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Q&A
Plans to address gaps in health education compliance
2:03:31
ยท
3 min
Council Member Rita Joseph inquires about New York City Public Schools' plans to address gaps in compliance and increase the percentage of students receiving required health instruction. A DOE official outlines their strategy to improve implementation.
- Increased communication and advocacy to inform schools of requirements and resources
- Provision of technical support to help schools overcome programming challenges
- Collaboration with superintendent teams to support schools and understand barriers
- Data-driven approach, with schools receiving individualized data on compliance
- Ongoing communication through PDigest and other channels about requirements
- Efforts to identify and address specific barriers faced by individual schools
Rita Joseph
2:03:31
What steps are New York what step does, New York City Public Schools plan to take to address gaps in compliance, increase the percentage of students receiving the required instruction by grade 8?
Despina Zaharakis
2:03:45
So we as I shared, our plan is to communicate, advocate, you know, and make sure that all are informed of the requirements, all are informed of the resources, all are informed of the the, curricula, the trainings, and our office provides technical support.
2:04:10
Meaning that if a principal says, I can't do this.
2:04:14
Like, I don't know how to program these kids.
2:04:17
We are available to support that school, but at the same time, we have office of performance and accountability leads on the superintendent's teams that are specialists.
2:04:27
Like, they they on programming students, on using stars, entering correct information in stars.
2:04:34
So we partner with, superintendent districts to provide support to schools and to superintendent teams in understanding what their schools need to do.
2:04:46
So we're really working with the field, in making sure that schools understand what they need to do.
2:04:56
They do what they're supposed to do.
2:04:58
And if they don't do, we need we try to understand why.
2:05:02
And we try to provide the technical assistance in partnership with the superintendent's team, the district team, to really sort of move practice forward.
2:05:12
I think we've come a long way, from not long enough, you know, but we've come a long way in terms of of our data as I shared in in the testimony, from let me just take a look.
2:05:29
I'm sorry.
2:05:30
So we're 58% last year, but we were at, we came up 20.8 percentage points from 2,000 17, 18.
2:05:43
So, again, with all the COVID interruptions, etcetera, but we have a lot of work to do.
2:05:50
But I think we are, you know, what we are doing now is the same way I described HIV data.
2:05:58
We are getting health education data from middle schools.
2:06:01
And the same communication will happen, hopefully this month, meaning that every school will get this is the percentage of your 8th graders that have met health ed requirements.
2:06:13
These are the requirements.
2:06:15
This is what you need to do.
2:06:16
These are the resources.
2:06:18
These are the trainings that will go to every, principal with grades 6 through 8, and it will also go to every superintendent and team that have schools with grades 6 through 8.
2:06:29
So that same information in terms of this is what you need to do for your 8th graders for spring 2025 and supporting those schools in being able to do it.
2:06:39
The general communications and the needs go out every September in PDigest.
2:06:44
Like, this is what you need to do for physical education, health education, HIV lessons, CAP, etcetera.
2:06:51
So we always point back to that when communicating with schools.
2:06:57
We have, you know, we have a support system in the district teams, and we've established good communication with principals, and, and and them being able to let us know what the barriers are for each particular school and us trying to solve for them.