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NYC Mayor Adams expands special education in preschools
By
Jessica Gould
Published Dec 13, 2022
Modified Dec 13, 2022
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NYC Mayor's Office
By
Jessica Gould
Published Dec 13, 2022
Modified Dec 13, 2022
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Hundreds of new preschool seats will be available to special education students, Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks announced Tuesday, seeking to address a persistent lack of access to free pre-K and 3-K for students with disabilities.
They said they will be making 800 more special education preschool seats available, including 400 to be in place by January and another 400 to be added in the spring.
“For far too long, our students with disabilities have struggled in a system that wasn’t fully able to meet them where they are,” Adams said at a Harlem preschool. “It wasn’t fair, and it was wrong.”
Adams and Banks promised to align many preschool special education offerings with other city-contracted pre-K programs, increasing special education preschool teachers’ pay to make their salaries equal to their counterparts in general education classrooms. They also pledged to add an hour of programming so that students with disabilities no longer have shorter school days than their peers.
“Imagine that children who needed more were receiving less,” Adams said. “That is just dysfunctional at its highest level."
Adams, who has dyslexia, has said that increasing and improving special education programming is one of his administration’s top priorities.
The city will spend $130 million on the initiatives over two years.
The announcement comes after a turbulent fall for the city’s early education division that included massive delays in reimbursements for providers and accusations of overall mismanagement. Banks has countered that many of the problems began under former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, including the failure to provide sufficient special education seats as part of its free “Pre-K for All” program.
“This term ‘for all’ has been thrown around, but in this sector ‘for all’ didn’t necessarily mean for all,” Banks said.
Josh Wallack, the deputy chancellor who oversaw early education under de Blasio, said the expansion of special education preschool seats and increased pay for teachers were put in motion by the previous administration.
"Though later than we had hoped and planned, it is welcome news that the Adams administration moved forward with the preschool special education reforms previously announced by the de Blasio administration," he said. "They will provide vital services and supports for children and families and the educators that serve them."
According to Advocates for Children of New York, while the de Blasio administration did provide preschool programming for students with disabilities, it was not enough. Hundreds of the city’s 3- and 4-year-olds have been unable to participate in the city’s free pre-K programming because there have not been enough teachers and seats for special education.
“In recent years, parents of children with disabilities have watched the expansion of pre-K and 3-K and wondered, ‘Why are there no seats for our children?” said the group’s policy director, Randi Levine. “Why are our children’s teachers paid less…Why is the school day length for our children shorter … And why do our children always seem to come last?’”
Levine added that advocates plan to make sure the administration fulfills its promise of additional seats.
This story has been updated to include comment from former deputy chancellor Josh Wallack.
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new york city
education
Jessica Gould
Jessica is the education reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jessica reported on the shutdown and reopening of the nation’s largest school system, highlighting the unprecedented impacts on learning, health and mental health for students, staff and families. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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