CM Aviles on restorative justice, guidance counselors, and charter funding

Great.

Thank you so much.

Hello, everyone.

Thank you so much for being here and all the work you do.

I wanted to ask a couple of questions.

I'm sorry, it's like slightly in speed because we've all got to go.

About restorative justice.

Our understanding is that this year DOE is funding eight tier one cohorts, which is down from 13 last year, down from 32 years ago.

This seems to be in a very wrong direction.

So can you talk to us about what is happening with restorative justice work?

And then I'd love to hear a little bit more about in 2025, the comptroller put out a report that noted 53% of the New York City schools did not meet the recommended number of guidance counselors in the buildings.

In terms of guidance counselor ratios, have we made any progress there in terms of making sure there's enough guidance counselors?

our students.

Mark.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Good afternoon.

Hi.

I will start.

I will get back to you with those cohort numbers in particular.

Can you just repeat the question?

My understanding is that there is eight this year, down from 13 last year, down from 30 two years ago.

Very wrong direction for restorative justice.

I will try to have that for you before you leave today.

Thank you.

In terms of guidance counselors.

I can.

Hi, Council Member.

Hi.

How are you?

I can speak to the guidance counselors.

So in total, New York City Public School, as per a public report that was shared in February, we have a total of 3,296 guidance counselors in the school system.

3,256 of them are full-time, 41 are part-time.

In terms of the ratio specifically, and with that I want to be clear that as we know, a few

years ago the state changed the requirement for guidance counselors at the elementary school level, making them just this notion of access, but not necessarily with the requirement of a full-time counselor.

But the current ratio is 1 to 259 to all schools.

And then when we look at historically what were the high school grades, which were the high school grades,

where a full-time person was mandated in the past is 1 to 182 schools with high school grades that have a school counselor.

Now, when you add the total of both, both when we look at school counselors and social workers, then those ratios change.

The ratio then becomes 1 to 160 for all school when you look at the combined numbers, and 1 to 125 for schools with high school grades.

Okay.

Better, but still not good.

We need to do much better.

And I know we're working to get there.

In terms of last question, in the budget we saw $3.7 billion to charter schools.

How much of that is for rent?

Does DOE have any oversight in terms of those rental payments or any negotiating power in terms of rents and leases?

So for rent for charter schools is over $200 million of that total amount that you just quoted, and it's all governed by state law.

And what are the major categories?

So $200 million is rental assistance, and then what is the breakdown of the other major categories?

Tuition.

Most tuition?

And rental payment is it?

The rental payments should be captured in the lease cost that I just provided to you, but the bulk of it is tuition for general ed and special ed students in charter schools.

Got it.

And then there's no negotiating power that DOE engages in in terms of rental assistance or negotiating leases for schools and new buildings.

Sorry, and just a correction, rental assistance is over $300 million, so thank you for that, Erin.

I think there's very little there, again, because it is all governed by the state law, but I will defer to D.C.

Moran if there's a correction needed there.

Yes, so exactly.

On the budget side of the $3.5 billion, it includes $340 million in rental assistance.

And in terms of rental assistance, we're just following the set policies by law to reimburse.

So when a school is placed in an industrial building, in an industrial zone, on a track, on a truck route, DOE doesn't engage in any conversations that an educational institution should not be placed.

We're not the charter authorizer in many cases, and so they'll be going through the state or otherwise to get approval.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.