Wilson asks DOE about equitable access to civic engagement
Wilson asks how DOE ensures civic engagement opportunities are equally accessible to all students. Ryle says DOE built in-house opportunities so the Seal does not depend on external resources that better-resourced students may access.
Thank you.
And some pathways to the seal of civic readiness will inherently be more accessible to students from certain backgrounds.
So what can you do to ensure that the opportunity for civic engagement is equally accessible to everybody?
So one of the things that was a priority for us in building the seal of civic readiness and how that would be applied in New York City was recognizing that there are lots of opportunities external to New York City public schools that students could take advantage of to gain civic experience.
And that due to the civic empowerment gap, those are going to apply more to our students who are better resourced.
And so what we wanted to do was build a program that ensured that schools had everything they needed for the seal of civic readiness in-house through New York City public schools.
And then we also engage with external partners.
But when we do that, we ensure that that is something that is available publicly to all schools citywide.