Betty Baez-Mello of Advocates for Children seeks bilingual special education fixes

Great, thank you.

Thank you for the chance to discuss the importance of supporting emergent multilingual learners and their families across the city's early childhood education programs.

My name is Betty Baez-Mello.

I'm an attorney and the director of early childhood education at Advocates for Children of New York.

We appreciate that the city has committed to expanding early childhood care and education programs.

As New York City public schools continues to grow 2K and strengthen existing programs like 3K and pre-K, it is crucial to support the thousands of young children and families in New York City who speak a language other than English in their home.

Among other things, the city should conduct more robust and targeted outreach in multiple languages to immigrant communities to encourage families to apply to 2K, 3K, and pre-K,

helping ensure that families get the hand-on support and information they need to navigate the complicated application and registration processes.

Provide detailed information in the MySchools directories for families looking for programs that offer instruction and support in their home language, including specifying what enhanced language supports are available at each program and what that entails.

Increase efforts to ensure programs are using translation and interpretation tools.

to communicate with families in their preferred languages, and invest in additional dual-language pre-K programs and explore ways to age them down so that more children can receive bilingual instruction.

The city must also ensure that it is meeting its legal obligation to evaluate and serve young children with developmental delays or disabilities who speak languages other than English.

Only about a third of preschoolers with disabilities receive their mandated bilingual programs and services.

According to data from New York City Public Schools, of the about 4,000 preschoolers who had a right to instruction and services in a language other than English

during the 2024-2025 school year, 65% did not receive the bilingual program and services they had a right to receive.

So as the city continues to make investments in early childhood education and considers ways to expand the workforce to create an early childhood education pipeline, it is

crucial to address the need for bilingual evaluators, special education teachers, and service providers to meet the need of emerging multilingual learners with disabilities.

AFC also supports Resolution 650.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.