CM Epstein on after-school access, literacy, and District 75 internships

Thank you all, thank you for your time.

I wanna talk about after school.

You know, there are about 250,000 students who get Title I funding, only about 184,000 after school slots.

So what we're seeing, especially down by me, is racial segregation and economic segregation because we don't have free after school.

Jessler, how are we gonna solve this and can we solve this soon?

Look, I think we see this issue around the city, and it's certainly an issue where, you know, it's also an issue of the type of

after-school provider and what actually we're getting in terms of quality.

And I think, you know, schools also work with providers to make sure that they have the ones that don't, you know, are not funded by Title I, that they have scholarships for young people and all this.

But it's a very difficult thing for a school by itself to ensure the equity in after-school programs.

But don't we have a responsibility to make sure that our schools are racially and economically integrated?

And after-school is a critical component to it.

I'm proud of that.

And, you know, I've talked to DYCD about this.

Can we get a commitment from you that we can get a plan to ensure that, especially for our Title I families, they'll have access to free after-school in some period of time?

Because that's what we really need.

Yeah, so, you know, that's part, I think this is certainly a partnership between us and DYCD.

And I know we have some expansion plans and so on, but I'm going to turn it over to Flavia to talk a little bit more.

Thank you for the question, Council Member Epstein.

I do want to flag that there was a commission assembled towards the end of the prior administration that was really a cross-sector commission on this notion of

Universal after school.

So we know that the vast majority of funding for after school for the whole city comes through DYCD.

Then the rest of it is funded through community schools.

A lot of the community schools that I mentioned have the capacity to do that work.

We also have LEAPS, which is a state-funded grant that goes directly to CVOs that can do that.

As a parent who benefits from after school myself, because I have a child that attends New York City Public School, I know that this is something that all the communities, especially in areas of need, welcome.

And this is something that I welcome the opportunity to partner with you and all of the agencies and CVOs that were part of this discussion so that we could actually look at that report that was published less than a year ago,

some of the first steps to get into that vision about university after school, the funding that it will take and the collaboration between the agencies, the OHMH who offers the license because it's a multi-layered step, but it's the right

effort to pursue and push.

Yeah, I'm happy to work with Chair Dinowitz, Chair Stevens, and to kind of move this forward.

This is something we see as a racial justice issue and economic justice issue.

Chair, if I can just get another minute.

So I know at the preliminary budget hearings we talked a lot about

literacy issues and making sure that young people, you know, if they get to third grade and they still aren't reading and writing, they're not getting support.

And we see this school to prison pipeline and talked a lot about.

out trying to get to people earlier in their education.

Mentioned Literacy Academy, which does a lot of great work, and the two literacy dyslexic schools that were started in the prior administration.

I haven't seen anything in this budget that would advance the issues of trying to ensure that our young people are getting the support that they need.

And I want to just stress that, you know, we really need that because, honestly, if a kid by third grade isn't learning to read, the chance of them, you know, unfortunately failing later in life just in time goes up exponentially.

We'd love to see some commitments here.

Happy to be as supportive as I possibly can to make sure that happens and ensure those young people get the support that they need.

Yeah.

So we are completely committed to ensuring that all of our young people are able to read.

And if they're not able to do so by third grade, that we have systems in place that we are developing and have developed to get them on track.

The main thing that we are doing is our multi-tiered system of support, our MTSS.

I'm going to turn it over to our first deputy chancellor to speak in more detail about that.

But this is an opportunity for every school across the city to be able to implement this well.

Thank you for your question and passionate literacy fan.

Building off of Chancellor's comments, you know, our commitment to expanding New York City reads is one such step.

We've expanded our reach now into middle schools.

And so New York City Reads lives across all of our elementary schools and most of our middle schools at this point.

We're layering that in with multi-tiered systems of support, which he just said, which is the using of screeners to really catch where kids are missing

key concepts in tier one and being able to really pinpoint what it is that's getting in their way and aligns high-quality intervention to help catch them up.

But it doesn't just live just there.

It's also a close partnership with Deputy Chancellor Foti and the specialized programs that she's seeking to grow and the work of universal child care, because we all know and agree, like, the sooner we get our kids in a literacy-rich environment

in a thriving way and then in supports when they need them is the critical difference.

As it relates to the literacy academies that you spoke of, I have recently been able to meet with the team and learned so much more about their work.

And yes, we are in very early conversations around expanding those schools, and I know they're very interested in bringing one to Queens.

Great.

I look forward to whatever help I can provide on that because those six-week intensive programs really work.

And the last thing I'll just flag is love that we're doing more internships.

I have a District 75 school there.

Kids are thriving for internships.

They were denied this year to get those internships.

Is there anything we can do to create more opportunities?

I have schools where the kids are in the country less than two years, and those young people want internships.

They're able to get some resources.

As much as we can do, because we're going to keep those kids in school if we get those internships and money and opportunity.

Otherwise, we see high dropout rates in those schools.

Yeah, absolutely, Councilmember.

If you could send me the information on those, I'm very curious to know about why that was the case.

If it was perhaps travel that was in the way, I do want to say that we are deeply interested in expanding our travel training programs.

That is often a barrier of why kids have a District 75 struggle to get their work-based learning opportunities.

And we've seen incredible results via our travel training.

So I will definitely dig in and, yes, looking to expand this opportunity.

We would love to follow up, and I'll have my team reach out to you directly.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chairs.

Wrestler followed by Aviles.