Petición en Español

请愿书 (Chinese)

On January 14, 2021, New York State Assembly Members Andrew Hevesi, Robert Carroll, Jo Anne Simon and New York City Council Member Mark Treyger, as part of a group of nearly 50 elected local and state officials signed a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio.  The letter outlines the numerous ways the City’s 200,000 students with disabilities missed or partially received special education services and instruction.  

Students with disabilities can regress quickly and lose not only academic skills, but also social, physical, and life skills. Unlike other children, students with disabilities may never catch up on what was lost during this year of remote learning. 

Documented in the press and by a recent survey report of 1,100 parents throughout the city, challenges include, but are not limited to:

• Remote class sizes of 45, 60, sometimes even 80 students.
• No access to wi-fi or a device for remote learning.
• Services like speech, occupational or physical therapy are scheduled at the same time as a student’s live special education instruction on remote days.
• Integrated co-teaching (ICT) teams with just one teacher instead of a special educator and a general education teacher. 
• Self-contained classes in D75 and in community schools (D1-32) of under 5 kids meeting on an alternating schedule instead of meeting in-person, 5x a week.
• Turned away from Learning Bridges programs because the program “cannot handle” or is not properly staffed to support students with disabilities. 
• Many children received less than an hour of live instruction on remote days.
• Students with dedicated 1:1 paraprofessionals - had their paras performing other school-related activities on remote days instead of supporting the student.

Even with the pandemic, children with disabilities’ right to access mandated programs and services is still protected by laws such as the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and New York State Education Law. The NYC DOE’s position that they are doing the best they can is no longer appropriate because nearly a year has passed and: 

• Middle and high school students with disabilities remain fully remote, and DOE has released no plans for returning to school or improving remote learning. 
• The Mayor and NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced that they are working on a plan for closing the “Covid achievement gap.” Yet, this plan has no specific details regarding students with disabilities. 
• More troublingly, a January 2021 Chalkbeat NY article reports that the Mayor plans for $40 million in budget cuts to school allocation memos (aka SAMs), which fund many programs for students with disabilities including specialized ASD programs (including Nest, Horizon, ACES), and bilingual special education programs.  

The lack of proactive response from the City’s Department of Education cannot continue. Moreover, the City should not plan budget cuts that impact this population of students. As over half of all students with disabilities learn alongside non-disabled peers, their failure to make appropriate progress will have consequences in both their classroom and school communities long into the future. The remedies will not only become more time intensive, but they will also be more expensive, and the cost will be borne by the City’s taxpayers. This is #EveryonesProblem.

We stand with the nearly 50 elected City and State officials who signed the letter: We urge the Mayor to develop a proactive plan to support our students with a plan that includes the following recommendations:

1. Prioritize space and staffing for the 66,000 students in self-contained programs (e.g.,12:1:1,8:1:1, 6:1:1) including the 25,000 students in District 75 and 41,000 students in community schools. Prioritize all students in self-contained programs for in-person, 5-day instruction consistently (without alternating weeks).
2. Remove the DOE guidance that blended remote ICT with 1 teacher is appropriate.
3. Remove the DOE guidance that suggests teachers may double caseloads. 
4. Prioritize hiring certified special education teachers to fill staffing gaps.
5. Improve remote special education services by offering students with disabilities small group instruction and individualized instruction during asynchronous learning periods.
6. Improve remote special education services by offering small breakout groups during synchronous learning.
7. Stop the practice of using paraprofessionals for other school support during the “school day.” Provide mandatory training to paraprofessionals on how to support their students remotely.
8. Clarify and document what is appropriate special education service delivery. School teams need to document when services are not provided due to inappropriate staffing in the PAD (Program Adaptations Document).
9. Allow schools to offer Related Services Agreements (RSA’s), which will allow parents to seek independent providers for services such as speech, OT, or physical therapy, to students who have live instruction for core classes and related services scheduled at the same time.
10. Create a proactive plan for students with disabilities to catch-up on missed services and partial service delivery. The NY State Education Department Office of Special Education provided guidance to school districts in June 2020 regarding compensatory services. DOE should provide guidance to schools on how to have this discussion with families. Families need an efficient way to access missed services. This could include offering RSAs/P4s when services do not happen or are partially provided. Skills remediation should be built into future years.

Our children cannot wait until the 2021-2022 school year for a plan.  We demand action now.

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