CM Krishnan on SCA coordination and immigrant family services funding

Thank you.

Councilmember Zhuang, followed by Krishnan.

Thank you, Chair.

And first of all, not only Councilmember Mercedes Love, Deputy Chancellor Kevin, me too.

Thank you so much for putting the AC in Walmart School.

This is a struggle for a long time, and also I realize SCA in general,

when our principal worked with SCA to make sure that no one used the auditorium service, and then

SCA told them, oh, we're going to do the work there in the summer, after the principal rerouted all the service in the school, and the SCCA told them, oh, we cannot do the construction in your school anymore.

It really caused a lot of trouble to parents, to school.

And I hope that part needs to be improved.

And also, I have another question about immigrant family services.

Over 40% of New York City public school families speak a language other than English at home.

The DOE's Immigration Family Communication and Outreach Initiative is a $4 million program that helps immigrant families get important information about their child's education through

strategies such as sending paper notice, calling or text families, and collaborate with immigrants facing CBOs.

The executive plan does not include this funding in fiscal 2027 or the out years.

Can you please talk about

this funding being used in this how this funding be used before what this type of will this type of service be cut and what the school should do

If they need the help.

Thank you for the question, and I'm happy to jump in.

So it is correct.

We have received $4 million in support from council to be able to support our immigrant language efforts.

That includes, when you say how it has been used, it has been used to develop the Hello app,

which allows for automatic language assistance designated to provide real-time interpretation in New York City cover languages to support impromptu translation when needed.

We also have extended a pilot for five districts to be able to obtain free professional interpretation services for families.

So, so far, 500 families have attended those events that we have used as funding.

We also, as you mentioned, have partnered with 16 CBOs.

So these are local CBOs in the community that have language expertise to make sure that those supports are expanded.

We also have work on the training of our language access allocations coordinators.

So this is relatively new.

Each school now has a designated language access coordinator, and our office works to bring them together to share resources.

And to your last question, I'm looking forward to continue partnering with city council in this area because we do, without that, those funds.

There will be limitation to provide all of those supports that I just mentioned and more.

I also have a follow-up question.

Has DOE had conversation with OMB about extending this funding?

I know that I'll let my colleague, the chief financial officer, share a little bit more on funding, but there has been multiple instances where we have highlighted some of the needs around language access and the needs for funding from my end.

I can confirm it's a part of our ongoing conversations with OMB.

Okay, I also want to share an incident that happened in my area in 2023.

Actually, it's an ongoing issue still in my area.

There are multiple, not only just one high school, there are multiple high school principals reach out to me.

They have been, they need assistance to communicate with some newer coming families.

Some language is not easy access in the...

With school and also because they are high school students they think they are adults

they don't let the school communicate with the parents they don't even they know both languages the kids don't want to

translate for the family and the schools so it is very hard for school to communicate with parents and I have an incident in 2023 one kid actually get a shot and a date

In my district.

I don't want this type of thing happen.

I want the school have frequent communication with especially the immigrant parents.

They don't speak the language.

They don't know how to navigate the system.

And I'm an immigrant.

I know in different countries, the education is a different system.

Yeah, so am I, and I understand that very well.

As an immigrant myself and somebody who started going in New York City public school as a high school student, I would also say that schools receive

some allocation, so they receive money in their budgets that they can also leverage to enhance the supports beyond the things that I mentioned.

But I'm happy if you want to share with me the specific high schools.

I'm happy to engage and happy to support with the team to make sure that our parents get access to that information that you're saying that is much needed beyond the required language.

So anything that I can do, I understand that, not just from a policy and educational perspective.

I understand it from lived experience.

Okay, thank you.

We'll definitely follow up with you.

Anything that you need, I'm here.

Thank you.

Thank you.