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Q&A
Special education services for preschool students
2:52:06
ยท
114 sec
Council Member Rita Joseph inquires about the current state of special education services for preschool students. Christina Foti from the DOE provides detailed statistics and explains the challenges:
- 4,570 preschool students are currently not receiving any special education services
- 7,914 preschoolers with IEPs are waiting to start one or more related services
- 4,008 (58%) preschoolers are waiting to begin special education teacher services
- The percentage of preschoolers waiting for services is significantly higher than school-age students.
- The DOE attributes this to a dramatic increase in the number of students requiring services.
- Efforts to increase teacher capacity include hard-to-staff differentials and recruitment initiatives.
Rita Joseph
2:52:06
Thank you.
2:52:08
So at the January special education hearing, New York City public schools testified that 5,657 preschool students, is about 22.2, were receiving no services at all.
2:52:20
I know we spoke about this earlier.
2:52:21
How many special education students are currently not receiving special education services?
Cora Liu
2:52:29
So
Christina Foti
2:52:32
there are 4,570 students not receiving any services.
2:52:39
Chair, that's the first part.
Rita Joseph
2:52:43
How many preschoolers with IEP mandating related services are currently waiting to start one or more related services?
Christina Foti
2:52:51
7,914.
Rita Joseph
2:52:54
How many and what percentage of preschoolers with IEP mandating special education teacher services are currently waiting to begin the service?
Christina Foti
2:53:02
For the for the special education teacher itinerant teacher services, which are called right?
2:53:07
See it.
2:53:07
It's 4,008 87.
2:53:10
That's fifty eight percent.
Rita Joseph
2:53:11
This percentage is much higher than one percent of all students with IEPs that were not receiving services in January.
2:53:18
What accounts for the difference in wait time for preschool and school age students?
Christina Foti
2:53:22
Yeah.
2:53:23
So as I testified earlier, the number of students has dramatically increased, and chair, I must correct.
2:53:30
I gave you the 32,000 plus number.
2:53:34
I just wanna note that was FY '24, and I can get you the number for this year.
2:53:41
So in terms of the itinerant teachers, we are doing a number of things to increase teacher capacity, looking at hard to staff differentials, talk to you about our recruitment efforts, but this is clearly an area where we need additional itinerant teachers for our preschoolers.