The Education Law Center is suing Governor Cuomo on behalf of parents at some of New York state’s neediest schools, seeking the release of $37 million the state owes these schools. :
PARENTS ASK NY APPEALS COURT TO RELEASE ILLEGALLY FROZEN SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT FUNDS
Parents of students in three public schools are asking a New York appeals court to immediately release over $37 million in improvement grant funds frozen a year ago by Governor Andrew Cuomo.
The latest request comes in a lawsuit filed by the parents charging the Cuomo Administration’s budget director, Robert Mujica, with violating the law when he refused to release grants previously appropriated by the Legislature to boost programs and services in twenty, high need schools across the state. Education Law Center represents the plaintiff parents and students.
On December 28, 2016, Judge Kimberly O’Connor in Albany found that the budget director exceeded his legal authority in withholding the grants and ordered the funds be immediately released to the NY State Education Department for distribution to support vital programs in the schools.
Governor Cuomo decided to appeal Judge O’Connor’s ruling last month. Under New York law, the appeal triggers an automatic stay of the order to release the funds. The parents are now asking the appeals court to lift the stay, citing the irreparable harm to students if the schools are unable to implement the programs supported by the grant funds.
“If the grant money is not released pending this appeal, hundreds of children in New York’s neediest schools will lose educational opportunities that they cannot regain,” said Wendy Lecker, ELC senior attorney. “Education is cumulative, so when students are deprived of the support needed for learning that not only limits their achievement this year, but impedes progress as they move to subsequent grades.”
In affidavits filed in support of the parents’ request to the appeals court, administrators from three of the schools deprived of the grant funds – Hackett Middle School in Albany, Roosevelt High School in Yonkers, and JHS 80 Mosholu Parkway Middle School in the Bronx – detailed the essential programs they can no longer provide without the grants. These include extended learning time, social work and counseling, family outreach, academic intervention and professional development. The programs were implemented in 2015-16 with the first year of grant funds, but are on hold since the Governor decided to withhold the second year of funding.
Numerous programs have been held up by the Governor’s action:
Hackett Middle School discontinued extended instructional time to provide students with additional academic assistance and professional development for teachers.
Roosevelt High School cut a literacy/math coach and parent coordinator; discontinued professional development opportunities for teachers; and eliminated or sharply curtailed weekend and after-school extended learning time, college visits and CTE pathways.
JHS 80 Mosholu Parkway Middle School could not implement any of its proposed programs, including mentoring for at-risk students, social workers and guidance counselors for their extended day program, and professional development for teachers.
The appropriation for the grants will lapse in March 2018. If the funds are not released pending the appeal, the schools may lose access to the remainder of the funds, permanently depriving students of the opportunity to benefit from the programs and services the grants were intended to support.
Education Law Center Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 24
Does Cuomo (or is he required to) explain or give reasons for withholding those grant funds?
Maybe he will explain in court.
Good luck with that!
Cuomo seems to be surviving and thriving. Preet is now off his back and he won’t have to deal with all of that anymore. His approval numbers are on the upswing AND nobody is emerging that will seriously challenge his reelection.
When Cuomo is doing well he is at his most vengeful and aggressive towards teachers and public schools. When he is in a slump he backs off on education a bit because he knows NYSUT will (stupidly) interpret that as Cuomo “finally coming around” and will accommodate him. For a man as politically center-less and shifty as Cuomo (he is not of any ideological stripe except what benefits him and his ambitions), his laser-beam hatred for organized teachers and public education is a remarkable constant for him.
So what Im saying is expect a good amount of really bad stuff coming from Cuomo here in NY in regards to education…..he’s entering a happy time which is bad for us! Also expect him to do some very big stuff folks on the left will love. He will be reelected and possibly has presidential ambitions. So maybe his education shit-show will go national!
And he’s a dem! Haha. Same old story.
We say it wont catch up, but as we look around at a sea of red Cuomo like politicians are the cause . So while everybody liked Obama, Cuomo’s role model, talk the talk while not walking the walk being their motto. . It was not possible to turn that into votes. There is just so much BS that people will tolerate and still be motivated to show up at the polls. Even when the deplorable s are your opponent.
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Joel,
Precisely!
With friends like these…..
People remain blissfully unaware of how bad the state of the left truly is…..how bad the loss truly was.
The idea of a women’s strike is great for example, if done like the Icelandic one in the 1970s. Instead our version didnt penetrate too deeply into the working classes and was free from the necessary Marxist lingo and philosophy, thereby making it simple theater. Watered down, inevitably just play time for fairly comfortable white people, and completely not serious philosophically. That’s where we are right now.
This is what getting hit by a train feels like. A fascist train running on time.
Left and right have lost their meaning in this conversation–such as it is. And that’s not at all what happened with the recent woman’s movement–or maybe from a perch in a peudo-omniscient alternative universe, picking and choosing a few attitudes swimming around in millions of others.
My kid’s school is one of the schools affected. This whole process has been incredibly demoralizing and disconcerting. Losing the money after budget time is bad enough, but over the few years leading up to and including receivership, the school (and, I’m sure, others in this situation) has been incredibly jerked around. Changing guidelines, changing requirements, few answers to questions to SED, very last minute release of things the school needs to respond to as a requirement of being in receivership. When the process started, parents, teachers and administrators were earnest about providing input and hearing SED’s feedback on how to improve. When that feedback is merely “improve” without any real research-supported ideas or support, everyone lost heart and many started merely doing what the state required to meet the metrics. The main losers in this scenario are the kids, of course, while adults bicker.