Lori Cangiolosi testifies on compensation structure for educators

Thank you.

There you are.

Hey, Lori.

As soon as I started to talk, it shut down.

I'm like, oh, my God.

Go for it.

Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Committee on Early Childhood.

My name is Lori Cangellosi.

I'm the Director of the Playgroup Experience, a NICI in Staten Island.

And founder of the Five Borough NICI Coalition.

I know you have heard this over and over and over again.

NICI teachers educate the same children, meet the same standards, and provide the same publicly funded education as their DO counterparts.

Without the same compensation, benefits, or protections.

We know the problem is real, the struggle is real, and quite frankly, we are tired of constantly repeating ourselves.

So today, I don't want to just talk about the problem, I want to talk about a solution.

NIC educators should not have to come back every few years and renegotiate our worth.

Create a NIC compensation structure.

Tied to comparable DOE salary scales, recognize education and years of experience,

include our assistant teachers, fund comparable benefits and retirement security, and when DOE compensation increases, NICI funding should increase with it.

Directors want to pay our educators what they deserve, but we cannot pay money the city has not funded.

And this is not just about teachers, it's about children.

When we lose teachers, young children lose familiar faces, trusted relationships, and consistency.

And as we discussed expanding to 2K, we cannot expand on an unequal system.

Stop making NICI educators repeatedly prove that equal work deserves equal value.

Reform before expansion.

You cannot build a stronger early childhood system on an unequal foundation.

Fix the foundation and then let's build.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lori.

And our last panelist, Adrienne Bond.