Dep. Speaker Williams on DOE racial equity plan

So the Mayor's Office of Equity and Racial Justice released its first prelim racial equity plans this April.

This plan, of course, includes many goals from New York City public schools.

Can you speak to what you submitted and if any of these goals have any fiscal implications for this year's budget?

Thank you so much for this question.

As you know, thank you so much, Dr.

Williams.

As you know, we are truly committed to equity and racial, certainly school integration.

And we are going, I'm going to turn it over to Karina Pollan to talk a little bit more about this, but make sure you swear in.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

I think she's putting you out of a job.

So as it relates to what is in the plan, I'll give you a quick overview on some of the priorities that we've established in the plan, beginning with early childhood, leading equity initiatives, impacting early childhood programs and services.

Pathways is a huge priority, leading equity-focused career, college and workforce readiness initiatives with the vision of inclusive access.

Make sure I'm reading it.

Yeah.

Inclusive access, leading inclusive and accessibility-focused racial equity programs, including supports for students with disabilities and multigenerational learners.

For minority and women-owned businesses, lead supplier diversity and contracting and procurement related to equity commitments.

And with the first deputy chancellor's office leading instructional equity initiatives, including New York City Reads and New York City Solves.

In addition to that, working with the different departments within the school system to ensure a strong implementation, tracking, and accountability around that work.

Yeah, and are any of these goals, do they have any fiscal implications?

So are there any budgetary items that are attached to you all achieving those goals?

As it relates to the funding, most of this is designed around, these are not standalone initiatives,

and so what we're doing is leveraging the existing dollars, but making sure that we're prioritizing across existing budgets and operational decisions.

We are embedding racial equity into how we allocate resources, set our priorities, and also make policy and programmatic decisions across the system.

And so in a system that is diverse as we are in New York City Public Schools, I think this racial equity plan reinforces this work by prioritizing and making sure that every decision that's made and every implementation and accountability.

is tied to this work.

Yes, and we've been asking all the agencies very similar questions, and I feel like there's a trend of many of the agencies saying that they are going to reappropriate or look at your existing budget, which is great.

And I know that some of these programs may be duplicative based off of what you recently submitted, but I do hope in

future fiscal years where there may be budgetary implications to actually do the work that you don't just use existing money, but there be dedicated funding streams to support many of the goals within your agency.