NYC is trying to create options for students on the autism spectrum within the local public schools, rather than forcing families to seek private programs or travel long distances for a proper education, education officials announced Wednesday.
By next school year, all autistic children starting kindergarten in three local school districts, including areas of Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx, will be guaranteed a spot in specialized public programs in their neighborhoods.
“There are lots of high-quality programs,” said Schools Chancellor David Banks at Public School 958 in Sunset Park. “But for far too many of our kids, we got to send them way out of the neighborhood, at great expense to the system and at a great inconvenience to the families and to the kids themselves.”
City spending on special education due process claims — which can include tuition, transportation and legal services and services the school system fails to provide — surged by 500% over a decade to nearly $1 billion, according to a city comptroller report over the summer.
The expansion will include a couple dozen new autism programs in School Districts 5, 12, and 14 that have already shown results elsewhere in the city. Education officials said they expect to serve 160 additional students at the upcoming sites.
“The promise here is that, historically, we have not been able to offer every student who’s wanted a Nest, Horizon or AIMS program a seat,” said Christina Foti, chief of special education. “And so our commitment here is in those three districts, every student whose family is requesting that seat and meets the criteria — which generally most students on the spectrum will certainly meet the criteria for one of those programs — will be guaranteed a seat.”
The newly announced programs, however, will only reach a sliver of children who need additional services and support. More than 12,200 students may be better served in a specialized autism program, according to an estimate by the Special Education Advisory Council, a 52-member panel appointed by the chancellor whose recommendations prompted Wednesday’s announcement.
“Such a big word”
Lucy Antoine, one of the members of that panel, still remembers when her son Dylan was diagnosed. After saying a few words as a toddler, he stopped speaking before he was 18 months old, and struggled to make eye contact or show emotions.
“‘He has autism, mom,'” Antoine said she was told. “And I said, ‘How could you say something like that to me? Such a big word.'”
She went on to try a smorgasbord of public services and programs to get Dylan the help he needed with little success. When she found the Nest program, where students with disabilities learn alongside their classmates in general education with extra teachers and services, Dylan, now 15 and a student at Brooklyn Tech, was able to get back on track.
“This boy used to cry every last day of school because he didn’t want the school year to end,” Antoine said.
Almost all public school children in the Nest program, 95%, graduate from high school, according to city data.
In addition to the autism program expansion, Banks announced new and more frequent trainings for teachers and ways for parents to get more involved in developing their child’s individualized education plan. Two public school alumni with disabilities were enlisted to create a glossary of special education jargon and preferred terminology.
“A long road ahead”
There is still more work to be done to properly serve students with disabilities in local public schools.
“While there remains a long road ahead of us, we are very excited to expand specialized programs for autistic students into neighborhood schools,” said Banks.
Mayor Adams promised last school year that any preschool student in need of a special education class would have access. But by the end of the spring term, more than 1,100 children were waiting for a spot in a program, whose expansion was funded by expiring federal pandemic aid.
Education officials said they were able to provide the hundreds of seats that were deemed necessary at the time, but have since seen an influx of students who need those services.
The school system is also struggling to keep pace with special education reforms ordered in federal court.
The city has made an additional $25 million available to make some of the more difficult changes required by a court-appointed special master, such as hiring staff and updating technology systems.
But the administration failed to adopt seven out of 16 of those changes with fall deadlines, as first reported by Chalkbeat. At the end of last year, special master David Irwin predicted that at least half of reforms with January deadlines would not be fulfilled on time because the school system was “hamstrung” by the city’s spending and hiring freeze.
Education officials were noncommittal about whether the investment will be sufficient to keep pace with the timeline outlined by the special master but defended service provision as the “highest it’s ever been.”
“We’re going to do what we can within the budgetary restrictions that we have,” said Deputy Chancellor Carolyne Quintana, whose portfolio includes special education, “to keep trying to meet those demands.”
