TESTIMONY
Paullette Healy, Disability Advocate and Community Organizer, on Enhancing Accessibility and Support in Public Education for Students with Disabilities
2:08:34
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3 min
Paullette Healy discusses the need for improved accessibility and support systems for students with disabilities in the public education system.
- Highlights the inadequate building accessibility and lack of self-advocacy training for students with disabilities.
- Emphasizes the significant disparity in graduation rates between students with disabilities and their general education counterparts.
- Stresses the need for more inclusive admissions policies and programs that cater to the abilities and interests of students with disabilities.
- Calls for the creation of educational pathways towards careers in high-demand fields like speech pathology, occupational therapy, and school psychology for students with disabilities.
Paullette Healy
2:08:34
Hi.
2:08:34
Thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity to testify.
2:08:38
My name is Paulette Healy, and I am a district 75 parent, as well as being a disability advocate and community organizer.
2:08:47
I thank chair Joseph for asking the question about accessibility.
2:08:53
I was pretty confident that there wouldn't have be any information shared today by the DOE or in terms of how many buildings are assessable.
2:09:02
But when we're talking about the admissions process, the structure of the building itself is a huge challenge for our disability community.
2:09:10
You know, they they they made strides in terms of providing disability supports with, you know, within the campus itself.
2:09:19
But we don't, as a public school system, teach our children to advocate for themselves when they're in higher learning scenarios.
2:09:27
So they don't know what to ask for.
2:09:29
They don't know to ask for accommodations.
2:09:31
They don't know whether they need continued speech supports or organize you know, executive functioning supports or counseling at this point.
2:09:43
In a in a Heikkinjing report that was released recently, It shows that 90% of high school graduates that are identified as college ready and our students with disabilities less than 35% of them actually graduate within a 4 year program compared to the 14% of of their general education counterparts.
2:10:05
So it's almost double the number of students with disabilities that that end up dropping out of college in their 1st or 2nd year.
2:10:15
And this is also including a third of students diagnosed with depression, whether they're diagnosed prior to going into higher learning or whether they're diagnosed while they are in college.
2:10:26
So this is just another lens that we ask those who are tasked to to look at how admissions is is administered.
2:10:39
To look at our children with disabilities as desirable candidates.
2:10:46
And and provide not only, you know, easier access for admissions, but provide desirable programming that students with disabilities can actually see themselves going into.
2:10:58
We are at an all time high in terms of staffing shortages.
2:11:01
For related service providers.
2:11:03
Why do we not have more programs that allow, you know, students to become speech pathologists?
2:11:10
Occupational therapists, school psychologists, social workers.
2:11:16
These are areas that are in high demand time and time again.
2:11:20
And we've already talked at nauseam about the need for bilingual related service providers.
2:11:25
So considering that you know, the percentage of students that actually go into our CUNY and SUNY systems are identified as either from immigrant families or multi language learners.
2:11:35
Why not you know, take that and synthesize them into going into areas of staffing shortages.
2:11:43
I just have one more thought.