PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Jirazel Muñoz, Social Worker and Program Director at Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, on Summer Rising Program Challenges
2:42:10
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3 min
Jirazel Muñoz, a social worker and program director at Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, provided testimony on the challenges faced in implementing the Summer Rising program. She highlighted concerns about educational outcomes, overcrowding, understaffing, and the quality of academic instruction provided to students who need it most.
- Muñoz emphasized that many students attending Summer Rising are not those identified as academically at risk, leading to large class sizes and potentially inexperienced teachers for those who need extra support.
- She pointed out issues with the program structure, including reduced academic instruction time due to logistical constraints and overcrowding.
- The testimony also addressed problems with the current enrollment process, which often places students in unfamiliar schools or with unfamiliar CBOs, disrupting existing relationships and trust.
Jirazel Muñoz
2:42:10
Hi.
2:42:11
Thank you so much for listening to us today.
2:42:13
My name is Jaira Sommunoz, and I am a social worker and a program director at Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, one of the community based organ that partners with the DOE to provide summarizing.
2:42:24
I myself have run summarizing for 2 years now, and I'm here to just share some of the lived experience that we've encountered as running program for 2 years.
2:42:34
So it's clear that the city has invested tremendously in this expensive model.
2:42:38
However, our parents and community members are interested in, again, knowing what are the educational outcomes, as officials have had stated before, We really want to know how our students who are mandated, who require this more supported education, are doing after they attend summarizing because it has been our experience that the majority of the students that attend summarizing are not identified by the schools as academically at risk or promotion in doubt.
2:43:05
This unfortunately means that the students that do need these extra services, this extra attention end up in a large classroom of apparently 30 30 kids or more in in a setting that is taught by an inexperienced teacher or even sometimes an unlicensed substitute due to the staffing conflicts at the DOE.
2:43:26
We are concerned that the students needing the most attention are not receiving the high quality educational intervention that they need and deserve, particularly since through the model states that there are 4 hours of academic instruction 4 days a week.
2:43:39
The building is often overcrowded, and the morning academic portion of programs are understaffed.
2:43:45
That means that the 1st hour is usually devoted to breakfast with no academic instruction, and often lunch rotations begin an hour before the academic destruction is set to end, leaving just 2 hours of time in the morning dedicated to academics.
2:44:01
Our students needing extra help deserve better.
2:44:04
They deserve tailored instruction in small group settings by experience educators, not just 2 hours of box remedial curriculum in a classroom with a majority of peers who do not require academic intervention, distracting them while the other 2 hours are scheduled as filler to compensate for the overcrowding in the schools that summarizing programs are low catered in.
2:44:24
Schools and CBOs care deeply about and invest heavily in building relationships with families, students, and one another.
2:44:32
Research has shown time again that the strong relationships with educators and other caring adult staff such as the staff and our CBOs are linked to positive outcomes for the youth.
2:44:43
However, there is no continuity under the current enrollment process.
2:44:46
Parents and students are upset that when they are offered summarizing slots.
2:44:51
It's often in an unfamiliar school or in an unfamiliar CBO.
2:44:55
Relocating schools and CBOs to buildings where there is no pre existing relationships or foundation of trust does not promote the implementation of high quality program.
2:45:05
Principles in charge are put in untenable positions over one with close to a dozen feeder schools, enrolling students for whom they do not give access to IEPs.
2:45:16
Just to close, it leads to lower quality programming negatively impacting children.
2:45:21
And even in one case, one of our principals this allowed staff from using crayons or markers the summer without art.
