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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Mary Merkel, Equal Justice Works Fellow at The Bronx Defenders
4:14:05
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3 min
Mary Merkel, an Equal Justice Works fellow working as an education attorney at The Bronx Defenders, testifies about the urgent need for improvements in special education services for students with emotional disabilities. She presents several asks based on her clients' experiences and shares a detailed case study of a student named Nathan to illustrate the challenges faced by these students.
- Merkel calls for improved access to alternative school options, ending segregated District 75 high schools for students with emotional disabilities, and decreasing the time for new school placements.
- She highlights the "special education to School to Prison pipeline" and requests reasonable accommodations and healing-centered supports for students with emotional disabilities.
- The case study of Nathan demonstrates the severe impact of inadequate special education support, unsafe school environments, and delays in appropriate placement on a student's education and life outcomes.
Mary Merkel
4:14:05
Good evening.
4:14:06
My name is Mary Merkel, and I am an Equal Justice Works fellow sponsored by Greenberg Traurig, working as an education attorney at The Bronx Defenders.
4:14:14
Thank you for the opportunity to present our testimony.
4:14:17
Here are our asks based on our clients' experiences, improve access to alternative school options for older youth with behavioral health challenges, end the practice of segregated district 75 high schools for students with emotional disabilities, decrease the time it takes for a student to be approved by their IEP team for a new school placement, and subsequently begin school at that placement, for this council to monitor and schedule a hearing regarding the special education to School to Prison pipeline, which leads too many students with disabilities into the juvenile legal system, and provide reasonable accommodations and healing centered supports for all students, especially those classified with emotional disabilities.
4:15:00
To illustrate the urgent need for these asks, I will share the story of one of my clients.
4:15:05
The name I use for him is a pseudonym, but his experience, shared with his permission, is very real.
4:15:11
Nathan is a black male student classified with an emotional disability.
4:15:16
Throughout elementary and middle school, Nathan received inadequate special education supports and was bounced from school to school each time falling further academically behind.
4:15:25
For high school, he was placed at JM Rapporte, a segregated school where all students have an IEP with the majority classified as students with emotional disabilities.
4:15:34
As you may be aware, JM Rapport has extremely low attendance and a high rate of student altercations.
4:15:40
Nathan felt unsafe there, so he received a safety transfer to Manhattan High School, the segregated District 75 High School in Manhattan.
4:15:49
Nathan became my client almost a year ago when he was suspended from Manhattan High.
4:15:53
At his suspension hearing, the evidence showed that he was actually bullied and assaulted.
4:15:57
In addition to the incident in question, where he had been cornered and attacked by 3 other students, he also had milk and yogurt thrown on him in the cafeteria.
4:16:06
The suspension was dismissed, and he did not feel safe at Manhattan High.
4:16:10
But because of his IEP, the only new school options he was given were the segregated District 75 high schools in Brooklyn or Queens, which are both extremely far from where he lives.
4:16:20
It was clear that a District 75 school was not going to meet his social and emotional or academic needs.
4:16:25
I assisted his parent in having him reevaluated, and we requested a non public school placement.
4:16:30
The IEP team, consisting of adults that had never met Nathan, refused to recommend a non public school placement and instead told us to visit the New York City Children's Center in the Bronx.
4:16:40
We did, and it was immediately clear that it was an inappropriate recommendation for Nathan's needs.
4:16:45
At the second IEP meeting, the team again refused a nonpublic school placement until Nathan's counselor, the only one who actually worked with and knew Nathan, joined the meeting and agreed a non public school placement was needed.
4:16:58
Still, Nathan had to suffer delays.
4:17:00
The school dropped the ball, and his packet wasn't sent to non public schools for admission until the beginning of this school year, almost 7 months after his suspension was dismissed.
4:17:08
He finally began at an appropriate non public school 2 weeks ago, almost 1 year after his suspension was dismissed.
4:17:15
Because there were no viable school options for Nathan after he requested the safety transfer from Manhattan High School, he stopped attending school.
4:17:22
He lost almost a year of instructional time, and he was arrested during this time and now faces the possibility of being incarcerated.
4:17:29
If he is, this raises a whole new host of educational concerns.
4:17:33
Thank you.
Rita Joseph
4:17:35
Thank you.
4:17:36
Can you email that testimony to us?
Mary Merkel
4:17:38
Thank you.
4:17:38
Absolutely.