Mayor Mamdani Visits PS 5!

Mayor Mamdani Holds Press Conference to Make an Education Announcement

good morning everyone it is such a pleasure to be here and Inwood at PSL and blurry to announce New York City's latest Milestone on the path to Universal Child Care making our Pre-K programs accessible and inclusive to all and I want to acknowledge we have a number of leaders here with us this morning I want to acknowledge our Chancellor Kumar Samuels who is here with us our Manhattan Borough president Brad Hyman seagull who is here with us our councilwoman Carmen Delarosa who is here with us our state senator Robert Jackson who is here and I want to also acknowledge both of our Deputy chancellors Christina Fati and Simone Hawkins who are here with us me in welcoming Erica who is a parent and 1 of the focuses of today's announcement please if you can give us a round of applause you know research has shown that preschoolers ask per day with a question asked on average every 2 minutes parents across New York City are all too familiar with the drum beat of why why why why is the sky blue why is the grass green why do flamingos stand on 1 leg why do my parents have to travel halfway across the city just so I can get the educational support that I need and I'll be honest with you I have no idea about the answers to the first 3 questions but today City Hall is making sure that every parent in New York City can answer that last question with we don't have to anymore I'm proud to announce that our Administration is investing 6 7.5 million to expand our specialized education programs to students in pre-K so alongside so many leaders across our city government because making Pre-K truly Universal means that no family has to go without just because their child needs a little extra help and it means that having an individualized education plan or IEP does not deny your child the same opport opportunities as their peers to get a strong start in life beginning this fall we will expand our existing specialized education programs Nest Horizon as path and Aces into Pre-K for the very first time so that students with autism and developmental delays can be served closer to home alongside their peers and we will bring new preschool specialized education programs to families in every single burrow at 26 schools across 14 districts but expand ending our specialized education programming does not begin and end with new seats we are also hiring hundreds of new staff members to strengthen every aspect of our Pre-K specialized education infrastructure the systems that support families through the IEP process and help children access these Services earlier that means 35 additional new staff members including psychologists social workers speech evaluators and occupational therapists to build out 10 additional preschool evaluation teams that will sign significantly reduce IEP evaluation wait times it means 20 new administrators and Community coordinators on our committee of preschool special education and 100 new New York City public school staff members who will support families as they navigate the IEP process and it means building on the successful pilot of our special education itinerant teacher program by hiring an additional 29 therapists and Specialists to help preschoolers with IEPs learn alongside their peers making specialized Education Services foundational to our Pre-K infrastructure is just common sense Universal has to mean exactly that it has to mean universal having a child with a disability or a special need should not make families the exception to that rule every preschooler deserves to learn why the sky is blue why the grass is green why flamingos stand on 1 Legg at a Pre-K program in their community and every parent deserves to know that no matter what educational needs their child may have that they are safe that they are reported and that they are learning and every family in our city deserves to be free from the endless questions of how they will afford quality child care in the city they love because City Hall is finally providing an answer that includes everyone thank you so much and now the man who coined the term New York's cutest Chancellor Kamar Samuels uh thank you so much Mr Mayor thank you so much everyone for being here I just had the opportunity to hang out with Erica and Iran in a classroom and you're here with me in a classroom I am very confident I am probably the only person in the city who will say I I wish the first day of school was tomorrow um I say um I I'm looking forward to the first day of school um thank you DC Hawkins uh the definition of Christina fode and their team for the hard work they've done to operationalize all of this emulates for your partnership from the mayor's office and also the mayor for your Investments 60 7 million in this critical critical issue it's such an honor to be here with you today and during disability pride month to to share and we are sharing the details of this important step towards truly integrated and inclusive schools every day every child deserves a strong start and that means a access to high-quality special education services in their community I am proud that right here in New York City Public Schools we lead the nation in providing autistic Learners with 97% of our nest and Horizon students ultimately graduating high school in our aims program our students with intensive communication needs are excited to come to school and boast much higher attendance rates when in Community Schools our in our Aces programs was initially launched as a direct response to families who advocated for their children with significant intellectual disabilities to learn critical life skills along with their peers in an inclusive School setting and today families are proud to share that their children are thriving and building meaningful relationships with peers without disabilities as well parents of our Path student of our past students with intensive emotional needs regularly share that their children are showing tremendous growth through the supports they received from trauma-informed Educators now for the first time ever these programs will be expanding in our 3 in our preschools through serving 250 students in the upcoming school year we're also going to be Staffing up as the mayor said to be able to provide related Services increase capacity to evaluate preschoolers for IEPs and support our families as they navigate the shift to Kindle Garden as you know I believe firmly that every classroom should be academically rigorous and developmentally appropriate and that is what we're doing here this investment marks a major step towards truly inclusive and integrated schools and I want to thank the mayor again for his administration support in making this a reality thank you so much I want to turn it over to Erica k welcome good morning everyone good morning um I would like to express my gratitude to Mayor mondani School Chancellor Samuels Deputy Chancellor's and everyone who contributed to the implementation and expansion of autism programs such as the Horizon program in New York City Public Schools thank you for your efforts and collaboration to ensure the Horizon program now reaches Pre-K also I would like to say thank you to principal Christopher anes assistant principal Michelle Allen she couldn't be here today and assistant principal Calissa mwood for inviting me to represent 1 of the many voices that would like to share their experience of having a child with disabilities in New York City public school systems my name is Erica Cabrera I am the mother of Iran Rivas who will be a beneficiary of the Pre-K Horizon program at PS5 Aryan is a loving boy um who just turned 4 and at the beginning of the previous school year he was non-verbal and not socially engaging but I am happy to share that as of this year he is preverbal and showing signs of emerging language and emerging peer engagement I'm proud of him um um my journey with autism um started actually with early intervention um they did a multi-disciplinary evaluation such like speech occupational and instructional and at that time they they told me that um he was delayed in all areas um speech physical ability motor skills and cognitive functioning um naturally I was devastated and started questioning myself how why and if I caused this in any way so naturally a concerned mother I started to research the recommended therapies and how it will help these delays during the time that he was receiving early intervention I was planning to return to work and decided to enroll him into a non-specialized daycare program I wanted him to socially engage with appears because being an only child and only tolerant the family he was not exposed to many children his age unfortunately he did not adapt to the large group setting and regressed so following this regression I obtained an evaluation with a child psychologist and he was formerly diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder moderate level 2 nonverbal so the psychologist suggested that I um started ABA therapy and continued his early intervention services um Iran started ABA therapy within a few months I noticed changes this in the level of comprehension and behavior regulation but he still needed a lot more work um the 1-on-1 sessions with minimal distractions was the type of support that he needed to improve in areas he was delayed that's why having a small group setting is it's important for his Improvement I am excited that PS5 will offer The Horizon program as early as Pre-K now and I am honored and blessed to know that my son will be beneficiary of the Horizon program going forward the Horizon program is a specialized social emotional program I'm geared towards students with autism spectrum disorder to reach their fullest potential this small group environment is conducive for the development and Improvement of all their areas and most support and I know that my son will benefit from the specialized support so for example um Miss Safi and his speech therapist suggested that um he needed an AAC device to be able to communicate more effectively which he was approved thank you and um and now um we're going to be able to have a speech therapist more frequently in the classroom because it's going to be part of the Horizon program so that's 1 of the benefits of of the program which is great it's an added support for for children that need it there are so many important skills that are learned through this specialized supportive programs like the Horizon programs and I know that my son and his peers throughout the years of attendance um will help them with transitioning into adulthood which we know it could be a difficult thing for children on the Spectrum to transition when they age out of the school system and so these are skills that that will help them it will prepare them to enter the workforce with tools that can help them navigate their world in a safe and independent manner um I would like to say thank you to all entities and involved for choosing our most beloved School Community School we're more a family to be part of the Horizon program it gives parents like me a sense of certainty about my son's future education I would like to say thank you to miss Safi his teacher his paraprofessionals Miss s Miss Robles Miss Ashley and providers like speech therapists occupational therapists um Natalie and ba and physical therapist Gia and like they say it takes a village to raise a child it also takes a village to support and improve their life of a special needs child so thank you very much and also I would like to say thank you to my family that such as myself this they are navigating the autism world for the first time and thank you for your support for your love and your understanding to my son thank you everyone for having me and now um yeah okay thank you thank you so much thank you thank you can we have another round of applause for Erica please I think sometimes it gets lost of who this is for and it's for the parents it's for the children it's for the principles the teachers it's for the entire Village that helps to raise these incredible children and I want to bring up the burough president of Manhattan my friend Brad Hyman seagull thank you Mr Mayor thank you thank you very much thank you uh Brad Holmes Eagle Manhattan B president thank you principal for having us here today it's amazing thank you Chancellor and of course Mr and I have 2 amazing colleagues here uh our council member and our state senator and remember Robert Jackson walked from New York City to Albany for educational Equity um that's why he's so in such great shape uh among other reasons uh but I just want to you know thank thank the mayor and and the chancellor for this historic initiative I mean 67.5 million dollars for early intervention we've known the studies we've known the uh record of what it means for students and for parents and for teachers to to intervene at the earliest stage and now we're actually putting it into action and that means so much I was speaking to the the dean of the steinhardt school who said that this is indeed transformative absolutely and uh so take it from the expert uh as as I will and um I'll also say that um you know as a as a parent of a child who has an IEP another why Mr Mayor it is why is it so  hard to apply for an IEP and for you to have more resources to help parents at the early stage get their child into that IEP support system is going to make the world a difference so thank you again I'm so honored to be here thank you thank you so much to our Borough president and now I'll pass it over to our city councilwoman Carmen Delarosa here with Mr Aries and we were visiting the school-based health center which also lives here and I invite you all to take a look it's an amazing pro project an amazing initiative that deserves our support and after the tour we sat down in a room and we began to manifest and Mr arnaiz manifested this moment I have to say he did we specifically spent what felt like an hour talking about special education and the needs and the vision and Mr earnest thank you for that vision and Mr Mayor thank you for making our manifestation a reality um this Administration continues to deliver for our communities Chancellor your entire team are superintendent is here um we're so grateful you know I'm a parent of a D6 student right down the block she's in seventh grade and we know that Erica when you say it takes a village it really does and this is the village this is the village that spans sometimes 8 hours with our children while we make the world go round so I want to thank you Erica for sharing your story thank you so much for having me for making sure that your experiences turned into a better life for all of the students in district 6 and we're here for you so whatever you need shout out to mothers cuz that love but I remember in this District um I grew up just on the other side of um of dagman houses and you know people ask me about my district and what I love about my district and I always say are people are resilient are people are resilient but man we shouldn't have to be this resilient we shouldn't have to have a struggle so much to get the bare minimum for our children and I'm excited that today we're setting all those generational curses as I say all those wrongs in the right path with this program and I'm excited that it's happening here at PS5 so today today is a day for celebration yesterday we were in Coney Island on the go-karts the mayor doesn't stop today we're in Washington Heights making sure that our kids are able to have the future that they deserve so thank you all some questions about today's announcement um before we do all the topics I think we've got Kayla in the back here from The Daily News you can just speak up um hi Mr Mayor um a question about you for you related to education more um the specialized high school admissions data came out late on Friday evening um I wanted to get your reaction to that data um which showed that black and Latino students are still receiving a smaller share of those offers um on the campaign Trail mentioned interest in an independent study to look at gender bias uh racial bias can you give us an update on that yes so you know I think our focus and you heard this earlier from the chancellor is on how do we provide the best possible education for every single student across the city and frankly when we're looking at our school system we know that there is so much more work to be done especially to address the racial inequities that we've seen not just frankly when we're talking about the the disparities in admissions of 1 tests but across the system as a whole and 1 of the focuses of these past 6 months in the conversations we've been having internally uh with our Chancellor Deputy Chancellor is with with the team At Doe is how do we start to address that in real tangible ways and I really do appreciate the Chancellor's focus on that because 1 of the things that really shunned through for me when I first met the chancellor was this emphasis on addressing racial inequities and doing so while providing the strongest and rigorous education that is possible for New York City students that continues to be our North Star are we're going to be continuing to monitor this and I think we're asking ourselves the questions of how can we transform the educational results in the Years leading up to that test as well thank you very much question about today's announcement or educational related questions I just wanted to follow up on that you went to a specialized high school so what does it mean to you seeing those types of admissions when it's low for Black and Latino um and then I also wanted to ask you I guess either 1 of you could answer uh the delay on digitizing Omni cards for students I know that that was supposed to start in the fall but it hasn't there's been some issues so far can you tell us the update on that as well so I will follow up with you on on the question around the digitization of the Omni cards um you know I I will say that we know that a single test does not reflect the aptitude of students across the city we know that black and Latino students are excelling AC Ross the 5 Burrows um as our students in a wide variety of schools we have to ensure that we're doing everything we can to deliver for those students at the earliest ages and frankly 1 of the things that makes me so excited about today's announcement is talking about early intervention and too often we have conversations about the last possible point for a student in New York City public schools and not about the first possible point and today is 1 of many steps we're looking to take to rectify that imbalance any other education questions Matt go ahead um I just want to follow up the city council speaker recently threatened to subpoena the doe for not releasing records tied to 12 billion dollars in contracts 1 to get update about what's going on with that uh and any statement during the council so the the city council will have these contracts in the coming weeks and we know that long-standing New York City public school posture has been that when sharing contracts for the external body that they would go through a vendor review and a redaction process we know that the council is an oversight body we're looking to uh expedite that process as quickly as possible and that means speeding up the response time and also sharing non-reactive portions of those contracts and then to follow up on the timeline previously you know there were certain dates that were set kept getting pushed back so I guess what is different now that it will be produced in a few weeks compared to you know uh this standing timeline issue I think the focus here is making sure that we're operating in accordance with the law and that legal review is is the focus of a lot of our efforts right now thank you thank you for all our speakers for your time and I want to acknowledge also our mopd commissioner who's here with us as well how are you so Haley from city and state thank you all sorry comes to the final I don't know what you're referring to on Columbia so I don't know what you're talking about I'm sorry only correct I should be answering more questions like that um hi Mr Mayor hi Sally how are you I'm good thank you 2 kind of different question questions you've talked a lot about economic development in recent months it's been a big theme of the administration um I'm hoping you could provide an update on the hunt for a new leader of EDC and then secondly horse carriage legislation and that's going to get a hearing tomorrow in the city council do you foresee any issues with the legislation are you kind of wholeheartedly supporting it so I'll I'll start with your second question and go into your first you know we support the spirit of the bill we are however critical of the insufficiencies of the worker protections and we look forward to working with the council to address address those concerns as we move forward on on an important issue for New Yorkers and on your first question We are continuing that interview process and we are excited at the candidates that we're speaking with at this moment and we'll have more to share soon do you have a timeline for when you're hoping to have candidate narrowed I'll say soon thank you sorry Hi Mr Mayor how are you doing well how are you good um so community members have told us this is about the encampments on the west side I know that you said you would give us enough data I'm just look we've been told that you the city has conducted some sweeps in the area in recent weeks in an attempt to sort of clean up the situation you've given people 7 days as per a settlement allegedly with a I guess it's with the urban Justice Center but we're told that some people people in the encampments are just not accepting housing or shelter at the end of the 7-Day process so I my question is do you have enough of the stabilization beds or the type of beds you need to convince people to come in and what can you do to make it so that people don't at the end of the 7 days just move to another Corner another spot start the clock again without any ultimate solution yeah I think when it comes to combating the crisis of homelessness across our city there is always more to be done and I know that 1 of the driving rationale in our policy was Outreach every single day of those 7 days and that Outreach be led by DHS workers because we're actually looking as you said to connect New Yorkers with those kinds of services at the end of those 7 Days whether it's the site that we spoke about the other day or any site for that matter will be cleaned up um but what we want to do is ensure that we are making connections with shelter with support of Housing and frankly a lot of this also comes back to the Investments that we're looking to make in constructing more housing across the city because we know that there is a relationship between the absence of Housing Opportunity and New Yorkers are being pushed into homelessness is there anything different you think you have to do to get people to need more beds do you need more services to get people to come in is it working I I think that what we are dealing with and Reckoning with is New Yorkers who have a long history of having been let down by government and we are looking to convince them in fact that now it will be different and the best way to do so is by proving that in the services we deliver I think that we've made steps to that end I think there's always more to be done Julia go ahead yeah how you doing doing how are you okay thanks um back to the horse carriages you said you want to be happy with the uh sort of exit strategy for the driver so what are your thoughts on that and what what plans would you have in mind for getting them reinforced somewhere or somehow you know I think I've said over the course of both the campaign and and while in office that I believe that we have to bring the industry to an end and ensure that we're doing so in partnership with Community leaders labor partners and I think that worker Protections in that transition are critical so that we ensure that those who have been working in this industry for years some even decades also have a future that they can look to of employment of training of development and I think that there is a path forward to to addressing that uh because I know that that's a concern that many hold whenever you're phasing out an industry as a whole like to drive something else or training programs I I think that we have a a lot of options in front of us that we can be considering I think whether they are development programs training programs uh whether they're also the questions of how to phase out that industry and I think that there is a an opening for us to have that conversation while we sunset this industry yes hi hi about the de he was doing the 7 days and the beginning of that 7 days is the community somehow notify I believe a Pedro posture goes up so we talked about this 1 near the Intrepid how do they know when the 7 days you know where we're at in that process and then would they expect the sanitation would come in right on that seventh day or 8th day so the notice that is provided also um it it indicates both the beginning of that 7-Day period and then once that period concludes that site is cleaned up now every single day of that period is also characterized by daily Outreach from city workers with a focus on connecting those New Yorkers with Supportive Services I can get back to you with the exact imagery of what the sign looks like because I think it answers a lot of the questions thank you and we'll follow up on that thank you everyone okay thank you all so much

New York City is expanding its existing special education programs into pre-K classrooms for the first time, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said Tuesday.

Nest, Horizon, AIMS, Path and ACES programs will be available at 26 schools across 14 school districts in all five boroughs starting this fall, Mamdani said at a press conference.

67.5 Million to be invested in Pre-K Special Education

Universal Childcare Needs to be Truly Universal

Historic Win for NYC Special Education

https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2026/07/14/nyc-to-expand-its-special-education-programs-to-pre-k Source: NY1