New York City special ed students are not receiving services they need, teachers’ union survey reveals

NEW YORK — Special education students, the most vulnerable students in New York City public schools, are, in many cases, not getting the services they were promised, according to the United Federation of Teachers.

Saying the system is broken, union members got tired of waiting for the Department of Education to provide data, so they did it themselves.

“Shame on them. They know what is going on,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said.

Mulgrew spoke directly to the DOE while announcing a union survey found that nearly 9,000 special education students are not receiving their mandated services, and across 474 schools surveyed, there are over 2,000 unfilled special education provider jobs.

“They didn’t say they didn’t have the money. They said we don’t know how to pay them. We don’t know how to figure out payroll. That’s obscene,” Mulgrew said.

In response to the teachers’ union findings, Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said, in part, “I look forward to collaborating with President Mulgrew and his team at UFT to fill these critical school needs.”

“If they need these services, we gotta fight”  

Phillippa Bowden is a single mother. Her 12-year-old son has autism, and is a student at Public School 169 on the Upper West Side, where she is the PTA president. She is helping other parents navigate the issue while she navigates it, herself.

“We gotta be the advocate and we gotta fight for what’s right and not give up on our kids not getting what they want. If they need these services, we gotta fight,” Bowden said. “It’s very hard when they don’t have enough people to do the work.”

The UFT says the solution to that starts with hiring — expedite the process of bringing providers on board, and pay them more once they are.

“They don’t give us benefits. They don’t give us a case load in one school,” reading specialist Stacey Dreher said.

Dreher, like many providers, wants to help, but the system she describes makes it almost impossible.

“They need to have reading specialists and speech therapists as part of each school’s team, not just a benefit that is brought in after parents [who] are legally savvy enough to demand that,” Dreher said.

Doug Williams

Doug Williams has been reporting and anchoring in the Tri-State Area since 2013.