Hi everyone. I hope you all had a great summer. Um, and I wanna thank you all for joining us for our first Utilization Committee meeting of the school year. Um, my name's Adriana. I represent Queen CECs on the pep, and I am the chair of this committee, the Utilization Committee. Um, and I wanna give our members an opportunity to introduce yourselves. I'm sure you all know each other, but we as well. Hey, everyone. Um, hey. Thank you for all the work that you do, chair. We appreciate you. Um, my name is Tanisha Grant. I am, uh, a parent leader, a community organizer,
and I'm the Executive Director of Parent Support and Parents New York. And I'm happy to be here and I'll pass it to Leoni. Hi everyone. Um, my name's Lenny Hamson. I'm the Executive Director of Class Size Matters, and I'll pass it to Shirley. Good evening. Good evening everyone. I am Shirley Obe. I'm the Queensborough President Appointee to the Panel for Educational Policy. Good evening, everybody. I'm sorry. Could whoever's next? Laney, could you pick the next person for me? 'cause I can't see the name. I think it's Greg Faulkner. Greg, are you there? Yeah, I'm trying to work out my technology.
I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm Greg Faulkner. I'm chair of the Panel for Education Policy. Thanks. Thanks everyone. Okay. So our goals for this evening are pretty simple. We're going to review and finalize our resolution. I wanna thank you, Laney, for all of your additions and for your steadfastness as an editor on this resolution. I really, really appreciate it. Um, so we'll go through that. First, we're gonna discuss who we should be sending the resolution to. Um, before we discuss that, sorry, I have an addendum here
to my notes that I didn't make clear. I'd also like for us to discuss whether or not we're gonna include any visuals or any additional data as exhibits. Um, or if we're just gonna go with what we have written. Um, then if we are going to, or if it's adopted by the pep, what meetings are we gonna proceed with first? Um, and then we will get all the citations together. Share this with Noah, and it'll go up. I'm gonna share my screen so that we can see the resolution. Does anybody have any questions or is there anything that I missed that anybody wants to talk about? Well, I just wanted to know whether you folks on the PEP
think it would be helpful if I offered to do a briefing or together as a committee we could do a briefing of the other PEP members about the importance of this resolution. And also supplied to them the data that we talk about. You know, in a, in a more sort of visual form, I would be happy to put together a very brief presentation on this issue of school utilization and why it's so critical moving forward, especially in regards, uh, the class size law.
But, you know, I just wanna hear from other members, especially the PEP members, if they think that that would be helpful. I mean, I definitely do, but Shirley Chair, Faulkner, what do you think? We will circle back, but I think it's a great idea and we can talk about that more, um, when they can unmute or later. Chad, thank you for joining us. We just got started. I'm, I'm okay with it, Adriana. Oh, thank you, Shirley And Greg, do you think that would be helpful also? Yeah, I, I mean, uh, as it relates to this resolution, um, I'm just looking in terms of timing, um, you know, um,
if we could fit it in. Um, my sense is there's not gonna be a lot of opposition to this resolution. Huh? That would be great. Yeah. Well, I, I'll let you guys determine that, obviously. Yeah, let's, let's talk about it offline. I need to look at, 'cause there's, you know, we have a lot of briefings and things scheduled, and I don't wanna, um, plan something and utilize your time, and then we don't really have an attendance. So what I like to do is, you know, talk to some of the other members and make sure people would actually show up, um, for it. Okay. Yeah, I'll follow up with you.
Thanks. Thank you, chair. Uh, we, this version of this resolution, we're just gonna jump in and get started, is pulled directly from the notes and the conversation that we had when we met in June. Um, I would rather not read it aloud, but I will, if that is preferred for anyone else. If not, we can slow scroll the screen. This is the, um, or this resolution is gonna be found at the Google Docs link that was shared, uh, two days ago, which I can reshare if anyone's having issues finding it.
I'll just put the link in the chat. I think that's easy. Is this large enough for folks to read on screen or should I just read it out loud? I'm fine. Adriana, maybe you could just do a summary Okay. Yes. Of the resolution. And, um, and then I guess people, I think most of the committee members got a copy, and if there's anyone else we could, you know, we're gonna post it before it's voted on. Absolutely. Am I correct? Yeah. Okay. So the resolution is falling for, as we discuss the city council to essentially reevaluate, um, public,
uh, buildings and lots that are, uh, available before. They are essentially made available for private developers. So they, they would be made available first to DOE or SCA. Um, I'm not sure exactly who, so we have both in, in the resolution. It also, we'll stop them from being able to say it's not us at them. We have both listed there. Um, we also have in this resolution, um, I think it's really important. We have maintained a lot of the data and a lot of the, um, critical pieces of information that really illustrate for us.
You know, it's really easy to just say it's a crisis, but when we see that like more than 250,000 students that are already living in poverty are now also facing, you know, overcrowding in their classrooms, it just compounds. Um, it compounds the inequity. Um, I think that's the gist of it. Does anyone have any specific questions? One of the things that I think, um, might be done with this resolution is it also should be addressed as well to the chancellor and the school construction authority,
because they have a central role to play, play if these, any of these resolution, uh, specific, uh, proposals are to be adopted. So it's not just the city council, which has, you know, a secondary role in a lot of the decision making when it comes to the capital plan and school siting. So I'm hoping that we can refer to the Chancellor as well as the head of the SCAI Agree. I have, um, that was our number two that we were gonna get to. So we might as well, I've also listed, um, the, uh,
assembly people, if it is applicable to whichever district we're discussing. If the assembly person happens to be very involved, we can loop them in as well. Uh, the borough president, the president or designee of the CCEC, um, local community boards, even though they don't necessarily get in, they don't necessarily like to get involved. Um, at least that's been my experience. But they are directly involved with the, uh, process of putting new residences into the community. So they need to then be involved with this part, uh, especially since that's something that we're calling for in our resolution.
Uh, I also included, um, borough president and Noah and I, a few months ago, had discussed including other community groups to, uh, really loop in existing community stakeholders, like just throwing it out there. Groups like VW or, or Kiwanis groups like longstanding, um, groups in the community can also be utilized, um, for any capital that they may have. But those are a lot of people, so we need to navigate that. Great. Yes. So, SHA Adrian, I'm just curious. So we're asking the city council
to actually enact legislation that would require the city, that if there are any vacant city owned properties that they first be made available for an educational facility. Is that the gist of the resolution? Yeah. So we're asking them to take an existing law and use it as an umbrella that we would then also fit under. Yeah. So, so, so my question is, I, I could see giving this as informational to the chancellor and informational to community boards, but they don't, they wouldn't really be enacting the law.
No, of course. But it's, I think the sharing with the community board specifically was so that they're completely aware, because many times they're unaware of just how bad the overcrowding is. Um, their education people may be very, very well versed in all areas, but if they're not physically going into the schools, just like the rest of us, we, you may not be aware of the crunch of the space. Yeah, I'm just, so we would just be notifying them that Yeah, we could just Say, say them, Say, say again. We could just cc instead of referring to those folks. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanna be clear
that we're asking the city council to enact legislation that's focused to the city council. If we're asking the community boards, they have nothing to do with the legislative process, although we might be asking this group as information to join us in lobbying the city council to pass this legislation. You understand what I'm saying? I do. Yeah, I do. So maybe we should be reaching out to them not To get them to join us, right. Either as Co-sponsors. Maybe That's a great idea to say, Hey, we are looking to do this, and we would love to have your community board vote maybe a resolution in support
of our resolution to the city council. It it is just so that we are clear that we have an understanding of what the, the process would be. Right. Because none of those folks really have any power of what happens to buildings in their district. Yeah, correct. Community boards make sense because if a property comes before them, you know, and they're in the ULER process, they would get to approve it. But I think we should get those folks to join us in lobbying the city council to support the legislation. I think that's a great idea. I wrote it down as we're talking. Um, Yeah, I think that would be, you know,
Yeah. Should we start with the community boards that are in the areas that have been, um, identified as the most affected by overcrowding? So that's 24, 25, 26, and one of them in Brooklyn, I'm forgetting. No, let's do all of them. Let's do, because, um, you know, there may be other uses educationally in a community board that may itself not be overcrowded, but that we might be, it could be adjacent and, you know, it could be a building that's a block away and one community board is not overcrowded, but the next door community board is, is is packed.
Right. And there are overcrowded schools in every school district in the city. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, there is pockets of overcrowding everywhere. Yeah. My my thought about, uh, addressing this as, as well to the DOE and the SCA is that, um, sections three and four and five are direct, um, proposals a request that the SEA do various things and the DOE do various things. So the DOE we're asking a multi-year plan, we're asking them
to adopt the recommendations of the class size working group when it comes to space. We're asking, um, the SCA to comply with local law 1 67 by transparently reporting on the number of seats needed by district and to revamp its formula for estimating overcrowding. And then we also, um, in section four are asking that the city environmental quality review process be revamped, which is really an issue for the city as a whole, but also the city council. So that's a good one as well.
So, um, some of our recommendations have, are specific to the city council in terms of the school citing task force and the analysis of, of private property. Uh, but, or, or to ensure that publicly owned buildings are used, are considered first, first schools, but, um, a lot of the others are directly to the DOE and the SCA. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that as long if it's directing action to a particular body Yeah, that's fine. But, um, you know, the gist of this is really
to get the city council to make a a, a move. And, and we, you know, and, and, and those folks don't have a say as long as we directing the right actions to the right people. That's, I guess what I'm saying. If there are things that are DOE that we're pretty clear and sort of delineating that we're talking about stuff for the DOE, if we're talking about things to the city council mm-hmm. That we're clear in making sure that we direct this, that information to the city council. Right. Yeah. I just wanna chime in and, um, piggyback on what Leonie was saying about pockets, because I'm uptown and, um, class size is a, is a, is a, is a issue in Harlem,
central Harlem, and, um, Washington Heights from what I know of. So, um, I don't think that we should, um, target any one part of the city as opposed to another one. Mm-hmm. Um, and, uh, as second vice chair of my community board, I do think that it's important to get it out to the community boards, um, so that the community boards can kinda get it out to the community thing. Agreed. Agreed. Okay. Okay. I think that's it for that. Uh, the last question
or the last little, um, thing I wanted to go over, I'm gonna share my screen again. So is whether or not we include things like this, uh, as exhibits or if we just leave it with the infor, oops, sorry. It's okay. Or if we just leave it with the information that we have. I don't, hi, Gavin. Sorry. I don't think it hurts to have additional charts, but I just don't know what's usually done with the resolution and whether that's considered excessive or not. I have a lot of other charts, um, that shows the number
of students per, per borough, for example, also the number of students and the number of schools per school district in overcrowded schools, uh, that don't have the space for class size. So I'd be happy to provide those as well if people think that would be helpful. Yeah. So I didn't want to risk overwhelming or, um, appearing redundant, which is why I just used this part that I, Laney you have shared thousands of times, but I just pulled from, uh, the link that you have on the Class Size Matters website. So for everyone who's never seen this before, group number two
or the red up on top are the number of schools that do not have space for full size classrooms currently to meet their current enrollment needs, and the others do. So we can see how much of a problem this is, um, specifically in Queens and in Brooklyn. But to Laney's point, it doesn't necessarily tell the entire story. So I'm happy to include more charts and more data. I think that's always a good thing. Um, but I think we need to be select choiceful. We need to be choiceful. So this would be something you would send out
that we about having these charts available. It should be In the back, like the last page or two would be charts or additional data. Okay. So that would be for mailing, when you send out, you know, to the public, they would see those charts. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's fine. And this is all This is pulled from, yeah, this is pulled from the DOE'S website. Yeah. Okay. So Laney, maybe you and I will discuss the additional, or if you wanna just send me what you think should Be, I'll, I'll send you some charts and you could decide what you wanna include in what you don't. It's fine with me. Okay. All right.
Leni, um, just for information purposes, could you briefly tell us what it's looking like as we start year 2025 with class size? So, as you probably know, um, more than 700 schools did get money to lower class size this year, which is the real, it's gonna make a real difference, um, in terms of, of of class sizes in many schools. But of course, there are 1500 schools across the city, and many of them did not apply for funds for class size and specifically any school in which there wasn't
space for smaller classes. The DOE said, don't even bother to apply. So we have a lot of issues with that. It's a voluntary process. Some principals chose not to. Um, there are, you know, um, many, many schools which do not have the space, which enroll nearly half of all students. And, uh, there were many principals and SLTs who, who really wanted to be able to cap their, at least their incoming class at a lower level to be able to lower class size. And they were told no. And so this is the third year of the phase in it.
It's quite possible that we will make 60% this year. We never know until the data comes out because there's really not that much oversight either by DOE to make sure that the money is spent correctly. And in the past, there's been a lot of money spent and provided by the state for class size reduction that hasn't necessarily gone to hiring additional teachers, but have gone to hire, you know, paying for teachers they already had. But I think it's quite possible we'll make the 60% phase in this year. But really the thing that we've been concerned about and
and very vocal about since really since the law was passed, which was, you know, um, in 2022, so uh, um, really three year, more than three years ago, was that DOE has made absolutely no steps to provide additional space for the schools that need it. And of course, you cannot do that overnight if you're talking about building a new school or an annex, it takes four to five years to build that school e you know, and that's assuming that you find the site quickly. Um, if you want to adjust enrollment between nearby schools,
which we think would save hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars in years of, of time, it still takes time, right? Because you can only do that for the entering class. No one on the, uh, class size working group and or, and or the DOE ever wanted to suggest that we would ever move any kid out of their existing school for that purpose. So you really can only adjust enrollment for the entering class. And if we're talking about, um, elementary schools, that sixth grades, you're not only starting in kindergarten,
um, adjusting that enrollment. And so that would take six years to work its way up the grade levels. So either way, um, and probably both needs to be done. It's gonna take, uh, many years past the deadline in the law. But, you know, we're still, we're still, you know, hopeful that, that that will happen eventually. But we wish it had happened at the beginning of the process rather than at the end of the process. Really, DOE not only dragged their feet, but when Eric, the first two years, Eric Adams cut the budget in for school construction
by over $2 billion. Um, and so that obviously put us way back where we would've been if that hadn't happened. Now, the state, um, uh, legislature made him put $2 billion back in the budget for school construction. But again, that created a tremendous lag. Um, so we're never gonna make, I think it's almost impossible that we're gonna make the deadlines in the law. Hopefully we will make the, um, the goals eventually. But meanwhile, the DOE, especially the previous administration, and I don't know what, you know, what's gonna happen
with the new people, but, um, Dan Weisberg and others were very resistant to doing anything about space. And, um, and it just sort of like dragging their feet along, um, in even considering building enough new schools or, um, adjust, starting to allow schools to cap enrollment when there are underutilized schools nearby. We've made the case over and over that adjusting, uh, enrollment between schools would not only, um, help the overcrowded schools,
it would also help the underutilized schools, which often do not have enough students to have a really sufficient budget to provide all the, all the services and programs the kids really need. So it would help both sets of schools improve. But, um, the, the DOE has been insistent that they never wanted to do that because it would somehow, uh, restrict parent choice and drive parents out of the system, which we don't necessarily believe. There was another, uh, there was a DOE survey, in fact, um,
of parents that left the system that drew pulled their kids out of the public schools that said something like 70% of them said that, um, class size was a factor in their decision to pulling their kids out of the public schools in New York City. So we think it may actually attract more parents to the public schools, which will, which would be great, but would also provide additional problems in terms of overcrowding. That's in fact what happened in California when they reduced class sizes. It attracted a lot more parents to the public schools
who had originally sent their kids to private schools. In any case, um, we've been pressing, pressing, pressing for the last, you know, three years for them to do something about space. So any help that we can get from the PEP and from other groups in terms of that, um, advocacy would be very helpful. Um, before we go on, um, we have some other committee members who joined the meeting. I don't know if you want to have them introduce themselves or, Yes. Thank you. Um, Chad, Gavin, Leon, would you please introduce yourself? I think that's everyone that joined. Good evening, everyone. Leon from Brooklyn.
Hi. Good evening everyone. Chad Roye from the Bronx. Uh, good evening everyone. Gavin Hill Youngman from district two in Manhattan. Thank you. Thank you. Chair Baulkner. Um, so Laney, when you were talking just now, you made me think that maybe we should also, um, send this to other advocacy groups to see if they'd like to sign on as co-sponsors as well. Like class Size Matters, a QE, others like that. What does every, what does everyone think of, of this? We can send it to, um, tanisha's board as well.
So, Parent, parent and why. Yeah. I think it could be translated into a letter that have other groups sign on. I'm not sure that you want them to sign on to a resolution of the pep. True. I think as a resolution of the pep it would be extraordinarily powerful to get this passed and, and, and then attach to that resolution. I think we could draft a, a sign on letter to get other groups to sign on as well. I, I actually think we could, it would be a good idea to get, um, folks to agree to co-sponsor and say, yes, we support this resolution,
particularly CEC members. Okay. So that's before it's voted on, is that what you mean, Greg? Yeah, we'd have to do it pretty quickly. Reach out to CCE c send, send a letter. We're doing this and we'd love to have you say, yes, we co-sign and support this resolution. Yeah, no, what's our deadline for posting it so that we can Yeah, Thursday. This Thursday? Yeah. Mm-hmm. What about for October? We got weeks and weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it. So we can do, we can try to rush it
and get all of those co-sponsorship in two days, which is unlikely, especially if we're talking about CC members who may not be checking their email every day. Um, or we can start immediately and hope to have, um, a yes from everyone that we've reached out to by the posting time for October, which is probably like two weeks before the October date or the October PET meeting. Sorry. But I think that's what we do. I don't, I don't think rushing it is a good idea. So, so did you say Greg this, or Noah, that this resolution would be posted this week? Is, is that what you said?
So, so it would, if we were going to vote on it in the September meeting, it would have to be posted on Thursday. If we vote on it in, or bring it to the PEP for a vote rather in the OR for the October meeting, we would have essentially three and a half, four weeks. Greg, which do you think is the better strategy? I I, I, I think either one would work. I I think if you post it Thursday, there's, and it's legally out there, there's nothing to preclude people from the CEC saying, we like to be listed, uh,
or as a, you know, symbolic as a co-sponsor. Okay. I mean, but would they be listed physically as co-sponsors? Like could we add them? You know, we could announce it during the meeting and read it into the record. It could be on the, you know, like the, we Okay. We are happy to notify you that the following CECs have asked to be listed as co-sponsors. I don't know that we're gonna have an overwhelming number in any case, but It's very difficult for c for, for CECs and other groups, uh, especially community boards. 'cause they have education committees. They have to vote on it first
and then it goes to the whole board. Um, I guess CECs is, would be quicker. Um, they could vote on it at their next meeting, but a lot of them would not necessarily have their next meeting right away. But I guess we could try for the September meeting. Yes, Chad, On the community boards, I actually serve on board seven in the Bronx. Um, if in case you miss the education committee on the board, you can always raise it to the executive committee so that the fic the officers in
that committee can bring it forth to the full board. So all is it lost if we're looking at timing, if you approach it that way. All right, let's try both with anybody. So who's gonna send it out, send out a request to community board members? Do we have someone who's going to be able to do that? And, and, or CECs? I mean, I'm willing to volunteer to help, but I think it comes, it's more powerful if it comes from you, Adriana. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Um, I have, uh, I think I have every community board and every education person that was listed from
last year when I was trying to get them to host, um, meet and greets for their CEC candidates. So I can send it that way. Um, and I can also share it with Katie, Jed, our policy person, because she has someone specifically who does work with the community boards. So I can ask her to tap him as well to like follow up on the backend. Yeah. Okay. And then we'll share it like internally for our pep members to sign on as co-sponsors, but no, and I can take care of that. That's Great. All I'll add, if anybody else has anything else
we can stay on. If not, I can give you a time back. What do, are we adjourning? What? Yeah, I don't have anything else. So if Okay. If anybody else does. Well, I just wanna say thank you to everybody on the committee as always, you know, thank you for the, you know, agreeing to take on extra assignment, extra work. Thank you, Adriana. Of course. Um, you know, we're making progress. I mean, it's slow, but I think we're, you know, by having engaged with the community and raising some of these kinds of issues, I think we're, you know, we're doing something that's a little different. So it's gonna have some bumpy times, but we're going to perfect it
and continue to perfect it so that we get, you know, greater involvement from the community and greater involvement from the panel and, and, uh, move things a little bit, you know, in the right direction. So thank you everybody for being part of this. Well, thank you for including us as non-PE members of these committees. I find it, you know, extremely helpful and mm-hmm. Um, I'm really honored to be part of this. Great. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, chair Ner. Thanks everyone. Good night everybody.