Transcript: Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Kamar Samuels Launch Major Expansion of Pre-K Special Education
Zohran Mamdani on NYC Mayor's Office transcripts.
Passages
Good morning, everyone. It is such a pleasure to be here in Inwood at P.S. Ellen Lurie to announce New York City's latest milestone on the path to universal childcare: making our Pre-K programs accessible and inclusive to all. And I want to acknowledge we have a number of leaders here with us this morning. I want to acknowledge our chancellor, Kamar Samuels, who is here with us. Our Manhattan Borough president, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who is here with us. Our councilwoman, Carmen de la Rosa, who is here with us. Our State senator, Robert Jackson, who is here. And I want to also acknowledge both of our deputy chancellors, Christina Foti and Simone Hawkins, who are here with us. And if you will join me in welcoming Erica, who is a parent and one of the focuses of today's announcement, please, if you can give us a round of applause. You know, research has shown that preschoolers ask hundreds of questions per day, with a question asked on average every two minutes. Parents across New York City are all too familiar with the drumbeat of, “Why? Why? Why? Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green? Why do flamingos stand on one leg? Why do my parents have to travel halfway across the city just so I can get the educational support that I need?” And I'll be honest with you; I have no idea about the answers to the first three questions. But today, City Hall is making sure that every parent in New York City can answer that last question with, “We don't have to anymore.” I'm proud to announce that our administration is investing $67.5 million to expand our specialized education programs to students in Pre-K. And I'm proud to do so alongside so many leaders across our City government, because making Pre-K truly universal means that no family has to go without just because their child needs a little extra help. And it means that having an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP, does not deny your child the same opportunities as their peers to get a strong start in life. Beginning this fall, we will expand our existing specialized education programs — Nest, Horizon, AIMS, Path, and ACES — into Pre-K for the very first time, so that students with autism and developmental delays can be served closer to home alongside their peers. And we will bring new preschool specialized education programs to families in every single borough, at 26 schools across 14 districts. But expanding our specialized education programming does not begin and end with new seats. We are also hiring hundreds of new staff members to strengthen every aspect of our Pre-K specialized education infrastructure; the systems that support families through the IEP process and help children access these services earlier. That means 35 additional new staff members, including psychologists, social workers, speech evaluators and occupational therapists to build out 10 additional preschool evaluation teams that will significantly reduce IEP evaluation wait times. It means 20 new administrators and community coordinators on our Committee of Preschool Special Education and 100 new New York City Public School staff members who will support families as they navigate the IEP process. And it means building on the successful pilot of our special education itinerant teacher program by hiring an additional 29 therapists and specialists to help preschoolers with IEPs learn alongside their peers. Making specialized education services foundational to our Pre-K infrastructure is just common sense. Universal has to mean exactly that; it has to mean universal. Having a child with a disability or a special need should not make families the exception to that rule. Every preschooler deserves to learn why the sky is blue, why the grass is green, why flamingos stand on one leg at a Pre-K program in their community. And every parent deserves to know that no matter what educational needs their child may have, that they are safe, that they're supported and that they are learning. And every family in our city deserves to be free from the endless questions of how they will afford quality childcare in the city they love; because City Hall is finally providing an answer that includes everyone. Thank you so much. And now, the man who coined the term “New York's cutest,” Chancellor Kamar Samuels.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceCan we have another round of applause for Erica, please? I think sometimes it gets lost of who this is for. And it's for the parents, it's for the children, it’s for the principals, the teachers — it’s for the entire village that helps to raise these incredible children. And I want to bring up the Borough president of Manhattan, my friend Brad Hoylman-Sigal.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceThank you so much to our borough president and now I'll pass it over to our City Councilwoman Carmen De La Rosa.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceYes. So, you know, I think our focus — and you heard this earlier from the chancellor — is on how do we provide the best possible education for every single student across the city. And frankly, when we're looking at our school system, we know that there's so much more work to be done, especially to address the racial inequities that we've seen, not just frankly, when we're talking about the disparities and admissions of one test, but across the system as a whole. And one of the focuses of these past six months in the conversations we've been having internally with our chancellor, deputy chancellors, with the team at DOE is, “How do we start to address that in real tangible way?” And I really do appreciate the chancellor's focus on that because one of the things that really shunned through for me when I first met the chancellor was this emphasis on addressing racial inequities and doing so while providing the strongest and [most] rigorous education that is possible for New York City students. That continues to be our North Star. We're going to be continuing to monitor this, and I think we're asking ourselves the questions of, “How can we transform the educational results in the years leading up to that test as well?”
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI will follow up with you on the question around the digitization of the OMNY cards. I will say that we know that a single test does not reflect the aptitude of students across the city. We know that Black and Latino students are excelling across the five boroughs, as are students in a wide variety of schools. We have to ensure that we're doing everything we can to deliver for those students at the earliest ages. And frankly, one of the things that makes me so excited about today's announcement, is we're talking about early intervention, and too often we have conversations about the last possible point for a student in New York City Public Schools and not about the first possible point. And today is one of many steps we're looking to take to rectify that imbalance.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSo, the City Council will have these contracts in the coming weeks and we know that long-standing New York City Public School posture has been that when sharing contracts with an external body that they would go through a vendor review and a redaction process. We know that the Council is an oversight body. We're looking to expedite that process as quickly as possible and that means speeding up the response time and also sharing non-redacted portions of those contracts.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI think the focus here is making sure that we're operating in accordance with the law and that legal review is the focus of a lot of our efforts right now. [Crosstalk.] And I want to acknowledge also our MOPD commissioner, who's here with us as well. [Crosstalk.]
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI'll start with your second question and go into your first. You know, we support the spirit of the bill. We are, however, critical of the insufficiencies of the worker protections, and we look forward to working with the Council to address those concerns as we move forward on an important issue for New Yorkers. And on your first question, we are continuing that interview process, and we are excited at the candidates that we're speaking with at this moment and we'll have more to soon.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI think when it comes to combating the crisis of homelessness across our city there's always more to be done and I know that one of the driving rationales in our policy was outreach every single day of those seven days and that outreach be led by DHS workers, because we're actually looking, as you said, to connect New Yorkers with those kinds of services. At the end of those seven days, whether it's the site that we spoke about the other day or any site for that matter, it will be cleaned up. But what we want to do is ensure that we are making connections with shelter, with supportive housing. And frankly, a lot of this also comes back to the investments that we're looking to make in constructing more housing across the city because we know that there is a relationship between the absence of housing opportunity and New Yorkers [who] are being pushed into homelessness.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI think that what we are dealing with and reckoning with is New Yorkers who have a long history of having been let down by government. And we are looking to convince them, in fact, that now it will be different. And the best way to do so is by proving that in the services we deliver. I think we've made steps to that end. I think there's always more to be done.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceYou know, I think I've said over the course of both the campaign and while in office that I believe that we have to bring the industry to an end and ensure that we're doing so in partnership with community leaders, labor partners. And I think that worker protections in that transition are critical, so that we ensure that those who have been working in this industry for years, some even decades, also have a future that they can look to of employment, of training, of development. And I think that there is a path forward to addressing that because I know that that's a concern that many hold whenever you're phasing out an industry as a whole.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI think that we have a lot of options in front of us that we can be considering. I think whether they are development programs, training programs, whether they're also the questions of how to phase out that industry. And I think there is an opening for us to have that conversation while we sunset this industry.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceThe notice that is provided also — it indicates both the beginning of that seven-day period and then once that period concludes, that site is cleaned up. Now, every single day of that period is also characterized by daily outreach from city workers with a focus on connecting those New Yorkers with supportive services. I can get back to you with the exact imagery of what the sign looks like because I think it answers a lot of the questions. Okay, thank you all so much. ###
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source
Every passage above is taken from this recording: NYC Mayor's Office transcripts, Transcript: Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Kamar Samuels Launch Major Expansion of Pre-K Special Education.