New York State SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0.0]: Coming here today. I'm assemblyman Mike Benedetto. I'm chairman of the education committee. I'm here with my colleague, good friend, Andrew Hevesy.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Oh, yeah.

[Speaker 0.0]: And and and we're here with for a very serious committee meeting because we want to look into what we view and many people view as a very serious, problem in education system, with the, low attendance, in the k to 12 schools and chronic absenteeism. We just want to hear opinions as to what do you think have caused these problems in attendance and and how why they persist and what we can do to stop them. You know, I used to be a teacher myself, and I never really had that problem. Everybody ran to get to my class. But that doesn't seem to be the case now, and and too many, children are being, chronically absent, and and we wanna think and investigate why. And and joining us here for this hearing is assemblywoman, Amrita Torres, and we welcome her here, plus my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo, assemblyman Chang, and assemblyman Pirozzolo. And we thank you for being here, gentlemen, and, I hope this leads to a a a good a good, hearing. Well, without any further ado, we're gonna bring up our first people to give us some testimony, and that that is, some people from the, New York State Education Department. Those people, please come on up right now to the, hearing table, and I won't introduce you, although I have your names here. I'll let you do that yourself. You have we're all telling people, please give us some concise testimony because we do have a long list of people to testify today and try to keep it within the five minute assigned time that we have said. Okay. I'll turn it over to you. Thank you.

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Thank you very much. Good morning. Thank you Chair Benedetto and Chair Hevesy and members of the assembly. I'm Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner of Education at New York State Education Department. I have with me Doctor. Gemma Reinford, Assistant Commissioner for Student Support Services to my left. And to my right is Theresa Billington, assistant commissioner from the office of accountability. Thanks for the opportunity to talk about chronic absenteeism with you today. Why this matters? Well, the bottom line is students need to be present in order to be able to learn. Attendance is foundational for student engagement, achievement, and graduation. And absenteeism is one of the warning signs of unmet needs. Tracking attendance helps identify inequities and reinforces the expectation that every student is known, supported, and engaged in learning. Chronic absenteeism New York means being absent more than 10% of the time in any given school year. So that's about 18 absences in a school year. That would be about two a month for the whole school year. You could be considered chronically absent. Suspensions and extended medical leave does not count toward these numbers, but any other absence, whether excused or unexcused, counts toward that number. Why that matters is when students are not in school, instructional time is lost regardless of the reason. So even though it's one definition of chronic absenteeism, chronically absent students are very different from each other. There's no one kind of chronically absent student. A student missing a few days each month is having a much different education than a student who's absent for long periods of time. Treating all of them the same means we will miss the root cause of why they're

[Theresa Billington, Assistant Commissioner (Accountability), NYSED]: not attending school and effective solutions depend on differentiation. Chronic absenteeism

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: is a cross system challenge. Progress on chronic absenteeism will depend on shared data, aligning strategies across sectors, and consistent supportive communication with families. In 2018 and 2020, there were some policy shifts where New York's approach to attendance evolved. One in 2018 was the educational neglect reform. And with that reform, schools must now show efforts to address attendance barriers before making a neglect report to the state register. In 2020, in pins reform, truancy alone can no longer result in detention or an out of home placement of a student. Attendance issues are addressed through community based diversion services and not through punishment. This is important in this context because these were enacted right before the COVID pandemic. So it's difficult to discern what things are the primary root cause, whether any of these policy recommendations have any impact whatsoever, and they are probably worthy of study to be able to differentiate between COVID impacts and the impacts of some of our policy making. What we're doing now is we're taking an active evidence informed approach by researching effective attendance strategies by identifying and sharing best practices statewide, we're promoting a culture of attendance at our schools, and we're deepening analysis of attendance data to better differentiate student need. Schools are trying to meet this need through expanded transportation services, free meals, counseling and mental health supports, extracurricular engagement and tying that to attendance, and weekend food and family support programs. These efforts reflect how schools are responding to students real world needs. We have added this core indicator of school to school quality and student success to our accountability system. We want to track attendance across the entire student population and not just define it in a binary chronically absent or not. This supports earlier identification, tiered supports, and continuous improvement And attendance data is publicly available on our New York State report card, and it includes the measure of chronic absenteeism. What we think works is a community schools approach, which is very particular to whatever region it's implemented and who the partners are. But they try to coordinate academic, health, and social supports, and they strengthen partnerships among schools, families, and community providers. They're a proven strategy to get students to school and remove barriers to student engagement. What we're hoping for at some point is to see more sustained and expanded funding for community schools beyond what the federal government provides or some of the foundation aid supports. In closing, we are trying to create a culture of attendance through the state while meeting student needs. We commit to partnering with the legislature, districts, families, and communities so that every student has consistent access to high quality instruction and the supports needed to succeed. Thank you very much, and we look forward to your questions.

[Speaker 0.0]: I wanna thank you very much for your testimony. Before we, continue, I wanna welcome also, assemblyman De Los Santos and assemblyman, Novakoff. Did I pronounce that right?

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Yes. Absolutely.

[Speaker 0.0]: I'm terrible. Thank you. I appreciate listen. Last year, SED announced a new attendance indicator. Right? Okay. Could you elaborate how did that work? How does that work?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: We absolutely can. And we're so fortunate to have one of the authors of that attendance indicator at the table. Accountability is part of Theresa Billington's responsibility, and she can explain it in detail for you.

[Theresa Billington, Assistant Commissioner (Accountability), NYSED]: Thank you. Our initial indicator was very binary. We looked at chronically absent students. We looked at non chronically absent students. What we decided is we need to look at the entire learning community. So we took that indicator and broke it into pieces. And so now we have four levels. We have 95 to 100% of the time we're looking at students that's a level four. A level three would be a 90 to 95% of the time. 85 to 90% of the time is a level two. And a level one would be anything less than 85. So you're looking at that chronically absent, that 10% is actually broken into two pieces. What that does is as we've included now all students in that indicator, as you're thinking about that continuous improvement component, you're constantly looking at how do we get the students to move from a two to a three. You know, if they're attending 85 to 90, how do we get them into that next bucket? The students that are attending 95% of the time, we're still looking at how do we improve their attendance? You know, what are their needs? And if you're incorporating that as part of an MTSSI system, then you're looking at that as a part of what the needs of the student are as a whole.

[Speaker 0.0]: So you have these statistics.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Yep.

[Speaker 0.0]: Okay. You know who they are.

[Theresa Billington, Assistant Commissioner (Accountability), NYSED]: Yes, sir.

[Speaker 0.0]: Has it worked?

[Theresa Billington, Assistant Commissioner (Accountability), NYSED]: So we just this is the first year. We just engaged the system this year.

[Speaker 0.0]: Too early to tell.

[Theresa Billington, Assistant Commissioner (Accountability), NYSED]: Yeah. So 2526 results are gonna be the second year that we've used this particular indicator system. So giving us two or three years worth of data will give us a a better look at that.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Good. Yeah. Mister Hevesy. No pressure. Thank you, mister chairman. Good morning.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: Good morning.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Couple questions. Let me start with the policy changes that you guys references referenced in your testimony. If I can start with the educational neglect that we changed in 2018, your impression of that change as it affects your students. What are what's what's your take on that? Was that a good smart policy change, or is that something that's causing more difficult?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: I don't think that we believe that punishment is the way to go to really get students motivated to attend school, and engagement is more important. The thing I think would be most concerning is using the blunt instrument of that change without best practices of what the schools are supposed to do to do those interventions before they made the referral. Those things have evolved since 2018. Our schools are very malleable. They have really good leaders. They work hard when there's a major policy change like that. And they've tried to create a system where, okay, what interventions do we need to have in order to be able to? If we don't have success, then we can report the student. So I think it's difficult to tell Mhmm. Because it's so cloudy since the COVID pandemic about what impact each one of those policy changes had.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay. Because just for the record, I remain concerned about setting up a standard that automatically feeds families into the CPS system. That is a terrible system. We don't want families going to that system if you don't if you can avoid it. So I guess we'll keep an eye out for that one. And the other the other policy reference you made was to PINS cases. And can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I'm interested to see the connection between that and absenteeism with those PINS kids.

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Right. So truancy was one of the factors where they would be referred to need supervision and have some interventions. And sometimes there would be, again, a blunt instrument to remove a student from a situation in their home or put them in some other type of care when they decided, we're not doing that anymore. We're gonna go direct to community diversion, get a little more counseling, get more involved that way instead of hanging those more serious consequences over the heads of the students.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Which makes perfect sense. The kids haven't committed a crime. Right? So okay. Besides the is that something we could work on together? Perhaps intervention let me go back to the first question. Interventions with schools so they know what to do in case you get up to that point. Is that something we should be lining out legislatively perhaps for schools to follow?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: We know that's part of our work too. In student support services, we work with students with schools regularly on what they're doing, their interventions. Would you like to mention a little bit about some of the schools and some of the work they're doing to intervene on attendance?

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Push and hold. It's there

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: we go. Thanks.

[Dr. Gemma Reinford, Assistant Commissioner for Student Support Services, NYSED]: Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. So the schools are very focused on this issue and they certainly do work with in their own communities and understand the areas of need, the ways that they are one of for as an example of one of the ways that schools are really dialing in to this issue, some folks have some districts have are looking specifically at folks whose main role and responsibility centers around the student engagement piece and the attendance. But I'll give an example at Glens Falls. They did a physical mapping of where students were not attending, where they could see that students running north and south were not getting themselves to school, and they were able to discern that there is no bus route that was going north and south, but really just east and So if they missed their early morning bus, there really wasn't a way for them to get to school if their family was at work. So working with their community to engage a bus route to go north south to get those students in if they missed their initial bus We made a made a shift there and a change there.

[Theresa Billington, Assistant Commissioner (Accountability), NYSED]: So that is

[Dr. Gemma Reinford, Assistant Commissioner for Student Support Services, NYSED]: very specific very specific to that district, the way that they approach it, the way that they're looking at those students, if there's a geographic connection Mhmm. Thoughtful and creative about solutions that will work for that specific district. Very community focused in trying to come to resolution.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Which which I totally appreciate and understand that each community is different. Culturally, they're they're different. I guess what I'm looking for, if possible, is to work with you prospectively to try to figure out if there are some themes that we could tell our our schools and particularly our principals telling our teachers, hey, guys. This we have to do 17 things before we send this kid to CPS because we know that CPS is not a good solution, and we don't want anybody going to that solution quickly. But I'd love to work with you prospectively. And, mister chairman, thank you for the time.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you, sir. Miss Torres?

[Assemblymember Emérita Torres]: Thank you so much for your testimony. A couple of questions. What percentage or number of students are currently classified as chronically absent statewide? Do you have that figure?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: We do. Yes. It's and the most recent number is from 23, 24, and it's twenty seven percent.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Twenty seven percent.

[Assemblymember Emérita Torres]: Okay. And are there particular regions where you see this, like, very high across the state of New York?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: I would say that the easiest way to describe this is post COVID, every subgroup in every region had a problem with chronic absenteeism. It didn't matter what school system they were, what county they're in, what kind of school system. However, where it remains persistently a problem is still in our city areas. Some of our high need rural areas have some challenges along those lines, and that persists as a problem getting them to school for various reasons. Every single one of these is a little bit different. You could make the case that 700 school districts have 700 different approaches to solve the problem, and we have two and a half million students and two and half million different ways it's exhibiting itself. Yep. It is intense work that needs to be done.

[Assemblymember Emérita Torres]: Thank you. Just a couple of follow ups since you mentioned COVID nineteen, my next question. So have you seen particular trends persist or change at the end of COVID nineteen versus today where we are? I'm thinking, for example, the role of ICE in schools and some of the fear that we have seen with with families and particularly students and families that are concerned, but also other trends that might be popping out that that you've seen. I'd be interested to

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: hear. Yeah. We have definitely had anecdotal evidence of the fear of going to school and reports of schools having to do workarounds to get students their educational services because there was that school avoidance. School avoidance in general has also been an issue because students in some pretty formative years were stuck at home in a pretty traumatized situation. And so it was difficult to get them back to school. And some of them have not made that full adjustment. And one of the things that we need to recognize too was as we were coming out of the pandemic, we also had a shortage of personnel.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Mhmm.

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: We couldn't get people to come work in the public sess public sector for a while. And so schools, were low on personnel. BOCES were low on personnel. Even the service providers were low on personnel. That's finally getting to the point where we've hit at least back to maybe where we were in many of those roles pre pandemic. But when we were first trying to deal with it, we didn't have the personnel really to go deep in some of these situations. And so bad habits have formed, I think Mhmm. In some regions, and we're starting to get a handle on it. We've seen improvement. The worst problems were with our high school students, and that hasn't has gotten better significantly in the last two years. And we're hoping to keep that moving Mhmm. Because, you know, that is their last chance at their at their education. You know, we can't turn it around. It'll be too late.

[Assemblymember Emérita Torres]: Yeah. Thank you so much. So final question. You mentioned, that it's anecdotal, the information that you're collecting. Wondering, with this the the scorecard of how you're keeping track, are there particular, factors or whether it's transportation, housing, is is immigration threats or something a part of that? Like, how are you collecting that data and and interacting with parents to understand sort of why students are not coming to school?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Do we do we have that kind of differentiation of those

[Dr. Gemma Reinford, Assistant Commissioner for Student Support Services, NYSED]: I don't think particular differentiate that in that way, but we do the schools often know the reasons why students aren't and the schools work specifically with the community based organizations to try to provide that support. They often know what students need additional support or may be concerned about.

[Dr. Christine Arlt, President, School Administrators Association of New York State (SAANYS)]: They know their students.

[Dr. Gemma Reinford, Assistant Commissioner for Student Support Services, NYSED]: Quite well. And, yeah, I would say that that that data exists at the level at the school level. But not I don't we don't have that.

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Yes. Schools are careful about what they're putting in the student records and the data they put in there because it becomes an indicator of personally identifiable information and their their country of origin, you know, family situation, etcetera. So they're very careful about some of that data that they're putting in their student management systems.

[Assemblymember Emérita Torres]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. I wanna welcome to the panel my rank around my education committee, Assemblyman Smith. Thank you for being here. And please, would like to recognize Assemblyman Perry Zola.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Thank you, mister chair. Thank you very much for coming today. So not really a question, but kind of a conversation. I happen to be fortunate here today because I sit on both of these committees. Right? But I have a little bit more experience because I also own a business. I'm an employer. And if I didn't say directly to my employees, but they started to figure out that if they didn't come to work and I was still going to pay them anyway, then they would stop coming to work maybe at least 10% of the time. So I don't want to say that this is an academic conversation, but I really feel that it is. I know that we have underlying issues, which may be, you know, family income and all that sort of stuff. But basically, social promotion is your problem. And as much as we'd like to blame this on COVID and everything else, if students get promoted, whether they go to school or not, and we know it happens because we've seen exposes in newspapers constantly, then why would they really wanna go to school? They have so many other types of struggles. So I really think that the education system has to be revamped from the inside. You could maybe have split levels of grades. You know, everybody doesn't have to be the same age. You have different levels. There are so many other things that we could be possibly addressing, in my opinion, that would help with students staying in school, getting the education, because so many of them have graduated. Listen, colleges have to do intermediate training, you know, schools students have to go for intermediate classes cause they can't do math. Look at how many of our schools children can't read and write at 95% levels, you know. So I really think that social promotion, if you want to focus there as the state education department, is the place to be, and we need to change that. I understand we're maybe in the second year of data coming in and and maybe it will be helpful. And I know that there are a lot of other problems, but I think that, COVID is not your problem. Right? Just letting people get paid for the work they're not doing is the problem.

[Speaker 0.0]: I'm not sure if, there's a question there.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: No. Conversation, as I said, in

[Speaker 0.0]: the beginning.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Just conversation. If you have a response, I I'd certainly love to hear it.

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: I I do have a response in this sense that, student engagement is the key, Them wanting to come to school, engage in their own education. And some of what we're working on at the department with our grad measures work based on Blue Ribbon Commission recommendations, and it's now called New York Inspires because it's the full package, is to get students to have those opportunities to own their own education, to go deeper into their own learning, to create more opportunities at the school for students to demonstrate that they've learned something, even using our local business partners to share in the education of these children and to make it count. It's about what counts as learning and what counts as evidence of learning. So we're trying to get to that point where we're not teaching groups of students or classes of students. We're teaching every student and trying to get to that point where it is particularized and prescribed to each individual rather than a full class or even a full school.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Well, alright. I I appreciate that. But, again, that doesn't take into my concern of the fact that if you don't go to school, you're still getting promoted. So whatever other family struggles you have, it's extremely significant, especially in urban urban areas and as this, you know, underserved areas. I I in my opinion, we're certainly missing the ball. And I've been a community education council president for seven years. You know, I'm very involved with schools. My children went to certain schools. You know, in the first year, the first marking period, students are ranked at one and two and three maybe. Right? And then in the second marking period, they're ranked at two and three. They whether they earn it or not, but it's done in schools just to show that there's a progression. Right? So when a lot of the data you get is, in my opinion, not the qualified data, I don't know how we're gonna come up with an answer if it's based on reality. Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Assemblyman De Los Santos.

[Assemblymember Manny De Los Santos]: Thank you. Good morning. Thank you so much for your time here today. I worked in community schools and public school for over ten years. So I'm curious to know I have written a few questions that I wanna make sure I'm intentional about asking that are critically important. What strategy have proven most effective in engaging parents as as partners in improving attendance rather than treating as a disciplinary issues. So how are you utilizing parents as real partners in this effort to ensure that we obliviate this issue?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Yeah. This this is key, obviously. Right? We need every parent involved in their students' education. So we have schools, especially when they have a community schools model and have a community partner. The community partner can help create opportunities for parents and their children to be part of something that's connected to the school. And then they'll be invested in the school, not just the nights where a student comes to share their report card. Report card night is one thing because you're just looking at the achievement of the student, but really an engagement being part of the school system. Bringing parents in, parents as partners, and that's what the community school's model is about, to try to get all the systems around a student working together, including the families and their parents.

[Assemblymember Manny De Los Santos]: I'm sorry. And who's responsible for that, for inviting parents to the school community?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Well, I think the the school has to have their doors open to the families because their parents are a huge resource in ensuring a student engaged when they come to school.

[Assemblymember Manny De Los Santos]: But that's part of the problem. Right? Because if we don't have a designated ally person who are catering to their parents, specifically to that child that will work face to face, hand by hand with their family, with their parents, then how do parents sort of know who who they identify within the school community besides the principal, the assistant principal, even the guidance counselor, social worker on board? Who's a community partner, a not for profit organization, a social worker, a pen coordinator, a specialist. I mean, who is this person?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: I I think it's an all above thing. We have some community schools model where there's a family engagement coordinator between a school system and the families. And that's a person that's well known in the community. They sit on a child study teams of some of these school systems, and they will know here's the families we need to reach out to. It's kind of a school counselor on steroids, but a person who can go out and visit in the communities. So that's just one model that we've seen and heard about. But, you know, right now, like I said earlier, you have 700 different approaches to to this challenge. And so the community schools model, like, even there's one in the southern tier in Binghamton, and it it's exhibited in different ways in the different schools that they're partnering with. Harborsville may have one approach. Windsor may have another approach. The BOCES is a key connector, to that community schools model. So we do know it needs to get down to the school system. They need to communicate well on who these people are that a family can be connected to and where they can get their resources. Communication is the key.

[Assemblymember Manny De Los Santos]: And one more question. And to what extent is fear of immigration enforcement is impacting attendance in immigrants' communities?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: You know, we don't have a data point because people aren't collecting data and storing that anywhere. We have had lots of anecdotal evidence. People call us and let us know that in their school systems, they're about kids because they're not attending as often because they're fierce fearful something's either something's gonna happen on their way to or from school or that someone in their family will not be there when they return home after school.

[Assemblymember Manny De Los Santos]: And what else we're doing to address absenteeism without punishing family who are already dealing serious economic and housing challenges?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Yeah. I think I think that's the strategy we need for the whole community effort because these are bigger problems beyond the schoolhouse. But the school is part of the solution. We have the students every day. We are connector to the families, and I think we need to have outreach as an entire community to make sure that we've rallied together a system of care per se around each family and around each student.

[Assemblymember Manny De Los Santos]: This is why I'm making a recommendation to have a liaison that will work directly with students, with families to identify those those cases.

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Yep. That's an excellent recommendation. Having a family liaison is a is again another person that can be connected directly to families.

[Speaker 0.0]: Can I jump in? Yes. Go right ahead. Jump in

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: quickly just to follow-up on that. Thank you, mister Salmon. So you mentioned that, you know, of the 700 school districts, a number of them have family engagement coordinators. Do you know how many?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: I do not know how many.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: And you mentioned there were other methodologies for schools to help with that interaction. What are the other ways to do that besides a family engagement coordinator?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Do we talk wanna talk a bit about the community schools?

[Dr. Gemma Reinford, Assistant Commissioner for Student Support Services, NYSED]: So one of the important pieces, I think, is trust building within the communities. And so that, I think, is one of the things that community schools do really well is work on building trust within the within that community with parents as partners in the student's education. So there are different models, different ways that schools go about engaging. Sometimes it's, again, having, as Jeff said, Doctor. Madison said, opening the doors, making sure that they're part of the community and that all of those needs are being addressed.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I get that. I'm sorry to interrupt. I guess my question is, just to follow-up on my colleague's point, with the family engagement coordinators, how is it that some districts have funding for a family engagement coordinator and some others don't? And where can we fill that gap if necessary? Because if it's working in one community, then it should be probably working in the communities that the highest that have the highest rates of child welfare referrals.

[Assemblymember Manny De Los Santos]: Thank you.

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: There have been grant opportunities. And so this is one of the problems we have sometimes in our state is that instead of having allocation to make these things happen, we make them competitive grants. So some schools are not able to afford the right grant writer to get the funding to get some of these things done.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: What if I told you it was a state initiative? Does that solve that problem?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: If it was a state initiative to do community schools with a funding mechanism that wasn't a competitive grant would be very helpful.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Have to consider that because the alternative is continuing a system where we're at 27% absenteeism. So Right.

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: Correct.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay. Thank you, sir. We'll follow-up on that.

[Speaker 0.0]: Certainly. Well, we've got a budget hearing next week on this, and I'm sure the concept of community schools will be one of the items brought up during that meeting. Mister Novakar.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Thank you. Thank you, chairman.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Okay. Got it. Good morning, and thank you for testifying. So according to the state controller's report let me just open it up. Neighboring New Jersey had the lowest rate of chronic absenteeism '22 2022, 2023 school year. In your opinion, what do you think, they're doing right and we're doing wrong?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: I wouldn't know. Not in I'm I'm not familiar with exactly what their tactics are. We're aware in communication with some other states like Connecticut and Rhode Island, but I'm not absolutely familiar with what New Jersey has done in particular to have a lower, you know, chronic absenteeism rate.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: We're somewhere in the middle with Alaska being the worst. I guess, just, you know, it's very cold for school. I remember myself. I didn't want to go to school when

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: it was too cold. Yeah.

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: Yeah. Too hot.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Or too hot. Right. Well, I think that again, I I don't know which I understand it's in in a research. And and I don't know what's maybe something has been done historically right to fight chronic absenteeism within within years. Have you have you do you know about, like, any actions that have been done in years, maybe, I don't know, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ago? Because I I think it's a, you know, it's a common problem. It's not just, you know, our times problem. I I understand that pandemic played a huge role in it. I I I totally get it. However, historically, were any any successful programs?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Every school, is the light of their community and to be the place where children are given their opportunities. And we want every school to take that lead in their community. In our state, it's decentralized. We we may have a decent sized education department, but there's a lot of local control and a lot of features of that local control where they have determination, where we we don't tell them exactly how they're gonna write every newsletter to talk to every family. They they look at their individual situations on what will work. Assistant Commissioner Reinford gave you the one example in Glens Falls where they did that study of their own issues. And we need schools to try to make sure that they've turned over every rock to find out what are the issues in their local community. It's a diverse state. It's a diverse state in geography. It's a diverse economy in our state. There's no way we could have one size fits all. One of the issues with the accountability system in Theresa's team is that when we're able to identify in those four buckets of attendance, we are able to help with those schools and and work with them to do that work. Their own self study, they'll be funding to do their own self study so they can target the students that are chronically absent. Our hope is by shining a light on the full attendance, and by the way, we've always carried out our accountability system, that we can move the needle that way with state support. Because I think us sitting up here thinking up the 10 best ways that we heard about and then saying do these things, may not fit that local context. They may have some very particular issues, in their community. And we wanna be there to help. We answer the phone, and we'll send a team. But, also, the team will be coming, if they're in a certain bucket with the accountability system.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: And in my opinion, I'm a strong supporter of incentive versus, punishment. I I think incentive works much better. And, you know, kids want to be cool. They all want to be cool. So if we can make it cool going to school Mhmm. Then I think, you know, we we we can be effective in in fight fighting, for an, absenteeism. For for example, to create some kind of a, some kind of a game where they earn, you know, bonuses, where they earn maybe some kind of a virtual money that they can then spend in, I don't know, neighboring, small businesses, coffee shops, sneaker shops, you know, and stuff like that. Because, you know, they they they want to be involved in something interesting. And I'm pretty sure, you know, some some kids, especially from, you know, from from poor families, don't go to school because, you know, they're ashamed of the the clothing that that they have, you know, compared to to other students. So, you know, I think we we need to be very, very extremely creative in in in that, you know, and understanding children the way they think. You know? Maybe just remember as we were children. Wait. What what did we do? Like, why we were, like, visiting school school or our friends did. So any what do you think about, like, extremely creative ways on on, you know, on fighting that issue?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Theresa, would you like to take a shot at this?

[Theresa Billington, Assistant Commissioner (Accountability), NYSED]: Our schools are doing exactly some of those strategies. They're working very hard to combat this issue. Part of the work that we do is focusing on sustainable systems and structures in that improvement work. So really thinking about what are the structures in a school where you can bring teams together, evaluate the needs of students. The other piece that we encourage our schools to layer in that student voice component. So exactly as you said, speak to the students, get to their root cause. What are they feeling? Where are they seeing barriers? So that's a piece of that puzzle and the work that we do in those schools.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Do we know already where it was more successful? Which approach was more successful?

[Theresa Billington, Assistant Commissioner (Accountability), NYSED]: So I have to echo Doctor. Madison. There's not a single approach. You know, it's unique to the student population. It's unique to the community, the learning community. It is we see success when the school can actually get down to that root cause and apply and leverage interventions that are appropriate and aligned to the needs their students.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ron Kim Smith,

[Assemblymember Doug Smith]: you have a question. Thank you, mister chair. I will note I was tardy but not absent from today's hearing. Thank you for your time. I was listening as coming in here. I appreciate everything you're saying regarding community schools and how that is a successful model. So as I'm sitting here, I'm thinking about and listening to the questions and conversation extrinsic motivation versus intrinsic motivation. So happy to hear about some extrinsic things that maybe schools can work with the community to provide. But when I look at it, and you mentioned New York Inspires, you mentioned trying to inspire students to show up to school, and that intrinsic motivation. And I think that a few things that I'd like your commentary on right now, and I know there's been legislation kicking around, I won't necessarily ask your opinion on a specific bill, but there an idea for the first eight years of school, there's 12 topics that we need to cover, you know, arithmetic, reading, writing. And there in recent years, there's been conversation to add arts and music to that because I do think that when you're talking about what inspires students and what gets them to come to school, making sure that arts and music, even technology and, again, you know, we're talking about physical activities as well. I just think not only does it produce a more well rounded student, but also it really it might be the thing that inspires a student to come to school in the morning. Do you have any thoughts on that if that should be more? Because when budget cuts come, our local school districts feel their hands are tied and oftentimes those teachers, those programs are the first to go.

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Yeah. Couldn't couldn't agree with you more. You're gonna wanna take that. But let me just say a couple of things first that recently, we shared some data with the board of regents about access to the arts in diff different school districts. And there is a lot of access, but it varies how how far that goes. Maybe it might be a single opportunity rather than a very broad based access. Because we know students have different interests. One student might like music. One student might like to paint. You know, one student likes dance, whatever, but doesn't mean your school has all of them. So we would love to see expansion of ours. Obviously, we, certainly encourage that. About 80% of schools have access to, that type of Richmond, which sounds great, but that means one in five don't. So, you know, this is something we encourage schools to make sure students have access to, whether it's at school or in partnership with a community partner. And you're exactly right. Those extracurriculars sometimes are the hook to get the student to come to school no matter what age, in the morning. I mean, I had I had one son that he didn't like going to school. He did great in school. But on gym day, he was ready first thing in the morning and had his breakfast. No problem getting him to school. So would you like to share a little bit more?

[Dr. Gemma Reinford, Assistant Commissioner for Student Support Services, NYSED]: Just to add that certainly the arts may be a a motivating factor for some students to attend. There are all sorts of motivations, and I'm always consistently impressed when we do school visits on the different kinds of programs that are available to our students now. It's very different from when I was in school. Some of the BOCES programs are just incredible. Students that wanna get into ag tech, students that wanna learn how to fly airplanes, students that want to you know, there there are so many options now. Certainly didn't exist when I was in in that system. So those motivations, we work hard to collaborate with students and their families on how students see themselves in the future, what they see themselves doing. And we are future focused for these children and wanting to make sure that they have the supports in place in the p 12 space to be able to do those and pursue those activities supported the entire way.

[Assemblymember Doug Smith]: And I would say also just a question because I feel that it is a broad section, a broad spectrum of students who may or may not be looking to attend. It's not only children who could use more time in the classroom. Sometimes it's the the children who maybe are bored. So I think gifted and talented education is really important to include that as well. The last thing, if I if I could, because obviously, something that I've been saying for years and is regarding the regents exams. And I know we're moving where the regents exams are not mandatory. I have been a proponent of this because I don't see this as lowering standards. I see this as allowing students to have additional opportunities. And I can tell you when I was in the classroom teaching, it was a bit frustrating to me. Although I loved, you know, teaching a double period algebra class to eleventh to twelfth graders. I think it's great. But the fact is well, maybe not everybody thinks it's great. But but the fact is students who are successful, I feel, are more likely to come to school. But if they're constantly feeling failure or needing that just to pass an algebra regents just to graduate high school when now their course schedule in eleventh and twelfth grade is is I I don't wanna say it's taken up. They can't go to both programs. They can't do the things that they actually enjoy that could help them. Are we seeing anything? Is it too soon regarding those conversations about the Regis exams? Will that have

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: an impact, do you think?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: I I think it's gonna have a huge impact. You know, the opportunity for students to demonstrate their learning rather than just performing on a pencil and paper test. Because remember, when you're demonstrating learning, you've been building that skill for a while. It will stay with you forever. What you learn from cramming for an assessment may not stay with you forever. And we're trying to look at deeper learning and more enduring skills for students. Certainly, academic prepared is one of the key points of the grad measures work in New York Inspires. It's one of those attributes you want every student to have when they leave. However, how they demonstrate that preparedness, we need to open that up a little bit more and and have students do something with their learning, which is tougher to do. Regurgitating information is really a low level school low level skill. Applying it to something meaningful is a much more higher level of learning, and we wanna see more of that.

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: And I believe we have one more question. To close, mister Sempolinski.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Hi. I'm Sam Pirozzolo, and I'm a member of the education committee. And I wanna thank Sam. The two chairman for holding this. I think this is a very important topic. Normally, if I stay for a hearing where it's a day we're not in session, I'd get in trouble back home with my number one constituent, my wife. But my wife is also a public school teacher. So when I told her that this was the reason I'd be coming home a day late, she was very insistent, that I stay and and told me some real horror stories, from where she teaches, which is a very small, very poor, very rural district about absenteeism. So my first thing, just want to clarify it for the record. You said it earlier. 27% chronically absent. So the official position of the New York State Education Department is more than one out of four students in the state of New York is chronically absent. Is that correct?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: From the 2324 data. Yes.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Okay. I mean, that's a pretty shocking statistic. And so, again, very important that we have this hearing. Something needs to be done to bring that number down. And we've talked about, you a lot of different things. Certainly, I concede that there's systemic issues either

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I guess they go to the

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: National socioeconomic issues or, the Glens Falls case study was very interesting where there's a local transportation issue. And there's been a lot of talk about, carrots, to get people to come, engagements, and and those sort of things. But one of the stories my wife told me, she is a student she's never met. It's January. School started in September. So I don't know if certain people are gonna work with systemic or carrots because those assume goodwill. Those assume somebody wants to come to school, that there's some barrier to getting them there. And in that case, I certainly don't blame the student. I blame the parent. So we you're in your testimony. We talked about some of the changes that have occurred as far as consequences since 2018. But if you have a situation like that, where in my personal opinion, the only thing that's gonna get somebody there is a stick. What walk me through what consequences would there be under current statute for a family that just refuses to bring their kid to school?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: We we are not the ones that do that part of the enforcement, so we don't work with those consequences. That'd be communication between the school and CPS and what they are going to do with those families and working with them. Obviously, those are horrible scenarios to hear that a student has not been able to get into school and be engaged in their learning, and it's January. We certainly don't want to see that. The the concern I have is that, obviously, that's a family in crisis of some kind. Someone in the family is. And if we add additional consequences on top of that that are pretty severe, are we adding to the problem or are we solving the problem? So I think whatever we do to rally around the student first because it's compulsory for them to be at school.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Well, if there's no consequences, how is something compulsory?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: It's an excellent question.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Yeah. So it just and, again, I'm I'm not poo pooing the need for positive reinforcement because you have people that they are trying to do the right thing. Family's impoverished. Family has this difficult situation trying to get the kids to school. But if there's no consequences, we don't have compulsory education in the state of New York, which is our mandate. So that would be my recommendation is that we, make sure that when we do have these circumstances, that there is consequences, for people that don't get their kids to school, in this type of way.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. I misspoke. I prematurely declared we were closing. But mister Chang, you have a question.

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: Assemblyman Chang. Thank you very much, chairman. Thank you, and thank you all for being here. And thank you for the panel. And one panel we're really missing, and it should be very important, is where's the panel from New York City, which has at least 900,000 students in? Don't see them in this panel, but since you represent this day, I guess you represent. Okay. Now my colleagues with from Novocoff and Simpolinski regarding about financial incentives and consequences, maybe we should have something both. Okay? Financial maybe some private sectors maybe give some incentive, like reward cards or or financial incentive for both parents and students reaching certain milestones. It'd be perfect in terms. They should get some rewards, maybe some goals like that. And and in terms of 27% are absenteeism. I mean, that's astounding. What what are the primary cause you think? And are there huge difference between upstate and downstate like New York City is they employ almost half the the kids in in your 2.4 5,000,000 kids?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: New York City is actually doing a bit better than some of the other cities in the state of New York as far as the chronic absenteeism piece, but it really crosses demographics. We know that chronic absenteeism is most often seen with students of color, with students with disabilities, and with economically disadvantaged students. We know where the subgroups are and the what the issues are, but really it comes down to, that individual student and that family, what they're going through, and what we can do to get that link back to school so that they're present to get instruction for the education they're entitled to.

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: Should maybe my suggestion is should, consequence should be maybe publicly, develop a boarding schools to make sure the kids are in schools and housed in in this way if there are certain circumstances and maybe limited amount of public boarding schools. Your thoughts about that for the hardcore? Really,

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: really not familiar with creating boarding schools at this point. You know, we do have residential placements for certain type of students across the state. And certainly, we could look at what kind of students are served well in a residential placement. But we'd want to be careful with one size fitting all as far as the solution because I think, you know, any any intervention is gonna only work in that context with that student in that family. And we wanna make sure we have a menu of options the school districts have, the communities have, at their fingertips to try to deal with the things, in their context. It may it may be sometimes there's suddenly a new economic issue in that region that has families not sending their kids to school. Who knows what it is? There could be some fear in that community where students aren't going to that school. And so, you know, we need to be careful, I think, to have just one solution.

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: Okay. Well, regent test, as my colleagues over here, assemblyman Smith, regarding regarding about regents, which I support. But, you know, I've taken the region test myself, and maybe we should put some value on a region testing. I had a bill last year maybe recommending for students who take the region test, maybe we should throw in three college credit for CUNY and SUNY. If they do very well, a 90% grade or eight grades on on the all the CUNY tests, throw another three college credit for SUNY and CUNY to give them an incentive. Hey. I I earned six college credit by doing all the region tests as an option and doing well. What's your thought about that?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: We have a lot of dual enrollment programs going out in the state. We're probably the sixth in the nation for access to dual enrollment to get college credits while you're in school. And there's lots of assessments associated with those with the course the kids are already taking in in the school system. So I don't I don't know if we want to attach another thing to a single sit down, take that test on that given day. The the collective dual enrollment piece where you have to get through a course, take the assessments in that course, prove to that person who has been given the stamp of approval from a college university to teach that course probably is of more value than adding credits to a single assessment.

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: Well, thank you. That all I have, and thank you for

[Speaker 0.0]: the chance. Thank you. And to close, mister Hevesy.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: I mean

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: it this time. Alright. Last question if I can. So I'm I'm looking for an area where we can drill down and work together prospectively before we have kids who are sent into the CPS system, obviously. So I just wanna be clear. There are no state education regulations or protocols to guide teachers through that process before they hit the 10%. Am I right? So there's no call the HEAR's line, which is a social services line that the state has set up to provide housing and other things. There's no series of things that teachers should be able to access before they send the kid kid to CPS. Am I correct?

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: We have not issued guidance that is a step by step guide.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay. Is it worthwhile us pursuing some guidance? Because I think there may be some this is not punitive at all. Right. Certainly not against the teachers at all, but to give them some avenues where they can offer, say, the HEAR's line, which is, again, it's food, it's shelter, it's other things that families in need are in dire need of. And I would argue that with the 27% number, you've gotta have a certain proportion of this that are just we're conflating poverty. These are just kids in poverty. Yeah. So I think it makes sense for us to pursue offline a series of interventions or protocols, easy for teachers to grasp that go across the entire system. Let's say, listen. Check let's do a couple of things of due diligence before we send the kids into the CPS system where their families get investigated for six months in the most intrusive way. And before let me you don't have to answer, but let me just get this one out if I can. For my colleagues about stronger interventions with school, I agree. I would just respectfully suggest that the having a the CPS investigation called on a family is one of the most intrusive, punitive things you can do to a family. I know that's not what we're looking for in this context, but at the end of the day, if a parent is not taking taking their kid to school, that CPS investigation is no joke. They contact the teachers, your family, your friends, your job. Everybody knows about it, and they can take your kids away. So, with that, I'd love, to work with you prospectively about some protocols, before we have families get to that point. Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: And I thank you for your testimony. You have started us off, I believe, on a, good way, and, let's hope, it continues. Thank you so much for being here. We now call upon, the New York State, United Teachers. And and, by the way, with this low in the proceedings, I want to state that mister Magnarelli, who's a member of the education committee, wanted to be here today, but mister Magnarelli is involved in hearing room a, I believe, with the transportation, hearing going on. Okay? But at any rate, we welcome the united, to New York State, United Teachers for being here. And I'm sure you might have some interesting things to say, especially about community schools. It, but.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Alright.

[Speaker 0.0]: It's all it's yours. Go.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Thank you. Good morning. Thank you chairpersons Benedetto and Hevesy, members of the assembly education and children and families committees for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Alicia Rodriguez Malone. I am the legislative director for the New York State United Teachers. I am here on behalf of NYSET president Melinda Person and our more than 700,000 members from across the state. Our message is straightforward. Chronic absenteeism is a symptom of deeper issues, poverty, trauma, and instability. The solution is to support our students and their families, not punish them. If we want students back in school, we must address the barriers keeping them away. Absenteeism rarely happens in isolation. Students who miss school frequently face circumstances well beyond their control. One of our members recently shared the story of a student who was absent for nearly a week. When the student returned, the educator asked where they had been. The child quietly explained that he had no clean clothes to wear and was too embarrassed to come to school. Another educator told us a story about a nine year old student who missed school because he felt responsible for protecting his mother. Their home lacked doors that properly locked and he was afraid to leave her alone. These are not isolated anecdotes. They are the faces behind attendance statistics. These students are not disengaged from learning. They are navigating hardships, fear, and instability. A hungry, scared, or traumatized child cannot focus on learning. If we truly want children in classrooms, we must remove the obstacles standing in their way. The good news is that we know where to start as shared by state education department. Community schools are one of the most effective strategies for reducing chronic absenteeism because they address root causes directly. The community school model transforms a school into a hub of support, a place where academic learning is paired with essential services for students and families. Community schools provide wraparound services, supports such as mental health counseling, social services, health nutrition programs, housing, family assistance, expanded learning and after school programs, also family engagement and community partnerships. When students can get help with food, healthcare, counseling, clean clothes or a safe place after school right there in their school building, they are far more likely to show up and stay engaged. Research confirms this. A national review of 143 studies found strong evidence that community schools reduced chronic absenteeism while also improving school climate and graduation rates. New York City's own data tells the same story. Over the past decade, the first cohort of New York City community schools launched in twenty fourteen-fifteen has regularly outpaced improvement metrics for other city schools. Compared with the rest of the city, graduation rates increased by more than 25% points. ELA and math proficiency grew significantly faster. And while chronic absenteeism rose citywide, community schools saw far less, far smaller increases. These outcomes are not accidental. Each community school is anchored by a community school director or coordinator who connects families to services, builds partnerships, and ensures supports align with student needs. The return on investment is striking. In New York City, a $100,000 investment in a community school director generated more than $600,000 in services and grants, a six to one return. In Central New York, community school networks have achieved returns exceeding $14 for every dollar invested. Yet despite these results, only a small fraction of school districts statewide have a community school director. If we are serious about addressing absenteeism, our investments must match the scale of the problem. That means allocating $100,000,000 in categorical aid to expand community schools and wraparound services, expanding school based mental health staffing, including counselors, social workers, and psychologists, supporting educator recruitment and retention so students experience stability and trusted relationships, Using attendance data for early intervention and support, not punishment. And it means resisting quick fix approaches that ignore the underlying causes of absence. So thank you for the opportunity to testify and happy to answer any questions you might have.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you very much. Before we proceed, I wanna mention that we've been joined by a member of the Education Assemblyman Mitaynes. Thank you for being here. Okay? And thank you for your testimony. I happen to be a big proponent for community schools. I suspect you would agree with me that they have been well, you just said that they're very successful.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Mhmm.

[Speaker 0.0]: Okay? What is impeding our going and increasing the number of them?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Funding would be the the big thing. We believe in, community schools, and the best models are the ones that have a community school director. The person that leads that school from the very first step, they bring the stakeholders together to do a needs assessment. So everyone comes in to say what is needed to be able to address their issues. Once that assessment is done, the community school director will work with community based organizations and make sure those services are provided and create that network. It's important to have someone leading that work, as was noted by some of your colleagues, to be able to make this model successful.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. Assemblyman Hebassy, do you have anything you wanna add? Yeah. A couple questions. How

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: are doing? Cool.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Good. And yourself?

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Good. I'm good. Thanks. Good to see you. Likewise. One of the the points that you mentioned in your testimony about addressing absenteeism is one of the things I've been trying to drill down here is using attendance data for early intervention. So what does that look like for you? And if you could expand on that, that'll be the the start of my question. I'll follow-up.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Sure. So our members see it firsthand being in the classroom when students aren't there. Part of the issue is also having staff that they can turn to when they see something coming up with the student. There are warning signs, multiple things that they may witness, but not having a social worker or a psychologist or a school counselor, someone that can then do the follow-up to work with the parents. Our educators do reach out to parents, but they're also leading classroom instruction and taking care of the needs of the other students. So it's important to have the other team of staff in the building that they can turn to to help follow-up with the parents to be able to discern what the problems are, the issues, and make contact.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I gotcha. Is there a distinction between what state ed says, a family engagement coordinator and the other, professionals that you were talking about?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: There is a difference. These staff members are usually involved with students who have, IEP needs, so mandated services. They're there also in case a student may have, an incident may come up unexpectedly, so they're there to work with those students. They have specific roles. Mhmm. But not every school is equipped the same way with the same level of staff.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Which is okay. So now I'm gonna ask you a question that's gonna prove that I am a chair of one committee and not the other. Percentage of schools in New York State that are community schools is what percentage?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: So that's a good question. The number of community schools, it's somewhere around 800 when you look online. However, that's self reported data. So there are some schools that will self proclaim to be a community school, which means they might give out food one day. Okay. Doesn't mean they have these other community based organizations organizations. There is not a clear sort of standard of what a community school looks Really? So, yes, that's part of why

[Speaker 0.0]: we're or bad?

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Because it may be good that you let

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: It's good in that there's an opening. If we get the money and the budget, the 100,000,000 we're looking for, then we can set up the process by which there's a community school director, the assessment actually happens. It's proof that people understand there is a need for the schools to be the community, the anchor, that hub, but now we have to take it a step further to ensure that they're really doing that.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: So just so I'm clear, I'm sorry about this. Was eight it was 800 approximately out of what's the what's the ballpark? How many schools are we talking?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Much larger. 1,700. Sorry. Okay. I don't wanna be quoted on the number.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: So I guess my question would be, if you have a system that it looks like it's not half, right, half community schools or just less, then you have to accommodate for the other schools that are not gonna be community schools now unless we come up with, you know, $100,000,000, which is What can we do in the interim for the, you know, the vast majority of the system that are not community schools? What other is that what a 100,000,000 is for? Is that?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: The 100,000,000 is for that to be able to set those schools up.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: So it's a transfer to let those other schools become community schools?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Correct.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: And there are no parameters with that? I mean, I I I guess I'm I I know we haven't put out a 100,000,000. Let's say, hypothetically, we did. I'd be stunned if we put out a 100,000,000 without some parameters on what kind of

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Well, it would be categorical eight, so it would be tracked, it would be specifically for these designated purposes. So they wouldn't be able just to use it for other things. So it wouldn't be specifically for the creation of the model.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: So at the end of the day, if I'm a legislator here in this hearing, I'm looking for the answer to the problem, this is the answer. $100,000,000 for these professionals to help the families deal with family life and school.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: Yes.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Good. Thank you very much.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: You're welcome.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. I wanna mention that we are joined with Assemblyman O'Connell O'Donough who has come and joined the panel. Let us move on to mister Pirozzolo.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Morning. Thank you for being here. Think community schools are awesome. Right? When we open schools, do we open schools as community schools? Like is every school that's open a community school? Or do we open noncommunity schools? And how we change that?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: I think that's a great point. Some people will say their school is a community school because it's in their community. Right? So one could say every school is a community school, but the difference is the services, the intention of the creation of the space so that way the needs of the families and the larger community can be met. So whether it's social services, job placement, food, dental, mental health could be addressed.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: So listen, I like community schools so much that not only do I think we should increase them, I want to ask questions about maybe increasing their day. Right? Because we have a lot of CBOs in schools, and I would like to know what your thought would be from your perspective. I'm not asking teachers or staff to put in any more hours that they are, but possibly hiring new teachers and new staff to expand the day of a community school or any school. Because really our schools are not set up to a parent's work schedule. Right? Kids get out too soon. That's why we have after school programs. But if that after school program were actually incorporated into the budget of the school or into the curriculum of the school, then we wouldn't necessarily have to worry about funding for them so much every year like we do. If we had to have additional teachers to hire for a morning shift and afternoon shift or in essence run our schools more like a college is available, where parents could drop off on certain days at an earlier time, a later time, pick up at a later time or an earlier time. And schools be working around maybe a parent's schedule, right, through increased staffing. Not through, I'm saying not that you have to have the same teacher doing more. You know, could that be beneficial? And take it one step further in saying if we're going to increase the amount of hours that that school is open in a curriculum guidance, right, not just after school programs that are just run. Sometimes they are, maybe sometimes they're not. Could we extend the school year to twelve months out of the year while still giving the same amount of time off, maybe in different areas, least opening a school on a voluntary basis to try that sort of thing where parents have a different flexible schedule where, you know, if one school wants to remain with the two months off, that's great. But if another school wants to say, gee, we'll do two weeks off here, two weeks off here, three weeks off there, giving that sort of flexibility and options that will help parents keep their children in school. A lot of time we talk about, and it is horrible that we talk about violence and safety and all sorts of things that really keep a percentage of students out. I'm curious if we know what that percentage is because when we have those conversations, everybody kind of seems to say, you know, that is so horrible. What are we gonna do? But and I was very pleased to hear from the state ed department that they don't wanna do cookie cutter approaches to everything because you cannot. I think we've learned that, you know, with education. But so when you speak about the horrors of of that percentage, that's that particular percentage, but that's not the other percentage. But we all kinda have to seem to say, well, you know, that is terrible. And, you know, maybe we don't work on this percentage because we're so focused on how bad that is. So, you know, my thought would be what is that percentage and can we not only have to work on saving those children, but we have to work on saving the other children. Right? And I'm curious as to what that is and that's why I'm talking about that expanded school day within the curriculum and then possibly going to a twelve month school year. Thoughts?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: So right now there are some school districts not extending the day, but do have after school services. There's one here in Albany that has after school services tutoring, also some ability recess time for the students to play, get that energy out from the school day. They also get dinner, and the parents pick them up at seven or eight because the community has that need. They need to go beyond the traditional five p. M. Slot. So, again, it goes back to having, as you noted, not a cookie cutter model and that's what this community school model provides. It is developed, tailored to that community of what they need. Having in the partnership so that way they can offer after school programming again, whether it be tutoring, maybe there's some other enrichment, maybe some science based programming. But whatever that is and what the desire of the community is would be met under this model.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: When you do after school programs, that's more of a volunteer thing on the students' part. Right? If the student decides to leave the building, you may or may not be able to stop that. Where if that after school program were in the curriculum, number one, you're securing the funding because sometimes after school programs stop. And if a student decides to go home, I'm gonna leave, there's really nothing that the school is going to do because it's after school.

[Speaker 0.0]: Right? Thank you, assemblyman. One day maybe you would be the chancellor and we can initiate some of these wonderful suggestions of yours. Okay? By the way, okay, those who know me, know that I'm really quite a bumbler. Okay? And so I've got to publicly apologize to John McDonald, okay, because I fumbled his name before. And and, I'm mightily embarrassed. Sorry, John. Assemblywoman Matanzas. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes]: You're welcome. You mentioned before sorry. I'm just looking at my notes. You mentioned some of the absentee was because of economic issues, fear, but mostly the impacted students are students of color, disabled, and economically disadvantaged. What we're seeing in the news with the ICE raids has also had a huge impact. And I'm wondering, we're we're we're hearing snippets of, you know, them showing up at schools, in the morning, during drop off. We're also hearing some parents have actually, self deported and have left their older kids here because they feel that their kids are gonna be safe because they're citizens. Is are you guys doing anything, or is there any information that you guys have that are are you guys starting to collect some of that information? Is that part of the data that you guys have? And if you can just share a little bit about Sure. What what what it is that you guys are are doing, please.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: So right now, we do not have data. We have not been collecting that data. We are hearing from our local presidents in different areas of the state, working with them when those situations come up and working together to figure out what how we can come together to address the issue, whether it's engaging community based organizations. Some areas have reverted to doing walking school buses where they have roads that they can pick up the kids and bring them on to school. So it really is, again, very individualized to that area.

[Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes]: Thank you.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: You're

[Speaker 0.0]: welcome. Thank you. Let's close with mister Novakov.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Thank you.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Alright. Thank you so much for being here. And, you know, I I truly believe that a lot of things depend on on the principal of the school. And I've met with very different principals. Some are there just, you know, just because they're there. They're they're not, you know, interested, and some are brilliant. And but they they seem to get a pretty high salary, especially in New York City. I researched that. That's around 170,000 a year, which is more than members of the assembly, Ernie. And I also know that it is very tough. It's very hard to to fire a teacher or or a school principal. It takes years and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Do you think that the salary the principal salary should maybe depend on the levels of chronic absentees in the schools? Do you think it should be like an a balance of incentive and punishment, not for the student, but for the principal of the school? Because, again, I truly believe a lot of things depend on on the professionalism of the principal of the school. What do you think about it?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: So our response to that would be there are often so many things that impact school students' performance, their engagement that are beyond what happens in a school building. Right? That our educators, principals may not have control in. So that's why, again, we are focusing on what can we do to bring those services in. We can't force our families to go out and engage, but we can bring those services in and help facilitate that conversation, that relationship. That way, hopefully, they'll be willing to do whatever they need to do to address whatever the issues are.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Another question for you. So if you could recommend one policy change for this year's legislative session, what would it be and why?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: I would say implementing a $100,000,000 in categorically for community schools to make sure that each school will have a community school director that can build this model from the ground up, working with parents, having all the services that that community needs. So that way families will stay engaged and want their children to be there.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: And with that $100,000,000, would we have more community schools in the state? Like, would you be more specific on that?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: We would have more community schools. The beauty of the model also is, as I mentioned, for each dollar, the investment, it could be double, triple. It it quantifies.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: How is it how is it calculated?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: So the reason why you get that benefit is because they're also able to leverage grant funding sometimes so that way the grant funding helps to keep the community school model afloat. Also, these other agencies might be billing Medicaid and other services so that way they're able to offset their costs through those revenue streams as well. So that's how it it's able to be a self sustaining model eventually.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: How how many new community schools we can bring we can develop with the $100,000,000?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: So we're we would love to double that number. So looking at 800, we would love to potentially double that to another 800.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: And I'm sorry. I missed that. It's it's 800

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Statewide.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Statewide and the total number of schools?

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Much larger than that. And sorry. That's the one thing escaping my mind right

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: now. Mhmm. Sorry.

[Speaker 0.0]: Alright. Thank you. Thank you, Assemblyman. You know, you you you philosophize up here. I certainly, am reluctant. But years ago, I'm talking twenty years ago, twenty five year, and sooner campaigning. I was out there, like and I would say the greatest strength we have in the city of New York, but throughout the, state are our grammar schools. They're in every single district Mhmm. Area of the state. Why not have those schools open all the time? In the morning for preschool, for breakfast, the school day, and then after school for more classes in the evening because they're there. And hence, community schools is kind of, you know, my idea come, you know, on steroids. And, it's one of the reasons why I support it and and continue to, fight for it. Thank you very much for

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: your testimony.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Is the co chancellor with me?

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: Yes. We

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: will we will we will share. I'll appoint you both.

[Speaker 0.0]: I mean,

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: we'll share. Fair enough.

[Speaker 0.0]: Have next Ms. Sarah Jonas from the vice president of youth divisions children's aid. Can you please come down and meet the panel?

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Gabby Ramos. And, chairman of Waterman. Jesus. Yep. Okay.

[Speaker 0.0]: And as we go forward, you should be honored. We've been joined with, by two more members of the assembly, assemblywoman assemblywomen, Romano and Waterman. Thank you ladies for joining us. And please Alright. Sit back, relax, and let me hear from you.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Thank you Chair Benedetto, Chair Havassey and members of the Assembly for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Sarah Jonas and I'm the Vice President of the Youth Division at Children's Aid. For over one hundred and seventy years, Children's Aid has been committed to ensuring that there are no boundaries to the aspirations of young people and no limits to their potential. In service of this mission, we have partnered with New York City Public Schools for over thirty years to run community schools. Across our 19 community schools, educators, families, students, and community partners work together to strengthen conditions for student learning and for healthy development. Each school has a full time community school coordinator who works closely with school leadership to coordinate integrated data informed supports tailored to the needs of students and to the broader school community. Children's Aid community schools deliver programs and services across four core domains social emotional development, health and wellness, and family and community engagement. This includes after school and summer programming, early childhood education, targeted academic supports, attendance interventions, and school based medical, dental, vision and mental health care, family workshops and so much more. We have seen firsthand how the community school strategy strategy addresses many of the root causes of chronic absenteeism. Rather than treating absenteeism as a discipline or compliance issue, our community school partners see it as a sign of barriers that prevent regular school attendance and engagement which can include things like housing instability, food insecurity, family stress, or mistrust of public school systems stemming from longstanding inequities. Community schools address these barriers by coordinating school based supports that meet immediate needs while also employing tailored data driven interventions such as success mentoring to increase school engagement and attendance. Central to this work is building strong trusting relationships with students and their families. These approaches are producing meaningful results. Across all our community schools, we saw an average three percent point reduction in chronic absenteeism in the most recent school year, with many schools showing even more significant progress. For example, our Salome Urena Community School in Washington Heights reduced chronic absenteeism by 17 percentage points in just one year through targeted interventions including providing social emotional learning training for teachers and administrators. At PS152 pairing previously chronically absent students with success mentors who checked in with them daily, offered academic support and attendance incentives, and worked with families led to a seven percentage point reduction in absenteeism. And these reflects, excuse me, and these results reflect broader research on community schools. A 2020 evaluation of New York City's community schools found that the strategy was associated with a decrease in chronic absenteeism of seven point four and eight point three percentage points respectively for elementary students and middle school students. During the pandemic, community schools also proved more resilient. An analysis by New York City Public Schools revealed that since 2014, absenteeism in community schools rose by less than half as much as in non community schools over the same period. To reduce chronic absenteeism statewide, we urge the legislature to strengthen investment in the community school strategy by taking the following actions. First, we joined the New York State Community Schools Network in calling on the state to dedicate 25,000,000 to create and expand community schools statewide. While the existing foundation aid set aside is appreciated, it lacks accountability and consistency. A dedicated funding stream would support essential staffing and interventions across under resourced districts and serve as an important down payment towards the $100,000,000 needed for high quality statewide implementation. Second, we urge the state to provide 6,000,000 to support county level community school coalitions. Dedicated funding would enable 20 counties to build local collective impact efforts and provide statewide coordination and technical assistance. Third, we urge New York to join 15 other states in the National Chronic Absence Challenge to cut chronic absence from pandemic highs by 50% over five years. By joining this effort, York would demonstrate leadership, gain access to technical assistance and best practices, and strengthen statewide efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism. In closing, the community school strategy has proven that it can remove barriers, improve attendance, and strengthen student outcomes without requiring costly interventions. With stronger state investment and leadership, New York can scale this proven strategy and ensure that all New York children have the opportunity to succeed in school and in life. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of Children's Aid and the children and families we serve.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you, Ms. Jonas. Yeah. You seem to be a supporter of community schools.

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: Yeah. Just for the record,

[Speaker 0.0]: you're not on the salary of the state teachers association.

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: No way.

[Speaker 0.0]: You aren't. Okay. Very, very good. Mister Hevesy.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Thank you, mister chairman. I I hope you're not on this hour. You short them shorted them by $75,000,000. Okay. A couple questions. Thank you for your testimony. I really appreciate it. And and also Children's Aid has been a fantastic partner

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: and much to

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: our watch.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Thank you.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Thank you. Could you talk to me about the 6,000,000 for county allocations and how that goes through the network for youth success? I love those guys.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: So how did how would that work? I mean, I think if you look at some of the work that's already happening at the county level across the state, there are some great examples. Right? Like, the New York State Threeway Coalition. There are examples across the state of counties coming together and through a collective impact approach, leveraging supports for young people and families so that those outcomes in schools are even stronger.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: And the 6,000,000 does what? Helps the

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: county Correct. Support It would support those county level coalitions so that, again, you're similar to a community school approach but at a county level. Right? You're bringing together partners, you know, practitioners, experts, you know, across sectors that can support positive outcomes for young people in education.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: So it's Yes. Interesting. I'm sorry to cut you off. Really interesting idea. Nice act on board with that? The association of counties? Is this something we talk to them about? They would be interested. I'm just curious if it's

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: I'm not I'm not certain about that, but I would assume that, you know, again, because this is, a county level approach, you know, it would strengthen both within the county and then across the state, again, further leveraging and supporting, young people's outcomes.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay. Just two more questions if I can. Absolutely. Thank you for your testimony. The national absence challenge, what does that do besides put us on track?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Yeah. Puts us

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: on track. Right?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think for one thing, right, it would be like it would be coming out to make a strong statement about the state's commitment to reducing chronic absence and setting that high bar. Right? Like, saying, like, we're willing to put our name to, you know, to this to say 50% reduction in five years. So I think, you know, first, that sort of show of commitment and seriousness about this issue at a state level is really is an important statement to everyone statewide. Right? Also, nationally with the other states that have done this brings us into collaboration and communication with other states so we can share best practices, share strategies, and learn from one another. So I think those are two reasons why it would be really great to to put our name to that and join that effort.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay. Terrific. And then just one last question, if I can. One of the four pillars that you talk about, for community schools is socio, excuse me. Did you get this right?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Socio emotional support and learning? Yeah.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Yeah. So there's specific training for that?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Yeah, absolutely. So Children's Aid does a lot of that training and to the question, I think there was a question earlier about, sort of supporting teachers and how community schools can collaborate between community partners and traditional educators like teachers. One of the things I mentioned that we've done is provide training to teachers in our community schools about social emotional learning and the kinds of things that young people need in order to stay engaged in the classroom. Strategies teachers can use to engage young people

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: in the You know, dealing with toxic stress Yeah. Exactly. Childhood experiences, all the rest.

[Dr. Gemma Reinford, Assistant Commissioner for Student Support Services, NYSED]: All of that. Correct.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: The reason why I mentioned is because we passed a bill a couple years ago that required it was a different topic, but it was for mandated reporters, so it certainly affected teachers. Adverse childhood experiences training, a whole list of things. Now I don't want to overtrain if you don't need to, but if there's some good training for that kind of development for kids and for teachers that would be helpful for them dealing with the kids who are having outside issues, clearly not educational problems, it's causing a difficulty, that was something I would love to look at.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Absolutely. I would love to on that as well with you. And I'll just say briefly that I started my career as a classroom teacher and I still remember it was an elementary school. But I remember, you know, I had a five year old that would just come in every day, put his head down on the desk and fall asleep. And, you know, my traditional, training as a teacher didn't prepare me for that. I really didn't know what to do. Like, I was there to teach math and reading and I just felt ill equipped because I didn't know how to support. And in a community school, I would have had the coordinator to go to to say, can you help me with this? Right? And to help me figure out what that young person needed or maybe their family so that they could engage in the classroom.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I agree. And in this environment where I believe we're mass producing trauma and ACEs for kids, I think it's more important than ever. Thank you for your testimony. Absolutely. I look forward to talking with you.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Absolutely. Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you, Assemblyman. Assemblywoman Waterman.

[Assemblymember Monique Chandler-Waterman]: Thank you, chair. Thank you to children aide. I represent an area, that is heavily dealing with gun violence. I'm a mother of four. I was in a PTA and educator myself. And we know that the community school's expansion can help address absenteeism, but also just addressing gun violence and wraparound services. Yes. Because the parent is not good, the children not good, the whole family, and the teacher. So we know. So I definitely agree with you, and I appreciate that. I wanna know is this, what is the I know you have a certain amount of number here, and then the chair just said that may be a little bit lower than is needed because we would like all schools to be community schools if possible, especially on the state level I know throughout the state. So that is a dream of ours. I would like to also know a lot of the schools, especially some schools in my district, sometimes it's 40% when it comes to, temporary housing, those in shelters. And I know that they have the care coordinators, so community schools also help support that. And I want to make sure that the tools that we have structurally put in place, how they are being utilized, how they are being assessed. Because community schools is great on its own, but I know that there are structures put in place by the public school system and the other school systems to make sure that there are structures put in place to deal with the chronic absenteeism. Is there a tool on assessment that's been used that you know of that has been effective?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Yes, so great question. And as you mentioned, students in temporary housing have higher rates of chronic absence than students who are housing secure. So that's a great question. Yeah, community schools are perfectly positioned to support students in temporary housing. In fact, the community schools have shown greater gains around reducing chronic absence for those students than other other types of schools. Again, think it comes down to that coordinator really knowing and as you said, doing that assessment of every student in the school, really taking the time, working with the school leaders and partners to assess for that particular child and family, what are those barriers? And then working to address those in a very strategic way.

[Assemblymember Monique Chandler-Waterman]: Is there like a current tool that's used right now that we have to build one? The assessment? Yeah.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: So I think there are good examples out there of those kinds of tools being used. So I think there are things we could build on and look at, you know, what works best, you know, what's most effective. I will say that regardless of the tool, the trust, the trusting relationship with the student and their family is always gonna be foundational to that. Right? Because the family needs to know we're we're here to help you. We're here to figure out what's going on. School is better when your child is here. We miss your child. What can we do together to figure out what's getting in the way and how we can support you in addressing it? I think that that's key.

[Assemblymember Monique Chandler-Waterman]: And making sure schools are opened in, like, early in the day for basketball or, like, sports or engagement program and after school. So we have to couple that with those extracurricular activities out of school time because that help. And making the schools not only a community school, but community center concept where other CBOs can come in from 6PM to twelve midnight and Monday through Friday, Saturday, Sunday, taking over the school building and using it as a community center coupled

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: with a hub. Right?

[Assemblymember Emérita Torres]: As a

[Assemblymember Monique Chandler-Waterman]: hub to make sure.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: 100%. And, again, you know, traditional schools can't do this work alone. When you're talking about these kinds of rates of chronic absence, a traditional school without the partnership of community based partners, family members, community business leaders, you talked about, that kind of coalition is essential. And that's also why joining that type of national campaign tells everybody within the sector and across sectors that this is you wanna be part of this because it we all benefit when every student comes to school every day.

[Assemblymember Monique Chandler-Waterman]: And just the last thing I would say, sorry, chair, is that when it comes to shells shelter based coordinators Yes. And also the community schools coordinator, making sure that they don't have a overload because I know that they have multiple schools. And I know also the, teachers that deal with absentee, they are spread across the whole entire district with several schools. So sometimes the workload and I know it's not directly for you, but that's something to put out there.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: That's a great point. And I would say that the success mentoring that I mentioned earlier works best when, yes, you have that coordinator who's sort of, you know, mission control, but then when everyone in the school, including teachers and others, maybe takes one kid, two kids that they're gonna keep that special eye on to check-in on them and their families when they're not coming to school. And there are models for doing that. They don't put extra, you know, weight or time on the on the folks involved, but helps get everyone

[Dr. Christine Arlt, President, School Administrators Association of New York State (SAANYS)]: to school.

[Assemblymember Monique Chandler-Waterman]: Okay. I'll love for to come to my district to see one of the schools. Alright. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 0.0]: Assemblywoman Mhmm. Assemblyman Pirozzolo.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Good morning, maybe afternoon. Thank you for being here. So so far, two thumbs up on, like, everything that you've said so far. Just some basic questions. Children's Aid. So what is Children's Aid as an organization?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Beautiful. So we are over 170 years old, right? So we're a, whole child, family, whole community organization. We believe that in order to support great outcomes for young people, we need to address all the needs of the child and the family, as I mentioned, whether that's educational, social, emotional, health, because all of those aspects are what launches a young person, particularly a young person growing up in poverty, into success in life, you know, in school and in life and happiness in life.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Okay. So all of those things that you do are pretty much extracurricular. Correct?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: I would say it's a combination. Like, in a community school, as you I think several of you have mentioned, those, before school, after school, camp, enrichments, you know, internships are critical, but it's also important in a community school that the community school, partners like Children's Aid are also aware of what's happening in the classroom so that we can connect to it and support it. And sometimes that even means being in the classroom and supporting students. So it can be both, but the expanded learning time is a critical piece.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Where do get your funding?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Right. So, our funding for our community schools is a combination. So most community schools that are most successful have a blended and braided model where you're looking not just at one funding stream, you're looking at accessing a variety of funding to support sustainability. So both in the case of New York City overall with community schools and at Children's Aid, we're leveraging New York City support for community schools, state level support. We have one full service community school that's a federally supported community school. So it really is that combination. And we're looking at after school dollars, education dollars, you know, private support as well. The majority is public funding, however, in our community schools.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: So that's fine. I have no problem with that. So then it would be safe to say that you get a lot of your funding from New York State and New York City, which is New York State anyway. Right? Are there ever times where your funding is restricted or cut back or I mean, do you just pretty much always receive funding? Or you never get zero?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Well, mean, again, I think part of, you know, part of why we're here and and and I think why these kinds of conversations are so important is that we all need to keep explaining, you know, sort of intuitively the model makes sense. You know, we all we all need to get together to support young people's success. Like, people get that, but I think being able to share the actual, elements of the strategy and the outcomes and success of community schools is what's going to help convince folks for the long term investment that's critical to sustainability. So I never want you know, we never wanna, sort of take for granted, like, that this model strategy will continue. We wanna be able to make that case, share the data on how well this works, including around reducing chronic absenteeism to encourage sustained long term investment and expansion in the strategy statewide.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: All awesome. So if we could maybe incorporate what you do into the curriculum, right, where it's part of the curriculum, and I'm sure that could be maybe done to a couple of tweaks here or there, and made it that, you know, so not everything has to be after school. Like you said, you do mornings, you could even do things in between, and you didn't have this constant struggle for funding and coming up for funding. Wouldn't that kind of be awesome since you get funding all the time anyway?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Anything that that builds the sustainability and commitment to funding to community schools, we're all for it. And I think, you know, to your point, there's the new essentials framework for community schools transformation, which is being used at the city level, at the state level, that really explicitly calls out the importance of rigorous community connected classroom instruction, which is the piece you talked about. What does education look like in a community school? How can it leverage community knowledge, community partners, projects where young people identify and work on, you know, issues in their community? There are some ways to make classroom engagement really spike in a community school strategy so that kids want to come to school because they're engaged in school, after school, all day long.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Okay. So do you think it would be possible to incorporate what you do into an official curriculum? And what I really mean by that, what I'm trying to get to is that that student is required to kind of be there and not have the ability to walk away because the parents, you know, they also send their school for education, children's school for education, but they do it because they know that that's where they're going to be. And if a student can kind of walk away, they don't know where their student, you know, their child is going to be. So, do you think it's possible for you to integrate into that system in such a way where that kind of becomes a requirement? Would that be difficult?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: I mean, guess I think that in a community school and what we see is that community schools are successful in engaging young people in their school, making those connections to school for young people and families, and providing the supports that families need to address any barriers that they or their students are facing in coming to school. So the more that we can do that, and community schools are very effective at doing that, young people will want to come to school and be able to come to school, and you'll see, you know, great engagement in school.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Again, awesome. And just to finish, the the only thing what I'm really trying to point out is that every year you're worried about whether you will have the funding to provide that service. Right? And we know as a state, as a city, that that service kind of has to be provided. So if we changed our funding streams possibly, then maybe we could make it more secure and better.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: We I think what you're getting at and what we all always say is that community schools is just the right way to do school.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Thank you so much. Absolutely.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. Assemblywoman Mitaynes.

[Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes]: Thank you. Thank you for being here. Some of what you mentioned talked about children being in the shelter system and how that also has an impact on their education. Are you aware of the HAVP program?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: I'm sorry. Can you repeat it?

[Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes]: The HAVP program.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Say a little bit more, please.

[Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes]: So HAVP program is a rental subsidy at state level. It was, it was passed in the budget last year, but it's supposed to be enacted in March. And the rental subsidy, one of the great things about it is it's at the state level. There's no limitations on there's no restrictions on immigration status, which we know leaves a lot of our folks out. But most importantly, it's targeted at folks that are, either in the shelter system or severely rent burdened. And so the governor has talked. The program is about to roll out, and I wanna make sure since you're doing the advocacy that it would be helpful for them to kind of, like, know that it's happening and start asking questions to make sure. They're gonna prioritize the kids in the shelter system. It's a pilot program for $50,000,000, which we're fighting for more. But I think that, you know, we want to make sure as many people know that this is happening as possible so that advocacy is there and we want to make sure, again, the priority is moving people out of the shelter system into permanent housing.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that. Again, I couldn't agree more that the supports, particularly for families that are housing insecure and seeking stable housing, that's a critical focus not only for reducing chronic absence but just for health and well-being and stability of our families statewide. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Monique Chandler-Waterman]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. And I think to close, Mr. Novakov.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Yes, thank you very much. I can tell that you're very passionate about what you do

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: and you love what So you

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: thank you so much for that. We do need that. And thank you to Children's Aid. My question is, are there any interventions that have proven successful in certain districts but not others in terms of chronic absenteeism?

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Yes. So I mentioned earlier, so I think overall the community school strategy is proven to be effective, right, in reducing chronic absence. And a critical piece of that is that community school coordinator, that dedicated person in the school. Can't be the principal because they're busy being the instructional But leader of the school, having that person there who partners with the principal and with teachers and parents and community members and so forth to really pay attention to individual student and family needs and help work resources, to leverage resources. Right? I think that that is a proven and critical strategy, you know, at a of a broader systems level would be the community school strategy. Within a school, whether it be a community school or a non community school, I think having the success mentor model where you have, you know, caring adults in the school who are assigned one or more chronically absent students to really build that trusting relationship, help uncover the reasons why that child and family are having trouble getting to school and help address that is really is really important as well.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Do do we know how much money needed if if we will, you know, if if each school will hire that,

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: you know,

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: person. So I think

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: again Without being a community school, though.

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: But

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I don't have a, like, a number to sort

[Assemblymember Emérita Torres]: of throw out,

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: but I would say that the the research is clear that having that dedicated full time coordinator is is a critical piece of the puzzle, which is why when we promote and advocate for the community school strategy, that's the piece that we always say, like, you can't do it without that. Right? Like, you know, could I have a just skip that note because this piece is the linchpin in in their partnership with the principal. Principal.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: And I assume that it's it's it's not $100,000,000.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Well, I think the the 100,000,000, right, is to support the strategy. Right? Because, again, to get to get the most bang for the buck, you want the full strategy, including the full time dedicated community school coordinator at the at the, you know, the core.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Thank you very much.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Absolutely. Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: I wanna thank you very much for being here today. You have certainly advanced our conversation, and we appreciate what you've said.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Awesome. Thank you so much for the time and for your support. Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Let me call up now mister Brian Fleschler, chief advocacy officer for the New York State School Boards Association. Mister, thank you for being here. Thank you for your presenting your testimony, and we look forward to hearing you say it.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: Appreciate it. I was I have to check. I was gonna say good morning. It's still good morning. As you noted, chairman, my name is Brian Fessler. I'm the chief advocacy officer of the New York State School Boards Association. Appreciate this opportunity to offer our thoughts and perspective perspectives today on this important issue on behalf of the 669 member school boards across the state that we serve. As you heard earlier, state education department identifies students as chronically absent if they have either excused or unexcused absences for at least 10% of the enrolled instructional days over the course of the school year that typically amounts to, at least or more than, 18 absences. Again, as you've heard throughout the day here, there are many reasons students miss school. These include, but are not limited to, unreliable transportation, housing instability, food insecurity, health concerns, and family responsibilities. In many communities, older students may serve as caregivers, for younger siblings due to family circumstances beyond that student's control. In other cases, students may feel disengaged from school because traditional instructional or educational models do not meet their academic or social emotional needs. Because the underlying absence or causes of absenteeism vary widely, there is no one size fits all solution. Effective responses must be flexible, individualized, and grounded in a clear understanding of the student's circumstances. In accordance with commissioner's regulations, every school board must adopt a comprehensive policy on student attendance. NISPA offers a sample policy for our member school boards to use as guidance should they choose to do so. The goal of our sample policy is to minimize unexcused absences, encourage full attendance, and develop effective intervention strategies to improve school attendance. How those policies are implemented are determined by the school staff and administrators who interact with students and their families each day. Successful strategies require time, professional judgment, and the ability to tailor interventions to each student and family. Funding and appropriate resources will always be an important part of the conversations we have around this around this issue. We applaud recent investments you have made, in career and technical education and universal school meals in particular, as they allow school leaders to better meet the needs of students and encourage their attendance and engagement. We support full funding of foundation aid so that school districts have flexible funding to invest in programs and services that meet the specific challenges and opportunities of their respective school communities, including potential needs around attendance and chronic absenteeism. And this further recommends the state conduct a new successful school study to update the foundation aid formula so that it better reflects added costs schools have been called called upon to take under our current educational environment. At the same time, we caution policymakers against pursuing approaches that would lead to additional administrative burdens. Rather than prescribing uniform answers, policymakers should empower local education leaders to develop and implement strategies that reflect the unique needs of their communities. Chronic absenteeism is fundamentally a local challenge that demands local deter locally determined solutions. It's not an issue that can be effectively solved through statute alone. Now it's also important that proposals do not inadvertent inadvertently penalize or stigmatize students for absences that stem from legitimate needs or circumstances beyond their control. Punitive approaches risk further disengagement and undermine the very goal of improving attendance. Chronic absenteeism is a symptom of broader challenges facing students and families, not a failure of effort or accountability. Addressing it effectively requires flexibility, trust in local educators, and sustained investment in relationships and supports that meet students where they are. We at NSBA believe in the importance of working closely with our partners in education, representing the state education department, superintendents, principals, school administrators, and teachers who interact directly with students each and every day to determine the most effective supports for our respective school communities. We urge the legislature to provide resources and flexibility rather than mandates so that schools can continue developing those solutions that best serve their students. Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Alright. Thank you. So so I'm just from what we heard today, we have heard an awful lot, about community schools. And and and, are you possibly advocating for that, or is that just one piece of the the puzzle to solve? What problem is there?

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: I think yes to both of those. Yes. We're supportive of community schools, you know, for the school districts and communities that see value in them, and that's a lot of them. We see a variety of different kind of programs and services that kind of collectively follow the community school strategy, and and we're supportive of that. As you heard a little bit here today, there there is kind of funding for community schools, but the way that it works right now is current foundation aid dollars for school districts, a quarter of $1,000,000,000 across the state, is reserved or set aside or restricted for community school use. So so that provides some support probably in a way that we see as somewhat challenging because for every dollar set aside for community schools of foundation aid, that's a flexible dollar that can't be spent elsewhere rather than a supplement or a complementary $250,000,000. So, you know, our approach in community schools is that's great for school districts and communities that want them, of which there are many very successful approaches. We would want resources to be separate and additional rather than a restriction on school districts' flexible foundation aid to achieve those goals.

[Speaker 0.0]: So, I'm I'm just trying to get into my own mind. So, you know, we got a $100,000,000 in. Do you think it maybe would be best to put it just targeted towards solving the absentee problem and let school districts use that in the best way that they see fit?

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: Yeah. I think the community school approach and and we partner with the Community Schools Network on a regular basis. That approach has the benefit, I think, of working to address and hopefully answer many of the underlying components of chronic absenteeism. I don't think community schools are only dedicated to that. You know, they provide supports and services to the broader school community that goes beyond just the issue of absenteeism. But our position on community schools is, you know, beyond being generally supportive of the concept, that we would hope that dollars to support community school programs, especially expanded community school programs, are dollar add on, even a targeted and restricted and specific dollar add on, but following that approach rather than earmarking existing dollars within foundation aid, which is how it works right now.

[Speaker 0.0]: Understood. Thank you. Mister Hevesy?

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Sorry to interrupt you. No. It's okay. Mister Pistel, how are you? I'm doing well.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: I'm good. Yourself?

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Thank you. Good. It seems like, and you tell me if I'm wrong, and I don't wanna mischaracterize your testimony, but it seems like, you know, we'll take the money, but don't tell us what to do.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: That's, you know, that's not an uncommon refrain, and I wanna

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I just wanna make sure I'm clear on what you're asking.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: You know, that might be a little bit a little bit simplistic. Right? Interpretation. Sure. But certainly, you know, school board members are elected by their communities. They are closest as, you know, as a governance body. They're closest to the needs of their students, staff, taxpayers, community members. And so kind of following that approach, yes, I think it's fair to say that on average, you know, the belief that locally determined decisions and approaches generally are most successful, that comes with a need for resources. And obviously, you know, there aren't as many local resources available as meets the need, and that's beyond getting into tax cap conversations and all that fun stuff. Got you. But I understand your point.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: No. And I understand yours when we're making these determinations. Yeah. We should lean heavily on the locality as opposed to my my only concern with that is you have a 27%, you know, absentee rate in a system of over 2,500,000 kids. Right? So there has to be some across the board. Let let me switch let me switch to one other thing that jumped out at me from your testimony. Your sample policy on student attendance, it you have in your testimony the goals of this of the policy. What is the actual policy on student what what's your policy?

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: So as as a service to our members, we create sample policies

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Yeah.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: That are available. Some of those sample policies are based on policies that all school districts and school boards are required to adopt via commissioners' regulations and or state law. And then we have kind of optional sample policies as well. And so this is a policy, as I noted, that commissioners' regulations do require. And so whether we provide a sample policy or not, school boards do have to adopt the policy. And so we kind of run through best practices, things that we as an association have learned and heard from our members, from the broader school community, and put those together kind of as a bit you know, a buffet of options Yeah. For local school boards to review, think about, decide, you know, 90% of that looks good, but the other 10% we maybe wanna tweak based on, local lessons, concerns, circumstances, etcetera.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Makes perfect sense. If, if I could get access to that buffet after the hearing at some point so I could take a look through it, I'd love

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: You're making me hungry. Yeah. But yeah.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I'd love to see it and talk further. Thank you, sir.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: Could do that.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Appreciate it.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. Assemblyman Zaccaro, Inc.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Thank you, chairman. So I just couple of things have been throwing through my mind over the last three witnesses, and there's sort of been two themes. One is everybody seems to like community schools, which alright. That sort of makes sense to me. I get that. We need to have people engaging in the community and talking to folks and and digging deep into what some of these underlying problems might be. And sometimes they may be systemic, sometimes they may be individualized. But the other theme has been just give us more money.

[Speaker 0.0]: Okay.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: The teachers union wanted a 100,000,000. Children's age wanted 25,000,000 as a down payment to a 100,000,000. School board association, I think it was just sort of the chairman's point, just some money with no strings attached. New York State spends by far the most per student already in The United States Of America. And yet we're sitting here talking about 27%, which I think is a travesty of chronic absenteeism. And so you just have me the one that I noticed the theme because two isn't a theme, three becomes a theme. So this isn't directed specifically at the school association, you're the one sitting in front

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: of me. If

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: just throwing more money at the problem was gonna solve it, why isn't it already solved? Because we're spending more money than everybody else.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: Yeah. Point understood. I think, you know, the comments that I offered on that were intended and are intended to reflect that, you know, if we see challenges, which we do, you know, across a variety of fronts, but, you know, with attendance in chronic absenteeism in general here today, there will always be, I think, more options and opportunities for programs and services than we have resources for, you know, certainly. But if we are making a concerted effort to respond to a challenge, you know, via options, programs, and services that extend beyond what we are doing or able to do or capable of doing now, you know, I think it's a reflection of those have those have costs. And, you know, if we are moving in that direction, I think the cost of those programs and services and options and tools and paths, you know, should appropriately and and accurately be reflected. And, know, this is kind of all within big sphere of all of the things school districts are doing. And, you know, one of the themes that we have seen from school districts, certainly post pandemic, but even leading up to the pandemic, that I think there's a baseline and this is not a bad thing, it may be a good thing. You know, there's a baseline, I think, statewide and community or an increasing baseline statewide and community level of expectations that we see from our school districts. And so, you know, I think universal school meals is is an easy example of that, that during the pandemic, there were waivers, federal waivers that allowed blanket provisions of universal school meals. And coming out of the pandemic, there was certainly growing trend, I think, you know, across the state via the public, school officials, etcetera, that said, hey, this is something that, you know, was maybe done in a targeted way pre pandemic, but we see the benefits of that. And so we think that's something that should be a baseline expectation. Certainly, comes with costs. And organizations like ours advocated for enough resources to meet that, I think, new appropriate expectation. And so when we're talking about the need for funding and resources, I think it it all comes together in that way. And also recognizing that, you know, despite our our best hope, money doesn't grow on trees. It's not, you know, indefinite. It and and so as we're talking about these things, anytime we're talking about doing more over here, that either means more resources

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Yeah.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: Or that means a shift, which which is, you know, a challenging part of this.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Yeah. And so my my point would be, you know, we just had an executive budget come out that's 260,000,000,000. We're probably I'm sure there'll be negotiations as to where that goes. We've got a lot of money sloshing around already. That money has to come from somewhere. We don't deficit spend. It's coming out of people's pockets. It's making us less competitive. People are leaving for other states. And so I'm not saying we shouldn't make investments in things that are working. I'm not saying that if community schools are working, then we shouldn't be doing something there. I think I the testimony has been very compelling over the last half hour. But if we're already spending gargantuan sums of money and causing people to leave the state because of how much we're taxing, can't we shift some of the money that we're already spending would be my point. But thank you very much.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Sure. Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you, assemblyman. Assemblywoman Waterman, please.

[Assemblymember Monique Chandler-Waterman]: Thank you so much for your testimony. I've be coming before coming to this hearing, I spoke to our shelter based coordinators, our teachers, our parents, our superintendents, the whole environment that has influence over the school, and they said absenteeism rates is contributed directly to lack of having community schools. Because it's not just about community schools and we're promoting it, it's more of the holistic services and wraparound services that it offers from even making sure who's food insecure, who's in temporary housing. And we wanna make sure also that kids have incentives. Right? There's a lot of depression and mental health. From the high school age, they went through pandemic, even down to middle school and earliest elementary school. So I saw that in your testimony as PTEC programs for early college high schools. So just making so I know I've seen classroom where they set up, like, almost like a workforce development. Right? They have some virtual reality programs. I know transfer is one of the programs I was able to see, and I learned how to do surgery, before I got actually in virtually and also construction. So even promoting programs like that in addition to the after school programs and out of school programs, making sure we capitalize on these type of programs. I think when P TECH programs speak to that a little bit, vocational trades

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: Yeah. And that's, you know, some of these, you know, more modern and creative, you know, educational or instructional content approaches, career and technical education, P TECH. I think, you know, we highlight those not because they are good for our students of today and tomorrow and, you know, educating and preparing the workforce that our state and country and and world, frankly, needs for the next generation. But looking at it kind of a little bit more focused or in a more focused way, you know, these are these are exciting programs and services. You know, virtual surgery, you know, I think these are some of the types of programs that the kind of, you know, base or traditional educational model may not energize, and we know it doesn't energize and excite every single student. Mhmm. But aviation mechanics

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: Construction.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: Virtual surgery, construction, you know, may be enough of that engagement tool that if we're looking on the, you know, positive incentive side of this equation, inside of this challenge, you know, these are the types of programs that, you know, we talked before, certainly require money and funds to expand and grow and invest successfully in these programs and services.

[Assemblymember Monique Chandler-Waterman]: Agree that there do need to be accountability how we spend the money, but we cannot shortchange our future and is investing now in you. So I do agree that we need to look at that, but community schools seem to be the common theme here. So I definitely wanna shout out to the chief of school, on the leadership of Patterson is one of the people that we deal with directly. With the executive, he come they come into the district, and they work with the schools to listen to them. So the accountability tools of the assessment, what's needed, speaking directly to the districts, and figuring out from from the electives to the school districts, to the superintendents what exactly is needed is also help so we can make sure that the funds are going into where it needs to go because all this is attached to students coming to school. We gotta remotivate them into the school. Pandemic had a hard hit. Teachers are being stressed out. Parents are stressed out. And if the parent's not good, the child is not good. The teacher's not good, the child's not good. So we gotta look at this in a real way. So I thank you so much for your testimony, and I do believe community schools need to be expanded.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Sure. Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. And mister Novakoff. Thank you, chairman. Thank you

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: for so much for testifying. Just one quick question. Are there any are there any barriers, in receiving after school program licensing through OCFS?

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: Most of, our work around, the OCFS and school district dynamic has come around the daycare world. And so that's something kind of, I think, somewhat separate from this that we've been engaged in. You know? But I think the the after school approach, you know, that that is a particular piece of the broader community school conversation. And so I think, you know, we've had conversations today and and heard questions, comments about, you know, kind of broader childcare needs, whether a student is pre kindergarten or or, you know, within our k 12 education system. That is a piece that I think is is important. It's you know, we have a lot of programs. My my son, who ironically is absent from school today, though he's he's sick, is excused, you know, but my my son attends my my son attends before care and after care because I work, my wife works, and and that's the schedule that we need. And, you know, we're fortunate enough to be able to afford that. We're fortunate that our school district has access through a community organization to these programs, but not everyone can afford them. They are not as available as, you know, as they probably need to be. And so that is one piece a big piece, an important piece, but that's one piece of this broader conversation.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mister Fleisher, we we we welcome we thank you for for your testimony and and your, you know, opinions on this, and, we will take it into, the record, and, we will act on it. Thank you.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: Thank you very much.

[Speaker 0.0]: Have a good day. Listen. I'm gonna do a little bit of an audible here. Okay? We've got a couple people coming up here next. Mister Gregory, I didn't even know if he was gonna pronounce it. Okay? Okay? But come on up. And and the district superintendent of Albany, please come on up. Now okay. Going forward after that. Okay? I am going to call up next the Rochester City School District, the Yonkers Public Schools, and the Utica Public Schools. I think it's will be best to combine them. And then after that, we will also call up, the School Administrators Association along with the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. If if that's okay for everybody, I think it will probably work pretty good that way. Okay? So as I say that, and gentlemen, I thank you for for being here today. And please introduce yourself and start off.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Go ahead.

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: I'm Joseph Hockreiter, superintendent of the City School District of Albany.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Greg Burke, assistant council, assistant director of government relations for New York State Council of School Superintendents. Thanks so much for having us. I think we've shifted to good afternoon. I don't want to repeat all the issues that have been raised by previous groups and individuals that have testified. We've talked about some of the key reasons that student absenteeism has grown, why it's a problem, but just some other issues that haven't really been hit on. We took we surveyed our legislative committee asking for quotes for reasons among superintendents for why student absenteeism has grown and solutions that they've I mean, we're you're in a solution finding business, so we'll at least provide some options going forward. But we haven't really talked about some of the adult issues. So one one quote from a Finger Lakes superintendent, a higher percentage of parents today do not expect their kids to be resilient when facing tough situations. When things get difficult at school or when students are held accountable, most parents, more parents, seem to believe the answer is separating the student from school when in reality that perpetuates the problem. We don't just have a a child not wanting to go to school. We have parents that need support and how to help those children understand overcoming barriers to get to school. Growth for students and kids isn't just fostered by what's going on in the school environment, it's also going on at home. And I think there's a lot of challenging circumstances at home with adults that are contributing to lack of student success. So we need to delve into those issues as well. Another challenge, and mister Harvey said, I hear the concerns around CPS and how serious that is when somebody does get a referral, especially when it's unfounded. But our school leaders have gone to CPS, have gone the PINS approach, education and, truancy officers, and regularly, particularly in more poor rural counties, the counties have not been responsive. CPS has not taken these referrals seriously. So when they reach that point where they need to give CVS referral, I'm hoping they they only do it in the rare circumstances, but CVS is saying they don't have the resources to actually look into that. So it's not so much a question of should they be doing it? They're doing it where appropriate, and they're getting pushed back from the counties that they don't actually have the resources. So that was a a thematic thing that kept coming out was issues with the counties doing their part of the job and helping get kids back into school. So then it falls back into the school district. I mean, this is a thing that's been going on for a decade as counties have backed away from supporting youngsters and have had their own financial struggles, everything falls onto the school to fix. Schools take up attendance functions. Schools take up truancy functions. And that's that's been the reality that schools have dealt with. Mental health counties have closed mental health hospitals, more difficulties with schools. But that was the thematic comment that came up. I'll read a direct quote. Our greatest frustration in the post pandemic disinterest by our local CPS in pursuing educational neglect. That used to be a pressure point to help encourage parents to see that their child attends school, but the county agency has overtly told us they do not have the resource to investigate or manage educational neglect and will only accept hotline referrals when student physical safety is in jeopardy. Their nonaction is perhaps our greatest asset.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Can I jump in?

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Yeah. Of course.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Is that legal?

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: To for them, just deny it. I don't know what the steps

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: so sure that's legal, my friend. I if that's the case, you're hearing about that consistently. That's very scary.

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: Yeah. I

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: no reason to doubt the standard. Yeah.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I'm just this is first time I'm hearing it. So this is an under resourced CPS system that is not responsive to Educational law. Educators who are by law following the law. Really?

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: That that was what it was.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Also, Harris, you mentioned ideas to the department in terms of step by step process to address student

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Actually, sorry. Can I just take a step back? Yeah. Yeah. The the prior question. So let me understand this. So a call goes into the state central register, and then they refer it to a local county. And then when the county gets in how is the the I'm I'm having a gap in the understanding of how the school district is I'm sorry. The CPS is not responding.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: This is an email correspondence with the superintendent, so I don't wanna get into the Okay. What I understood from him was the the county and CPS is not taking educational neglect referrals seriously, and they're not investigating unless it deals with physical abuse.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay. Let let's talk about it post hearing.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Sounds good.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I appreciate it.

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: Thank you.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: But just in terms of processes to address student absenteeism, data tracking to ensure early warning of a possible problem. Two to three absences isn't a big deal, but a rapid response when it becomes more significant. Home visits. Assigning a point person who will be responsible for each case for elevated absenteeism, who contacts families and coordinates. Setting clear expectations with students of what's expected of them when they come to school are part of the academic programming. Those are strategies that districts have employed to help improve student absenteeism. Also, it's important to note, and this is not an excuse, but the reality is post pandemic, if student is sick, the message has been stay home. Most parents and guardians have heeded that, and that has definitely contributed to what extent, I'm not sure, but has definitely contributed to increased absenteeism rate, where a sniffle or low grade fever would student would go say, tough it out, just like with the work environment. My employer, if you're sick, stay home. That theme has definitely reached the schoolhouse gates and has contributed to, absenteeism.

[Speaker 0.0]: Let me cut in here because I'm want he's been waiting patiently, to our school superintendent here in in Albany. Think By

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: the way?

[Speaker 0.0]: We should move over.

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: Sure. Thank you. And good afternoon. I'm Joseph Hockwider, superintendent here in Albany. And on behalf of our board and nearly 2,000 employees and close to 10,000 students, thank you for, today's, very important conversation, where I'd like to talk a little bit about the challenges we face, the ways we work to meet them, and how your support can assist. In many ways, public school district is like the proverbial canary in the coal mine for its community. Families are largely financially secure and have the ability to assess resources they need to support children. You'll usually find students that are successful in school when that's the case. Certainly, and families face challenges no matter their socioeconomic status, and those that, and those are very real concerns for every individual who encounters them, and every organization that works to assist them. However, those challenges are often most pressing where poverty is most pressing, and that includes Albany. Albany's child poverty rate is among the highest in New York in the nation, affecting more than a third of our city's young people. And Albany is not alone. These statistics are similar in far too many communities across our state, and in particular, of color. Families beset, I'm sorry, beset the poverty struggle with underemployment, food insecurity, lack of access to health care, transportation barriers, community violence, and a number of other realities that are often byproducts of economic hardship. Before the pandemic in Albany, our McKinney Vento staff served fewer than 400 students. These are students eligible or home students. That number has been above 600 students each of the past two years, a 50% increase. Evidence of the deepening economic challenges for many of our families. These are daunting challenges for a school district, especially when a child who comes to school every day, a child that comes to school every day, is with us for just 15% of their life. They and their families are beyond the reach of their schools for a significant majority of their lives and in need of support for broad range of services from government and private entities to make sure their well-being. Our school district has recognized the vital need to support the whole child for many years through social, emotional, and mental health supports that have not been part of school districts' budgeting. We've invested for over a decade in adding social workers, school psychologists, school counselors, behavior specialists, and attendance teachers to meet many of the obstacles to a student's academic success, we've used our general fund budget to do so. As an example, we have 41 social workers this year, which is double from a decade ago. We have 14 behavioral specialists this year, compared to only two a decade ago. We have full student support teams in each of our schools, and we have leaned into these needs even more intentionally during and after the pandemic. And these investments have helped us made significant progress. In the school year, right before the pandemic, the twenty eighteen, nineteen school year, our chronic absenteeism rate was thirty six percent. The school year, the first school year in person, 02/2122, after the pandemic, that rate soared to forty six percent. Last year, our rate decreased and is at thirty point six percent, significantly below our pre pandemic levels. Yet there's much work to be done, but our progress since the pandemic is a testament to the hard work of our entire staff. We know that building strong trusting relationships with our students and families is the most important component in heading off attendance issues before they begin, and our team remains committed to this. Our improving absenteeism data is also a testament to your support. Constantly providing school districts like ours with the means to put in place social emotional safety nets that many students and families need is commendable and deeply valued, and we thank you for your support. We know the governor has once again proposed strong support for our school district in her budget proposal, and we we we remain grateful for this continued recognition of the resources that our students and families need. While supporting schools in this work is critical, we also urge you to continue to support government and community organizations in your budget development plan. As noted a few moments ago, the resources and supports that a school can provide for a family most often end when the school day ends. And that's often when the greatest needs arise. We're working on a partnership with Albany County that would put in place additional prevention based structures for teens and families in our community. We envision a student engagement response team that would work with the county to identify potential attendance challenges before they become chronic. This would allow our staff to help off I'm sorry. This would allow our staff to help the county identify teens and families in need of the greatest support because that is where the challenges with regular school attendance begin. In addition to your continued support for

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: our schools, we urge you

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: to continue to find additional ways to support all of these entities that support families and, which our school district proudly serves. In closing, again, thank you for lifting up this critically important issue. Your attention and focus makes a big difference for our students, our families, and our community.

[Speaker 0.0]: Gentlemen, thank you very much. Superintendent, am I to suppose from your testimony then you would be in favor of more funding for community schools. And do you have community schools in your district?

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: We do have community schools.

[Speaker 0.0]: They've been effective in this area?

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: They have been they have been effective, and we need more resources. As as we heard from others, the the funding mechanism of community schools being set aside forces us to to use those resources a little bit differently. I mentioned seven attendance teachers. Those seven attendance teachers that we employ are funded from our general fund, not from community schools funds. The additional guidance counselors and mental health support team members are also funded from our general fund. So as our friend from the School Boards Association said, you know, more funding would help, but

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: for

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: our critical need in Albany, general fund support for these positions to be able to build the networks with the county that that we're very thankful that we've begun those conversations over the last six months. That's our greatest need, and that

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: would provide us the greatest support.

[Speaker 0.0]: A separate line just for attendance purposes.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Correct.

[Speaker 0.0]: That would be unrestricted. Mister Hevesy? Yep. And miss Raher Amato. Thank

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: you for your testimony. Quick question about the Bichette Metros. Won't get any funding for that. Right?

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: We received a quarter of $1,000,000 a year grant funding to offset staff, and our district was not chosen for this fiscal year. So that's

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Is that federal money or?

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: Federal money.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: That's federal money. Okay. So they haven't found that yet to get rid of it. Correct. Sorry. And I'm gonna ask you a question that you may not be able to answer, and this is just generalized. So if you don't, if you can't answer this, I understand. Is do you have the sense that for our kids that need the McKinney Vento help that they're homeless and and need access to additional resources? Are you finding that those kids are having more difficulty with absenteeism or not, Or do you just not wanna say out of an abundance of caution? Either way, it's okay. You see what I'm trying to get at.

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: Yeah. The the struggle we have is around the transportation component.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay.

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: So I I would I'd feel qualified to say our struggles and issues as a urban district around transportation are not just around students experience homelessness or or qualify as McKinney Vento, but for all students. So I would say transportation is a major hurdle.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I appreciate that. Alright. And mister Burke, I'm gonna follow-up with you after. That's a very serious That's a problem.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you, sir.

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: And and if and just if I may, mister Hepsey, to to mister Burke's comment, we we have experienced similar commentary around issues with PINs and CPS and so much so and I don't wanna steal any thunder from assemblyman assemblywoman Romero, but she was part of a conversation with local superintendents a couple weeks ago

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: Mhmm.

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: Where not only were there questions around CPS and responsiveness, but whether or not there were some conversations perhaps conversations with those families at risk around homeschooling. So we are now paying very close attendant attention to homeschooling requests in our district to determine if homeschooling requests potentially may be increasing if those families were in the CPS pipeline.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Fascinating. And I look forward to Assembly Member Romero teaching me about this issue, and we look to follow-up. So please.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: I look forward to that conversation as well. My question was about transportation, though, and, I I wanna give you the floor to talk about the impact of transportation potentially on absenteeism and the the challenges that we have in the Albany School District with transportation and that 1.5 mile rule.

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: Yeah. Yeah. So school district City School District of Albany were receives reimbursement aid for transportation bus routes over 1.5 miles from child's school. We know that in Albany and many urban areas, and surprisingly even some suburban areas, there are neighborhoods or industrial complexes that we don't want students walking around, or lack of sidewalks, or quality sidewalks, or just overall environments and neighborhoods that aren't as safe as we would like. We are going through a process trying to access child safety zones, which has been a very enlightening exploration for our district. And we found that whether right or wrong, there are a lot of requirements that need to be made and or or be met, and a lot of partnerships, in our case, with not only the county police, but the city police of Albany. Getting kids to school is not just or struggle is not just parents getting them out the door. It's when they get out the door, do they feel safe? Do they have a direct route to school in neighborhoods where families know others that can look out for their children? The other piece is we're a we're a school district that does not own our own fleet. Therefore, we don't have our own transportation staff. We're at the mercy of of trying to negotiate contracts with private third party companies that make fiscal sense not only to the district, but ultimately taxpayers. So I believe it was just a couple years ago our our contract with our major provider increased 30% for no real good reason other than it could. And knowing that we were relying on that on that company to provide a vast majority of our transportation, we had to foot the bill because we had no other alternative.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Right. And especially in the more, urban areas of Albany, especially in downtown and in the snow, children are expected to walk to school in the under a 1.5 mile radius. There's a lot of parents that can't drive their kids to school. So, you know, just, you know, outside of New York City and Upstate New York, it's just a really challenging aspect.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Just a quick add on to

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: the transportation issue. You can transport a child under one and a half miles, but you don't get state aid on it. And that's that's one of the distinctions with wealthy districts versus poor districts. I used to live in the Monan School District, which is not wealthy, but wealthier than the Albany City School District. They transport every student. It's a very small geographic area versus in Albany, this affordability issue.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Totally. So maybe maybe we need some funds there. I also just wanted to give you the floor again to talk about the community schools, and you said that there, the funds being set aside. And so just just to elaborate more, the foundation aid, that's not like there's a separate section specifically for community schools. We're we're talking a lot in this hearing about community schools and the and it's, like, benefit for absenteeism. I think we all might agree that it's a great great section, but there's no explicit line for community schools. Right? There's no explicit funding for community schools.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: I think as as mister Pheffer said earlier, there's a community school set aside as part of foundation aid that part of that foundation allotment is set aside for community schools. There are community schools grants that have been available. So there's an area for room for improvement there, but there's also probably diversity of opinions of how to define a community school and what should be inclusive of them and what the goals are.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: And do you have recommendations on that?

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: I think a community school,

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: in my view and what I've heard from successful colleagues, addresses student across the board issues, parent issues, student issues, mental health, telehealth, school based, dental clinics, vision clinics across the board, absenteeism issues. I don't know if there's one there may be a definition statute regarding community schools, but I'm not sure. No definition.

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: Okay. There's no definition on that.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Yeah. Miss Harvey's indicating no. I'm not I'm not

[Alicia Rodriguez Malone, Legislative Director, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)]: into it. I I'm just saying for the funding purposes, like, how can we make that clear so that the schools aren't, you know, just like my superintendent was just saying, like, you know, he has to pull from other funding streams to allow for the community schools to get the help that they need. Giffin in the South End has a lot of really big needs, and they're pulling from many different pots of funding, including private funding from the teachers. You know? So how can we maybe streamline that process is what I'm trying to get up, but more work to be done. Great. Thank you, guys.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. Mister Hepassy, you have a little follow-up?

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Yeah. Just one quick question for mister. Could you I'm unclear on child safety zones. What's the please?

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: Yeah. Child safety zones enable a school district to apply to basically prove, and I don't know the entity or the agency, but prove that a child's path from home to school, or the most direct path from home to school is unsafe based on criteria that are pre established. Crime rate, condition of housing, some other criteria as well. Mhmm.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: That

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: data, the process we're going through, we're working with the Albany Police Department. They've been great partners, but it's also a laborious task for them to pull that information. So we are working with an outside consultant paid for by district dollars, but to help us identify which neighborhoods would qualify for transportation as a child safety zone. What that does is is what mister Burke said, that would allow us to receive reimbursement for transportation aid inside that 1.5 mile radius. That sounds great. The next question is what transportation company do we partner with that has available fleet and staff because we would need more buses on the road? Yes. We would get reimbursed, so it would be a a net zero in terms of cost. But now we're asking existing transportation partners or other partners to see if they have additional vehicles and staff in order to transport. And what we do know, still coming out of the pandemic, school districts, even the wealthiest of school districts, are still having a hard time with transportation.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay. So there's two points there. They're linear. I will tell you that I'm going to, if I can, focus on the child safety zones, I'm going to try to track that down and see when's the last time that's been updated or if we've taken a look at that in a while. And the transportation, I'm interested in to to be of assistance following the lead of my Albany colleague. So thank

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: you, sir. Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Mister Novakoff. Thank you.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Questions for mister Burke. What support do school administrators need but are not currently receiving from the state in your opinion?

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: I'm not sure as it relates directly to absenteeism. I think there could be some more better data availability. There's some questions that came up with a group of supernaturally about the data doesn't really aggregate what types of absenteeism are excused or unexcused. There is a distinction there. Right? Some absenteeisms are related to bereavement, illness, college visits, factors such as that. So I I don't know how to it's a broad question, obviously. Resources always come up, but I think those are some general thoughts.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Are there any stationary or regulatory barriers that limit information or data sharing between schools?

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: I think the flow of information and data on the subject between state ed and local school districts is is fine. I think state ed and this the government as a whole asked for too many reports where data isn't used. This is useful data, obviously, to know attendance data, but tracking the statewide level and school district level is important.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: And a few questions already asked other panelists. If you could recommend one policy change for this year's legislative session, what would that be and why? Two.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Some older siblings do miss school more commonly when both parents work because they need to take care of their younger siblings. Allow school districts to directly author offer school or offer childcare in their buildings, reduce the regulatory barriers between OCFS and SED

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: Mhmm.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: To allow schools to operate daycare directly in their building, particularly in rural areas where they've lost enrollment. There's empty space where schools can offer very cheap space to families for the purpose of providing child very cheap space to providers for the purpose of providing childcare, including at the infant level. We can't expect rural communities to succeed in the future if they don't have childcare, and industry is not gonna show up there absent childcare.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: In school.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Yeah. And there are there are districts that do offer infant daycare. Pine Valley in Chautauqua County does it. There's a district in Clyde, Savannah in the Finger Lakes area, offers it including potentially a reduced rate for teachers and community members. There are innovative programs out there, but it's a challenge, particularly because the regulatory burdens between OCFS and SCD. The other would be expanding access to health telehealth services in schools, especially those without school based health centers. That way, parents wouldn't be taking their kids out. Again, more of a rural issue and traveling an hour, hour and a half to get a basic diagnostic test or an evaluation that could be done via telehealth. And then the student's not missing school and not showing up as an absent people.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: And are there any barriers in receiving after school program licensing through OCFS?

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Not an expert on on after school challenges. I know just general staffing issues, affordability issues.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Thank you very much. Thank

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: you. Samuel Mespolinski. First of all, appreciate

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: the time value school, maybe in Chisappa County, but Park School District in Cattaraugus County.

[Greg Burke, Assistant Director of Government Relations, NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS)]: Yeah. And I'm married to the former superintendent. So there we

[Speaker 0.0]: Awesome. That's cheating, isn't it?

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: It is.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: So I wanna say I appreciate you highlighting some of the rural concerns regarding CPS. And your testimony, you're representing Mohawk Valley a Mohawk Valley School and a North Country School. And as I said, I'm from the Southern tier. And I want to highlight that because of some of the reactions we got from the panel to that and some of the discussions and reactions from the first panel for myself and and chairman have a seat where what's really, I think, important about these hearings that we do is getting all these different perspectives because you can have a similar situation or you could have a particular organization, in this case, CPS, and how it's interacting with constituencies or not interacting with constituencies could be very different in Queens than it is in the Southern tier. And so the chairman, I think is a very earnest guy and does a lot for kids in this state

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Thank you.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: His reaction is, you don't want somebody coming down like

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: a

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: ton of bricks on somebody who's just a poor family that's trying to do the right thing. And I respect that a 100%. In these parts of the world, Southern Tier, North Country, Mohawk Valley, this is getting to my questioning of the first panel. You may have a situation where a teacher feels something is rising to the level of abuse. They've done a bunch of things at the school to try and do something. They think, alright. Now we really do need to engage CPS, and then nothing happened. And that, to me, just as much I wouldn't want somebody having their child taken away just because of poverty. I wouldn't want to have somebody who is a bad actor and is hurting their child. They're not the enforcement because of a lack of resources, because of something falling through the cracks, because somebody gets called and then and nothing nothing happens. So I appreciate you highlighting something that's really, I think, impacting our rural areas. And and, again, this is why I like coming to these hearings because the world's very different. I don't understand Queens, and I feel it's my job to make sure that people understand what's going on in the rural areas and earnest people across both sides of the aisle can find solutions. So thank you very much, sir.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Thank you. Just for the record, I don't understand Queens either. Clear.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you very much. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your testimony. It's greatly appreciated. And hopefully, it added an awful lot to our conversation here today. Have a good afternoon. And I know you will follow-up with mister.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Yep.

[Speaker 0.0]: Let's call up some superintendents, Rochester, Yonkers, and Utica, and assorted other people. Hopefully, we have enough chairs for everybody. And we would try to give time for all of you to to speak, but please see if you can condense your testimony a minute or two less.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: Got shortchanged. It's hard to participate when we get shortchanged.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: Right.

[Speaker 0.0]: Panel, thank you very much for being here. Thank you for, you know, putting up with me. And please, let let us begin and and and in no particular order, but we'll go ladies first.

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: Good afternoon, chair. Good afternoon, somebody. My name is Cassandra Wright, and I am representing superintendent doctor Eric J. Rochester for the Rochester City School District. Thank you for the opportunity to share the work of Rochester City School District and how we are addressing chronic absenteeism. In reviewing the data aligned to Rochester's chronically absent students, there's been there's not been a dramatic shift in reductions over the past four school years. However, the district is off to its best start yet. RCSD has moved intentionally from isolated efforts to a systems driven approach. In August 2025, the district launched its strive for five, show up strong five days long campaign to clear to create clear cultural expectations that daily attendance is a foundation for learning. That message is now the umbrella for our 25, 26 attendance strategy, inclusive of community involvement and support. And our attendance department's work has focused on building the infrastructure and tools schools need to act on consistently. To ensure consistency and accountability, we have recommended school attendance team across 48 42 schools, meeting minute structures that have provided the highlights, meeting dates, who attended, interventions to build in accountability. Alongside team structures, we've enhanced RCSD's tiered framework so schools have a common set of expectations for prevention and intervention. We have emphasized a three tier model that is adaptable to each school's needs but consistent in purpose. Tier one focuses on school wide prevention. We want children to come into a warm, welcoming, intellectually stimulating, and student focused environment. Tier two focuses on early interventions for students who are beginning to struggle with the root cause identification. And tier three is an intensive and individualized supports for students emphasizing trauma informed approaches. A major shift this year in Rochester has been strengthening our data system so schools can intervene earlier and more precisely. In addition, we expanded and clarified tools for school staff to use that work well. We have a public facing district attendance website page. We know that this is not solely a school problem. This is not a problem we can solve on our own. We need the community support. So we we have intentionally engaged them in our campaign. We paired our systems and strategies with staffing structures that strengthen implementation. We have seven attended specialists, each assigned to a group of schools. We have early indicators that the shift in having a strong focus on data and a tiered approach towards intervention has taken hold. Unfortunately, we still remain at 56.4% chronically absent students. That is an increase from our or a decrease from our 64%. So we have a lot of work to do, and we do know that this is not work that can be done solely by the school. And we are doing everything that we can to engage the community. And we are seeing the results of that work.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: You want go next? Alright.

[Speaker 0.0]: Yes, please.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: Chairperson, the soonest members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify about an issue that lies at the core of educational equity and student success, student attendance. I appear before you today not only as a superintendent of, but as an educator, a parent, and a lifelong advocate for children. In Yonkers Public Schools, New York State's third largest school system, we serve students of extraordinary promise who also face extraordinary challenges. Attendance is not merely a compliance issue for us in Yonkers. It is a mirror reflecting the conditions in which our children live, grow, and learn in. We all agree on the fundamental truth. Students must be present to learn. Attendance is strongly correlated, with academic achievement, graduation rates, and long term life outcomes. Yet chronic absenteeism persists, particularly in urban communities. But it's not because families do not value education. It's because too many barriers stand between students in the classroom. These barriers are real and they're ongoing. They include housing, instability, food insecurity, unmet physical and mental health needs, unreliable transportation, community violence, caregiving duties, and lingering impacts of the pandemic. For many families, especially in cities like Yonkers, attending school daily isn't a choice but a result of a circumstance. When a student repeatedly misses school, the academic effects quickly build up. Gaps in learning grow wider, confidence declines, and students often become disengaged over time. Absenteeism turns into both a sign and a driver of academic challenges. Tackling it requires more than just letters home or punishment. It needs understanding, collaboration, and support systems. This brings me to the current definition of chronic absentee in use by New York State Education Department. Missing 10% or more of the school year for any reason, again, any reason, while clear and consistent, suggest that this definition is currently applied may not fully capture the complexity of attendance challenges in urban education centers. In affluent communities where families have better access to health care, transportation, stable housing, flexible jobs, chronic absenteeism is less much common and or discussed. In urban districts, the same issue and the same measure can unintentionally serve as a blunt tool to unfairly label a school as poor performing and label a community without fully considering the structural inequities that are beyond the school district's control. My concern isn't about accountability as superintendent. We welcome it. My concern is about context. When the same definition is applied uniformly across a very different, very different communities across a very large state, you risk oversimplifying a deeply human issue and shifting the focus away from the root causes that require policy solutions. I urge the legislature to consider whether our current framework should be should be developed further. Perhaps we need a more refined approach. One that distinguishes voluntary disengagement versus unavoidable absences that includes a measure of student support, progress over time, and access to comprehensive services. One that promotes innovation rather than stigmatization. In Yonkers, we're not waiting for perfect conditions. We are trying to invest in solutions that work. We are investing in building new community schools. We're expanding partnerships with health and service providers. We're strengthening early warning systems and engaging families as partners rather than adversaries. We see progress, but we can't do this work alone. We need your help. Attendance is not solely a school issue. It's a public health issue, a housing issue, a transportation issue, a child welfare issue, and it's unquestionably for me, a legislative issue. If we're serious about closing the achievement gap in the state and improving outcomes for all students, we need to align our our policies with the realities that families face. Equity requires that we ask not only how often students are absent, but that we also ask why they are absent and what systems are we willing to put in in place to support their absences. I truly appreciate your leadership and your invitation to speak today and the focus on this issue and your dedication to New York's children. I know together we can move this from simply tracking absences toward creating environments where every child is present, engaged, and successful. Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. Doctor. Spence.

[Dr. Spence, Superintendent, Utica City School District]: Yes. I'm pleased to be in your company because I'm here to discuss key data and policy relevant insights regarding chronic absenteeism within the Utica City School District, which is a high need urban district serving approximately 10,000 students. The intent here is to illustrate how attendance challenges are deeply connected to structural barriers, not merely student motivation, and to identify state level actions that can support meaningful and substantive improvement in student attendance outcomes while also highlighting the district's efforts to combat chronic absenteeism. So the approach that we've taken in Utica School District is is an intellectual approach to this. We're studying this as a problem within our district and I think it's important to provide context. We are a multi ethnic urban district with a variety of learners that have a range of needs. While we recognize that that heterogeneity within our student population is a core strength that we welcome, the district is home to students who collectively speak more than 52 languages and represent a broad array of classifications. And when we talk about those classifications, we're talking about students with disabilities, English language learners, students that are economically disadvantaged, migrant students, McKinney Vento, and each one of those students can be a member of each one of those subgroups, which intensifies the students' needs and intensifies the system's response to supporting those students. When we examine the chronic absenteeism within our district, we note that our key findings are chronic absenteeism is a complex, multifaceted issue rooted in historical disadvantage, marginalization, inequitable access to resources, and systemic inequities. In short, the school system and the school population is not disconnected from larger macro, sociopolitical, historical, and economic factors that have created the circumstances to which students are engaging in in current day. So we recognize that work, and we utilize that to help explain the phenomena to which is occurring within the district. We also note that our data shows that there are disparities in chronic absenteeism and they widen among subgroups as they progress from elementary to high school. Moreover, chronic absenteeism intensifies for all student groups during the transition into high school, underscoring the need for targeted developmentally responsive interventions at this critical juncture. Now you all should have tables that you can reference as we speak. I won't speak to those, but we note the sizable jump in chronic absenteeism as students traverse from one through eight into our high school. We, again, based on the data that we have, we see a significant escalation in chronic absenteeism across grade levels with rates increasing by sixteen point seven percentage points from grades one through eight, which starts at thirty four point seven percent, to grades nine through 12, which we see at fifty one point four percent chronically absent. So while we find that the high school years show a dramatic increase signaling long term and elevated risk within our system, we also note that along those same lines, note that black and Hispanic, multiracial, homeless, and students with disabilities and ELL students experience disproportionate rates of chronic absenteeism. So after establishing context, I now move our thinking to the district's response to sort of mitigate and ameliorate those factors that we're seeing within our system. So we have one, expanded our attendance staffing. We've added five additional attendance teachers, increasing the total to 11 utilizing our OHM BOCES framework and every school now has an assigned attendance teacher. We've developed a district wide attendance handbook that which ensures consistency and coherence and uniform approach to attendance interventions across schools. We're aligning the activity within the organization. We also have ongoing professional collaboration with our attendance teachers who meet with our BOCES and administrators to study and analyze the data, align practices, and problem solve these very nuanced phenomenon that we're seeing within our school system. We have revised attendance communications. We've updated our school tool attendance letters to align with the New York State education department guidance and a board of and our board of education policy regarding attendance that are issued at cut points and translated into 14 languages. So we're utilizing our technology and then our structures there. We've also, you know, have an annual attendance policy outreach where we distribute a comprehensive student attendance policy summary accompanied with the letter that speaks to the factors that we've previously discussed. And we've also invested into our extended day programming. So we have the Raiders extended day program, which I'm happy to note that it's now the newly awarded and recognized Raiders extended day program by the New York State School Board Association's Champion of Change Award. It was implemented last year, we'll receive an award this year. But what that program does is it provides high quality academic support and enrichment activities to our neediest families while also focusing on social emotional learning. Now we did this by and to create sustainability by appropriating fund balance to turn into an expense driven aid by utilizing the BOCES coaster so that it'll be sustainable long term. But what we're our intent is to extend the school day to keep our students in a safe and and and highly academic setting so that by the time they traverse through the system, there are less gaps in instruction that impede student learning as they meet the secondary teachers. So that's a very early investment because we're trying to be proactive and attach that attack that head on. And then at the building level, our administrators do a phenomenal job at holding weekly attendance meetings, monthly attendance meetings, targeted meetings with our at risk students, individualized supports, a tiered parent outreach, you know, automated and manual attendance letters, CPS calls when warranted. We've also structurally invested in our CTE pathways to provide our students with a myriad of graduation pathways in line with the Portrait of a Graduate so that our students who may not have the traditional model of school working can utilize another model within the school context to be successful in school.

[Speaker 0.0]: And Superintendent Spence. Yeah. You have exceeded your time.

[Dr. Spence, Superintendent, Utica City School District]: Okay. Alright. However Go ahead.

[Speaker 0.0]: Please wrap it up.

[Dr. Spence, Superintendent, Utica City School District]: Okay. So I I say all of that to say, you know, could be here forever. Look. We're really excited about the work. We've also structurally embedded a family and community engagement department to connect with our families. I say all that to say what that means is that we are studying the problem, we are working within the confines of our voter approved budget, and we're leveraging our aid as possible, working with our community partners over $10,000,000 in our system of care to support this problem, and we are seeing marginal and incremental gains.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you, sir.

[Dr. Spence, Superintendent, Utica City School District]: You're welcome.

[Speaker 0.0]: Listen. Just just just just so so you know. Okay? And let it say, for the record, you may have implied, about, well, you where you this is being blamed for anything, and that is not the the the reason for this. Okay? We just wanna know. There's a problem out there. Jesus, how can we solve it? Okay? And and I have absolute confidence in in the the superintendents, in the schools, in the teachers that they're doing everything they can to try to solve the problem. It's there, and, boy, we wanna get it solved. Okay? Because we do share that kids belong in school, and and and that's where they learn. So let me ask you this. I'm an attendance teacher. Okay? You've hired me to do the good work, to get these kids back into school. Okay? What's my job? What do I do every day? Can anybody pick that up? Go ahead.

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: Absolutely. So our attendance teachers first support the schools by having conversations with the school principal and the team. They evaluate the data, who's absent, looking at the demographics, how frequently are they absent, and then they help form the teams. So the attendance teacher works with the principals to create these attendance teams so they can have a laser like focus on the attendance data. And then during those team meetings when they're speaking about children or groups of children, they pair treatments to help support the increase of student attendance. So if we have a child who's not coming to school because after having conversations with the team, there's a family issue, that attendance teacher tries to help the school teams match the supports with the needs of the child in the family. It can get as intensive as the attendance teacher actually going to the school, the home to visit and have conversations, in a punitive manner, but in a way that says, hey. It's really important that John comes to school. Talk to us about what you need to ensure that he gets there. And then relay that message back so that we can create an environment wherein the kids feel that the parents feel that it is a good thing to send the child to school. Unfortunately, because of the context in which we live, there are times wherein the parents feel like the best thing for them is to keep the child at home. So we have to unpack that with them, eradicate the barriers, get the kid into school, and form a relationship. So that's some of what that attendance teacher might do.

[Speaker 0.0]: Gentlemen, you more or less

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: Yeah. Unfortunately, Yonkers, given our structural deficit in the foundation aid formula, we can't afford things like attendance teachers. So, you know, we try to pivot our resources on making sure each school has a school counselor and things of that nature. And, you know, I'd go back and say again, know, I do believe this is a legislative piece where you could require a certain ratio of staff per persons to kids and figure out what that funding would look like. I would love to have attendance teachers in our school. I know our principals would love to have that. You know, we have community school set aside dollars. The problem with it is, what people haven't said is that there's too much freedom on how that money is used. Doesn't necessarily mean you have to implement the community schools model because you could pay for nurses and counselors. You can pay for their salaries within your budget. It doesn't force you to create the community school strategy. I know people haven't said that about the set aside and how it's written. It's actually just part of your general fund. So you have a lot of freedom of what can get covered as that expense. But if it was an on top of, not away from the general fund, I think we would give us some some freedom and some or some more structured interventions. But we don't have attendance teachers in Yonkers. We, this past year, spent a lot of time just funding one school counselor minimally for every school, which was a big challenge for us.

[Speaker 0.0]: Yannica? Utica?

[Dr. Spence, Superintendent, Utica City School District]: Yes, I'll be pithy, I promise. We have the our attendance teachers are doing progress monitoring and outreach, and we also have parent liaisons and nationality workers. But to to to to the point, the these positions are paid for out of our general fund. So there are some constraints there in regards to sustainability, and I think there's also one thing I just wanna know is that part of our challenge is not solely just the school. I noticed empirically and anecdotally growing up in New York City, growing up in Harlem, that there are neighborhood politics and challenges just from getting from the neighborhood to the school that also impede our ability to provide students with that safe space because of the route that they have to take.

[Speaker 0.0]: Got you. Mr, have a seat.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Perfect timing. So thank you, doctor Spence. Let let me start with you if I can. Doctor Rudd, I appreciate your testimony. I think you were talking about child safety zones. Right? That's where you were going with that?

[Dr. Spence, Superintendent, Utica City School District]: I'm really just speaking, not particular about any policy, just generally speaking. Mhmm. The when when I make the point that the school is not dislocated from whatever's happening in the neighborhood, there are stark differences between a neighborhood experiencing chronic unemployment Understood. A middle class, working class neighborhood, and all of those variables impact the parents', comfortability with the students navigating to school. So we have a policy, you know, similar to everyone else, a mile and a half, etcetera. Mhmm. And then there is the proportion with the aid reimbursement ratios for transportation. That's a thing, but this is also a thing. And this is why it has to be a multi intra agency effort to combat this is my point.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I appreciate it. I'm gonna go to your testimony just a couple times if I can. First, cross agency coordination authority, so schools are not working in isolation. Is that an issue? The the school's not coordinating, or what what are we focused on there?

[Dr. Spence, Superintendent, Utica City School District]: So we do our best to to partner with our with the county, city, and things like that. But it's like with that with, many government agencies. It's the sharing of data when the information is targeted approach.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: We're siloed.

[Dr. Spence, Superintendent, Utica City School District]: Yes. Siloed, essentially. Yes.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Yeah. Okay. I totally got it.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: Yeah. Data data sharing data sharing agreements are a tremendous lift. You know, PII, personnel identifiable information. You know, obviously, there's Ed Law two d, which is a requirement. So you have to be Ed Law two d compliant if you're using any software. I mean, these are barriers that are imposed by the system for good reasons

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Yeah.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: But then create it's too difficult to work across or I can't share my kids' information so that this agency can service them better. And typically, requires an MOU or some form of an agreement. And again, it is very labor intensive and that's where I think you hear a lot of people talk about community school directors. That would be the lift they do. They help coordinate these efforts. They help get these MOAs in place. They help bridge these partnerships so that that way people can get better connected.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I gotcha. Thank you. Okay. Two more questions. One for you, doctor Spence, if I can. Regulatory flexibility for high school students whose life circumstances don't fit traditional schedules. Makes perfect sense for me. How do you do it?

[Dr. Spence, Superintendent, Utica City School District]: So that's a so this is when we sat together and we brainstormed, this is what we're thinking. How do we reimagine this model? I'm not prepared today to give you the exact point by point, but more conceptually, how do we get these students that are

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Kids who have to work, kids who have to take care of their little brother, kids who to Okay. So I'd I'd love if there's any more follow-up on that and ideas, I'd love to talk about this.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: I would say, think about the pandemic. How many kids were chronically absent during the pandemic? Not many because we have virtual instruction in most places in most districts. And so allowing us to offer virtual instruction without a penalty to our funding, without penalty to our staffing in our districts, you know, obviously there

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: are certain circumstances.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: Yeah. Exactly. So allow us to have the innovation as opposed to the, you know, the stigma around this to innovate and create virtual options that allow kids who may be in this chronic absentee continuum to say, hey. You know what? When you struggle, at least there's this option so we can at least count you present. You know, we are still operating that present is only in the schoolhouse. And your earlier SED, I was here I was on time. I wasn't chronically, late this morning. Hearing SED and the New York inspires plan about engaging kids, you know, they don't want everything to happen in the traditional schoolhouse. And so if we can figure out innovative ways where we can still get kids to be attending, still participate, you know, colleges are going virtual, allow us to do this work without impacting our funding and also protecting the staff that we have.

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: Okay. You you find that in the workforce. So in the workforce, you do not have to be in attendance every single day in order to do your job well. And so we have to start thinking creatively around how we can apply what we're doing in the the grand scheme of thing things to the microcosms of schools. So while we aspire to be innovative, the systems and structures that we have in place mandate that we still operate the way school houses operated in 1820.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I gotcha. Okay. If I can ask one more. I'm sorry. Chairman wants to get to the Bronx. Ouch. No. No. No. I I wanna get the going. Go right ahead. Okay. Last last question. First of all, this is fascinating. I'd like to follow-up with you on several of these issues. But I want to, if I can, superintendent Solar, if I can touch on this issue that you raised with, you know, creating a distinction between the voluntary disengagement and unavoidable absentee absence makes perfect sense to me. Mhmm. It well, unbelievably complicate complicated in how you delineate those, but it's a fascinating idea. Do you have any more you wanna talk about, please?

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: Yeah. So my district's a predominantly Latino serving district. When the holidays come, people go back to Doctor, they celebrate, they travel, and sometimes that's because they're gonna go be with family. There's culture, there's customs there. So we know we're gonna see a lot of our students right before the holiday and sometimes even after. Three Kings Day is a big deal for Latino communities. So sometimes that happens. I also tell you, like, when we have our district calendar and you have things like, you know, and again, not that we don't wanna recognize certain holidays, but you have a Juneteenth that falls in the middle of the week, you're gonna typically see less kids the day before and less kids the day after, depending on how it falls. And so some of those things. But if a kid is app just absent, you know, you heard earlier college trips. People wanna go visit a college. People wanna go on a Friday and leave early. If you have kids in sports, many of them do travel leagues.

[Jeff Madison, Senior Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department]: Right.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: And and there's no such thing as an excused absence. So if we were able to delineate whether there was some codes, whether there was something that wouldn't harm and again, if a parent is involved and the parent says, I'm taking my kid out to do x y z, and you're gonna tell that parent, I'm sorry, you can't do that. And and again, I go back to affluent communities. We don't have these conversations in affluent communities. And I say that, you know, being a parent who doesn't live in an urban environment, but having my kids in a suburban, my kids technically would fall into that criteria of chronic absences, but their grades didn't drop at all because we supplement the things outside in terms of the household. And so that's what I would say. If there's a way for us to delineate, hey, college field trip, don't count this absence against that kid because he was on a college tour. Or we know culturally they're going to go to The Caribbean to celebrate with their families. Don't count that against them. They still gotta make up the work.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: They still

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: gotta be responsible for the assignments.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: No. It makes perfect sense as opposed to, you know, the kid who's a pinskitter doesn't listen to his parents and just not showing up. Right? So, like, there's a distinction. Yes, also

[Dr. Spence, Superintendent, Utica City School District]: will just add to that. I I think one of the the most salient points is we have to look at the economy and its impact on the parents. So we look at inflation being what it is in high tax New York state, and you look at people that are receiving, let their dollars going shorter and shorter. I got parents that are working more and more hours, which is less supervision, which is why we are trying to keep them in school as long as we can. But that in and of itself creates greater challenges. You have the housing costs going up because we're not we weren't making a lot of new houses. Housing costs have gone up where the taxes are increasing for the landlords to confirm that to the to the population, and it contributes to the transience that we see within the system of even kids moving from this school to that school and not coming at all. So the the what I the point that I'm trying to make is that this is broader than just this school. It's really how are all these policy decisions Mhmm. Impacting our and your constituents and their ability to engage in productive child rearing practices.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: No. And I appreciate that. And we spend a lot of our time going after, you know, housing and childcare and the other things that are required to and mental health treatment for parents and kids in a tough environment. So so I I hear you. Oh, but,

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: yeah, we'll continue to do it.

[Dr. Spence, Superintendent, Utica City School District]: So so, yeah, no. I gotta say thank you before we leave. Thank you all for the resources you've given us.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: You're welcome. You're welcome. I just wanna end with that's a fascinating concept that I'm gonna look into, and I thank you for bringing it up about delineating voluntary absences versus those who have to be absent for other reasons. Thank you very much. Really appreciate the testimony.

[Speaker 0.0]: You know, three of the nicest words in the English language is is is is to end with. Very good. Must have a say. Listen, panel, thank you very much for your testimony. You have certainly added to the conversation and realized that, well, it's it's quite complex, and, we thank you. You've traveled long distances to get here today. We thank you for your efforts and your testimony. Thank you very much.

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: Thank you very Thank you for your support.

[Speaker 0.0]: And and, let us move ahead, to Christine Ault, president of the School Administrators Association and Stamo, a Greek name, Rosenberg, first vice president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. Forgive me. Please tell me the pronunciation of that.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: So how I like to say it when I was a principal and AP, I break it up into three different parts and it works. Kara Lazaridis. Kara Lazaridis.

[Speaker 0.0]: Okay. Okay.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: And thank you for asking. I appreciate it.

[Speaker 0.0]: Okay. My apologies. I'm sorry.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: No need. Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Ladies, thank you very much for being here. Please, you're comfortable. Please, start us off. Start us off, Ms. Ault.

[Dr. Christine Arlt, President, School Administrators Association of New York State (SAANYS)]: Thank you very much. Good afternoon Chairpersons Benedetto and Hevesy, honorable members of the legislature and distinguished staff. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the challenges school districts face related to chronic absenteeism. My name is Doctor. Christine Arlt. I am an elementary school principal and serve as president of the board of directors of the school administrators association of New York State or SAINES for short. We represent more than 14,000 active and 8,000 retired building administrators and program directors across New York State, including the big five city school districts. We appreciate the longstanding support for public education and school leaders who serve on the front lines every day. This past fall, Sanese conducted a statewide survey to identify the most pressing challenges administrators anticipated for the twenty five-twenty six school year. School attendance and chronic absenteeism emerged as the number one concern. Administrators overwhelmingly cited student disengagement as the primary driver of absenteeism, including issues with health related issues, family responsibilities, and the impact of immigration policies. Many described post pandemic shifts in attitudes towards attendance, particularly at the high school level. While we have all heard testimony and the data from New York State education department with chronic absenteeism heightened to almost double that it was before the pandemic. What's interesting is that absenteeism also follows a U shaped pattern. It is highest in the youngest grades, decreases in the lower middle grades, and rises again in high school. The early grades represent a unique challenge. Our youngest learners overwhelmingly want to be in school. Their absences are not their choice. Pre k half day schedules, limited transportation, lack of affordable before and after school options, and misalignment with compulsory education requirements create real barriers for families. These challenges are compounded by broader societal shifts. Reports from organizations such as the RAND describe a weakening of social contact between families and schools. Immigration concerns, safety issues, and student disengagement have contributed to the perception that daily attendance is optional. As school leaders, we respond every day. We respond with data driven systems, tiered supports, mentoring incentives, and individualized interventions. But these efforts often do not succeed in isolation. When schools reach out to social services, it is our last step after every other intervention has been exhausted. We are not looking to be punitive. We are looking to partner with the social services agencies that have access to additional outside resources. Chronic absenteeism is a symptom of systemic strain. Addressing it requires reexamining instructional time, aligning compulsory education with meaningful support including economic and familial needs and outside partnerships and supports for families. It includes providing timely funding flexibility and recognizing that schools cannot do this work alone. Sayegh's appreciates your attention to the critical issue and we look forward to our continued collaboration to ensure policies that reflect realities facing students, families, and school leaders across New York State. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. Miss Carla? Oh, forget about it. Miss Rodriguez.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: Okay. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chair Benedetto, chair Havasse, and members of the assembly. On behalf of the 18,000 in service and Retired New York City school leaders that we represent, we would like to thank you for elevating the issue of chronic absenteeism. Attendance is not an education metric. It is a child well-being indicator. When students are not in school consistently, they miss far more than academic instruction. They lose access to trusted adults, peer relationships, mental health support, meals, stability, and routine. Over time, those missed connections compound and lead to lower academic outcomes and even diminished long term opportunity. We will not solve chronic absenteeism without addressing what drives it. Too often, it is framed as a motivation or truancy problem, particularly for older students, but research and lived experience tell tell a different story. Many absences are rooted in poverty relate poverty related instability and health barriers, not willful disengagement. In low income households, disruptions are frequent and harder to absorb. Where housing instability rises, attendance suffers. Health and mental health challenges are also major drivers. Limited access to care, untreated conditions, anxiety, depression, and trauma all translate to missed days, a pattern that school leaders are seeing more sharply since the pandemic. Chronic absenteeism also looks different by age. For younger students, absences are largely driven by family logistics and adult capacity. Solutions must be early, family facing, and support rich. In high school, absenteeism more often reflects mental health needs and a mismatch between school structures and student realities. These students require strategic approaches that include strong mental health support. School leaders are already doing incredible work monitoring data, intervening early, conducting outreach, and partnering with community providers. But these efforts are labor intensive and cannot succeed at a scale without state partnership. So CSA urges the state to focus on mental capacity and dedicated staffing such as attendance teachers and community school directors. Expanding the community schools model is a wraparound approach that supports academic, social, emotional, health, and family needs altogether. It is an approach that has shown us that attendance drops seven to 8%. It is seven to 8% higher, I'm sorry, than the attendance of schools without the community schools model. Graduation rates are higher, by three to 5% higher than schools that are not community schools model. It is not just a program, but it is a school wide strategy. We would also like for other schools with the need to ensure that they have enough community connected mental health supports for the family and the students. And thirdly, we'd like to consider using public service announcements to remind students and parents of the importance of school attendance in a child's development and to share the resources they have available to them to overcome barriers. Chronic attendance did not begin with a pandemic, but it has been intensified by it. The evidence and the experience of school leaders are clear. This is a system challenge that requires coordinated solutions. CSA stands ready to work with legislature and the governor's office and our partners to advance solutions that are student centered, accountable, and grounded in the realities of today's schools. We thank you for this opportunity to testify and for your continued leadership on behalf of New York students.

[Speaker 0.0]: And I thank you for your testimony. A couple of things. Public service announcements, stressing the importance of going to school. Okay? Wow. Okay? We have to convince people of the importance of going to school.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: We have to remind people who are in need of the programs we have to support them. Sometimes family families face new barriers, barriers they've never thought of before. A family may lose a job all of a sudden and are unable to provide for their children in their home. This is a new barrier they might not know of programs that the school has to offer. So these ongoing outreaches, reaches that sometimes go ignored if the need is not there. If they're ongoing, when the need is there, the families will listen and come for help. So that's why it is important. Information, knowledge is power, and we want to empower our families with the supports we can give them.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. Student disengagement. So so so so you would say, the Department of Education's new, New York inspires program. Okay? You would conclude that that would be a very positive thing here, to draw kids back in, where before they may have drifted aside. Am I correct in that?

[Dr. Christine Arlt, President, School Administrators Association of New York State (SAANYS)]: Absolutely. However, I do believe that, again, the social impacts for so many students that are competing with wanting to be in school versus the realities of having to help families put food on the table, care for younger siblings, those not having stability in housing. Those are also reasons why our students are disengaging and being able to address those.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Mister Hevesy, thank you. Hi. Thank you for your testimony, of I appreciate it. Ms. Alt, one quick question. You mentioned in your testimony about pre k. And could you just expand on that a little bit with the 2.5?

[Dr. Christine Arlt, President, School Administrators Association of New York State (SAANYS)]: Sure. Again, depending on where pre k's exist through universal pre K in schools, hours are limited to minimum hours of two and a half hours and then increase from there depending on what school districts are able to do, what supports they're able to provide spacing funding wise depends on how long those programs are. For a lot of families going part time is a nightmare for them because then they don't have childcare and they can't make arrangements for their children outside of those hours.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Which is a big problem. We're looking to scale up child care as you know, I guess. Yes. Everybody's talking about it. It's the the thing this year. But that's something we can keep an eye on as we scale up, so I thank you. And, miss Rosenberg, if I can just ask you one quick question. It's actually not even a question, but I appreciate this particular part of your testimony where you reference virtual or hybrid learning when appropriate for older kids. That seems to be something that we've heard a couple of times today. Can you expand on the need for that for us?

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: Yes. We find that we have students in, our homeschooling programs that are either students who might, for example, face a medical need that keeps them from going to school. And now since COVID, we're finding more and more students with mental supports needed that are unable to go to school. And we're finding that they tend to stay in the homeschooling option for longer periods of time than they used to pre pandemic. Of course, when children have emotional needs, that may keep them from school. That may not exactly hinder them from learning. So while we are providing the supports that we must provide them in order to get them back into society outside of their homes and into the school buildings and beyond, we want to still provide them with the academic and enriching supports that they need while supporting them emotionally. So that piece is very important. It's the whole child approach

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: Mhmm.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: That we are looking for at CSA and our leaders are looking for. And of course, the community school's model would encompass that. Because in the community school's model, the community school's director would look for the needs of the students, the needs of the community, and would offer such remedies.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay. But under current law, I don't think they're able to offer that remedy even if they could, right, at this point? Can they do flex? Can a superintendent do

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: So in in New York City, we have the homeschool model, and the students would be taken through that approach.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Very interesting. I appreciate the testimony. Thank you.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. Mister Thank Sam you,

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: chairman. And I'm gonna reference, miss Alt's, testimony, but either of you can respond. And I'm looking at the pre versus post pandemic numbers. They're very stark. You know, some of the things we've discussed over the course of today, you know, impoverishment or cultural issues or a variety of different factors, you would think, yeah, they might be impacted by the pandemic to some degree, but their underlying sort of cultural occurrence that might lead to absenteeism. But looking at this data, we had a chronic absentee problem that dramatically got worse and then hasn't come back down any any real appreciable degree. So what is preventing post pandemic things from going back to at least where they were pre pandemic in your opinion?

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: In my opinion, it remains emotional support. We must remember that students in high school now who, are exhibiting exhibiting factors that prohibit them from going to school for emotional reasons, during the pandemic, they were in New York City schools. They may have been fifth graders, sixth graders. They may have been in middle schools. This is a compounding effect on students who require emotional support. So until we face the reality that when the pandemic is over, it's over, and we face the reality that the pandemic has lasting effects on all of us and especially our fragile students, then we we can't move forward. So we do have to address it. We can't say it's been five years and it's over. It's been five years and our students are still here and they need our help.

[Dr. Christine Arlt, President, School Administrators Association of New York State (SAANYS)]: And I would echo that especially also for our youngest learners. They were born during the pandemic. They didn't have access to a lot of activities, human contact that children pre pandemic did. Housing instabilities, economic changes have also been impacts and factors that have also not gone back to what they were pre pandemic either.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: So so to sum up, and I don't want the words in your mouth, but we have a cohort that is still working its way through the school system. The folks that are current high school students, let's say, they were impacted by the pandemic. It's gonna be a long time before they work their way through the system. And I would posit that, if we're dealing with situations where somebody that's a high school student's exhibiting behavior because of something that happened to them in middle school or elementary school socially because of the pandemic, this is gonna affect people for the rest of their lives, I would think, if you if you've been impacted in a severe way during a crucial portion of your, upbringing.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Okay.

[Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo]: But I'm the ranker on mental health, so that'll be a different hearing, I guess. But well, thank you very

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: much.

[Speaker 0.0]: To to follow that, so in another eight years, when they finally move out the COVID nineteen class, then we should see things go back to normal. Is that more or less the theory you're putting forth?

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: I think normal changes with the experiences that we face every day, and there's experience coming that we don't know of.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Yeah.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: So I'm I'm unable to say that

[Cassandra Wright, representing the Rochester City School District]: for We

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: don't. You know, we have to be flexible and meet children where they are now and the needs that they have today.

[Speaker 0.0]: Okay. Good. Mister Novakov, thank you, chairman. Thank you

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: so much for testifying. And how do we balance accountability with flexibility for districts facing unique challenges in your opinion?

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: So what we would do is we would have to track their progress, track what works. What programs are we giving to the child? Is the child in an academic program, an emotional program, social emotional program? Does the child need support outside of school? Again, have to look at the whole child. And when we look at all the supports that we are giving the child, we monitor them on approximately eight week basis to see what is working, what is not. If this isn't working, is there another factor we haven't looked at yet? So it is continuous monitoring and what we have to find is, again, we meet students where they are. The child might be a level one. We are not going to get them to a level four by that eighth week, but maybe we will get them to a 1.5, a two. We want to see growth. And if we see that what we are doing isn't working, again we analyze. Is there anything else we are noticing, we are seeing that the child can benefit from? Is it the program? Exactly what is it? But accountability comes with ongoing assessment and observation and flexibility to the child's needs.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Thank you. And, questions I previously asked to other panelists, are there any statutory or regulatory barriers that limit information data sharing between schools?

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question?

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Are there any stationary or regulatory barriers that limit information and data sharing between schools?

[Dr. Christine Arlt, President, School Administrators Association of New York State (SAANYS)]: Parents do have to give consent. When children move from one school district to the other, they do sign off on being able to share records and information that one school has from the other. Absent that, we cannot get that information. So again, that's part partially. Most families, we very rarely have that issue. Our families do sign off for being able to share that information. They may not sign off for sharing all of the information about their child and then we have to relearn that as we go.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: And also when children, switch schools for any reason, even if they switch schools within the same district, sometimes schools are prohibited by of sharing important information due to FERPA laws. And that information, for for example, for at risk services, non IEP services, are crucial in that child's development. And many times during those instances, it takes a while for the receiving school to realize the exact needs of the student that could have been addressed immediately if the sending school can share all information outside of IEP that's relevant to the student, especially in needs for emotional services that are at risk.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Thank you. And, if if you could recommend one policy change for this year's legislative session, what would that be?

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: I think we do have to, now that you brought up this last question, look at the information that we can share regarding our students' needs and success and make sure that we're looking at the child entirely because as a former principal myself, when we receive school records and school information, many times we don't receive the complete picture of the child. And the child requires supports outside of grades, supports outside of bar graphs and that information is crucial to the support of a whole child, especially a child with fragile needs.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: And anything we can do legislatively so the school has more information about the child?

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: In the laws of, laws specifically to when a child moves on from one school to another or if the child transfers, of course, within New York State in this instance, the records, the type of information that is shared between schools. It should be more perhaps, maybe there should be a conversation between school officials or maybe there could be some kind of a portfolio, some kind of an indicator for a conversation for certain students. A child may be struggling with something in their home life. The child is going into a new building with new adults and new children. How open are they to share what's going on in their home life that maybe only their their classroom teacher knew and was dealing with, for Some

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: notes that that the teacher or principal can transfer

[Assemblymember Monique Chandler-Waterman]: Right.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: To to the new school.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: Right. Not just their their grades.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Their grades. Right.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: Right. Just their attendance.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: I think that's very important. Thank you very much.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you. Panel, let me tell you. You know, one of the great things about, having all these people come down is you always hear something new at every panel that comes on down. And you have added to that, and I thank you for that. And I thank you for, waiting here all day to give this testimony, and it's greatly appreciated. You are dismissed.

[Stamatia “Stamo” Karalazaridis, First Vice President, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Have a good day. And so I'm happy to announce we have come to the end. Okay? I know. We have come to the end, the caboose, okay, of our panels here today. And we wanna bring up first mister not first, last, David Collins, chief program officer from Children's Village. Mister Collins, thank you for your patience and waiting.

[Sarah Jonas, Vice President, Youth Division, Children's Aid]: Thanks for

[Speaker 0.0]: taking it. We welcome you here. And please, have a cup of water and and begin your testimony when you feel like it.

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: Thank you. Good afternoon, chairman Benedetto, chairman Hevesy, members of the committee. My name is David Collins. I'm the chief program officer of the Children's Village headquartered in Dobbs Ferry, New York. I'm here on behalf of Doctor. Jeremy Cahumbin, sends his regards. He's the president and CEO of the Children's Village and Harlem Dowling, two organizations founded in the mid eighteen hundreds that invest in the safety and success of children. We serve in more than 45 public schools, and we partner closely with a k 12 school for students with the highest needs. At this point in the day, you've heard the data, so I won't belabor it. But I will add one more to the pile, which is that because we work at the intersection of multiple systems, we are on track in New York City to have as many as half of students in foster care chronically absent. And so the

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Give me that again.

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: Yeah. Are on track to have as many as half of students in foster care in New York City chronically absent. So certainly, the the session description is correct in tying this issue to, you know, child and family well-being and stability. In addition, we also know that some students are driven away by poor school climates and a lack of connection with at least one trusted educator. And others drop off because they feel alienated by inadequate instruction, lack of support for a learning disability, or perceived unfairness with discipline. But to understand the post COVID surge, we must also acknowledge a strong body of peer reviewed research showing that the length of remote learning is linked to ongoing attendance problems. For many students, especially those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, remote schooling meant falling further behind. Some didn't have dependable technology at home. Others had parents who were essential workers and couldn't work remotely or supervise their child's learning. And coming back after sustained absence can be difficult and embarrassing. But no matter the reason for the absence, many students who are not in class are not safe. Too many are spending their days on the streets with others who are also not in school. They may face street violence. They're more likely to be underemployed, unemployed, or to later on experience incarceration. This is not inevitable, so we wanna offer five quick suggestions about what will work. First, we do believe that in person education works, and I'm speaking specifically about high need and at risk students here. Virtual education is a powerful tool, but our most at risk students need the engagement, relationships, and socialization that come from in person classes with caring responsible adults. Second, as has been said frequently already, invest in early warning systems. We need to identify students at risk of chronic absence before patterns become entrenched. Third, we wanna continue to invest in family centered outreach and incentives that communicate the importance of daily attendance. Most families recognize the value of attendance attendance, excuse me, but some families need additional support. Our communication with parents, reminding them that attendance is nonnegotiable is our responsibility. Fourth, expand partnerships with community organizations to wrap services around students and families. Schools cannot do everything. Community organizations should extend the school's mission to keep students excited and engaged about education. And finally, continue evidence based investments in safe, engaging, and culturally responsive school environments. Organizational culture matters. When students feel seen, acknowledged, and supported, their motivation to participate remains high. Chronic absenteeism is not just about seat time. It is a signal that our schools, our communities, and our systems must come together to restore belonging, stability, and purpose to the educational experience. Thank you for your time, and I'd be happy to take any questions.

[Speaker 0.0]: Thank you for your brevity. Listen, fifty percent of children in foster care are chronically absent. Wow. That is was always the case?

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: It's gotten worse post COVID for sure. Okay. Okay. We children in foster care have always been at higher risk of adverse educational outcomes, but it it has gotten worse in New York City post COVID.

[Speaker 0.0]: So so you mentioned in your testimony that it could be employ coordinating the schools and the attendance, coordinating with community organizations. Okay? So tell me, how would that work? Wouldn't that be tremendously confusing, everybody bumping into each other? I I don't mean it, you know, but I just can see that it could be a problem there.

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: Yeah. I mean, it's our obligation to make sure that it's coordinated efficiently. And so I'll talk about what we do in the 45 New York City public schools where we are that

[Speaker 0.0]: Forty five?

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: Forty five. Mhmm. Community wraparound organization. You know, we so we do a little bit of everything. We provide supplemental academic support for students who need it. We provide after school activities to increase safety and routine. You know, a lot of times the riskiest time around school, even for the kids that make it, is actually right after the school day. We've seen some some terrible incidents of violence, you know, as kids coming and going from school, some of which have attracted a lot of attention. Counseling to address peer conflicts, you know, mediating some of the issues that again can spill over into the community, and providing crisis services for the most at risk kids or the kids with very serious behavioral and emotional problems. You know, we have kids leaving our our juvenile justice rehabilitation facilities, going home to communities. They've completed treatment. They're committed to, you know, not reoffending and to to doing being safe and doing well in the community. But their the peer conflicts that have come out of the school environment for them are so severe that they're afraid to walk through the door. And I mean, legitimately terrified to to leave the house. So the you know, we we believe in investing early in preventing that outcome and then working very intensively with the students who are at that deep end of the system to get them back into community schools.

[Speaker 0.0]: And and you're basically saying here, did I hear correct, that that that there might be instances where children don't wanna come to school because they're afraid to come to school because there might be bullying or or something like that that will, scare the hell out of them.

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: Absolutely. Yeah. We've got kids that have got caught up in some really serious stuff in their neighborhoods, and we don't want that to become a reason. I mean, they they have to make it right. They have to be rehabilitated. They have to do restoration with their peers and their community. But we don't want that to be the thing that keeps them out of school and then really out of the right path for the rest of their life.

[Speaker 0.0]: Yeah. Mister Hebbessey?

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Thank you, sir. Mister Collins, thank you for your testimony. You for your patience too. Appreciate it. I guess my question is actually, I just lost it. Forgive me. Can you speak to so so somebody earlier in their testimony spoke to the issue with CPS not following through on educational neglect. So if you do me a favor, could you just jump into that and see if you can shed some light on that for us?

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: Sure. And, you know, Children's Village, we work with the foster care system and preventive systems in New York City and in some of our rural Hudson Valley communities. There are big differences in rural and urban CPS, and we could talk about that if you want. I I worked at ACS for a number of years. But the short answer is child protective services is a bad tool for addressing educational neglect by itself. Right? And and that is a criteria that the SCR will accept to initiate an investigation is just educational neglect solely. You can have a founded case for from child protection solely for educational neglect. Mhmm. Now that being said, it's really critical that if there's concern that arises from the school that also includes child safety, that also includes other mass maltreatment, that that is followed up. So I think, you know, in New York City, what ACS and the school district have tried to really partner so that the schools don't understand CPS as a tool for addressing educational non participation on its own. So that they can distinguish between, you know, problems that we're having with getting kids into school where there might be some other support needed versus child safety problems that require child protective intervention.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: So that's a big deal. Is that is that something that's replicable we could take to other CPS throughout the at the state?

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: I think rural districts have advantages and disadvantages to implementing that kind strategy. I mean, one of the advantages in rural districts is that the Department of Social Services is often more integrated. So, like, other services that you might consider for that family alongside CPS are more closely located within the same county office. Mhmm. So they may have the ability to kinda triage very effectively because they're smaller offices. Okay.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I think we should speak offline about this. I think there's a lot to drill down here, but thank you, mister Collins, for your testimony.

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: Be happy to.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Thank you, sir.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Miss Novakoff. Thank you. Thank you, chairman.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: Thank you for testifying. And what what do you think about incentivizing? Like, what kind of incentive would you be would you think be important to to give to those kids so we can combat absenteeism?

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: So, you know, the best incentive is is recognition and belonging. Uh-huh. I mean, we can certainly try out of the box incentives, including, you know, material resources to families. I think that people should get what they need because they need it, you know, not because we're trying to, you know, get them to do something. But the the most effective incentive for young people to succeed is the feeling that an adult unconditionally cares about what happens to them and wants to

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: see them do well.

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: So I think finding ways to do that is the top strategy.

[Unidentified Assembly Member (referred to as Mr. “Novakov/Novakar/Novakoff”)]: And let's say you have all the resources needed. I I I know it's never all the resources needed. I understand. But, like, what we what what would you do? What would be, like, number one thing that you would do to combat that issue?

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: I would suggest, you know, looking at the deep end of the system, I would suggest that the state look at the availability of, you know, the in home behavioral health and crisis services.

[Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools]: Mhmm.

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: Look at, you know, asking the insurance companies that are paying for those services under Medicaid currently to actually do value based payment and incentivize delivery, particularly rural districts where it's very unavailable. But also, you know, across the state, we have a workforce challenge of getting people to provide these services. So I think that for the kids that are at the most risk, when you look at, you know, the lack of implementation of some of the services that are on the books that are meant to help with that, even going back to raise the age and the lack of the implementation of diversion and community based alternatives in raise the age. Those are all services that could address chronic absenteeism for the most at risk kids.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Mister Hevanski. Yeah. Sorry, Doug.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I'm that guy. Sorry, guys. Okay. Did I just lose the question again? Unbelievable. Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to get a sense from you. And I don't know if you have to speak on behalf of your organization or not. But do you think that the policy change we made in 2018 about adding educational neglect as a standalone factor was a good move, or should educational neglect be something you can only report to CPS if it's in addition to some other type of neglect?

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: I I'll I'll somewhat defer on that, but what what I'll say is Yeah. We need different solutions for educational neglect on its own. So and and most families, when you talk to them, would say that CPS does not help them with that. Yeah. That they that they don't want that.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: I was part of that vote in that system. I don't think CPS is the answer to that problem either. It's just what's the other recourse. So are there are there alternatives to the stuff we're missing?

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: So I think, you know, in New York City, we've tried to invest in getting like, referring people directly to those services without having to go through child protection.

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: You

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: know, some sometimes unfortunately Yeah. The path to getting help is going through child protection.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Except nobody wants to go through child protection because you're being surveilled.

[David Collins, Chief Program Officer, The Children’s Village]: So then you have you have a a series of imperfect choices of either you can go through the door you don't wanna go through to get the help, or you can not go through that door and maybe have a longer route to getting assistance or not get it at all.

[Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, Chair, Assembly Committee on Children & Families]: Okay. We should talk offline because we got a couple of proposals to try to circumvent that particular particular problem, but your testimony has been really, really helpful. Thank you, mister Collins.

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0.0]: Mister Collins, your testimony has been helpful, and it and we thank you for it. We thank you for your patience in waiting, and we thank you for being the the last person to testify.

[Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent, City School District of Albany]: Thank you for

[Brian Fessler, Chief Advocacy Officer, New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA)]: having me.

[Speaker 0.0]: That concludes our, hearing on absentee chronic absenteeism and, k 12 education in New York. And we thank all participants both up here on the panel and down there on the panel. And we appreciate your time and your effort and your testimony. I also wanna thank staff for putting this all together and sitting here for this and taking all the notes they do as to make this hopefully an effective an exact a a a an effective testimony where maybe we'll get some results out of here. Thank you, sir. We are adjourned.