NYC school mask mandate may be lifted as soon as March 7-- though vax rates remain low at many schools

NY Governor Hochul announced today that she would lift the mask mandate for schools statewide on March 4.  NYC Mayor Eric Adams said that if the Covid numbers still low, he will lift the school mask requirement  on Monday, March 7, as well as vaccination mandates for indoor dining, fitness centers and entertainment venues.

Meanwhile, the vaccination rates in many schools remain quite low, with wide disparities across the city.  On Friday, two months after the legal deadline for such reporting, the DOE finally posted vax rates citywide and by school.  You can download the spreadsheet here, or look up the name of your school here.   

Citywide, the rates of fully vaccinated children is at 52%, though at 130 schools the average is under 20%.  Aside from some vaccination clinics in Nov. and early December, there has been very little apparent attempt by DOE to encourage parents to raise these rates, for reasons that are hard to understand.  Nothing has been done since the new administration took over.

Given the low rates of vaccination in many schools, the lifting of the mask mandate at this point will likely make many parents and teachers  anxious.

And though the administration has finally complied with one part of Local Law 152, it still has not complied with these other reporting requirements, to my knowledge:

5. The number of unvaccinated students required to quarantine due to exposure in school to an
individual who tested positive for COVID-19, further disaggregated by students, teachers,
administrators, and other school staff.
d. To the extent such information is collected, the aggregated and disaggregated information
required weekly pursuant to subdivision b of this section shall also be further disaggregated by
grade level, gender, race or ethnicity, individualized education program status, English language learner status, status as a student residing in shelter and status as a student in temporary housing
that is not a shelter.
e. No later than 30 days after the effective date of this local law, and monthly thereafter, the
chancellor shall conspicuously post on the department’s website the aggregated and disaggregated
information required pursuant to subdivision c of this section, further disaggregated by grade level,
gender, race or ethnicity, individualized education program status, English language learner status,
status as a student residing in shelter and status as a student in temporary housing that is not a
shelter, to the extent such information is collected.

When will they?  It's anyone's guess.

Support the bill to make the Board of Regents the final arbiter of charter school authorizations and renewals

 Below is the memo of support for S7666A and A8801 that we just sent the bill sponsors, Sen. Liu and AM Benedetto.   Organizations should send in their own memos of support for this important bill.

DOE absurdly claims that their refusal to report on vaccination rates is due to privacy concerns

UPDATE: the DOE finally released school-wide vaccination rates on Feb. 25, about two months after this data reporting was legally due.  You can download the spreadsheet here, or look up the name of your school here.  

Finally, a media outlet covers the fact that NYC DOE is violating the law when it comes to their refusal to report on student vaccination rates overall and by school.  As Christina Veiga of Chalkbeat writes,

How many New York City public school students are vaccinated?

Education department officials won’t say, even though they use those statistics to determine how many students to test for COVID at each school. The city has not provided school-level vaccination rates despite a City Council law that requires the department to do so. The city also missed its Wednesday deadline in responding to Chalkbeat’s public records request for the data.

That information is particularly relevant now, as Gov. Kathy Hochul weighs whether to end school mask mandates. A decision is expected in early March, and vaccination rates are one of the factors Hochul has said she will consider.

We wrote about the fact that the DOE refuses to release this mandated data according to Local Law 152 last Sunday.

 DOE claims to Chalkbeat that the delay is due to student privacy concerns:

New York City education department officials said they are making sure to comply with any student privacy laws before releasing school-level vaccination information. “This is sensitive data and we are currently working to balance transparency with the privacy of our students prior to the release of this data,” said education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer.

As a privacy advocate who co-founded the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy seven years ago, I can safely say that this is an absurd excuse, as vaccination rates contain NO personally identifiable student info.  It is especially absurd given how the DOE continues to violate the state student privacy law every day.

 

CEC 15 Resolution on Foundation Aid and Charter Funding FY 2023

See below -- a resolution passed by CEC District 15 last night on charter school funding that should be a model for other Community and Citywide Education Councils (CCECs) , Community Groups and Advocacy organizations to pass. It is an adaptation of an earlier one passed by CEC District 22.  The pdf version complete with citations and footnotes is here.  

 It shows how unfairly charter funding will eat into the planned increase in funding for our public schools, if the Governor's budget proposal is adopted.   It also shows how NYC schools have been unfairly deprived of over $2 billion in transitional aid meant to make up for the loss of funding going to charters in their districts -- with NYC the ONLY district in the state that is barred from receiving this funding.

Other CECs should pass similar resolutions and send them to Governor Hochul and their state legislators.

Approved  on February 15, 2022, the  following resolution  offers CEC  15’s  position regarding
Foundation Aid and Charter School Funding in the Governor's proposed state budget for FY 23.


Resolution on Foundation Aid and Charter Funding FY 2023


Whereas, in April 2021, the New York State Legislature and Governor committed to fully phasing-in
the Foundation Aid formula owed to NYS school districts by FY 2024 as a consequence of an almost
three-decades-long campaign for equitably funded public education by students, parents, advocates,
activists, organizations and elected officials1;

Whereas, in October 2021, Governor Hochul settled the case of New Yorkers for Students' Educational
Rights v. New York State, further promising this aid2;

Whereas for FY 2023, an additional $345 million in Foundation Aid will go to NYC Public schools,
but New York City is obligated to increase aid to charter schools by $200 million. This means 57%
of the total state aid increase will go to charter schools;

Whereas, from 2019- 2021, New York City’s public schools have received an average increase in this
state aid of $471 per student, while New York City’s charter schools have received an average
increase of $2,325 per student;

Whereas, in New York City, public schools enroll 1,033,669 students, while charter schools enroll
145,000 students - just 14% of all NYC students3;

Whereas, 14% of students receiving 57% of the total aid increase is an imbalance;

Whereas, State law mandates that local school districts pay tuition, based on a per pupil formula
established by the State, to charter schools in their districts;

Whereas, the tuition for charter schools in NYC for the school year 2021-22 will be $16,844, not
including facilities funds;

Whereas, payments to charter schools are already diverting more than $2 billion annually from nyc
public schools, not including facilities funds4;

Whereas, State law mandates New York City pay rent for Charter schools sited in private facilities,
making New York City the only school district in the state and the nation with this financial
burden, costing more than an additional $100 million per year with the amount rising fast 5;

Whereas, the New York City school district is the only district in the state that is excluded from
state Transitional Aid6, which helps local school districts offset the costs of charter schools.
Consequently, NYC has lost more than $2 billion in state aid since the 2012-2013 school year;

Whereas, charter schools  across the country have taken advantage of Covid-19 Paycheck Protection
Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans to acquire bailout aid, including NYC charter schools,
who received approximately $1.12 million per school7;

Whereas, 10 charter schools are currently located in District 15, enrolling approximately 3,600 or
12% of the 30,000 students in District 15;

Whereas, unlike other city school districts in the state, District 15 is not compensated through
Transition Aid for the $60 million in per pupil tuition lost to charter schools; and

Whereas, Community Education Council District 15 is committed to advocating for equitably and
sufficiently funded public schools for the children of the district and beyond.

Therefore be it resolved, that CEC 15 urges Governor Hochul and the State Legislature to take
action in the 2022-2023 budget to ensure that the majority of the school aid increase is allocated
to public schools serving the majority of students, including the 86% of students in traditional
public schools; and that the Foundation Aid awarded to our district public schools as a result of
the CFE case is not eaten up by increased payments to charter schools; and be it Resolved, that the state provide greater supplemental tuition payments to school districts
impacted by charters; and be it

Resolved, that the charter school tuition formula is revised to prevent adverse impacts on public
schools; and be it

Resolved, that the State eliminates the requirement of NYC to pay rent for the charter school or
provide space; and be it further

Resolved, that State law makes New York City eligible for Transitional Aid that other districts
receive, as well as retroactively compensate NYC for the funding lost over the last ten years; and
be it

Resolved, that the New York State Legislature not raise the statutory limit on the number of
charter schools permitted in NYC, because any increase in the number of charter schools would
further divert funding from our district public schools.


This Resolution was approved  at a CEC15  Calendar Meeting held on February 15, 2022 by a vote  of  members  present   including:  Camille   Casaretti,  Antonia  Ferraro,   Tia  Schellstede,
Nana-Poku Agyekum, Ivan Banda, Nancy Randall, and Joseph Alexander.

Education advocates and parents speak out against appointment of Joe Belluck to the Panel for Educational Policy

UPDATE 2/17/2022:  Belluck did not show up for the PEP meeting last night, and  reporter Madina Toure on twitter reported that he had withdrawn, and linked to a Politico article  behind the paywall..  

An article about this appointment was in yesterday's NY Post.

For immediate release: Feb. 15, 2022

Contact: Leonie Haimson, leoniehaimson@gmail.com; 917-435-9329

 

Education advocates and parents speak out against appointment of Joe Belluck to the Panel for Educational Policy

 

The news that Joe Belluck, chair of the SUNY charter committee, is going to be appointed to the NYC Board of Education, otherwise known as the Panel for Educational Policy, has sparked outrage among many education advocates and parents. 

SUNY has authorized nearly two thirds of the three hundred NYC charter schools, which together are now costing the NYC Department of Education more than $2.5 billion per year.  These include many of the most controversial and the fastest growing charters,  including Success Academy, which has been found guilty of violating student civil rights in both the federal courts and by the State Education Department, as well as violating student privacy rights by the US Department of Education and the state.  The Success Academy network is also the focus of an ongoing investigation by the Office of Civil Rights of the US Department of Education.

According to Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters and co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, “Appointing Joe Belluck to the PEP is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house – a huge conflict of interest given how the interests of charters are diametrically opposed to our public schools, by taking away their resources and space.  Moreover, Belluck has allowed the charter schools authorized by SUNY to violate the privacy of students year after year, and to illegally push out struggling kids. One has to question whether he has the interests of any NYC child at heart.”

As Carol Burris, Executive Director of the Network for Public Education, pointed out, “Pro-charter hedge funders and other billionaires gave the Adams campaign nearly $7 million, including one million dollars donated by controversial hedge-funder and Success Academy board member Daniel Loeb.  I guess they’re getting their money’s worth with this appointment.”

“The fact that Mayor Adams is appointing a charter school authorizer to the Panel for Education Policy further underscores the need to reform Mayoral control,” said Naila Rosario, a public school parent and President of NYC Kids PAC.  “We need a more democratically elected Board of Education that will work to protect and strengthen our public schools, rather than undermine them for the purposes of campaign donors who favor privatization."

####

Urge your NY state legislators to put class size caps for NYC into the state budget!

Today Class Size Matters, the Alliance for Quality Education, the Education Law Center and NYC Kids PAC sent the below letter to state legislators, urging them to include class size caps in their one-house budgets, so that the additional state funding our schools are due to receive will be invested in providing NYC students with their right to a sound basic education. 

If you agree, please send your own letter to your state legislators by clicking here.  Thanks! 

Why is NYC refusing to report vax rates in schools as required by law, & doing little to increase those numbers?

UPDATE: the DOE finally released school-wide vaccination rates on Feb. 25, about two months after it was legally due.  You can download the spreadsheet here, or look up the name of your school here. 

Given all the debate over whether the mask mandate in schools should be lifted or remain in place, it is more important than ever that all NYC public school students age five and up who are eligible are vaccinated. 

We actually don't even know how many are: the only available data pertains to all children: those  5-11 years old are  about 33%  fully vaccinated, and those 12-17 year olds about 76%, according to state data.  The city  has similar figures: 39% for children ages 5-12 and 77% for children ages 13 to 17.  However, doesn't tell us what the vaccination rate for public school students, either citywide or for individual schools.

Yet Local Law 152 was approved by the DOE in November of 2021 and came into force in mid-January,.  The law requires DOE to report on vaccination rates, as well as  consent rates for Covid testing and much other data, both citywide and by individual school as well as disaggregated by race, ethnicity etc.   

Here is an excerpt from the law:

To the extent such information is collected, no later than 15 days after the effective date of
this local law, and every two weeks thereafter, the chancellor shall conspicuously post on the
department’s website a report that includes the following information, aggregated citywide and
disaggregated by school, for the previous two weeks:

1. The number and percentage of students partially vaccinated for COVID-19 in attendance;
2. The number and percentage of students partially and fully vaccinated for COVID-19;
3. The number of COVID-19 student testing consent forms received by the department that are
deemed valid and unexpired as of the end of the reporting period, and the total number of students
who were unvaccinated as of the end of the reporting period;
4. The number of COVID-19 student testing consent forms withdrawn; and
5. The number of unvaccinated students required to quarantine due to exposure in school to an
individual who tested positive for COVID-19, further disaggregated by students, teachers,
administrators, and other school staff.
d. To the extent such information is collected, the aggregated and disaggregated information
required weekly pursuant to subdivision b of this section shall also be further disaggregated by
grade level, gender, race or ethnicity, individualized education program status, English language learner status, status as a student residing in shelter and status as a student in temporary housing
that is not a shelter.
e. No later than 30 days after the effective date of this local law, and monthly thereafter, the
chancellor shall conspicuously post on the department’s website the aggregated and disaggregated
information required pursuant to subdivision c of this section, further disaggregated by grade level,
gender, race or ethnicity, individualized education program status, English language learner status,
status as a student residing in shelter and status as a student in temporary housing that is not a
shelter, to the extent such information is collected.

Yet the DOE has so far refused to release this data, as far as I know.  Why is this important? 

The city is spending millions of dollars on TV ads encouraging parents to have their children vaccinated.  Yesterday, I asked parents and teachers on Twitter the following question:

I see a lot of TV ads urging people to get their kids vaccinated, but NYC teachers & parents- have you seen any real focused efforts in your schools? Examples: calls home, backpack mail, Vax sites established in schools, collaboration with PTAs or SLTs?

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) February 12, 2022

You can see the answers on Twitter. Most responders said their schools had done nothing to encourage parents to have their children vaccinated. One teacher said the principal had taken advantage of a vaccination clinic at a co-located school to get a booster, but hadn't informed the students or staff at their school of any such opportunities.  And one teacher actually said that DOE has discouraged them from even mentioning the vaccination issue to their students:

Nope, and NYCDOE legal advises admin (who then advises us) to avoid sharing our “opinions” about vaccines with students/discussing them in general.

— I 🛏 My 📱 (@CheeElle4) February 12, 2022

What a loss.  This should be the top safety priority of schools going forward over the next few weeks.  

New Orleans now requires vaccination of ALL students; DC has mandated vaccinations in its schools by March 1. 

The very least the DOE should do is provide the legally-required data for public school students, both citywide and  in individual schools, and make focused efforts in the schools where rates are low to persuade parents that vaccination is in the best interest of their children, their families, and their schools.

 

Tomorrow is the deadline for comments on urging the Office of Civil Rights to collect data on class size

Accurate data on class size is nearly impossible to find in many districts across the country.  The Office of Civil Rights of the US Dept. of Education is asking the public what additional data they should collect, with a deadline of tomorrow Friday Feb. 11 at 5 PM.

If you'd like to help us ask them to collect data on class size, please go to their webpage at https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/ED-2021-SCC-0158-0041.  Enter your comment on the line where it says, "Write a comment".  Add any more info about yourself or organization that you would like.  Here's a sample short comment about class size you can use, but feel free to devise your own.

"It is important that the Office of Civil Rights collect and report on class size data, as there is no other source for this information that is accurate and timely.  Smaller classes are key to education equity, and yet many students are subjected to class sizes that are too large to provide them with a sound, basic education."

The letter we just submitted with names of education activists and researchers from throughout the country is below.  thanks!