Disappointing budget as far as our public schools and class size are concerned
Some news links: NY Times, NY Post, NY Daily News, Chalkbeat and Brooklyn Eagle.
The new NYC budget deal was announced between the Mayor and the City Council on Friday.
In terms of our public schools, it included $41M more to hire about 200 new social workers for schools, especially those with lots of homeless kids and $857,000 for seven additional Title IX Coordinators to handle complaints of gender discrimination and sexual harassment. The budget will also put $250M into an overall city budget reserve to be used during economic downturns that now totals $6 billion.
The education budget will include another $25 million for the Mayor’s top education priority: 3K expansion into 14 new districts, bringing the cost to around $100M. If the pattern of previous years holds, the DOE will continue to draw kids out of existing preK centers run by Community Based Organizations and pushing them into already overcrowded public schools, which in turn will contribute to higher class sizes for kids in grades K-5.
What the education budget doesn't include: any increase in Fair student funding (with many schools are currently at only 90%), no dedicated funding for class size reduction, and no amount to achieve CBO pay parity for preK teachers -- though the Council says they got a commitment from the Mayor to address this disparity though negotiations by the end of the summer.
The only elementary school initiative that I know of is the 2nd grade literacy coach program in high needs schools, which is now in its third year, funding 242 coaches in 305 elementary schools, according to the DOE website. The program is supposed to produce two-thirds of students reading on grade level by the end of second grade by 2022, and CONTINUE READING:NYC Public School Parents: Disappointing budget as far as our public schools and class size are concerned