Restler asks about daily programming hours for detained youth

I just want to ask one more question, if I may, Chair.

I'm just concerned that, you know, and I really do want to thank and recognize Local 371 and the workers who are trying in really challenging conditions to support the young people and keep everybody safe.

And I really want to thank all of the workers in Horizons and Crossroads for that work and for the union for their strong leadership.

I am concerned that as a result of the lack of community facility space, the kids are spending hours and hours every day with nothing to do.

And I'm wondering if you could share the average number of hours per day that youth are participating in programming.

We're getting reports of kids only participating in programming on a weekly basis and that there's a lot of sitting around.

And just wondering if there's updated data that you can share with us on kind of average hours per day in programming.

So I'll start answering that question with explaining how we've arranged school.

Because before we had this age population in the facilities, there was just a regular school day from 8.30 to 2.30.

Now, because we have a larger number of students who are participating in GED, all those kids used to go to school together.

So if you were in high school and you were getting your GED, everyone sat in class together.

We have worked very closely with New York City Public Schools to separate out that

that schedule.

So high school runs from 8.30 to 2.30, GED runs from 3 to 6, and the college classes run

intermittently during the week depending on what time the professor is available and when we have space.

When we have individuals in school, in high school, we may be running workforce development on the halls.

So there may be young people doing HVAC on their halls or painting on their halls while the

other the younger kids might be in high school.

We have a full after-school program that DYCD funds, and those services are held by, we contract with CCA, and CCA subcontracts for

those services, and we have a broad array of services that come in as an after-school program.

And we've seen many of our young people are engaged in culinary and barbering and music programming.

We have a new DJ program that's extremely popular with our young people.

We have restorative justice.

We have a new program that we have contracted with Inside Circle that

came to New York City from California through Project Restore, and they are now in the facilities running restorative circles with our young people.

We have a relationship with Brownsville Cooking Collective that is teaching cooking classes.

We're running a six-week pilot.

I really appreciate you providing this list.

Do you have data?

Yes, I do have Dana.

Just give me one minute.

Yes, and could you, if while you're looking for that, we're going to move on because we need to move forward.

Councilmember Gutierrez and then Councilmember Nurse has one question.