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Q&A
Community schools funding, expansion, and payment issues
3:59:05
ยท
3 min
Council Member Rita Joseph discusses community schools funding, expansion, and payment issues with Chief of Schools for Community Supports and Wellness Flavia Puello-Perdomo. They cover the current state of the program and efforts to address payment delays.
- There are 421 community schools across New York City
- $17 million in funding supports various aspects of the community schools program, including partnerships and COVID-19 expansions
- The DOE is actively working on addressing payment delays to providers
- Since November, over $62 million has been disbursed to community-based organizations (CBOs)
- The DOE is expediting contract renewals and advance payments to support CBOs
Rita Joseph
3:59:05
So we have to find a way to baseline this program is critical to the mental health and support of our students.
3:59:11
Community schools, don't go nowhere.
3:59:13
Know.
Flavia Puello-Perdomo
3:59:13
Won't anywhere.
3:59:14
I'm here, right here.
3:59:16
I'm not moving.
Rita Joseph
3:59:17
Don't move.
3:59:18
I won't.
3:59:18
How many community schools receive funding from the 14,000,000 that is currently set to expire at the end of the year?
Flavia Puello-Perdomo
3:59:24
It's actually 17.
3:59:26
So about 3,000,000 support our contract that we do with United Community Schools.
3:59:34
About a portion of that also support 10 schools that we did during the COVID expansion.
3:59:42
And then the rest of that were utilized to do amendment for at one point when there was a change in the community school formula that impacted some schools and will have a reduction.
3:59:52
So the $70,000,000 will be needed to be able to maintain those three buckets of supports that I share.
Rita Joseph
3:59:59
I know community schools also have reached out and delayed in payments to providers.
4:00:03
Is that being worked on or all that is taken care of?
Flavia Puello-Perdomo
4:00:06
That is absolutely being worked on.
4:00:08
I won't say it's all taken care of, but it's definitely a lot of work in progress.
4:00:12
So it's a combination of getting contracts renew and accelerating the payment.
4:00:18
And I know our chancellor has been incredibly supportive in that space.
4:00:23
So there are two sixty nine contracts that we're working to renew.
4:00:28
Out of those ones, already 198 have been renewed.
4:00:32
18 of them are with the controller, which leaves a small bucket.
4:00:36
Just to give you an example, the chancellor and her leadership worked with us to put in a meeting together with the coalition of community schools at the November.
4:00:48
And since then, in combination with the work that we've done around contracts, we have been able to get from November 25 until now over $62,000,000 in the hands of CBOs, both by expediting advances of 40% for the contracts immediately once they're registered, so those 198, but also by working on any backup payments or invoices that they share.
4:01:14
So definitely more work to go, and I feel incredibly supported by our chancellor and the work that we're working there.
4:01:21
But if any CBO provider that you are aware or you want to put me in contact with, if Terrence hasn't already done it, I'm sure that you will absolutely let me know as well.
Rita Joseph
4:01:32
Oh, Across the city, how many community schools
Flavia Puello-Perdomo
4:01:37
have Four hundred and 20 one community schools.
Rita Joseph
4:01:39
I would love to expand.
4:01:41
Every school should be a community school, but we got to perfect what we have before we do expansions.
Flavia Puello-Perdomo
4:01:45
Absolutely agree with you, So
Rita Joseph
4:01:48
would these programs have enough funding to continue community school programming without this funding?
Flavia Puello-Perdomo
4:01:53
No for the specific ones that we mentioned, no for the amendments, no for the 10 COVID ones, and no for the ones that we have the partnership with United Federation of Teaching, yes.