CM Lewis on District 75 services and family welcome centers

Thank you, Chair.

And good afternoon, Chancellor, to you and your whole team.

You guys look like the Avengers.

Thank you for all being here.

Two quick questions.

Families of students receiving District 75 services continue to report that some elementary school students are not consistently receiving specialized supports and related services outlined in their IEP.

programs.

The executive budget includes significant investments in special education services, including additional funding for IESP, support special education, pre-K expansion, and court-ordered special education compliance.

Despite these investments, many families still report service gaps.

How will the DOE measure whether these new investments are actually resulting in improved service delivery, and what percentage of students currently receive all mandated services without interruption?

I'm going to quickly just go into my second question because I don't have a lot of time.

Families have expressed frustration with limited assistance provided by the family welcome centers.

You probably hear this all the time.

The executive budget includes additional funding for family empowerment initiatives, and yet families continue to report challenges navigating the admissions process.

What is the current staffing level and budget allocation for family welcome centers, and how have response times and case resolution metrics changed over time, and are there plans to increase staffing in the new budget?

Great question, and I'm going to start with the first one first.

When it comes to services, we've done, as a city, a much better job over the last number of years.

However, when one child does not get the services they need, to us, that's 100%.

And so I'm going to...

Turn it over to Christina Foti, who's going to talk more specifically about services, both to students with disabilities in District 75 and throughout as well.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

It's so nice to see you.

Regarding District 75, there are a few things that we're doing.

So the first is, to date, across the board, I've gotten to that point where I have to do this, is 468 providers have been hired this school year.

We've also improved our contracting rates where we're working to provide incentives to high-need areas.

Additionally, we expanded our ninth session work, which means that our OTs and PTs can be paid to conduct a ninth session of therapy, which is also helping fill that gap.

To date, we are...

At almost at 92% compliance, but as the Chancellor said, that is not 100%, so we will keep going until then.

You also know about our seed and weekend academies.

As of this past Saturday, our seed sites served 15,000 students for related services, which is pretty remarkable in sensory gyms.

And so we're doing a lot, and the numbers keep growing.

The mandates also keep growing, and that's why the investments are so important.

All right.

If I get a response on the family welcome centers, thanks.

Thank you for that question.

I don't have the data with me right now, but I'm going to follow up with you.

If I have it before the end of today, I'll share that with you.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Councilmember Brewer, followed by Nurse East.