Q&A
Clarification on data regarding licensed vs. certified health education teachers
1:16:19
·
3 min
Council Member Rita Joseph seeks clarification on the number of licensed vs. certified health education teachers in NYC public schools. Despina Zaharakis explains the differences between state and city terminology and the limitations of available data.
- NYC has 135 licensed health education teachers, but certification numbers are unclear
- There's a discrepancy between state (certified) and city (licensed) terminology
- Zaharakis acknowledges limitations in data collection across the 1,500+ school communities in NYC
Rita Joseph
1:16:19
They also have to hear it from you.
1:16:20
So you so how many, you said you had how many?
1:16:24
A 135?
Despina Zaharakis
1:16:25
A 135 licensed teachers, but some might be certified.
1:16:30
Maybe certified but not licensed or not teaching under that license.
Rita Joseph
1:16:37
Oh, let me recognize, council member Paladino Stevens.
1:16:45
So New York State requires that health education is taught by a certified health education teacher.
1:16:51
However, New York State's incidental teaching provision permits a teacher to teach 1 out of license, what we were talking about.
1:16:57
But if they have demonstrated competency in the subject matter as a result, teachers without a health license are frequently assigned to teach health under this provision.
1:17:05
So how many teachers without health education certification are currently assigned to teach health courses in New York City public schools?
1:17:12
Can you can you give me that data based on grade level?
Despina Zaharakis
1:17:16
So we have grade level the the number of teachers who are teaching by grade level?
Rita Joseph
1:17:20
Without out of license.
1:17:22
What we what we just talked about earlier.
Despina Zaharakis
1:17:24
So it's any teacher teaching.
1:17:27
Now we own we know we only have a 135 licensed teachers, but the state talks about certified.
1:17:34
So the the language between the state and the city is different.
1:17:38
Right?
1:17:39
The city talks about licensed.
1:17:41
The state talks about certified, and we make that point in the public report that we release.
1:17:47
Now we have the number of teachers, the 14,000, whatever teachers teaching at least one class and by grade level, and we know that a 135 are licensed in New York City.
1:18:00
That that we don't have, like, where the licensed teachers are.
1:18:05
We just have how many teachers are teaching 1 class by grade level.
Rita Joseph
1:18:10
You said you were former principal.
1:18:12
Right?
1:18:12
Yes.
1:18:13
So I know principals like to capture data.
1:18:15
Right?
1:18:16
That's how we inform our instructions.
1:18:18
Why we're not capturing that data?
1:18:20
To better inform the decisions that we make on health educators.
Despina Zaharakis
1:18:24
So I think, the beauty of being a principal was my it was my community.
1:18:31
Right?
1:18:31
It was my teachers, my families, my kids.
1:18:34
I know what I was doing with with our resources and our SLT sort of, you know, was able to, have representation from every constituent of our community and make those decisions.
1:18:48
It was it was here.
1:18:50
What we're talking about now is the New York City Public Schools, New York City Public School System capturing each one of those data points for each one of these communities, and there's 1500 of them.
1:19:04
So
Rita Joseph
1:19:05
1800 to be correct.
1:19:07
So, I'm still a little perplexed.
1:19:10
I'm gonna come I'm gonna come back around with that same question because I'm just puzzled that we don't have any data to drive this policy.
1:19:17
We've made recommendations.
1:19:18
We have a local law.
1:19:19
And some of that data was supposed to drive some of the conversations we're having today.
1:19:23
But if we don't have that, then we can't drive that conversation.
