REMARKS
Rita C. Joseph on teacher shortages and class size issues in New York City public schools
1:05:20
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93 sec
Rita C. Joseph addresses the ongoing teacher shortages and class size issues in New York City Public Schools.
- She highlights the historical shortages in areas such as special education, science, and math.
- Joseph emphasizes the need for creating pipelines and recruiting efforts to retain teachers.
- She clarifies that class size, not the class size law, is a major deterrent causing teachers to leave their positions.
- The departure of 4000 teachers underscores the urgency of addressing these issues.
Rita C. Joseph
1:05:20
We've had historically always had shortages in New York City Public Schools.
1:05:24
That's not a secret, and I know that firsthand.
1:05:27
Because I had to leave my classroom on December 23 2021 to join the council until January 1 2022 because why?
1:05:35
I was a DSL teacher, and there was no one to take my position.
1:05:39
So it's not only this class sized lord as closing the shortage.
1:05:42
We've historically I wanna make sure that's on the record correctly for council member lead to no Historically, we've always had shortage areas, special education, science, math, all of these areas were already short.
1:05:55
So let's not make it sure that this this is a class size world that's causing that.
1:05:59
What we should do is retain, create that pipeline, and every time you come here, say the same thing, start recruiting in college, recruit your para professionals, you have bilingual people services, you have all of these resources, use them subsidized tuition, and all of that in order to retain and also class size is one deterrent in recent studies that says this one of the reasons why teachers leave classrooms.
1:06:23
It's not because of the class size law.
1:06:25
It's because historically, 35 students in front of you is not is not is not a great thing.
1:06:32
It's not.
1:06:33
So I just wanna make that sure.
Dan Weisberg
1:06:35
Yeah.
1:06:35
We're in total agreement with everything you
Rita C. Joseph
1:06:37
just Correct.
1:06:37
I just wanna make sure council member Lee understands that.
1:06:40
This It's already there.
1:06:45
So now they need to address it.
1:06:46
Chuck Beard said that we lost 4000 teachers already.
1:06:49
How do we how do we retain them as well?
1:06:51
Loya class sizes.
1:06:52
That's one of the things.