NYC chancellor takes aim at social challenges keeping kids out of school
Over two months late last year, the newly minted leader of New York City's public schools, Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, held feedback sessions in each of the five boroughs. On Thursday, she shared her takeaways in a 24-page report along with the beginnings of a plan to tackle the issues families raised — a body of work she is calling 'NYCPS Cares.'
'Parents want to send their kids to school. If kids aren't going to school, there is a barrier keeping them from school,' Aviles-Ramos told the Daily News ahead of the announcement. 'Instead of, 'why haven't you sent your kids to school?' we're asking, 'what are the things that are keeping you from sending your kids to school? And 'how can we help you?''
She said her plans were influenced by her own childhood, when she lacked a proper jacket — but her family did not ask her school for help. She said she recently asked her mom why.
'I needed a coat. You put me in a Mets coat and we live in the Bronx,' she related. 'Why couldn't you just ask for some help? And she said, 'because I was so scared that if I went to the school and I asked for help, that they would think I wasn't a fit mother, and they would take you away from me'.'
A modest launch of NYCPS Cares will involve students and their parents in helping to address underlying issues in schools.
As part of the initial rollout, current public school parents will undergo five weeks of trainings at various city agencies to become 'family connectors' — who will help connect families at their schools with public benefits and services through the NYPD, and housing and youth agencies. No data or personal information will be collected.
The school system aims to sign up 1,600 volunteers. Relying on unpaid parents, it requires no new city funding.
'This was a promise I made — that I wasn't going to bring in a bunch of new stuff and turn tables over that,' said Aviles-Ramos, who was thrust into the top post a month into the school year after her predecessor, David Banks, was forced to step down early amid a federal corruption probe. 'NYCPS Cares is an example of that. What are the existing resources? How do we pull them together and make sure that they're going to the right places?'
The program will focus recruitment efforts in a dozen school districts where poor attendance and housing instability are particularly high. Close to 35% of students were considered 'chronically absent' last school year; before the pandemic, that rate typically hovered around a quarter of students.
The same year, about 1 in 8 students were homeless or forced to live with extended family or friends because their parents could not pay the rent — a record-high as the city reckoned with an affordability crisis and the rise of migrant families living in shelters.
The chancellor also plans to launch two student-led campaigns against bullying and vaping under the 'NYCPS Cares' umbrella. Forty teens so far have signed up for the anti-bullying drive, which will roll out as posters, PSAs and other student ideas next school year. The push against e-cigarettes is already starting in schools — including through spoken-word and theater performances.
Bullying has been on the rise in city schools over the last several years. More than half of middle and high school students say kids bully each other at their schools, according to a 2024 annual survey. A data analysis by the education news source Chalkbeat found it was the highest level at any point in the past five years.
In New York, 18.7% of high school students vaped in 2022, according to statewide health data.
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