Good afternoon, everyone. 

I’m coming to you today representing the Education Council Consortium, as the chair of its charter accountability committee, but also as the current president of the Community Education Council of District 17, which spans from Prospect Heights to Brownsville, from Crown Heights to East Flatbush. 

I’m here to speak in favor of the solutions not suspensions act, not merely as a parent but as the CEC president in a district that has done this work. Under the leadership of our former superintendent, Dr. Clarence Ellis, who is currently the superintendent of the East Ramapo School District upstate, and my current Superintendent Shenean Lindsay who was his deputy, our district created a task force to address the disproportionality in how students from different demographics, nationalities, and lived experiences are supported or disciplined in different ways. 

In partnership with a now-defunct statewide program almost a decade ago, District 17 worked to help our school staff think differently about their interactions with students. As you can imagine, our district is extremely diverse—through nationality, religion, socioeconomic status, by ability, and beyond. 

In some cases we’ve seen the suspension process being used simply as an extraction tool to remove students who present as a challenge. At its worst, students with undiagnosed or diagnosed special needs that the school is ill equipped to address are simply suspended for minor infractions to get —and keep— them out of the classroom. Students whose mannerisms translated to disrespect to a staffer from a different cultural background might find themselves in the principal’s office and, ultimately, being sent home.

And the data bears this out. In a 2015 report from Columbia University, whose release coincided with the institution of our task force, researchers recognize that Black children are disproportionately removed from the classroom for minor infractions. But even there, we see inequity. In New York, Black boys were six times as likely to have a disciplinary case than their white counterparts; for Black girls, that number rises to ten.

Aside from the disruptive effects that this has on the parent who simply feels targeted—because they did not see where the ‘disrespect’ took place—this has significantly disruptive effects on the student’s education. Being removed from the classroom for an extended period of time is bad enough but, because it was a “punishment” no one is empowered to create tools to help the student catch up. This has a long-term and cascading effect on the student’s performance, the family’s relationship to the school community, and the way school staff treat the student. 

Our approach was simple: hand-crafting a culturally responsive approach rooted in equity for all students, fully inclusive of all identities and experiences, with the goal of increasing educational outcomes. The work was broad ranging, from helping parents learn how to secure appropriate support for their students, to developing new policies to handle conflict. We created a process that maintains a child’s connection to the school community instead of excommunicating them from it. 

A few fast facts about District 17: we have one of the largest, if not the largest, charter footprint in the borough. With 17 charter schools housed within our borders, we do not have a shortage of charter schools. As Dr. Ellis and Lindsay pushed forward, the charter schools located in our district presented as a stark contrast from the empathetic equity work we were doing. Families frequently left charters for our schools—with the drumbeat of recent reporting about charter efforts to self-control their own student population, I see why. They were more likely to see their identities respected, embraced, and welcomed in our schools. They saw the stability associated with schools invested in keeping children in the classroom, recognized that their children wouldn’t be “pushed out” or find themselves on a “must go” list, and chose us. 

And, with that stability, we saw dramatic improvement in our academic outcomes. The district presented with year over year improvement in math and ELA scores. Enrollment began to increase, too. Families see the work, hear the good news, and buy in. It is a net good.

So, having said all that, I am here to speak to the good that a bill like this represents, and the radical shift in the futures of children when we seek to not push them out, but pull them in with empathy and resources that speak to their needs. As a CEC member, it was exciting to hear educators talk about seeing and educating the whole child, meeting them where they are and bringing them to where the world needs them to be. As a parent, though? Watching a principal take my child, arm in arm, and say “we’re going to get you there together” still brings tears to my eyes. It doesn’t just empower the student, it empowers and, dare I say, comforts the parent. The babies will be alright.

Capping suspensions is necessary, essential, and vital. But it must come with an apparatus prepared to stand in the gaps if we want to keep every child in the classroom. And while I don’t believe I saw a funding mandate with this bill, there at least needs to be a collection of resources empowered and prepared to push in. 

I say to you, with fidelity, that this work has value, and has the capacity to change lives. I implore you, with fidelity, to support it. Our families are counting on you. Thank you.

​Erika Kendall

Below opinion piece was published in the Daily News on Saturday February 11, 2023. 

If “all politics is local,” there’s no question that the most important political race in NYC is the 2023 Citywide and Community Education Council (CCEC) Elections.  As a veteran parent leader, I can tell you from firsthand experience that some of the most important policy gains in public education have been made by CCECs. From parent engagement to admissions, CCECs have influenced policy.  While parent leaders do not agree on every issue, it’s important we continue to insist on a seat at the table. After all, what’s more important than the education of our children?

Make no mistake, local school governance is under siege. The current CCEC elections have not received adequate publicity and DOE has abandoned “parent empowerment.” Nepotism has eroded the trust between DOE and parents. Disenfranchisement has led to the mass exodus of Black families, the canary in the coal mine for the health of New York City schools.
 
And yet, local school governance is more important now than ever. We must remember how the perseverance of collective parent advocacy can lead to significant changes. New York City’s  “mayoral control” legislation will sunset in 2024 - strong parent voices will be important in determining how education policy is made and who governs our schools. The Governor's Executive Budget started the new season of political game of monopoly that shifts resources away from public schools to the private sector. What’s important is that our children’s interests remain at the center of the decision-making, and that is why we need parents to run for CCECs.

This is a final call to parents - the deadline for running for a CCEC seat is next Thursday, February 23rd.  The future of New York City schools will be defined by those that join the conversation. Please don’t miss this opportunity to make a difference.


NeQuan C. McLean is the President of Community Education Council #16 in Brooklyn, which
serves Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown Heights.

​We are deeply troubled by Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed modification of the charter cap and what it says about her commitment to New York City and our schools. 

Charters do not need to expand—if anything, with individual charter schools experiencing significant enrollment decline of their own, they need to be saved from being cannibalized by their own industry. With over 270 schools in New York City alone, allowing charter expansion at the same time that NYC is facing its own declining enrollment not only threatens the stability of every school in The City, but threatens The City itself.

Unstable education systems are making parents leave the state entirely. Families do not want the “free market” approach to education—they want schools in their communities that meet their children’s needs, and they do not want to have to shop around or “game” a “system” to do it. In three recent high-profile cases, parents mobilized to plainly state they did not want charter expansions in their community. Black and Brown communities in The Bronx and Queens spoke loudly and clearly, and the proposals were pulled—is anyone in Albany listening? 

A revision to the cap like what Governor Hochul is proposing not only flies in the face of what parents have demonstrated they want, but it explicitly undermines it. And, with almost non-existent regulation and weak accountability measures in place, the fabric of public education is slowly destroyed, all while The City’s children suffer. 

We cannot let that stand. We are calling on all of New York City’s representatives to take a stand—to call for not only maintaining the cap, but also the creation of standards that allow poorly performing charters and bad actors to have their charter revoked and the cap reduced. It’s time to let Albany know that the experiment on our children is over.


Fast Facts on Charters in NYC: Did you know…
…that the rent for a charter school in New York City comes out of the city’s education budget? That’s right—New York City is the only municipality in New York State where the rent for charter schools comes out of the New York City Schools Education budget. In the rest of New York State, their rent is paid by the State.

…that New York City is the only municipality in New York State that does not receive supplemental aid from the State for having more than 2% of its students enrolled in charter schools? That’s right—if more than 2% of a school district’s students are enrolled in a charter, the State is supposed to send in money to the district to make up for the loss of students. For some reason, New York City is barred from receiving those funds.

…that waitlists for charter schools are never audited by any government agency to verify any claims of families “waiting for seats?” That’s right—no agency in neither New York City nor New York State can verify any claim about who is actually waiting for seats. Families in New York City Schools can apply for more than 10 schools at a time all on the same form, ranked by choice order—but that isn’t the same as a waitlist. If that’s a wait list, virtually every school in New York City has a waitlist. And even still, high numbers of students receive their first choice of schools—no wait list involved.

…that while charters boast about waitlists, they actually rarely fill the seats in the schools they have? That’s right—charters frequently talk about their proposed enrollment, but aren’t required to share their current enrollment. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find that even as the charter sector expanded, the enrollment still dwindled.

…that the share of English language learners served by charter schools is 40% lower than the share served by public schools? That’s right—despite charters being densely packed in predominantly Black and brown communities, charters still manage to avoid having to accommodate students who require not just multilingual instruction, but multilingual resources and programming that charters often lack.

…that charter schools were able to get pandemic aid that public schools were ineligible for?  That’s right—charters skirt regulations and call themselves “public” when it is convenient for them and “private” when being public is inconvenient.  Meanwhile public schools are held to one consistent set of rules and regulations and, as public entities, could not apply for the kinds of pandemic aid that charters received.

…that even as Governor Hochul proposes increased per pupil for charter schools, there is no meaningful accounting for how much funding charters receive and spend per pupil compared with public schools, and very limited public disclosure and accounting for how they spend their funds, while public schools provide copious disclosure of every school’s budget in a real-time public interface.

I'm the parent of two New York City public school children, who count immigrants among their great grandparents, as well as office cleaners and entrepreneurs. We have a long experience with the NYC DOE admissions process. I'm specifically writing about the 2022 Middle School Admissions Process, which impacts 9-and-10-year-old children. My city has become entangled in a proposed return to the sorting and segregation of young school children, which is promoting resource hoarding among economically enhanced parents. I ask that NYC School District 2 not return to the harmful middle school screening process — no school district should —and am writing to shine a light on the misinformation campaign happening in real time over middle school admissions.
 
Emboldened by the negative commentary about New York City public school students from Chancellor David Banks, Community Education Council District 2 (CECD2) passed Resolution 209 to demand the school district do away with its current lottery and reinstate a middle school screening process. I am outraged at their embracement of an outdated model of public education, which reinforces middle school segregation, as well the lack of real facts being utilized in the discussion of who has access to quality childhood education. Lies have been publicized at CECD2 meetings regarding middle school lotteries.  
 
Certain CECD2 members embarked on a misinformation campaign regarding Brooklyn School District 15 (D15), which transitioned to a lottery process for middle school admissions pre-covid. These lies disparaged the accomplishments in D15 and placed D15 in a negative light for having moved away from screens to a lottery. Two examples of the misinformation campaign include: 
     

• A "MIT STUDY" was referenced in public meetings. CECD2 members claimed that a MIT study showed the D15 admissions process had negative effects on enrollment. Yet the cited study was never a published study! It was a PhD Dissertation, not a peer reviewed study.  Furthermore, the dissertation in fact concludes that the D15 diversity plan decreased socioeconomic and racial segregation in D15 middle schools, as intended.
• Statements about enrollment loss (a.k.a. white flight/high income flight) after the lottery was instituted were also made about D15. This is fundamentally not true! In reality, District 15 had a charter school relocate to a different building in a different school district, reducing the number of students in D15.  

 
When I reached out to members of CECD15 I learned that something remarkable is happening. Families are moving into their district so as to avoid the harm from a middle school screening process. White and affluent families have continued to choose D15 middle schools, so much so that some of its schools have lost Title One funding. In addition they pointed out DOE Director of Enrollment Research and Policy Andy McClintock has debunked the notion that there was enrollment loss in year one of the D15 plan. 
  
Let's be real about the state of public education in 2022 because CECD2 is not. Children currently enrolled in elementary school have had a severe disruption to educational experiences due to the pandemic. As I write this Covid Exposure Notifications are being emailed to parents like me, and school staff are covering for teachers who tested positive for Covid and are unable to work. This is the new normal and it disrupts education. Now is not the time to use test taking as an admissions process for middle school, nor have there ever been circumstances where this would be acceptable for young learners. There has never been a fair delivery of quality education to all elementary schools. Class sizes are much too large. Our elementary schools do not even have librarians! The list of disparity goes on. 
 
Let's be real about the situation in school District 2. Our local school council, CECD2, has a few members who use the coded language of "advanced learners" to make us believe there is a select group of students somehow being deprived by the middle school lottery. The fact is all 9-and-10-year-olds are advanced learners by the very nature of their rapid brain development at these ages.
 
The reality is Resolution 209 endorses policies rooted in segregation. The goal of this resolution is primarily to segregate as a method to hoard resources, and to maintain a feeling of privilege. CECD2 Resolution 209 aims to sort children by an ability to "bubble in" the answers on tests. Sorting by testing is a useful tactic to move test-prepped children away from the masses, placing them into a few school buildings. This feeds directly into the stereotypes of "good" and "bad" middle schools in a district. It reduces choice for all families in the district due to this stereotype acting in combination with resource hoarding. 
 
"Public school enrollment policy, which determines who has access to specific schools and who is excluded, was established with land use and local funding and control in mind," said Valerie Sterne and Janelle Taylor, Parents' Conceptions of School Enrollment as Property; Poverty & Race journal; September 2022, Volume 31: Number 1. "Claims of entitlement to attendance at a particular school stem in part from ideals of white privilege and the historically racist foundations of school choice." 
 
Now, as a parent of a student in District 2, will I be forced to participate in school segregation? All because of individuals' misguided view of childhood and lies? We should continue segregation here because of elected officials who feel no responsibility to deliver a quality education for all students—even to children in a pandemic? Resolution 209 reminds me of Alabama Governor George Wallace, because his disgusting vision for humanity specifically targeted education in his pro-segregation campaign.
    
When one of my children attended kindergarten, the classroom was called the Ruby Bridges classroom. Ruby Bridges was one of the first black children to integrate a school in New Orleans in 1960. Last year the book Ruby Bridges Goes To School was targeted for book banning in the state of Tennessee. I see the same vile sentiments, and misguided use of our taxpayer dollars, in CECD2 Resolution 209. Hoarding education as an asset not to be shared, putting in place barriers to education, be it at obstacles at the doorway of a school building, or assessment tests and screens, it’s one in the same —school segregation. And I remind you that I feel this way already knowing that our New York City school system is the most segregated public school system in the United States of America. I cannot fathom our city, our school district, continuing to walk in this same direction. 
 
Lies have been spread about middle school lotteries. Please do not bring back middle school screening, and keep in place the middle school lottery. 
 
Sincerely,
Colleen O’Connor-Grant
New York City Public School Parent 

At a meeting of business leaders, David Banks, the Chancellor of the nation’s largest public school system, spoke about the admissions policies to middle and high schools.  He justified the discriminatory practice of screening 13-year-old children by saying children who “work really hard” should be given access to high schools over students “you have to throw water on their face to get them to go to school every day”  The Chancellor also said: “It’s critically important that if you’re working hard and making good grades, you should not be thrown into a lottery with just everybody.” 

His comment dehumanizes children and shifts the blame for the school system’s failure on children  instead of the adults in charge. The comment perpetuates the myths of meritocracy and deficit narratives thrust upon Black and Latinx children, students living in poverty, students with disabilities, English Language Learners, and students in temporary housing. The Chancellor justified the maintenance of a two-tiered, segregated public school system in a public event after already making disparaging remarks against our disability community. Last month, the Chancellor stated families with students with disabilities were “gaming the system” by using the special education process to provide their children with support and services.  This is unacceptable for a Chancellor who is responsible for educating all of his one million students.

We call upon the Chancellor to examine his biases and assumptions about the majority of the students in the system under his care.  Some children don't have the luxury of having their own bed or getting a good night's sleep, and others may be dealing with the effects of trauma at school or home.  Some schools are so unable to provide additional educational resources to support a child who needs it, the child has tapped out. Instead of devaluing a child who may require extreme measures to go to school, he should be asking why a child hesitates or refuses to go to school in the first place. Instead of defining hard work in the narrowest sense, he should open his eyes to the hard work of our children who remain in a school system that does not prioritize their needs or worse, criminalizes them. We call upon him to find compassion, and provide the same educational opportunities for students who, for a variety of reasons beyond their control, may find that 98 average just out of reach.

First watch this video to understand why Mayoral control is undemocratic. 

The State legislature is poised to extend Mayoral control for three years. Please send emails and call your legislators today and every day for the next week. Please keep sending letters by clicking here.
After you email, please call your legislators and tell them:

1. Do not extend Mayoral control for three years (one year is enough)
2. Give us a Task Force to develop an alternative

You can do this at night and leave a message.
Tweet and tag your legislators. Post on Facebook and Instagram. Tell your friends to take action.  Here is the toolkit.

On April 14, 2022, the Mayor and the Chancellor released their plan for the Gifted & Talented program. We are deeply disappointed by their lack of commitment to create an equitable and anti-racist school system as evidenced in their willingness to continue segregating students. The Mayor claims he is “expanding equity” and how this new plan will end parents fighting for a small number of seats. The Chancellor says he is moving to “end the era of scarcity” by offering two entry points: Kindergarten and third grade. These declarations ring hollow to the vast majority of families whose children will not be served by the G&T program.


The numbers simply do not support the claim of equity or ending scarcity. There are more than 70,000 students in each elementary grade in NYC. Kindergarten G&T seats of 2,500 amount to about 3% of the Kindergarteners. For third grade, the plan calls for identifying the top 10% of second graders in every school and inviting them to apply. The plan also adds 1,000 seats to the third grade G&T program. If we assume the number of G&T seats is relatively stable as it moves up the grade from Kindergarten, then the total number of G&T seats for third grade will be approximately 3,500 - about 5% of the total third graders and half of eligible students. We want to know how a segregated program serving 5% of the children is equitable.


The DOE press release states the “expansion is the result of the DOE’s engagement with parents and community stakeholders.” Considering the very small number of families served by the G&T program, we are left wondering with whom the DOE engaged. We know who was NOT engaged in the conversation.


Black, brown, immigrant and low income parents have been forced to fight for crumbs for decades. Parents of children with disabilities are not even given crumbs in the current system of segregation. We must not be duped into believing that adding a few more crumbs to a slightly larger pool of historically marginalized students is equity. The ECC supported the School Diversity Advisory Group’s recommendation to implement a School-wide Enrichment Model (see below) to replace the current segregated G&T program. The DOE, under the de Blasio administration, was in the process of developing Brilliant NYC as the new program (the DOE website for Brilliant NYC has been taken down). Yet, the new administration has disregarded this equity work and is rolling back what little progress we have made.

We must continue to fight for equity and advocate for the School-wide Enrichment Model (SEM), which is widely implemented as both an enrichment program used as an alternative to gifted and talented programs and as a magnet theme/enrichment approach for all students. The purpose of the SEM is to develop the strengths and talents of all students.

The SEM provides enriched learning experiences and higher learning standards for all children through three goals:

• developing talents in all children,
• providing a broad range of advanced-level enrichment experiences for all students, and
• providing advanced follow-up opportunities for young people based on their strengths and interests.

The SEM focuses on enrichment for all students through high levels of engagement and the use of enjoyable and challenging learning experiences that are constructed around students’ interests, learning styles, and preferred modes of expression.

Many schools in the City are using this model, either as all day cluster class events, across a whole grade, or on rotating semesters.

If you would like to learn more, watch this SEM presentation (start at 11: 15:00) and read about Ms. Halley Potter's Strategies for School Leaders and Educators. With questions about SEM, you can reach out to Halley at potter@tcf.org

We need to  demand democracy and equity for NYC public schools. We want an end to Mayoral control and inequitable funding for traditional public schools.


We demand the State legislature to:

1. Take Mayoral control out of the State budget
2. Begin planning for ending Mayoral control by creating a task force to develop an alternative to Mayoral control of public school governance
3. Revise funding formulas to more equitably fund traditional public schools, instead of diverting resources to charter schools.

It is critical you reach your legislators before the budget is settled in mid-March! 

Participate in the letter writing campaign here.