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Julian’s Story
Julian is a 3-year-old preschooler with delays in his language skills, but the DOE failed to provide recommended services.
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01.15.2013 | NY1 | By and large, education advocates and the teachers' union gave the speaker's proposals high marks... "I think if a new mayor comes into office that really wants to listen to parents and make them partners, I think you can do that without spending a lot of money," Kim Sweet of...
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01.15.2013 | New York Daily News | Maggie Moroff of Advocates for Children said she's worried about disabled students for whom public transportation won't work. "They don't have a solid plan for how they're going to deal with these more-complicated issues," she said. Read article
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01.16.2013 | New York Post | The nonprofit Advocates for Children called on the city to do more to accommodate 54,000 kids with special needs who are likely to be severely impacted. The Manhattan group said financial hardship makes it difficult for families to front the money for car service, and...
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01.15.2013 | WPIX 11 News | “For those parents, it’s going to be really hard or impossible for [their] kids to get to school,” said Kim Madden, lead attorney for Advocates For Children New York, a children’s issues advocacy organization. ”MetroCards and reimbursement just won’t be enough.” Her...
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10.22.2012 | AFC has updated our guide to the "Turning 5" process. The guide provides a detailed overview of all families with children with disabilities need to know when transitioning from preschool special education to kindergarten, including information on eligibility, referral, evaluations,...
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01.15.2013 | Gotham Schools | Kim Sweet, the director of Advocates for Children of New York, which represents students with special needs, said she was disappointed but not surprised that Quinn did not mention special education once. “It doesn’t tend to be something that mayoral candidates jump...
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01.15.2013 | SchoolBook | Kim Sweet, the executive director of the group Advocates for Children, said the back-up plans outlined by the Department of Education may be manageable for many families, but not for all. “Public transportation may not be feasible as a result of a student’s disability, and...
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01.14.2013 | There is a chance of a system wide bus strike that could impact your children's transportation services in New York City in the very near future. We want to make sure that all families, including families of students receiving preschool and school-aged special education services...
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Covers the diagnosis of autism; Early Intervention services, preschool special education, and school-age special education for children with autism; instructional practices and additional support services; tips for parents and information on support groups and additional resoruces.
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01.11.2013 | AFC has signed on to a joint issue brief of the Advancement Project, the Alliance for Educational Justice, the Dignity in Schools Campaign, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, entitled "Police in Schools are Not the Answer to the Newtown Shooting." The brief explains...
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01.11.2013 | Staten Island Advance | Randi Levine, project director of the advocacy group Advocates for Children of New York, described the typical scenario in which the mayor proposes cuts to school programs, which galvanizes parents, teachers and officials to mobilize, whereupon much of the...
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Blog: Best & the brightest01.08.2013 | New York Post | "I felt very fortunate in the educational opportunities I got," says Matthew Lenaghan, the son of two college professors. Graduating from Yale, he wanted to do something “meaningful” — so he joined Teach for America and went to teach ninth-grade social studies in a poor...
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12.18.2012 | Insideschools.org | All 5th graders will turn in applications for middle school this Friday, Dec. 21. That includes students with special education needs who will fill out the same application as other children. There is often some confusion about the process, even after the roll-out...
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12.14.2012 | Public News Service | "Punish the crooks, not the kids." That's the rallying cry of parents and advocates worried about New York's preschool special education programs that are under an investigative microscope. The state comptroller is pursuing operators of special education providers...
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12.13.2012 | Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | Education advocates and parents implored the state Thursday to expand and reform its policies for preschool special-education programs. Several school groups, including the Alliance for Quality Education and Advocates for Children of New York, opposed...
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12.13.2012 | Wall Street Journal | Some education advocates in New York are out with recommendations to protect preschool special education programs. The groups Advocates for Children of New York and the Alliance for Quality Education are worried that recent reports of costly fraud by some...
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Blog: Punish the Crooks, Not the Kids: Recommendations in Support of Preschool Special Education Programs12.13.2012 | Today, AFC, the Alliance for Quality Education (AQE), and parents gathered in Albany to speak about the vital role that preschool special education services play in helping preschoolers with delays prepare for kindergarten. Recent media attention around fraud and inefficiencies in the...
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12.06.2012 | Insideschools.org | Although this change does not exactly make kindergarten mandatory for all five-year-olds, advocates say it sends a message to schools that they can no longer refuse to admit five-year-olds. "We have seen families turned away from schools with the explanation that...
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11.29.2012 | Gotham Schools | A+NYC, a new coalition formed earlier this year to shape policy in time for the 2013 mayoral election, launched an online “policy hub” today that includes research briefs on 20 education issues that the group wants to be the focus of debates in months to come. The...