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Q&A
Council Member Dinowitz questions CUNY officials on disability services, CUNY CARES, and CUNY Reconnect programs
1:34:42
·
7 min
Council Member Eric Dinowitz questions CUNY officials about various programs and services, focusing on support for students with disabilities, CUNY CARES, and CUNY Reconnect. The discussion covers funding needs, program impacts, and potential improvements for these initiatives.
- Officials highlight staffing needs for disability services and the impact of Local Law 18 on streamlining support for students with disabilities.
- CUNY CARES program shows positive early results in helping students access benefits like Fair Fares and SNAP.
- CUNY Reconnect has served 47,000 students to date, with officials emphasizing the need for continued funding to support outreach and retention efforts.
Eric Dinowitz
1:34:42
The Office of Disability Services, the council's preliminary budget response includes a request for the administration to allocate $2,100,000 to support CUNY's office of disability services which this was not included in the executive budget.
1:34:57
Please speak about how that's gonna impact your ability to provide services for students with disabilities.
1:37:03
Tell me more about Local Law eighteen.
1:37:13
That's right.
1:37:39
Yes.
1:37:39
Of course, the ultimate goal being streamlining.
1:37:41
Local law 18 was my legislation that did streamline the transition of students with disabilities from high school to college by allowing the electronic transference of the IEP and assessment data, but CUNY needs to be able to receive that data and then act upon that data.
1:37:59
So this $2,100,000 would be critical in providing students with disabilities who don't always declare they have a disability, don't always know how to or know where to go, or even if they do, don't always have access to their assessment data or their IEP data, would significantly expand the way we are supporting students with disabilities at CUNY.
1:38:23
Absolutely.
1:38:25
CUNY CARES.
1:38:28
The cost of CUNY CARES for fiscal twenty six is 1,600,000.0.
1:38:32
CUNY states they currently have 1,280,000.00 allocated for this program.
1:38:38
How do you plan on funding the entire $1,600,000 for CUNY CARES?
1:39:09
Can you talk more about the early results?
1:39:11
Because we we haven't received data about the impact of this program.
1:40:09
Thank
1:40:26
Thank you.
1:40:27
And if you could please share further data with the committee, that would be very important.
1:40:31
Absolutely.
1:40:33
CUNY Reconnect, it was created to focus on supporting adults returning to higher education to complete their degrees.
1:40:41
In fiscal twenty five, CUNY Reconnect was funded at $5,900,000.
1:40:45
In our preliminary budget response, we urged the administration to restore, enhance, and baseline CUNY Reconnect for $11,800,000 in fiscal twenty twenty six.
1:40:57
They didn't do that.
1:40:58
How many students has CUNY Reconnect served to date?
1:41:06
And what is the limit to the number of students CUNY Reconnect can assist in any given year?
1:41:33
But Well, another way to ask it is what would additional funding allow you to do in CUNY Reconnect?
1:41:39
How would that help our residents here in New York It
Félix Matos Rodríguez
1:35:02
Well, so we we you know, we're very proud of the work that we do in that space, servicing the students there.
1:35:10
We made great strides through CUNY accommodate.
1:35:12
I know that you're familiar with that program and and from previous hearings and your own interest in the area.
1:35:20
And the fact now that we have a system that is far more efficient and user friendly for the students to be able to schedule support that they might need and for the, also means that we're gonna have more demand for the individuals that provide the services that are being demanded there.
1:35:40
So the request for funding that you have in the green sheet will go to be able to address precisely additions in personnel so that we can better meet the demand that is growing for those services.
1:35:50
I don't know if you wanna add anything, Alisi, on that.
1:38:44
Well, mean, if if if support from the council came, that'd be helpful in in in in doing that.
1:38:50
We didn't receive any funding in the state budget for that.
1:38:55
So we will continue some of our efforts in with philanthropic dollars to be able to meet the needs of that of that pilot.
1:39:04
We've been fairly successful given some of the early results.
1:39:08
So that's
1:39:14
So we'll be we'll be happy to I mean, I'm more familiar with particularly, for example, something which I know is very dear to your heart is that we have data that in getting students recruited to Fair Fairs program.
1:39:28
Right?
1:39:29
And making sure that we maximize the people that qualify in that program, which has been a common interest of yours that we have data that shows that the engagement of the student navigators means higher rates of students who are eligible are taking advantage of that.
1:39:48
So we're seeing a lot more engagement of individuals in something like that.
1:39:55
In additional requests for SNAP benefits.
1:40:01
And we'll be happy to share some of that preliminary data with you.
1:41:03
We have 47,000 students.
1:41:14
I mean, well, that's a tough number to quantify.
1:41:17
Right?
1:41:17
Because the needs, and particularly with that population, that is individuals who are coming with some college degree and needing to complete, so the advising is a key element doing that.
1:41:30
I don't know if we have some do we have projection for that?
1:41:43
would allow us to continue the outreach to bring even more individuals to participate in the program.
1:41:48
Remember, we also wanna make sure that the folks that come are retained and they get to stay.
1:41:54
A large majority of the students, which is typical of this population, are coming part time.
1:42:00
Right?
1:42:00
So you need to make sure that those students remain engaged, let's say, a longer period of time in in the work that they do.
1:42:07
They need additional support services.
1:42:09
You know, councilor Brewer was asking questions about day care.
1:42:13
It's something that is something that we have learned with CUNY Reconnect and that we have capacity in that has been very vital to the students there.
1:42:20
So some of the some of the some of the services that would allow us to do more outreach and retain more students.
Alicia Alvero
1:35:54
Yes.
1:35:55
I do wanna add that the Association of Higher Education Disability, the ratio, the staff student ratio recommendation is one to 130.
1:36:04
And at CUNY it's one to over 200.
1:36:08
And so to the chancellor's point about staffing needs, at some of the campuses there are greater staff needs for the support.
1:36:19
We also are in need of the skilled assistive technology specialists.
1:36:23
There are some half of the campuses do not have somebody there to help the students with disabilities with the technological support, both to the students and to the faculty on how to change and use the technology.
1:36:39
For example, some of the assignments.
1:36:42
How do you transfer them so that they're accessible to students?
1:36:46
And so we have hired two people at CUNY Central to help try and support some of the campuses, but the demand for it exceeds the ability to provide it.
1:36:57
And I would say that all the positions are arguably related to Local Law eighteen.
1:37:07
knew, and I came prepared this time.
1:37:11
And up for upcoming meeting next week
1:37:17
We have been in great conversations with the mayor's office about how do we provide that streamlined support of information from the high schools to CUNY to make sure we can proactively provide support for the students and connect them to the services necessary.
1:37:36
So we're looking forward to the conversation next week.
1:40:05
I have some information since the fall of twenty twenty three.
1:40:09
you.
1:40:10
CUNY Cares had almost 20,000 interactions with Bronx Students assisting them and to gain services for those benefits that the chancellor addressed.
1:40:23
20,000 interactions since then.
Constance Lesold
1:37:05
I
1:37:14
To discuss this further.