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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Nickesha Francis, Policy and Advocacy Manager at Good Shepherd Services
10:05:21
ยท
3 min
Nickesha Francis, representing Good Shepherd Services and various education coalitions, testified about the need for baseline funding for essential education programs in NYC. She focused on the importance of Learning to Work, Community Schools, and Student Success Centers, highlighting the risk of significant funding cuts in the upcoming fiscal year.
- Emphasized the need to baseline funding for programs currently funded by one-year city dollars
- Discussed the impact of potential budget cuts on specific programs like Learning to Work and Community Schools
- Called for additional investments to support students, especially those with the greatest needs
Nickesha Francis
10:05:21
Thank you, Chair Joseph, and all the folks who are rocking out with us, including the officers.
10:05:28
Appreciate you.
10:05:29
My name is Nikisha Francis, and I am the policy and advocacy manager at Good Shepherd Services.
10:05:35
I'm also the steering committee on the steering committee of the campaign for children, the coalition for community schools of excellence, the learning to work coalition, the student success center coalition, and the coalition for equitable education funding.
10:05:49
Good Shepherd has 31 education programs that support over 7,500 students across Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.
10:05:56
Our programs include learning to work, student success centers, young adult borough centers, and transfer schools and community schools.
10:06:05
The mayor's f y twenty six preliminary budget extended funding for two of these programs, learning to work and summer programming for another year, but did not include long term funding for these programs putting them at risk of cuts in 2026.
10:06:19
We stand with the coalition for equitable education funding in calling for the city to baseline funding for essential education programs that are currently funded by one year city dollars and are therefore at risk of significant funding cuts in July by the executive budget.
10:06:37
I would like to focus my verbal testimony on highlighting learning to work, community schools, and student success centers.
10:06:43
Learning to work, in 02/2004 New York City conducted, I'm sorry, a study of students who were falling off track and found that we were losing almost 140,000 students every year.
10:06:56
In response, New York City created the learning to work model to address the giant need which embedded community based organizations in transfer schools and young adult borough centers.
10:07:09
While the mayor's f y twenty six preliminary budget extended funding for learning to work for another year, the learning to work CBOs are operating under contract extensions that do not consider the changing demographic of students we are supporting and the growing cost of operating programs.
10:07:26
Community schools.
10:07:27
In 2021, a change in the office of community schools funding formula led to significant budget cuts in 52 New York City community schools contracts that account for 70 schools citywide.
10:07:39
Over the past three years, the coalition for community schools of excellence have advocated annually for funding resulting in temporary one year allocations.
10:07:49
This funding must now be baselined in the upcoming budget to ensure long term support.
10:07:56
DeWitt Clinton High School, one of the impacted schools, is set to lose over 400,000 in July if no action is taken.
10:08:04
Restoring this 9,160,000.00 funding is vital to continue these critical services and support the community.
10:08:12
Student success centers.
10:08:14
While the adopted budget included one year funding for student success centers, four student success centers lost funding and had to seize services.
10:08:24
Programs are concerned that they are not able to sustain services with the current funding sources and distribution plan and have been asking New York City public schools to RFP student success centers to bring about more sustainable and reliable funding.
10:08:39
We urge mayor Adams to baseline these programs in FY '26 executive budget so that students, families, educators, and providers will have the assurance that they can continue relying on these programs in future years and to make additional investments that are needed to support students with a focus on those who have the greatest needs.
10:08:57
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Rita Joseph
10:08:59
Thank you.