PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Stamo Karalazarides Rosenberg, First Vice President of Council of Supervisors and Administrators, on Special Education Challenges
4:00:26
ยท
5 min
Stamo Karalazarides Rosenberg, representing the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, highlighted critical issues in New York City's special education system. She emphasized the need for a proactive approach, starting with improvements to the IEP process and better communication between enrollment offices, school leaders, and families.
- Called for additional CPSE administrators and district-level special education administrators to address assessment and placement delays
- Advocated for expansion of successful specialized programs like Horizon, NEST, and AIMS across all districts
- Highlighted staffing shortages in various roles and the need for professional development, especially for supporting students on the spectrum in non-specialized programs
Stamo Karalazarides Rosenberg
4:00:26
Good afternoon, chair Joseph.
4:00:29
I'm Stamo Karolazaridis Rosenberg, and I am the new first vice president of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators.
4:00:38
And I'm here on behalf of our president, Henry Rubio, and executive vice president, Dale Kelly, and we thank you for the opportunity to speak for our city school leaders about the state of special education.
4:00:52
And while we have submitted our written testimony, I want to briefly highlight some key points.
4:01:00
Chair Joseph, it is clear that our special education system is greatly overwhelmed.
4:01:09
We need a more proactive approach, and our approach has to start from the top and start from the beginning.
4:01:18
We have a fundamental issue that requires urgent attention, and it begins with the KIP process.
4:01:29
The way that the KIPP process stands now, the DOE is having difficulty in assessing and assigning placement for our students in a timely manner, which leads to severe shortages in class classes and severe delays in funding for our school leaders and straining resources.
4:01:51
We agree that we must add 50 additional CPSC administrators.
4:01:58
We also would like one additional AZ per district, administrator of special education.
4:02:06
Why?
4:02:07
Because there's a serious lack of not just assessing in a timely fashion and assigning students seats, but communication.
4:02:15
We need to communicate with school leaders who need to open up seats, open up classrooms in district 75 to house our neediest students.
4:02:25
We must strengthen communication not just between enrollment offices and school leaders, but our families too.
4:02:32
Our families need support, and they need time to make the right decision for their children.
4:02:39
And they're not given enough times and many times are very confused in the process, which leads to mismatching of student placements, and it leads to children being in the wrong classrooms many times, students who require highly specialized programs or district 75 settings in community schools.
4:02:59
We are are taking too much of our youngest learners' precious times because we do not have it figured out in the right way.
4:03:07
And, again, it starts at the top.
4:03:10
We also must ensure that our schools have adequate funding, allocate the necessary resources to fully staff special education programs, ensure that all students receive their mandated services, increase the number of specialized programs that we know work, programs like Horizon, NEST, and AIMS.
4:03:32
We have to greatly expand these programs with multiple programs in each district.
4:03:38
I, until very recently, was the principal of a school that had Horizon.
4:03:44
Horizon is a phenomenal program.
4:03:46
I know those programs very well, and they must be emulated, and they must have multiple seats throughout all districts in New York City.
4:03:54
And they should not only have been expanded to 3 extra districts this year.
4:03:59
In our district, where I came from as principal, we had 8 seats for the entire district on every grade, and we had students coming to us from out of district.
4:04:09
The need is great, and the number of seats we currently have, even with this year's expansion, is not nearly enough to service the needs of the New York City children.
4:04:22
Then we have staffing shortages.
4:04:25
Staffing shortages, you've heard about all day today.
4:04:28
Staffing shortages with paraprofessionals, related service providers, special education teachers, and and RSA services.
4:04:40
We also have a need for professional learning in our buildings.
4:04:46
While ongoing professional developments provided for staff in specialized programs, paraprofessional and special education teachers sometimes lack the training to support their students on the spectrum in non specialized programs like ICT.
4:05:01
We have students on the spectrum all over New York City Schools, in many districts, 1 to 32 schools, in general education classes and ICT classes.
4:05:12
We request that this coaching and professional learning that highly specialized programs have across the city, like NEST and Horizon, be given to the community schools 1 through 32 as well to support all children on the spectrum, not only the children in highly specialized programs.
Rita Joseph
4:05:33
Thank you.
Stamo Karalazarides Rosenberg
4:05:35
Finally, when you expand these programs, which are successful, and I can tell you firsthand are phenomenal to our community schools and greatly increase the amounts we have in our district schools.
4:05:50
The OPT issue that we have with our students being on the buses up to 2 hours a day each way sometimes and waiting for a bus to come that takes far too long to show up, which keeps our children from precious academic times, our neediest children from precious academic times could be solved as well.
4:06:12
Thank you.