Suzan Sumer News Today

The program, started by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, was once a national model.

The data, compiled by Advocates for Children of New York, shows that about 104,000 students across the city’s public school system suffered from homelessness in the last school year, which stretched from September 2021 through June 2022. That’s a 3.3% uptick as compared to the 2020-2021 school year, when 101,000 students were identified as homeless by the advocacy group.

Simone Hawkins’ exit comes at a financial crisis point for many preschool operators, who say they’ve been waiting months for payments and are on the brink of insolvency.

As Mayor Eric Adams stares down a massive budget shortfall, New York City has no clear plans to sustain its growing 3-K program.

Thirty-eight of the council’s 51 members penned a letter expressing concern about reports that the DOE is weighing a multi-million dollar cut to “restorative justice,” an approach that encourages misbehaving students to repair the harm they caused rather than issuing suspensions and expulsions.

A state comptroller audit finds the vast majority of city schools lacking sufficient school counselors and social workers.

Dozens of advocacy groups are raising the alarm that restorative justice funding is “at risk” — including a planned expansion of restorative justice programs to all middle and high schools.

“Restorative justice,” an approach that encourages students to repair the harm they’ve caused through misbehavior instead of meting out suspensions and expulsions, was a priority of former Mayor de Blasio’s administration.

But like most things within the nation’s largest school district, what happens across the city’s 1,600 schools often varies school to school. 

A New York City non-profit bringing “Drag Queen Story Hour” to public schools for children as young as age 3 received more than $200,000 in taxpayer funding in the past five years, city records show.