PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Debra Sue Lorenzen, Director of Youth and Education at St. Nick's Alliance
3:04:46
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3 min
Debra Sue Lorenzen, Director of Youth and Education at St. Nick's Alliance, provided testimony on the Summer Rising program, highlighting both its benefits and challenges. She emphasized the need for improvements in registration, support for students with disabilities, and funding issues faced by community-based organizations.
- Praised the city council's commitment to youth programs but noted that Summer Rising's model, while well-intentioned, has flaws that limit the joy of summer learning for some children.
- Highlighted issues with registration and enrollment processes, suggesting that CBOs should have more control to ensure continuity of care for children.
- Raised concerns about inadequate support for students with disabilities, particularly regarding transportation and paraprofessional assistance after 3 PM.
- Mentioned funding challenges, including delays in applying indirect cost rates to contracts and the need for new RFPs from DYCD.
Debra Sue Lorenzen
3:04:46
Good afternoon.
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Thank you, Jared's Joseph and Jared Stevens for letting us speak to you today about summarizing.
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My name is Deborah Sue Lorenzo, and I'm the director of Houston Education of St.
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Nick's Alliance in North Brooklyn, and St.
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Nick serves more than 10,000 children in use each year through comprehensive use in education services for ages 2 to 24.
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I wanna begin by thanking the city council for its extraordinary commitment to DOICD essential programs such as Compass, Sonic, Beacon, Cornerstones, and SYP.
3:05:27
Summarizing in summer camp, a part of New York City's critical ecosystem for educating children and supporting families.
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During summer 2024, Citrix Alliance And Its Affiliates School Settlement Association operated 9 summarizing sites in North Brooklyn.
3:05:45
More than fourteen hundred children were engaged in remedial occasion during the morning than transferred to our care during the afternoon.
3:05:52
Summarizing while while intentioned addressing pandemic learning loss continues to be seriously flawed.
3:06:00
The summarizing model works well for children who may need formal academic instruction, and for the families who need extended care.
3:06:09
But for other families and children, summer rising steals the joy of summer learning.
3:06:14
Half days of summer camp result in less frequent field trips, less time socialization, adolescent Richmond, which are the true hallmarks of summer camp and summer learning.
3:06:23
It's time to let the families choose summarizing a more traditional summer camp models.
3:06:31
Issues with registration enrollment have plagued summarizing since its launch in large part because CBOs do not have much of a voice.
3:06:40
The current processes interrupt the continuity of care.
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Children in our after school are routinely assigned to sites away from their homeschool, their friends, and their relationships with our staff.
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Meanwhile, we're serving hundreds of children who missed their own homeschools, friends, and caring adult in their lives.
3:07:00
Honestly, it makes no sense.
3:07:03
And when CYCD and Dewey were talking about it, I like, I didn't even know what system they were speaking of because it's so out side of the experience that we're having.
3:07:14
Alowing community based organizations to be more centralized in the registration process will help repair the broken system.
3:07:22
Supporting students with disabilities, as Randy was talking about, we may a serious equity issue.
3:07:28
New York City has repeatedly failed to provide busing or para professionals after 3 PM to students with disabilities.
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This inaction prevents students with disabilities from full participation in summer camp, or that they must leave at 3 PM, or it places undue burden on the families and the summer camp staff to coordinate with the transportation and the one on one supports.
3:07:51
I'd like to say one more thing, if you may, if I may.
3:07:54
So is 2020, our indirect cost rate of 22.5 percent has not yet been applied to a summarizing portion of our NY CD contracts.
3:08:03
For St.
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Luke's Alliance, that's about $200,000 that we need to sustain operations require props attention.
3:08:11
Pets is also pretty clogged again if there's anything you could do to help with that.
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And I think we all know that we need RFPs to come out from Dewey CD.
3:08:21
It's time.
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Thank you so much.
