an extremely popular model, so we are going to see robust wait lists in certain areas.

Then, you know, from one year to the next.

So every year we do focus on looking at specific locations and sites where we can open up more programs.

And actually this year we actually opened up more programs to kind of lighten the load on wait lists for specific schools.

This past year we opened up 40 new elementary programs where we know the demand has increased.

But are families in the waiting list, are they being contacted and say, okay, we have an opening, please come?

Because my impression is that they don't get these phone calls.

I'm glad you asked that question.

And as my colleague was mentioning, like every year we listen to feedback and we make improvements.

We had roughly the same amount of applications this year as last year, but we made significantly more offers, thousands more offers.

At this time, in comparison to the same time last year, we also have thousands more of those offers accepted.

So we're above, by the thousands, the numbers that we had last year.

And the wait list is actually...

gotten smaller because of those efforts.

So as Commissioner said in her testimony, looking at the attendance patterns, as you mentioned, enrollment patterns, we've been able to get more young people pushed into the program than we ever have before,

being able to anticipate some of those trends, and I think we'll see changes to the experience you had last summer.

Oh, go ahead.

Back to my question.

If kids don't show up, say, after the first week, should the next person move up?

Is that happening?

It's happening.

And does DYCD reaches out or the school reaches out?

So both the school and CBO have access to the same wait list.

So either school or CBO will be doing some engagement as the list moves.

So if they're not receiving a call, unfortunately, that may mean that the list hasn't moved up to the next person.

Okay.

There's also that.