Chair Lee on rationale for New Visions portal cut consideration

How many schools are in the system?

About 1,600.

So it's like almost all of them to some degree.

I have logged in or logged in monthly.

Do you have usage statistics?

We have some.

Yeah, I don't have.

Can you share those?

Sure.

Oh, like do you have them now?

I'm sure I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, so I don't have them.

No, meaning like out of 1,500, like how many of them are using them once, twice, three times a month or using them in instruction or for whatever it's used for?

Yeah, I can get you some of that.

Okay, well, why don't, I have other questions.

So maybe.

Go ahead, yeah, you can ask.

Someone else could get it and then they'll give you the little post-it note, like they always do.

And you had mentioned that other agencies use the tool as well.

What other agencies, to your knowledge, are using this tool?

From my understanding, either are or wanting to use ACS and DYCD for sure.

Yeah.

And I'm sorry, I don't know if you're...

Because DHS also uses the data.

So from my side of the work, we're working on building enhancement to the tools so that for ACS, they have access to data through agencies.

DYCD typically uses that for their SYP.

program which our colleague can speak to and then for the Department of Homeless Services is mostly leveraged around the shelter data supports.

And does CUNY use it as well?

CUNY, your CBOs use it as well?

CUNY, I believe so.

I know definitely the community school CBOs, the community school directors leverage the tool as well.

So it just sounds to me, I mean, it's weird to quibble over like, you know, a little over $8 million, but it sounds like it's a tool that is used by almost all the schools, a tool that is used in an interagency fashion.

Can you explain the thought process behind the consideration of cutting this contract that seems to be used a lot?

Yeah, so first I'll say 1,542 schools have logged on this year, 18,500 monthly users.

9,000 weekly users.

9,000?

Weekly users.

Yes.

And 4,600 users rely on the YouthVisions portal multiple times per week.

And at a superintendent level, and certainly I use it significantly there, 249 superintendent team members logged on in 15 days this year on average for 40 days of usage.

So I'll say...

In thinking about why this was proposed, all of the data that is in New Visions exists within DOE and other places.

And so from that perspective, it was viewed as duplicative.

But I'll say that New Visions, for some schools and for some administrators, going to many different areas is difficult, often clunky.

And so what New Vision does is has like a one-stop shop for a portal for many different, for like administrative users.

And so I think, like I said, viewing it from that.

Way I could see why it was viewed as potentially duplicative, but in terms of actually how the system works, I understand the value of the portal.

And that's why we're continuing to have conversations.

Yeah, I mean, it just sounds like a lot of these

You know, I say that in an almost $40 billion budget, small amount, although $8 million here, like $6 million is not a small amount of money.

But in the scheme of a $40 billion, almost $40 billion budget, you know, when you talk about $6 million restorative justice here,

8.7 for a new visions portal, and these are actually tools that, according to your testimony, are used to a significant degree, and it's used in an interagency fashion, and it seems like it's a...

A very necessary tool.

Because if it goes away, if the contract ends, it goes away in July, it sounds like everyone from administrators to the Department of Social Services to CUNY to ACS to community-based organizations would be left in the lurch and wouldn't have the data that they need.

Well, there are other options.

And without having the program go away, this was a discussion of central spend.

There's also having schools that use it, schools that have no whole harmless funds.

They can also pay for the service.

There's schools for...

Only if it's less than $25,000.

There are other...

It was about five.

So there are other options within our system, and New Vision is a contract vendor as well.

So there are other options that we could talk about for how to get it rather than essential spend.

But like I said, I think we're having really meaningful conversations throughout the system as well as with other agencies about how to continue to not have interruptions.

Right.

I mean, the worthwhile goal is to look at it.

every contract and to make sure everything from $1 million to $100 million contract to make sure that it's actually providing services to the students or to the teachers, to the faculty.

That is very important.

You've heard from this council when $12 billion of the dollars are spent on contracting.

We really do have to look at those contracts.

Yeah, and I think that's to the point of the cost savings team.

I think that's what they did here.

With the eye of looking at just contracts maybe objectively, you might not be able to see the way that it's used at a school level, but you could see, okay,

the same data that the school has exists in other places, and there are teachers using other tools that they use a lot more.

And so you might feel like, well, this program is potentially duplicative without seeing the context of, let's say, other agencies and so on.