PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Michael Mulgrew, President of United Federation of Teachers, on Special Education Crisis
3:47:57
ยท
5 min
Michael Mulgrew, President of the United Federation of Teachers, testified about the crisis in special education programs in NYC schools, focusing on staffing shortages, particularly for paraprofessionals, and the city's inadequate response to these issues. He highlighted the need for better data transparency and appropriate planning for moving students to less restrictive environments.
- Emphasized the severe shortage of paraprofessionals, with at least 3,100 openings at the start of the school year
- Criticized the city's approach to solving staffing issues, including their reluctance to provide accurate vacancy numbers
- Expressed concerns about the potential mishandling of moving students from District 75 to less restrictive environments without proper support and planning
Michael Mulgrew
3:47:57
first, I wanna thank you, chair Joseph, for holding this hearing today on something that we feel is the biggest crisis in our school system, which is our special education programs.
3:48:05
And I wanna thank you and any other city council members today on the introduction of a bill that will help us, hopefully, help us recruit and retain paraprofessionals, which is a vital service that we know we all need.
3:48:17
I'm gonna make 3 quick points because there are a lot of people here.
3:48:20
So when we surveyed the schools at the beginning of this year, because every year, compliances were getting more and more difficult, access to services were getting more and more difficult that we knew and parents also knew.
3:48:31
When we did survey the schools, we wanted to target the number one problem problem right now, which turned out to be the number of paraprofessionals.
3:48:38
We have asked the department of ed, in consultation many times over the years how many vacancies are there to which we get, we're not sure.
3:48:45
We'll get back to you and we never get a number.
3:48:47
I think you're familiar with that answer today.
3:48:50
So for the 1600 we were able to document, we knew that was the biggest thing.
3:48:54
And once again, the city has made this their problem.
3:48:59
The city created this problem when there was no need to do it.
3:49:03
When we when we go into collective bargaining, we always say we're having a harder and harder problem because over the years of collective bargaining, the rounds of collective bargaining, what happens is every raise has to be based only on percentages and we have continued to grow and grow the inequity gap between, for paraprofessionals because they were on the lower end of the wage scale.
3:49:28
And the city's position has been, especially over the last three rounds of bargaining, is that we go agree with you, we cannot attract or retain paraprofessionals, and we we want you and your members to give up parts of their raises to give the raises to the paraprofessionals.
3:49:45
This is absurd.
3:49:47
There is no place in the world where an employer would say, you're right.
3:49:51
We need more of these folks, but we can't attract them.
3:49:53
So all of the workers, you chip in and pay for them.
3:49:56
But we were very careful as we move forward and try to solve this problem, because it's clear that the city was not not interested in solving this problem.
3:50:05
So when we did this, when we started working with you and your staffs and the people at city council, we knew, that our council and your council rightfully so, could not do a bill that interfered or did anything in terms of conditions of the employees of New York City as it pertains to collective bargaining.
3:50:24
The program we are we are introducing that we're trying to solve this with or help the city, This helps the city and helps the children of our city.
3:50:32
And the fact that we have to go through all of this to try to make that happen is what causes so much anger here amongst all of the special education advocates.
3:50:40
The the fact is that's a separate program.
3:50:43
It's not pensionable.
3:50:44
It is not there's no dues collected out of it.
3:50:47
None of that is happening because it has to be separate from terms and additionings of collective bargaining.
3:50:51
The fact that the state the city today testified that they have 30 there were 31100 openings tells us that they always have the number but do are not willing to work with anyone.
3:51:02
And I want to paint this picture to everyone.
3:51:04
30 100 openings in September mean that on the first day of school before anything started, you the city knew they were out of compliance on 31 100 children.
3:51:15
And that's a disgrace.
3:51:17
The next piece is the vacancies for all of the other support services.
3:51:22
If you ask the city what are the vacancies or what are the need for the different workforces, whether it be occupational therapy, physical therapy, social worker or psychologist.
3:51:30
They will tell you again, they do not know.
3:51:33
So we never know what we're solving for.
3:51:36
And they say well it's because of their budgeting process at the school level.
3:51:39
If a principal does not put in for an opening that they need that then they don't know if they actually, if then they don't know how many the school needs.
3:51:47
That's a a completely fabricated misleading answer.
3:51:54
Because everyone knows that you can go and every child's IEP is digitized and we can run these numbers.
3:52:01
And we need to be able to solve these problems, not hide the problems.
3:52:05
And last, I wanna talk about District 75.
3:52:09
I did hear part of the testimony from the previous panel.
3:52:13
I just wanna remind them historically, saying we wanna get back to the Willowbrook model was one of the biggest national disgraces when it came to children with disabilities in the history of this country.
3:52:23
It is not something they should should be talking about getting back to.
3:52:28
If you we all believe least restrictive environment is what is in the best interest of children.
3:52:33
If we're going to move children to a least restrictive environment, we have to do it appropriately.
3:52:37
There has to be a program in place.
3:52:39
You have to have support for those children.
3:52:42
I ran one of these programs myself in my school with a district from my high school with a district 75 seat 2 blocks away from us and it was successful.
3:52:51
And we did it without the Department of Ed support because we were afraid they would try to stop us.
3:52:57
So if they're going to start to do this, it has to be appropriate and it has to be done with a real plan.
3:53:03
My fear is they're going to do the usual, they're just gonna make numbers shift and children are gonna get hurt.
3:53:09
Thank you so much for all of your support and I wish I hope I was fast enough for everybody else in this room because it has been a long day.
3:53:15
Thank you.