Before I officially call the meeting to order, I'd like to ask our interpreters to please come forward and introduce themselves at this time, if the interpreters can come up to the mics and introduce yourself. Yeah, We wanna start this. Good evening. Uh, the following announcement in the Arabic language. Thank you. Is that everybody? I can't tell. Is that ev all the, have all the interpreters come forward? Okay. Thank you. Um, then we can officially begin. And so I'd like to at this time welcome everybody to our meeting. We have a larger than normal crowd, obviously, and I'd like to welcome you f folks.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this, it, it, it's really important as we proceed in the meeting that, um, we have everyone's attention and I know that there's a lot of passion around a number of issues that are gonna be discussed today. But in order for us to proceed, I'm gonna ask that everybody please, um, be respectful, um, and, and allow us to continue. So, and with that, I'm gonna call formally, call the meeting to order, and I'll ask our secretary to please call the role. When I call your name, please, um, indicate your presence. Um, Marielle Ali. Present. Adriana Ali. Say present. Shirley bin. Present.
Aaron Boad. Present. Camille Casre. Present. Marjorie Deste. Present. Amy Fair. Anita Garcia? Present. Tony Giardano. Present. Dr. Angela Green is absent. Raji Hannah Jones. Present. Thank you. Navid Hassan, present. Alice Ho. Present. Rema Ro Present. Yadira Jimenez. Present, uh, Dr. Sharon Owin is absent.
Alan Ong. Bernita Parsons. Present. Maisha. Sap Maisha. SAP Present. And Sheriff Faulkner Present. Thank you. We have 18 members present, and two absent. We have a quorum, we may proceed. Wait, before I go, I also wanna have, um, the comp controller's, representative Lala present and Chancellor Melissa Aviles Ramos Present. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, uh, we then can officially begin before we start, I, I, obviously, we have a larger than normal crowd, and I just wanted to, uh, go through a few rules
that we'll be observing throughout the meeting. Um, first, and you've already done that, we'd ask that you keep the owls clear, um, just as they are now. Um, it's very important that we allow people for passage and, um, as most you've already done, we'd ask that if you have any signs, we'd ask that you take those signs down so that you don't blur. We also have noted the signs and read them, but we wanna make sure that we're not obstructing anyone else's view. So, um, we'd ask that the sign that's being held up now, if you could please take that sign down. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Um, yeah, I realize that we all realize that there are a number of issues here and that are very important to people, and we actually are appreciative of you coming out and, and,
and, and, and sharing your point of view. Um, when we reach that point in the agenda, um, we'd ask that you allow people who might have a different point of view than you point of view to allow that person to express their opinion, express their point of view. Um, so if we can sort of proceed through the meeting just as we are now and be respectful of everyone else, which I'm sure we will do, um, then, um, I think we'll be able to have a successful meeting. Um, I think this is great that we have a large number. I wish I, I will say this. I sometimes wish that all of our meetings had this number of, uh, of audience participation. Um, um, and I know the issues for some of you are very,
very close to home, and I do respect that. And, and I want to, and I'm interested in hearing everything that everyone has to say. We're gonna pay very close attention to, to your comments. And so, so I appreciate if we, um, operate just as we're operating now, and I know we are. And so, um, and again, so again, I thank you for being here and we'll proceed to with the rest of our meeting. And the first order of business is to welcome our chancellor who is here. Um, I think since the last meeting, um, we had the opportunity, some of us to attend the State of the City schools. I had a chance to listen to those comments
and hear about all the wonderful things that have happened, but more importantly than the things that have happened, all the great things to come. And so, chancellor, I want to thank you for your, uh, for your work and your efforts, and thank you for being here this evening. And I invite you to make any comments you may wish. Thank you so much. Chair Faul, That working? Yep. Do we have the mic? All right, there we go. Good evening everyone. Thank you. Chair Faulkner, uh, vice Chair, Dr. Green and all of our, our panel members. Uh, and also a very big thanks to Food and Finance High School under the leadership of Principal of Ventura and Superintendent Byman.
This school host the 2026 New York State Teacher of the Year, Mr. Prince Johnson. And we also wanna thank the amazing food and finance students. They prepared our delicious food tonight. Um, they cater so many of our heritage events, um, and so a big round of applause for them and for their participation and support. We also want to acknowledge and celebrate the other schools in this building, high School of Hospitality and Management, as well as Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction. I had the privilege of getting to meet the brand new principal of the school, P one 30 m,
principal Jaeger, and, uh, the Interim Acting Superintendent McCoy and the Facing History School. Um, under the leadership of Principal Pentagon and Superintendent Chang, we recently celebrated both Hispanic Heritage Month and Italian American Heritage Month. And I wanna wish a joyous Diwali to all those who celebrated last week, along with well wishes to all our communities who celebrated holidays over the last month. Next week we have election day, and I wanna congratulate our students who will be voting for the very first time. And we have Veterans Day coming up to all those in our community who have served our country.
I thank you deeply. Finally, please know that my thoughts are with our community members who have family and loved ones impacted by Hurricane Melissa. We are here to support however we can. Since we last met, we held the state of our school's events. It was designed to vary intentionally to put our student, staff and families at the center from student performers and MCs to a community paddle led by Chief of Staff Lloyd. It was inspiring to see the brilliance of N-Y-C-P-S on full display, and I was also thrilled in my remarks to announce new
and exciting bodies of work for this year, such as taking New York City res to the next level with our multi-tiered systems of support and ENL pilot. Expanding N-Y-C-P-S cares by growing every child and family as known. Plus adding trauma-informed care training in 119 schools for parents, children, and faculty focusing on AI with a four-part framework. And I'll come back to this in a bit. And I also wanna share an update. Since last month's meeting related to our Magnet School Assistance program grant, on October 15th, we filed a lawsuit
to challenge the US doe's decision to terminate MSAP funding, and we await the court's ruling. We have a few AI related agenda items tonight. So let me dive in a bit more deeply into where we are at with ai. Just last week, we held an incredible AI convening with industry experts and key stakeholders. It was a pleasure to have panel member Navi with us as well. We brainstormed AI strategy for N-Y-C-P-S driven by the four-part framework. We, I announced at the State of our schools. One is to prepare students for AI powered lives and careers.
This includes AI literacy for our students, using our Via, via via our college and career pathways work. And the second part of the framework is teaching students and staff to use AI responsibly. So when we first learned about chat, G-B-T-N-Y-C-P-S actually banned it because we were worried about its potential for misuse. But then we quickly realized that it was our responsibility to guide students and staff to use it appropriately. The third part of the framework is to mitigate bias and ensure cultural responsiveness. AI must serve all students equitably, honoring all of our cultures, all of our languages and identities.
We need to guard against the bias that we know exists in ai. Leveraging AI for operational instructional efficiencies is the last part of the framework. AI can streamline and transform so much of what we do from school operations to instruction. And it is not replacing anyone. It's about supplementing the work of human beings and making their jobs easier and more impactful. We know AI is here to stay. Either we can let it happen to us or we can proactively steer our approach in the right way. And so I believe we need to embrace ai not to replace what we do in schools, but to supplement and enhance it.
I'm eager to have you as partners in this work and to hear your thoughts and reaction to our framework. I also wanna thank our data privacy working group, particularly members of the AI and data security subcommittees for the continuing work on how we improve our own practices around AI and naveed. We thank you for being our Data Data Security subcommittee chair. Finally, I wanna close with some updates regarding bus contracts. I know this is top of mind and a top priority for so many of us, myself included, and most of all for our families. In light of the uncertainty
and potential for disruption of service, let me first say we are doing everything we can to minimize disruption and loss of, of loss of learning. Our focus remains where it belongs on students and families. We are especially concerned about the impact on students with disabilities and students in temporary housing. And I'll share more on our plans in the moment. I've seen a lot floating around in the press and would like to be very clear about what has taken place in our commitments. When our contracts expired this past summer, we asked all our bus companies to continue bus service. This year we offered emergency extensions
to these companies extensions, which allow these companies to continue under the same terms as their previous contracts. While conversations about a longer term extension continued, this was how we were able to provide busing over the summer and for the start of the school year. As planned and discussed with these companies, we've made the same offer of emergency extensions for November and December. More than half of our vendors have already signed these emergency contract extensions. They will provide service next week, but in case not all the vendors have signed the emergency extension by Friday, we are making contingency plans
to ensure our students will make it to school on time and safely. We will be offering omni carts to all impacted students and a caregiver. We are arranging prepaid ride share and transportation reimbursement options for eligible students and families. We are partnering with NYPD and MTA to support student safety. As we know, there will be increased public transportation and pedestrian traffic going to and from schools. We have shared these plans with principals and with families via backpack letter, and we will continue to communicate frequently as a situation evolves. We never want any of our families feeling left in the dark,
especially on a topic like this. Our teams are currently working around the clock on weekends in the field and in the schools to ensure that every student and their family is taken care of. And so, for more information, please visit schools.nyc.gov/transportation. And I wanna recognize the panel's independent commission for hosting their public hearing on October 28th, which garnered an impressive audience and public feedback. Thank you as always, for your partnership today and always. And, and thank you again, uh, uh, chancellor for your comments. And thank you for being here.
Um, we are gonna now move into the, uh, public comment portion of the meeting. This, this portion of public comment, however, is designed for students. Um, we allow our students to have an opportunity to speak first, but in that, uh, regard, I'd like to also read the rules of decorum, the procedure that we'll follow during the public comment period. During the public comment period, our secretary will call forward speakers from the signup sheet in groups of five during public comment. Everyone who is signed up to speak will be allotted up to two and a half minutes for public comment
and two minutes for open public comment, which comes later on in the meeting. The clock will indicate the amount of time remaining for each speaker and a light will flash when there's one minute remaining in that person's, uh, uh, uh, public speaking time. Additional time will always be provided to help facilitate comments that may require a translation. At the end of each speaker's time, we will move on to the next speaker. If a speaker is not present when their name is called, we will move on to the next speaker. Once a speaker's, uh, once a speaker's time, um, or if the speaker's not here, that speaker person would not be able
to redeem their place in the queue. This portion of public comment is only for agenda items being voted on at tonight's meeting. Again, that's important. Public comment is only available, um, for the agenda items that are gonna be voted on at tonight's meeting. If you accidentally signed up to comment during this section, but wish to comment on other matters, please see one of our staff member stations in the back who will help move you to the appropriate section. Again, comments during these sections of the meeting will only relate to those resolutions up for consideration tonight. Um, our first item is then to ask if there are any, uh,
student speakers who wish to address the audience. Uh, yes. There, there are two students who signed up, and if they could make their way down to the microphone and you can begin speaking. Please say your name for the record. First student is Vinny Dong, and the other student is Daylon Berry. Hey, well, you can, you can begin when you meet your microphone. Now that's a first. You're getting applause before even to convince them. That's, that's good. So that's a good start. Go ahead, sir. Hi, good evening. My name's Vinny.
I'm a sophomore at K High School for the sciences at York College. Um, since our school, our reception in 2002, our school situated on the York College campus, being the only specialized high school in Queens, we have the honor to serve 514 students on a campus that's only one floor, one single floor for 514 students, we have a gym shared with a college that's two blocks away for 514 students. We have a library that's also shared, even though it's critical for our educational content and classes.
For 514 students, we have been receiving budget cuts, which has been cutting. Our college now offers at cross catalog for 514 students. We have a kitchen that's literally a section of part of our cafeteria, consisting of a single fridge, a freezer, a few tables, and a ice maker and a oven. For 514 students, our whole entire food comes from 12 of these thingies that comes from Hillcrest High School, 12 for breakfast and lunch for 512 students.
What does it look like for 512 students? Our school have two bathrooms for 514 students, two bathrooms. We barely have AC for some rules. Our locker rooms has been in construction for about two years that just opened and store the construction. We have a pool that's outta construction again, that's being shared with your college and hear this since 2017, we have been testing positive for lead for eight years since 2017, positive for lead for eight years.
What can you do about this? Right. It sounds horrible. There's a new building on Hillside Avenue. We desperately need these. Despite all of our issues for the past 22 years, 23 years, we have been ranked number one high school in New York State for the past two years. Number one, which is why I'm asking you the panel to support our city educa our, uh, community education council district 28 resolution on giving us a new building, 1 6 5 1 8 Hillside Avenue, so we could have a better service
to all students within Queens. Thank you Young men. Just one, one second. Um, first I wanna recognize our two panel members from Queens who've been speaking out very, um, forcefully about the need for some of the concerns that you raised. Um, I have to say that you raised them very effectively. Um, and, uh, if you're a representative of the students that are being produced at that institution, it speaks volumes. And, uh, so we asked you to continue being an advocate and continue speaking up in public. You did a really, really great job. Let me ask, are you on student government? Are you, you're not? No.
Oh, man, man, I bet you're gonna get elected to something. So, uh, you did a, you did a really fine job, and so thank you. Thank you. Even, even about the thingies, whatever those were. I need to, I know you had pictures. I like to see the pictures of those. Uh, yeah, I'll get a chance to look at 'em. So again, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. The other student speaker is Dalen, Stel Berry. You can begin once you, uh, the microphone. Hello? Uh, good afternoon. My name is Daylon and I go to Motion Picture Technical High School. I would like to make a comment on the impact of AI to education. As a student, I've seen firsthand that the damages
that AI has done to the educational system, students in the Department of Education deserve to go to their school with funding to support the creativity and education. Spending money on AI when some schools don't even have enough resources is detrimental to our educational system. There are schools who would rather spend money on AI companies rather than a librarian. This is extremely harmful to students and their learning experience. My concern is, as a student who goes to a film school, AI is damaging us filmmakers and companies who are using AI to make movies, which puts filmmakers out of business essentially. Essentially, we are learning topics that are easily being used by ai.
My solution would be to prioritize funding into children instead of corporations, people over ai. Oh, keep talking. Okay. Um, I personally, um, I think that AI is being used for so much more rather than filmmaking, such as using it to, uh, do your homework, do your essays, even by using, using it for tests. I feel like people, especially teenagers, are using AI for so much, and it's starting to become like a virus. I feel like it's kind of, Thank you. I feel like the more that schools keep promoting ai,
the more that students feel they need to be dependent on it. And it feels that students aren't as dependent on their own selves. It feels like AI is their minds instead of them their own. Uh, keep talking. You, you, you, you have, you have 30 seconds. You can yield it, but you can continue. I think you're on a roll, so you might want to continue with your Time. Hey, thank you so much. Um, I've seen personally from my last year's experience as a freshman, that so many kids are using AI for even the smallest things that you could just use your brain for, you can use at least researching for,
instead of just going on, let's say chat GPT and asking, oh, what's the answer for this? What's the answer for that? It doesn't make sense when schools can be teaching these kids how to be more dependent independent, I'm sorry. Um, instead of dependent on ai, oops, sorry. Uh, other than that, I feel like, um, schools just need to promote more, not as much ai, but more teaching. And I, I, I think you're making, you know, you're making a a, a very important point.
And, uh, that's coming from a baby boomer who's used to only four TV channels at one time, there used to be only four channels, channel A, B, C, C, B, S, and Channel 11 if you were lucky. So, so, so, so coming from that group, this all is all very new to me. So it's kind of refreshing and interesting to hear somebody your age, um, who really sees some of those concerns about that, that are their ready A TI And, uh, you know, as a chancellor mention, what we're trying to do is figure out how we can learn and use this more responsibly to all relay some of the things and concerns that you're raising. But, um, I definitely wanna thank you for being here
and for speaking up and for, um, and, and, and great arguments. Um, you know, students are coming prepared with really solid research and solid arguments. So thank you very much for coming out tonight. We have one more student speaker, Lila Torres. How does Lila come with a fan club? Okay. Um, good evening. My name is Lila Torres. I would like to bring up a few concerns that may only be in my school or all NYCP schools first. Um, although the school lunch has improved a lot since I, since I've started advocating for it, there's still room for improvement.
Every day. We get the same three options. It's better than one, but we're getting our food in these little plastic containers that we're wasting money on, and they're keeping the moisture and the food so it gets soggy. A lot of kids get the school lunch, but that's less than, it's still less than half ki the parents tax dollars are paying for this. And if your parents can't pay for you to get a lunch every day, which isn't reasonable, they should be able to have like, the thought where it's like, oh, my kid's gonna go to school and be able to eat food and not come home hungry. Um, so I'd like to say thank you to Chance to the Chancellor
for coming to my school, helping me get that change, everybody who played a part in that, but still, there's a little bit of room for improvement, but I'm still very grateful. Um, So I've said this a few times, but do you know how much money the public school system is spending on yonder pouches over $2.5 million? That's excessive. And like, is that relevant? The system spends so much money on it when students don't even lock their phones. There're about 500 kids in my school alone. And how many kids actually lock their phones? Five.
It's not worth the money. Some schools, they just have them collect the phones and like their first peer teacher collect them, they go back at the end of the day to get them back it's way, it seems, in my opinion, a better idea. And if not, there's definitely another option. That's all for the cell phones. Um, as of right now, we don't have a bus in contract, so students don't know if they'll be getting, they'll be getting picked up by the school bus. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. You still have a few minutes, seconds remaining. I'm sorry, my brain just turned off. Um, um, parents don't know if the, if parents don't know how
to plan busing, staff don't know if they'll be, if they'll have jobs or not. And school staff don't know if they'll have to, if they'll have to plan for students not being able to get to school next week. We don't need a five-year contract. We need the kids to be able to get to school next week. We need, we need companies to agree to agree to let employees show up to work until we get a new contract. That's, that works for everyone, but especially the students, we should continue having emergency detention until we reach an agreement that that puts the students first, not the adult. And it's not even about not having a busing contract. The people who are driving the buses, matron, paras,
and all the students are on hot buses or cold buses in the winter, and, Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, I always hate to do this every, every, every month of you, but your, your time has expired. I know, but I, the thing is, I didn't get to speak because people were clapping, so I had to stop barking. I, I, I understand. I did give, I, I did give you a few minutes. I did give you a few seconds more, But that wasted like 30 seconds of my time. How is that fair? Okay, now I'm getting the, uh, look, look, there are a lot of speakers here tonight. And let me explain. There are a lot of speakers here tonight. And, and once I'm flexible,
I did allow a little bit more time, but hold it. Once I'm flexible, then I have to do that. I have, I have to be consistent with everybody. And, and, and there are, and there are. Great. Another speakers now, she, she, she's made a point. If we can hold down, if we can hold down the excitement and the applause where it interrupts the speaker. I've gotta hold it. Okay. So the next item, the next item is the adoption of the minutes. Okay. There's a motion on the floor to adopt the minutes. Uh, from our meeting, from our last meeting, um, is there a motion for unanimous consent on adoption
of the minutes of our last meeting, which was the September 25th meeting? The motion is for unanimous consent. Is there objection to unanimous consent on adoption of the minutes from September 25th? Hearing? No objection. The minutes of September 25th are hereby adopted. Um, thank you. So we heard reference to ai. We heard two references to AI and also referenced that our fellow panel member, uh, Navid Hassan, has joined that working group. And I wanted to, first, I wanted to thank you for taking on that additional responsibilities. He's also chair of our intergovernmental relations committee and, and any number of other assignments.
I wanted to thank you for that. And, um, invite you if you'd like to make any comments, uh, to offer you the floor. Thank You Chair Poner, it's a sign. Uh, And also to wish you a happy birthday. Uh, it's tomorrow. And also, uh, chair, uh, council member iso. So we have a couple. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for not scheduling the meeting on the 30th. Um, uh, just briefly, I, I, I want to thank the Chancellor, chancellor v Lister Ramos for convening both the data privacy working group and the AI Council to gather N-Y-C-P-S staff, including administrators, teachers, outside subject matter experts, including pedagogues,
technology policy experts, and software architects. Among all, all the other people, it's a very big group. Um, while I have a background in computer science and old school pre generative ai, I believe we need to lean on educators, experts in childhood development and curriculum de design designers to provide input on this issue. In this AI convening, the chancellor has asked that the, the group, uh, and the N-Y-C-P-S team produce a usage guideline document within the next 90 days. And I look forward to continuing work on that. But I ask, please that everyone submit their input on the topic so
that we can integrate parent and student, uh, voices on this very timely and critical issue, and looking forward to working with everyone. Thanks. Thank, Thank you, uh, panel member. Uh, your additional work and effort in this area is very much appreciated. Uh, we'll now move to the portion of the agenda, uh, that deals with, um, items that will be voted on tonight's meeting. Um, the first item is the, uh, introduction of contracts. And I'll ask our secretary to present the resolution. Yes, the resolution is entitled Resolution into enter into Contract Agreements. Okay, is there a second on the resolution motion? Is there a motion on the reso? Sorry.
Motion is there a second? Second. Uh, we'll now proceed to, um, open public comments on the resolution. Yes. Yeah. I will call speakers in groups of five. Please make your way down to the microphone while I call your name. Um, rayon me Med Ky, um, Andre Thiel. Albert Trotman, Jim Bakker, and Calera Salas. And before you start speaking, please state your name for the record. If I called your name, you may begin. Rayon Meki. Good afternoon, members of the committee.
Uh, I'm the owner, teacher and director of Little Masters Development Center. Uh, we're an early intervention provider serving children across the Queens region. I'm here today because our lifeline, the Alina Bus Company and others are like, like it are being pushed to the edge, uh, by contract uncertainty and bureaucratic delays. I'm here today not only as a provider, but as a voice for families and children who depend on early intervention services every single day. Uh, for many families, the bus isn't just transportation. Uh, it's the bridge between access and exclusion. Between progress and regression.
Our bus companies are the silent partners of early intervention system, and without them the most vulnerable children. Those, I have to, I have to interrupt you and I just consulted with attorney. We we're not actually voting on any bus contracts tonight. What you can do is we can move you to the, uh, open public comment section of the agenda, and you would be able to speak at that time. But we're only now addressing anything that is on a, the contract's agenda that is gonna be voted on tonight. Um, that's, that's what is, um, you know, what the discussion is relevant for. It doesn't mean you won't get to speak. We're just gonna move you to a later portion of the agenda
and you'll be able to make those comments in general public comment section. I mean, this does pertain to the contracts and the transportation, but, but we're Not voting on that tonight. Okay. Okay. We're, we're gonna continue. Do you, so we'll call, we'll call you back. So let's, let's continue. I, I, I'd like, I'd like to finish Take minute. No, you're, you're, you're, I'm asking you that, um, at this point we're not, I, I read the rules in the beginning and we're not discussing those kind. You'll be moved to another portion of the agenda. Yeah. You, as I mentioned, again, what I'm gonna ask you to do, we, we'll just stop.
What I'm gonna ask you to do is we are going to allow him to speak, you'll be able to speak about your position on the bus contracts, but you'll do it on a later portion of the meeting. This portion of the agenda is for items specifically related to contracts that we're voting on tonight in our next meeting. Um, there will be an agenda item in our next meeting on the 19th that will specifically address contracts. The, the contracts items that you're speaking on is on the next meeting. So let's proceed. I'm sorry to hear that. Okay. So would you, would you please cooperate with us
and please allow the, um, speakers that are related to contracts. So please move forward. Yeah. Specific to which contract. Okay. Alright. Yes, you can begin. Good evening everybody. Um, KS Ramirez pronouns. She, her ada, current President of Community Education Council for District four. In looking at the contracts, um, my council as well as many parents in the community are very concerned and independent of Avi's expertise in cybersecurity on these AI platforms. Mostly because of the privacy, um, issues.
We have several platforms already and, uh, curriculum that have AI embedded. And so there's privacy information there on our students. Sometimes teachers are uploading images of our kids and many of us are not, um, strangers to getting communications that our children's information has been released because of a hack, et cetera, et cetera. I also wanna bring to, to the attention of everybody in this space that there also implications in terms of climate change. Because of the use of ai, a lot of fossil fuels are being used, um,
because AI takes a lot of energy and power. And so when it comes to reports on the damage that it's doing to our world and how we function, it is absolutely critical that we take all of these things into account. There's a reason why people aren't having babies. It's because we are trying to make better decisions about the humans that we put in a world that may be dangerous for them or that cannot sustain them. And so it's really important to look at those metrics. It's been really unfortunate that there hasn't been more transparency in terms of the use of AI in our schools, the platforms
that our teachers are using, the guardrails that are in place. We also know, and we're no strangers to the fact that ai, because of it's generated by computers, there is racial bias. And there's a lot of studies to show that the output that AI provides has a lot of discriminatory language, a lot of bias. I even, I did a workshop the other day when I asked for an image to prove a point of a mentor-mentee relationship, and it showed a white man, um, guiding another white man up the stairs in order for there to be some sort of mentorship
or advocacy in the higher education space. What happened to our people of color? What happened to all of the women that are educating our children? What happened to all of the folks that have guided our children to success and to thrive? And so there are a lot of concerns in why you approving these contracts. You actually are creating a more dangerous platform for our kids. Thank you. Is Andre Teel, Albert Trotman, Jim Bakker, Denise Martinez and Gavin Healy. I Thank you. Good evening. Uh, I'm Jim Baker and, uh, it's a nice crowd.
So these are my comments on the EPS contract vote. I'm gonna start with a quote. I don't think I have ever been this burnt out into demoralized. And part of this is because institutions are not taking our concerns about the pedagogical harms of widespread and uncritical adaptation of generative AI and LLMs in higher education. Seriously. This I quote is from an NYC public school teacher. They need our support tonight and in the future. Let me enumerate my concerns about this contract, which would put AI in DOE public schools this evening. First, to echo the concerns
of my fellow speakers on this issue. Privacy. Can kids consent? Are parents meaningfully consenting to the use of AI by their children in the classrooms? And what about data sharing? And what about the impact of AI on the environment? How many bottles? How many gallons of water are used to generate simple queries that can be answered by consulting an encyclopedia or Wikipedia for that matter? Second of all, students already suffer from assessment exhaustion. They use 30 minutes a week or more, which is at least the same guidance for i-Ready, which is already, frankly, as a parent, distressingly too much. This is developmentally and appropriate technology, period.
An increasing body of research says that kids can't meaningfully distinguish between chatbots and people, some even leading to romantic relationships at sensitive times in their lives. A guardian article published this week points out that researchers have identified 16 cases in the media this year of individuals developing symptoms of psychosis that is losing touch with reality from chat gpt use. We don't need to be on the bleeding edge of this technology. EP s's best evidence to my fourth point, shows that only a modest effect size is possible after an incredible amount of usage. Students who use it 20 to 29 sessions did much worse than a
human tutor could provide. And students who used it for over 30 times did only marginally better. This is not a good return on investment. Indeed, when you look at schools that have implemented it, they are told to have students use it 30 minutes a day. That's out, out, just outrageous abdicating that kind of responsibility of learning to a machine. Moreover, we should be investing in people, in teachers, and in students not in unpro technology. Let the students read books. Let teachers not machines teach and let the students, not the machines, do the learning. Don't approve this contract. Thank you very much. I see in my time. Okay, thank you. Thank you.
Denise Martinez, Gavin Healy, Jamar Clayborn and dis Dera Castillo. Excuse my mispronunciations, please. You can begin once you uh, yeah, you can begin. Ms. Martinez. Hi, my name is Denise Martinez and I'm a parent. And my first question is the following. Aren't you voting for a resolution about our five-year bus contract today? That should be on the top of our agenda as a concerned parent that relies heavily on that service.
It should be the top. And that at the end, I have children at home that are waiting for me to come home. And I'm here because this is very important to me. So With that being said, I would like to speak. I only want two minutes of your time. And that is it. Good evening, everybody. My name is Denise Martinez. I am pleased to be given the opportunity to speak to all of you this evening. I want to express my sincere concern and strong support for the renewal of the school bus contract that my children and many other students rely on each a day. This service is far more than a convenience. It is a vital part of our daily lives, ensuring our children arrive at school safely,
consistently, and on time. Not only do my children disservice 50 gonna stop you because Students as well. It's also Okay if you allow me, if everyone, if I can have your attention. Two minutes. You're not. Please let have your attention, please just listen to me. My waiting. Listen to me this, listen to me for one second. This is The Simple. Could you please give me, would you just listen to me for one second? Um, that topic. And I said, as I said, They send me this to be on the topic As I Said, sorry, As I said in the beginning, And I'll be outta, I gonna ask you to be respectful. Just listen for a second.
The crowd is speaking to you all. They're all saying what they wanna hear. They want a resolution. And that's what I'm here for. And I'll be showing my children that this is the way you come to change You. You will have an opportunity to speak when we get to the section. I just want two minutes. My, my speech is Not along. You're, but you're speaking in the wrong section. And what we'd ask you to do is to be respectful. I'm gonna ask you to be respectful of the rules that are established by the panel Respectful. But this is for the wellbeing of not only my children, but every children on the city that relies on this service. So it should be very important. It should be on the top of the list. I just wanna finish my speech
and I'll be outta your hair. No, It's Also important to remember that many Special student I'm gonna ask you student, I'm gonna once again ask you to follow the rules of the, of the panel To transportation for these students. The bus is more than just the ride. It provides trained drivers and aides who understand their unique needs, creating a supportive environment that helps them begin an end each school that we can, You know, I'm trying, I'm trying to be as flexible as I as I can. We, we Doing Yeah, there are, yeah, there are, there's the quorum of A meeting. Okay, let me explain if I can have everybody's attention. What, what's happening at this point
is you're not gonna allow yourself to have an opportunity to present your arguments to the panel. All we're saying, all we're saying is that at the appropriate time in the agenda, which is just two items away, you'll be able to speak. And what I'm willing to do, okay? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm gonna let this, that'll want, that's gonna incite my, I know, but Okay. Remove her. Okay. I'm gonna ask that the audience please come to order. What I'm, what I'm gonna ask is we're, you know, look, we're trying to facilitate everybody having an opportunity to speak and, but there has to be a certain order.
And I explained these rules of pre and I explained the rules of procedure that we would follow tonight. Yeah. Yeah. If, if you signed up and I, and I suspect that you're here to speak on the resolution, you'll be given an opportunity to speak later. At this point, what we're talking about, uh, the topic is regarding contracts that are gonna be voted on. Um, there is a resolution on the agenda, which I suspect most of you're here to speak about. That agenda, that item comes later in the agenda, not much later, but it comes later in the agenda. And you'll be allowed to speak at that point.
Okay? The next speaker is Mr. Healy Gap. Mr. Healy, would you proceed? I've said that four times that you will be allowed to speak. I've said it, I'm gonna say it again. The way the agenda is organized, that resolution that I'm sure that you wish to speak, which, which by the way, you signed the, the, the previous speaker signed up to speak on that, which I'll say that that speaker signed up to speak at the appropriate time, which is that resolution. And that resolution will come up. Um, is it will, it will at this point, we'll have an opportunity to speak. At this point. The, the floor is open for resolutions
regarding contracts. And so, uh, the next speaker, Mr. Healy. Okay, now that's the audience to come to order and give the speakers, um, allow them to listen or, you know, pay attention to, to the comments that the speakers make. So, uh, the next speaker, Um, good evening. Uh, my name is Gavin Healy. I am a member of the District two Community Education Council. I speak here on my own behalf. Um, first of all, I wanna say we have approximately 1 million, um, students in the New York City Public School system. Three of them came here to Food and Finance High School to speak tonight. So I think we, with all due respect to the panel,
I think we could give, uh, a speaker, uh, some additional time as particularly a student speaker. And so, so I wanna say I'm very happy if, if Lila Torres does want to speak, I'm very happy to yield my time to Lila Torres speak. Mr. Healy, are you, has you, have you wrapped up your f have you concluded your comments? Um, Well, I did have some things to say. I, I, Well, you're recognized for your comments. Would you complete your, you know, if you have comments, man, I wish you'd make your comments and then we're gonna move on to the next speaker. Okay? Um, I, I mean, I mean, Lila is here. If Lila wants my additional time that
That is not in order, would you like to complete your comments? You're Here for the kid, not the adults. Okay. We, I can read it. Okay. Okay. So, um, so I'm reading this on behalf of laboratories. Um, as of now, we don't have a busing contract. So students don't know if buses, again, Topic After November 1st, parents don't dunno how to plan. But That, you know, Mr. Healy, you sit, Mr. Healy, you sit on the CEC and your, your group that you sit on has a rules of procedure. And when I come to your meetings,
I respect the rules of your procedure. In your meetings, I'm gonna ask that you reciprocate and follow the rules of procedure that we're following here. When I come to CC two meetings, we follow the rules of decorum that your body establishes. And I think that as a member of A CEC, I would ask that you allow us to have our rules of procedure. And you follow that same decorum here. Thank you. Um, I, I, I think I have conducted myself with decorum. No, you're not right now you're out of order. Okay, Well, we're talking about, we're talking about contracts and that's the item on the agenda. So, So, so then, so then, then let me speak on the contract.
I, I, may I, may I continue to speak on the contract then? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Um, so I, I think there's this, there's this rush, there's this urgency to, um, to enter into an AI contract, um, which I don't understand. The chancellor spoke about AI literacy, but we don't get AI literacy by entering into $2 million contracts with AI companies. We get AI literacy by developing our students' critical skills in the humanities and social sciences. Um, and we see we had another student speaker here tonight.
Tell us about, you know, what he saw as the dangers of ai. And that's what I hear from my child. That's what I hear from other students. That's what I hear from the college students that I teach. Many of them are sounding the alarm because they're the people who are affected by it. Okay? So, So, so, so I think we should, we should listen to our students who are telling us, who are sounding the alarms for us, the way we develop AI literacy, again, is not by entering into this contract. The way we develop AI literacy is by having human teachers
teach the human students about how to understand this world. And, and again, there are abundant concerns about privacy, about discrimination, about the failure, about the environmental consequences, and the failure of a lot of these tools. And so, I, I don't want our students, my own child. I don't want our other students to be, to be Guinea pigs. I don't want them to be, they don't have to be on the bleeding edge of this knife. Okay? So let's, I I think we should dial back. We should look at this more critically and we should not approve this contract. Thank you. Okay. Thank you Ms. Ms. Torres.
Lila, I, you know, you've come to a lot of our meetings over the years, and I know you well, and I, and I have to say one of the things I was a little disappointed in your behavior just now. However, however, however, I am going to allow you additional 30 seconds outta deference to the fact that in deference to the fact that you have come, we, we know each other Well, you've come to a nu number of meetings and, and I have to say, I was a little disappointed with your outbursts. Okay? But you have additional 30 seconds. You, you have your 30 seconds. Okay, now let, let's let let you advocate it now.
Let's let her speak. Yeah, okay, go ahead. Okay, As of now, but we don't have a bus in contract. So students don't know if they're gonna get to school as of on Monday. Certain people aren't gonna have their jobs anymore. There aren't ACS on, but, or there aren't ACS on hot buses and there aren't heaters on cold buses. It's not fair to the students, not fair to the staff that are working on the buses. I want one of you, anyone who here, who's against what I'm saying, to go on a hot bus and go to work or go on a cold bus and go to work for five days going there and back and tell me that you still disagree with me. 'cause I know you won't. And, um, I was saying,
how are we spending $2.5 million on yonder patches, but we can't afford ACS on school buses or heaters on school buses? Um, yeah, please. Okay. Um, it, I don't understand. It's not fair to me. Um, kids aren't, kids aren't getting a say in this. We're saying, I'm gonna speak for the students, I'm gonna vote this. Well, maybe they don't want a five year contract and they're not coming to speak. I am. You guys aren't the ones who are going to school speaking to the students, asking them what they want. I am. So I'm saying they don't wanna a five year contract. We can get a 30 day extension. So on my, like, on me speaking for them,
I'm saying we want whatever the 60 day extension, whatever it is, and to, to get them to go to school until we can have a contract that stays and they're gonna know, I'm gonna get to school on the week and can you, lemme speak. Wait a wait a minute, folks, you advocated for her to speak just because you don't like what she is saying, you should not disrespect the fact that you advocated for her to speak. We're allowing her to speak. And I would ask that you please then show her the respect. And you can't, you can't stop because you disagree with what necessarily she's saying. So go, go ahead, Leila. Proceed.
I'm not saying that any of you who are here, thank you for coming if you're working with the bus company, but the service that we've been getting for the past however many years isn't up to standards. If we get bent, like it seems that it's turning better, maybe they would approve a, a contract for it, but right now it's not worth it. We're saying we're gonna speak for the students, you're speaking for yourself. I don't understand. And last quickly to, I don't even know if any of student members are here, they should be able to vote on the website. It says 24 voting members. That's not including any of the students. They're not, they're not saying anything about the students.
They don't say on the website something about the students. So that's all you. I wanna yield the rest of my time. Thank you for letting me speak. Okay, thank you. Brilliant child. The next speakers are Jamar, Clayborne, Dera Castillo, Christine, ta Lisa Walker. Hi, good Evening. I'm Dera. Um, I am, I am here with the river school. I'm representing this river school. I actually signed up for the wrong portion of the evening and I'm asking if I can come back
and speak in the later portion of the evening. Ab absolutely. Which portion do you wanna speak at? Um, the open comment. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Sure. Thank you. Um, hi, my name is Christine Talar. I'm a, uh, I'm a parent of a second grader in, um, in district 15. Um, I'm here to urge the panel to reject the proposed EPS contract as well as the extended, uh, expanded use of AI in the classroom in general. Um, it feels rather dystopian to be standing here urging a decision-making body, not to turn my child's literacy education over to a robotic avatar.
But, uh, that's perhaps not surprising. For decades, we've invited big techs, uh, untested products into our classrooms based on the promise that it would revolutionize, uh, learning. Uh, but to quote Jess Gross from the New York Times, companies never had to prove their devices or software helped students learn before those devices had wormed their way into America's public schools. But learning outcomes haven't improved. We've seen decline test scores drops in overall literacy and alarming trends in college readiness and performance. And now we find ourselves here again considering whether or not to buy what big tech is selling. Except this time it's ai.
And at the present moment, AI poses a clear threat to student learning and wellbeing. There is insufficient evidence for student use of AI to support, uh, genuine learning gains, despite a massive marketing push to position these products as essential to students' future livelihoods. Um, with regard to student safety apps like EPS reading assistant introduced gross PRI privacy violations, recording children's voices and guzzling student data to train their own models and feed advertisers all without the knowledge or consent of parents. Meanwhile, young people using chatbot companions are
vulnerable to psychological and emotional addiction. Yet we're here considering normalizing the use of chatbots as human substitutions in the name of educational progress. AI relationships continue to trigger mental health crises, human relationship breakdowns, and in the worst cases attempted and completed suicides. Given these re uh, given these realities, it's alarming that we're even considering introducing this fast, evolving and dangerously opaque category of tech into our classrooms. With regard to efficacy, uh, nowhere on earth are young readers thriving because they've been isolated and made to read to a glitchy robot
and never has removing the human element led to improved learning outcomes. Uh, chatbot tutors listen, but children don't just need to be heard. They need to be understood, uh, and children thrive when education is rooted in relationships and human connection, not robotic correction. Uh, in closing, I urge you again to reject this contract, reject ai mania and prioritize students safety above all. Thank you. Hi, good evening. I'll be quick. Just wanna introduce yourself. Oh, sorry. My name is Lisa Walker and I have a student at PS 1 54 and she's in the first grade.
And I just wanna say that the kids here tonight are amazing and, uh, thank you for letting them all speak. So this is regarding the EPS proposed contract. I request this board to vote no on this contract right now at our school. PS 1 54, we use an AI powered reading tutor provided by EPS. We are not allowed to opt out of this program. Many parents have voiced their concern. We are concerned about our children's private personal data being accessed from outside of the classroom. We are concerned about the ethics behind the use of generative ai.
We are concerned about AI recording our children and using that data to train their programs, which is against the law. Both Comptroller Brad Lander and former Mayor Bloomberg have voiced concern about using AI in the classrooms without appropriate regulation in place and without independent research conducted to prove the efficacy and safety of those products. This affects our most vulnerable and youngest children in grades K through five children who are five years old. I ask you to please protect my child and the children of New York City.
Provide them with teachers, not AI avatars. Our teachers give our children that, which cannot be replaced, a connection to humanity. Please do not sign this contract. Thank you, Mark Gonzalez, Quentin Mezzan and Lanny Hamson Hamson. My name is Lanny Hamson. I'm co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. I was appointed by the chancellor as a member of the AI working group last June, which was tasked with creating guidelines and guardrails for the use of this technology, which is controversial with many privacy experts
because of the way AI tools data mine the personal information of students to improve their products, which is illegal under the New York State Student Privacy Law. Many parents and teachers are also concerned, as you've heard tonight, because of the growing evidence that the use of AI in the classroom hampers the development of cognitive skills, creativity, and critical thinking, all central to learning while undermining the human connection essential to equality education. Yet since the AI working group was appointed, it has been sidelined.
We've been kept in the dark and essentially stonewalled denied any of the information we need to move forward. While the DOE goes full speed ahead, expanding the risky use of AI without any of the necessary precautions, one of our first requests to DOE was the list of AI products currently used in schools along with their privacy policies. Yet the DOE official briefing us refused to provide us with this list saying they could not do so because of non-disclosure agreements with the vendors. We also asked for materials that DOE had used
to train teachers in the use of ai, which the same official claimed had been provided to more than 84,000 teachers and their staff and other staff. Yet these materials were denied to us as well. I urge you to vote no on the contract for the EPS chatbot and the other AI tools on the agenda until DOE establishes rigorous privacy protections for their use, including independent security audits and privacy impact assessments along with peer reviewed research showing their positive impact on learning.
DOE should also explain how the serious risks of AI use related to algorithmic bias and their negative impact on the environment and the climate will be prevented. Thank you for your time and consideration. You can begin. Chair fa, chair Faulkner, members of the pep thank you here to talk about contracts one, five and 14. They all deal with special education. They are all critical for you to approve tonight. We need it approved. 'cause very simply, we are breaking federal law today by not having these special education services.
So it's critical you get it done and get it done. Now, let's be very clear. Thousands of kids are not getting their related services today. No ot, no pt, no speech. IT list goes on and on and on. What they're not getting it is critical. We get these contracts agreed to and signed. But let's go back to why we're in this problem. Very simply, our outgoing mayor and the head of UFT agreed to underpay. Our paraprofessionals agreed to underpay our PT and OT providers, right? OT and PT fought against the contract. It was so bad.
We have rew from UFT who all of a sudden had a brain idea of let's pay a $10,000 bonus annually to paraprofessionals. Problem is doesn't go against their retirement. They could get taxed at a higher rate and it still doesn't solve the problem. We're having to sign a $300 million contract because we didn't do the contract right the first time. So we need the new mayor, whomever that is, to open up these contracts and fix 'em. So we pay a fair salary to OTs, PTs, and Parrots, uh, is critical.
Well, let's go further. It would be nice with a city, with this many colleges and universities to really focus on getting those students to teach and become professionals related services. We have got our own city college. We have got so many colleges and universities. We've gotta do a better job of recruiting and encouraging students to sign up for these professions. My son and I have been to nine open houses so far this fall all around the state. I've had one new PA's this past weekend that really was focused on speech therapy
and related services. Every other college and university that we've been to so far, not a peep. We've gotta do better job at DOE of making sure we are out to every university in this state, encouraging every career fair, every open house for prospective students, encouraging them to become speech therapists, OTs, PTs, and special education teachers. Thank you, Sir. Uh, sir, last speaker, the last speaker, uh, could you come back and just let us, we need, we need your name for the record. Mark Gonzalez. Thank you. CCSE. Thank you. Please state your name and then you may begin. All right. My name is Quentin Mezzon.
I'm on the wrong list. I could be put on the busing list. That's kind of why I'm Here. You're there too. Oh, I'm good. Oh, well thank you for your time. Oh, I could wait. I could speak on this and on that You signed up for both things. So you can speak about the con con things on the contracts agenda now, not about busing. No problem. I just want to second Mark who just went, he had a really good point and I totally agree with that. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent testimony. Just because of the noise in the room. I'm going to call the few speakers who did not come up, just because there's been a lot of noise. Andre Thiel, Albert Trotman, Jamar, Claiborne.
Are any of you here? Okay, then that is the end of the public speaking. Great, Thank you. At this point, I wanna open the floor to panel members who may wish to comment on the resolution. Are there any panel members who wish to make comment contract contracts? Yes. Yep. Panel member Casre. Thank you so much. Camille Casre, Brooklyn Borough President Appointee. Um, I wanna thank you to all of the parents and advocates who came out tonight to talk about ai. No, there's another Speaker. Oh. Oh, Maggie is still here. Okay. Sorry. Sorry, Maggie.
It's okay. Who is who? I'm sorry. Please state your name. Hello. Sorry, everybody. I had signed up and my name was not spoken. So, uh, my name is Maggie Sanchez. Here in my personal capacity, uh, I'm in a, uh, CCSE as well. Um, regarding the contracts, uh, please vote no on contract 20 and contract 23. Um, this, I mean, where do I start? First, I'd like to start with the AI working group.
Can we have that up and running more transparently please. Laney had very good points. I would like to emphasize her points and highlight that educators need to be listened to. When it comes to, um, the, the embedment of this AI curriculum and structure, there is a, um, pilot curriculums coming up that are being rolled out for, um, English language learners, multilingual learners.
And, uh, HMH 3D has within it, um, some aspects of generative AI that, again, is not being transparent. And please correct me if I'm wrong, but I would like more transparency. Parents like me would like more transparency before these curriculums are shoved down the throats of our kids. Okay. We need public comment on the each and every of those curriculums. We need to know how our data, our student data is being used, how it's being secured.
Because many of the student data, there's been many, many, many breaches of, uh, uh, students with IEPs data. Okay. So first, can we take care of the, um, of the systems? Um, first before doing this whole ai, listen to the educators. Please listen to the parents first before implementing any curriculums, um, that use AI or assessments or whatever you wanna do it. Um, can I talk about the resolution
or that's coming up resolutions? No, We, when we bring that up on the agenda, you'll be able to Speak on that. Thank you. Sure. So, so again, the floor is open for any panel members. I don't, is is there anyone in the public that, yeah. Yeah. So my name is Albert Trotman. I was just wondering if you could switch me over to the other, 'cause I know that it was changed to the busing. I'd like to speak about that. Sure. When this time is up. Sure. Thank you. Okay. Again, the floors open, the panel members panel Pastor. Ready? Thank You so much. Um,
so again, thank you to all of the parents and advocates who came out tonight to talk about AI Studies continue to show that excessive screen time can negatively affect students' attention span, sleep quality, and overall wellbeing. While digital tools have become increasingly common in classrooms, they sometimes replace valuable face-to-face interaction and hands-on learning when used intentionally and imbalance, technology can enhance learning, but it should not dominate it. I wanna commend the Department of Ed
for establishing both the data privacy working group and the AI working group, which includes parents, teachers, and advocates, um, among other important professionals. However, we need to make sure we are actually listening to their input. Strong policies must be in place before new software contracts are approved, and parents, especially of our youngest students, should have the option to opt out of certain programs. Additionally, I'd like to highlight that in the most recent principal survey results, when asked to indicate how much support your school received from DIIT
this year, 16% of administrators indicated that they received too little support in technology overall with 11% receiving too little support with third party products. I wanna acknowledge the many written public comments that were received by parents opposing these AI contracts. We appreciate your advocacy and taking the time to write and because we must remain vigilant about what we expose our children to and make improvements and how we're supporting our educators and administrators. I, I'll be abstaining from items 20 through 23.
Thank you. Thank, thank you panel member. Any other panel members wish to be recognized? Panel member, Alicia. Good evening. Hello. Great. Good evening everyone. Adriana, Adriana, Alicia, she her here for Queen CECs. Um, I'd like to echo panel member CASA's comments and also highlight the fact that a lot of parents that I've spoken to express concerns with the lack of informed consent that they are receiving from their schools, from their district offices and from DOE Central. They don't feel, um, as though they're aware of
how often their students are interacting with AI on an hourly or daily basis in the classroom. And for that reason and many, many others, I will also be voting no on contracts 20 through 23. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Any, any other panel members? I Thank you chair. Um, I also wanna thank the students and parents and educators here tonight speaking on ai. And it shows a real attempt, um, for them to have a voice on the important decisions that are being made on this technology.
Um, while the AI contracts on the agenda do require this type of scrutiny, and our office has spoken repeatedly about this topic, um, I wanted to say we are grateful to the Chancellor's commitment for developing policy and avenues for parent engagement on this. And in my time tonight, I would specifically like to speak about agenda item number 23. Um, we find the Lumi contract highly questionable. Um, this AI was not created with students in mind. It is not an educational product. It was created by an NFL player and his venture capital friends.
And according to their press release, it is meant to provide them with the tools needed to create, publish and merchandise stories. Lumi was founded out of, um, the barriers that founders discovered in publishing his own works. This included high production costs, long production timelines, and gatekeeping within the industry. End quote. Lui's mission is not to help students. In fact, they state that their mission is to democratize storytelling by providing tools for creators
to turn their ideas into finished products, distribute and merchandise them, transforming any creator into Disney. Does this sound like a product for children? It sounds like someone's pet project and our office does not support giving them a contract with New York City Public schools. Contracts with our school system are valuable for vendors. We are a valuable partner to vendors. It allows them to use our students as test subjects, and it gives these vendors credibility when pitching themselves to other clients.
Hey, we are a vendor to New York City public schools. That is incredibly valuable to them. Our children do not need AI to help them write stories. That is hopefully still what their brain is for. And we do not need to help venture capitalists make money off our students with no clear benefit to them. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other panel members who wish to comment on the resolution? Okay, I, I, I hear that. Let's proceed to a vote. I'll ask the secretary to please call the roll.
I'll call the roll. When I call your name, please indicate how you wish to vote. If you wish to, um, vote differently on any particular contract or contracts, please let me know. Uh, there are no recusals on the resolution. Member Ali ab abstain on 2022 and 23. Yes. To the rest member Ali, say no. On 20 21, 22 and 23. Yes. To the rest, right? No.
On 20 through 23, correct. Member bin I abstained from 20 21, 22 to no. For 23. No. One. 23. And what about the rest? Oh, outside of 20, 21 and 22 is a yes And the other no. So one through work, 21, 20, 21, 22 abstained. 23 is a no, everything else is A yes. Okay. Thank you. Member Boad? Yes. Member cast abstaining 20. Drew 23.
And then, yes. Uh, member Deans? Yes. Yes. Toal Member. Fair Member Garcia? Yes. Toal Member Giardano? Yes. Toal, uh, member Hannah Jones? No. To 2223? Yes. To all member. Hassan. Uh, if you could pass, please. Sure. Member ho? Yes. A member. Esto abstain.
2021. 2223. Yes. To the rest member Jimenez? No. 20 to 23. Yes. To the rest member Ong? Yes. Member Parsons? No. To items 20 through 23. Yes. To all. Yes. To the rest. Yeah. Member sap? Yes to all. And I have to go back to you member Hassan. The time is, uh, I'm gonna abstain from 20 to 23 and, uh, yes.
To the rest and chair Faulkner? Yes. And all. So the items that the one through 19, items one through 19, pass items 20 to 23, do not pass. And I will do the counting and oh, we'll do a tally. I've got tally it. I've just gotta add it. You can proceed. I'm going to tally and I will announce the actual vote in a minute, but I can see that there is not a majority of the whole for those items. Yeah. Oh, see, I don't have it. Is there 24 to 30?
24 to 30 passes? I don't have the numbers in front of me. And yes, everything except 20 through 23 passes. Thank you, member. Okay, great. Thank you. Uh, we'll now proceed to the next, um, resolution. Uh, or do you want to I can come back. Okay. Yeah, come back then. The next item on the agenda is a panel RESO resolution utilizing vacant and underutilized city property to address school overcrowding. Okay, folks, no act actually what's happening. Let me just say I, I realize that you're here
for a particular item on the agenda, but when you delay the meeting, you're preventing us from getting to that item. If you allow us, if you allow us to proceed, if you allow us to proceed well, but that what you're saying is you want us to proceed. If you allow us to complete the agenda, then we'll be able to proceed. What, what this does is you're delaying the process. Okay? Just, okay. The resolution is entitled Resolution utilizing vacant and underutilized city property to address school overcrowding and achieve class size compliance. Chair Faulkner.
Okay, is there a motion? Um, so move, is there a second on the motion? Um, I wanna offer the floor to, uh, chair of our utilization committee. Would you up the, would you like to speak on the resolution as the maker? I wanted to give you the first opportunity. Would you like to offer any comment? Okay. So, so we'll move to public comment on the resolution. There are some speak people who have signed up to speak on this resolution. Whitney Toussant, Cera Salas, Laura Simpson, Jamar Claiborne.
I can't hear you ma'am. She's on that. You were listed on that resolution. I Wanna be able to speak further. You will be able, make sure to speak on the resolution. Not appropriate time. We'll be, we'll call it. Yeah, we have you there. Thank you. So there were four speakers. When, um, you may speak, please say your name for the record. We'll start over on the left this time. Please state your name. My left. Oh, I know that stage right, but it's this left hand. Okay, Thank you. So my name is Whitney Toussant. I'm the co-president of Community Education Council for District 30 that's in Western Queens. I'm here speaking, um, on behalf, you know, as an individual.
I'm a parent of two public school students. Um, so Long Island City is in our district. It's one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in the United States, and it's been evident that we need new schools to accommodate both existing and new families in that neighborhood. We have kindergarten wait lists for the two schools that exist there of over 70 kids. And so that need now is even more urgent since the law requires smaller classroom sizes. Additionally, on the other side of my district in East Elmhurst, we have heard repeatedly from the parents of children at PS 3 29, the East Elmhurst Community School,
which is overutilized at 148%, that their children are losing their library music and art rooms due to the class size mandate. Their community was told to reimagine the space. Well, you can't reimagine or manifest a building. This community needs to get the space it needs. And this resolution can help do that. So I really appreciate that because again, we have not had the best luck with the current process, with the site referral, with the school construction authority. We are behind on what we need in Queens for our children
to have the schools that they need, including our most vulnerable students, children in the D 75 children in Nest and Horizon programs. So if we can speed up this process and utilize buildings that are already owned by the city to build the schools, we need to make sure our children can get to schools in their community to make sure that they are not losing an art room or our music room. This is what we need. I would appreciate this resolution passing. I would appreciate better processes around utilization and new school construction. And I know the parents in East Elmhurst would definitely
appreciate it because like I said, they were told to reimagine and it feels like we only do that to our low income neighborhoods, and we should not be doing that at all. So thank you very much. I am thankful for this resolution and I hope it passes tonight. Thank you. Thank you To, to my right. Hi all again. Dr. Ali Ramirez, president of CC four. And I wanna echo what Whitney was saying. In East Harlem, we have a desperate need for having an additional high school. We also have two high schools that were promised a building in 2018, um, that residents of the Upper East Side do not want built
because God forbid, kids from East Harlem go to school on 96th Street. Um, and so we have those school buildings that are in old dilapidated buildings that have very small classrooms that don't have the space. So I wanna shout out Park East High School. Um, I also wanna shout out Heritage High School that are in spaces that are not conducive, um, for their growth and for their ability to support all of the children in East Harlem. I will also add that while I was sitting in your seat a couple of years ago, we had a charter school, Harlem, Hebrew that closed.
And we had the capacity in that moment to use that building so that we could relocate Young Women Leadership Academy. And that was an empty building that had just been remodeled. And we did not acquire that building because we decided to move West Side or now known as Edward A. Reynolds High School, to a commercial building where they eventually ended up growing and increasing the number of students to 150 students. And now that building is not supporting their needs while young women's leadership acquired their building. So we do have buildings up uptown that we could use
for our schools that are thriving, growing in communities, and so that they can have the science labs, the libraries, the folks don't know. Most schools in Harlem and in upper Manhattan do not have a library, much less a librarian. And so we are definitely in support of this resolution as somebody that also sat on the working group for class size, this was something that we talked a lot about and supported, and unfortunately, most of those recommendations have not been put into fruition. So I hope you vote yes on this resolution. Speaker to my left. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Laura Simpson.
I'm secretary of CC 30. Um, but I'm speaking as a mom. Two kids, what a Q 301 in public three K in Jackson Heights. So District 30 is one of the most overcrowded school districts in Queens. We need additional seats and it's not just in one place. Just to give you a snapshot in Long Island City, uh, PS 78, it's 135% capacity, and we are finally getting a little bit of relief with new buildings, but we still need more. We're gonna be lacking, and in five years we'll need more in Astoria.
PS 17 in, um, my homeschool Q 300 are sharing a building where can PS 17 go so that they can meet those class size standards? Well, on the fourth floor where there's no space and we're sharing all these shared utilities such as the Gymnasium, auditorium, cafeteria, recess, yards 300 itself is split between two locations. Uh, PS 11 in Woodside has classes with 46 students and two teachers in one room. East Elmhurst. To lead with what Whitney said, telling people to imagine things is the most insulting thing
to say when you don't have a solution or you don't wanna find one. So we need to start thinking about more than using your imagination. We need to use buildings. And I think your resolution, it, it's going the right place. And, and I, I think that we can do this. I think that we could take these city properties and have them go to schools first instead of developers. I want us to even go further and imagine this instead of having charter schools, which will charge us multiple times for rent. And using our public buildings like the Zeta Charter School
tried to do the PS one 50 annex. We should make it so that our schools are coming first. So at DOU schools come first, and I know you could do this Long Island cities getting a little bit of relief, but we have to go further. East Elmhurst, Woodside, Jackson Heights, they all need the same. Same with Astoria. Our families deserve better, our children deserve better, and we're not using trailers, not having shared buildings, not having wait lists. I hope you pass this resolution today. Thank you very much. Jamar Claiborne,
that is the extent of the speakers who signed up on this resolution. Great. Uh, Thank you very much. Are there any panel members who wish to offer comments on this resolution? CNN will proceed to a vote. Somebody over here, Can you please put me on the list? I'd like to comment for on resolution D and resolution F and public comment. So you sign Item. I signed up with somebody in front, so, And I'm and your name? Maggie Sanchez. CCSE. And besides the resolution about the bus contracts, which did you want to speak about? So the resolution utilizing vacant and, um,
Okay. So, so you may, may I speak now then. Thank you. Okay. So, um, I wanna talk about, um, again here in my personal capacity, I wanna talk about, uh, the support for the resolution, um, in order to be able to have class size compliance. Thank you for, um, the PEPs work on this. Um, I was at some of the meetings, um, drafting the, the resolution. So thank you for that. Um, yes. So co-locations, right?
There are a lot of students with disabilities that are in programs that are co-located. Um, and so we need the space. We definitely need the space. I really ask for a yes vote on this resolution. And I want you to keep in mind that, um, a lot of the students with IEPs, um, that we hear from, uh, receive services in the hallway sometimes. So that's related services. That's ot, pt, speech counseling. Well, counseling could, could be in a, in a room, but I visited a school where the related services were done
in, in a space that is wasn't up to code, that it was outside, it wasn't part of the school building, but it was outside. Sometimes they didn't get heat in the, in, in, in that part. Um, so that's, you know, again, it's, it's a no brainer. Um, can I speak about, uh, the resolution opposing the five year bus contract? Or not yet? Not at, that'll come like time. That's the end of the public comment. Okay. Are there any panel members who wish to comment on this resolution Panel member Alban. I just wanna add, um, on, on the SUP, uh, just
Just wait, could everybody please settle down? I just would like to add, of course I'm support, I'm on support for this resolution. I am on the school utilization, um, committee. I would like to, um, follow up 'cause uh, uh, uh, another resolution to compliment this, uh, resolution because my observation for the past, uh, hearing or community sharing on school utilization proposals, I want us to be on the onus on New York City Public Schools to provide translation is to translation. If we're gonna have really true, um, engagement, all those
who are participating need to know what is being said, you know, and also to address visual, uh, individuals. Some people can observe information visually. I think we need to add that as part of the engagement process for, for the school utilization to make sure that all voices are heard. So what I'm hearing is you're suggesting that we have another resolution that addresses those issues. So if I can refer those items to the utilization committee, which I'm sure you've already done. Yes. Um, so that we could come up with a resolution and get it. If we're looking for the November
meeting, we would need a draft. Uh, I believe by Monday it's fast. Yeah. Because we have to observe the 10 day notification so the public can come and testify. Yeah, it, I mean it's very important. Sure. But, uh, I think we agreed that we could push it for December because Okay, November it's gonna be, yeah, Sure. Yep. Plenty of time then. Okay, great. Are there any other comments from panel members? I, is there an interest in unanimous consent on this resolution, which would save some time right away? Second. So, uh, the motion is
for unanimous consent on the resolution. Is there any opposition to unanimous consent? Seeing no opposition? The resolution is adopted. Congratulations. And I wanna thank, um, I want to thank and compliment panel member Alaia for working on this. I know there were drafts back and forth and a lot of work that went on behind the scenes, but I want to thank you for your persistence in producing. I think, you know, um, a really important, uh, resolution as was evidenced by the testimony and by the unanimous consent of the panel and agreeing that this is an important item for us. So thank you again. Would you like to say anything? Okay.
Hold, hold it, hold it. I would just like to say thank you. Can't hear. Hello. Okay. I would just like to say thank you to the New York City Public School staff who supported us at every one of our Utilization Committee meetings. And I would like to say thank you to our utilization committee members who were an active, active part of the drafting process. Thank You. Great. Thank you. Okay, we're getting closer folks. You're getting closer. Hold it, hold it. Okay, so let's, this is It's community service. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. The next resolution up for approval is entitled The relu,
the resolution for the establishment of the Panel for Educational Policies Month of Community Service. Yeah. Okay. Um, are there any people signed up? Let me Check. Yeah. Hold, hold it. Have to get a motion. Uh, yes. By the way, is there a motion to, um, so move, is there a second? Motion by panel member fair? Second. Um, just let me see if anyone signed up and we'll proceed. Uh, yes, there is, there are public's, a public speaker. Andre Teal signed up for this. Just Check. See here.
Um, as did Jamar Claiborne, Mr. Claiborne here. Mr. Teal. Okay. Okay. That's it. There are no Other, no public speakers. Will now proceed. Any panel members wish to comment? Pam? Member Fair? This is your resolution. Would you like to offer any comment? Thank you Chair Faulkner. To support our community's feedback so we can expedite things. I just would like to ask the panel members to support this initiative. And that's it. Thank you. Sure. Um, yeah. Uh, Pam Ali, I would like to be added as a co-sponsor, Please, and we'll add you as a co-sponsor. Any other comment? And is that Lum Hasan?
I'm not a co-sponsor. I would like, yeah, so, so anyone who wishes to be a co-sponsor that wasn't already added on, we can add you on. We'll keep that open, um, even after adoption and you'd be able to add yourself as a co-sponsor. Um, seeing, I think that there is a real strong feeling about this resolution. Is there a motion for unanimous? Unanimous. Is there a second to the motion for unanimous consent? Second, is there a po opposition to unanimous consent? Seeing no opposition to unanimous consent and resolution is adopted. Drum. And now guess who we are before we begin, before we begin the public comment on this, and I'm gonna again remind you, please keep your signs down, Down During the presentation.
Let me, let me review the rules that will proceed here. And again, we want to hear all of your, your comments. We've seen your signs, but during this part of the presentation, the signs must be kept, um, at seat level. Again, keep your signs down, obviously, again, you have to keep the olives clear and I'm gonna ask you also other, I expect you will, to give each speaker an opportunity to speak, um, and not interrupt the speakers when they're making their presentation. Um, it's important for the panel to hear your com, these comments. So we'd ask that you observe those rules of the quorum when your time, when your time is expired.
We'd ask that you also honor that you'll all be given two and a half minutes, and we will ask that if that time expires, that you honor that, um, uh, process, that procedure. Um, okay. Um, at this point I'll ask Secretary if you'll introduce the resolution. Yes. The resolution up for approval is entitled The Resolution of the Panel for Educational Policy Opposing a five Year Bus Contract Without Employee Protection Provisions. Chair Faulkner. Okay, is there a motion to adopt the resolution? Motion to adopt. Is there a second?
Motion has been made and seconded. We'll now proceed to public comment. Are there members of the public who signed up to speak? I think there are. Yes. I will call in groups of, I'm gonna call in groups of four. Um, so, and you can make your way down to the microphone and begin speaking after I call the names. Please make sure to introduce yourself for the record. Tamara Farrell. Albert Trotman. Joseph sro. Jean, I apologize. It's SGRO. So Scro Jean de Leon de Leon.
That's what I, Okay, speakers can begin. Speaker to the left please introduce yourself. Good evening. My name is Joseph Scro, senior Vice President for Total Transportation Corp. And I thank you for giving me the chance to be here tonight. I come here in an attempt to dispel some of the misconceptions regarding school bus vendors and the school bus system as a whole. Over the course of the last few weeks, we have watched, as we were called, privileged in the media accused of holding students hostage and engaging in bad faith and told in no uncertain terms by this panel that they had no intentions of even considering a long-term deal for our contracts. Now I wanna be clear, we also heard the various accounts
from parents and advocates as to their own experiences with school bus transportation. The public is right to challenge us to do better, to do better. However, it's worth noting that the vast majority of issues were for things like routing, elongated travel time, and crowded buses, which are all things that fall outside of the school bus company's control. We remain committed to doing our part in, in improving the service, but let's not misrepresent a bid as being a magic wand capable of curing all the system shortcomings. As you're well aware, these contracts have historically been extended in lieu of being bid, but the notion that extensions mean that these
contracts are intrinsically out of date is extremely misguided. There have been various enhancements to these contracts over the last few years and that have allowed us to keep pace with new requirements and technologies now available to the industry. The school bus companies have, have spent the past 12 months engaged in negotiations with New York City DOE, with the assistance of the mayor's office. We did so in good faith and finalized a five year contract extension in June, 2025. A contract extension that includes increased training requirements, investments in over 200 electric vehicles, purchases for minority and women owned businesses to the tune of $340 million.
And enhanced staffing and accountability, including providing the DOE with access to our call center statistics all to be used in conjunction with past enhancements such as AC requirements, maximum vehicle age GPS requirements and parent tracking apps. The negotiations has been finalized and an agreement had been reached yet when the materials for this meeting became available, our five-year contract extension or any contract extension past the end of this month was inexplicably missing from the agenda. So here we stand on the verge of a crisis, a crisis that compromises one of the most imperative core values we have
as an industry care for our students. To clarify, any risk to stoppage of service is related to a lapse in contract, not a strike. The companies, the labor unions, the Department of Education and City Hall are all in agreement that a five year deal is what's best for everyone involved. Instead of blind opposition to this idea, I implore this panel to educate themselves about the benefits of this deal. Stop romanticizing a bid, vote no to this resolution, and yes to five years of stability and safety for the students of this city. Thank you. One last thing, sorry. That bus company is actually your, your time has expired.
Did try to bring this Okay, I I'm gonna ask that you follow the rules. Your I did give you a few extra seconds. Your time did expire. Okay. Next speaker. Next speaker. Good evening. My name is Tamara Pharrell, but I'm yielding My time to Sarah. Thank you. Sarah Catano from Parents to Improve School transportation. P Um, So I'm just cutting to the chase. Nobody had time to really even read this resolution this week. It kept changing, but on Monday, the riders need these rides and the workers need this work. And I mean, me school bus mechanics, drivers attendants,
bus powers and nurses, and even from agencies and the family members who expected to do unpaid student transportation labor. If the city lets private owners jeopardize a public service while telling us to use alternatives, we see certain media and certain parties to this unseen contract for, uh, trying to pit workers who are parents against, parents who are workers. I'm wearing a shirt from Disability Pride Parade 2016 because when we first brought a school bus rights
contingent, there it was parent leaders and a TU 1181 union leaders holding up that banner at the 2013 bid. It was p**s moms passing tissues to the crying matrix whose companies were passed over and their livelihoods ended or cut in half by this same tug of war over money. The exchanges that occur have helped us each start to understand what our respective members go through and the obstacles to getting shorter sensible routes. Progress in our work comes from respectful dialogue
and finding points of unity to the workers in uniform. Hear me out. The company is not your only source of stability. Please turn out like this when we fight cuts to special education because that's also your bread and butter. Help stop courts d DM being ice from making it hard for foreign born workers to stay in the industry. We should be here tonight debating the best ways to increase recruitment and mentoring of new school bus workers. Let the students ride. Let the workers work and vote your conscience.
The speaker can proceed. Next speaker. Good evening. I'm sorry, I'm losing my voice. My name is Jean Dele. I represent IC Bus Company in Staten Island. I believe that we should all focus on what the focus really is. 150,000 individuals not being provided with transportation. In my opinion, this is an act of bad faith with all concerns. As a parent of a special needs young man and as a bus driver, I am, I am on both sides of the coin. I understand parents' concerns as well
as the employee's concerns along with my coworkers. We feel we are pawns in the middle of these negotiations, losing our jobs in the process news, other news reels telling us that we are striking, we are not striking. We are on a layoff. We need stability, transparency, better communication between contracts. The Board of Education and OPT Accountability here is key. We need to understand that this is not always the company's fault,
the driver's fault solely. It comes down to proper routing from each borough, from OPT, having working phone numbers and addresses a shortage of drivers in this industry. Taxes the companies and the drivers. Some drivers double up and triple up on their runs to get these children to school. It is impossible, impossible for them to get these individuals to school on time. Tripling and doubling on these runs. Let's take into consideration the construction,
the in climate weather, garbage trucks, traffic. How about 25 miles an hour that they wanna reduce it to 20? A skateboard could get to school quicker than we can. I hope we all persevere and come to an agreement and renew a contract and restore service to our most precious cargo. Allowing us to continue to prove that we could serve these children with pride and respect. I believe that the EPP is essential in this contract.
Thank you for your time. Well you can't top that. Excellent. My name is Albert Troutman. I am a father, a parent, and an elected official serving the community. I also am a school bus driver listening to what was spoken about. I understand the concerns and we do understand it's a broken system. All parts need to be looked at and fixed communication and accountability on all sides is necessary. We need to look at the school bus drivers and understand that these are seasoned professional school bus drivers, both men and women.
Community service and connection. The first face, we are the first face of the school day and the last, we are the role classroom. Rolling the classroom that starts the learning, making us the unsung heroes of the morning routine and the vital connectors for our communities. Safety and precise and precision. The pledge, our job isn't just driving it's precision Logistics under pressure. We don't just stop for a light, we stop for 40 sets of precious cargo. Safety isn't a procedure, it's our personal pledge.
Every time the doors open in the school bus and close professionalism and experience the seasoned expert. We are seasoned professional drivers, both men and women with millions of miles of experience. We are not just holding a commercial license, we are walking textbooks of student life, blending expert, navigating with the deep care of a parent and or grandparent. EPP. We need to focus on our livelihood. We are spending our lives as parents juggling and working with a damaged system.
And still we are offering a service of safety for the children. We are to be looked at as a essential worker. And we also have lives to live as well. So we also understand as parents driving, as school bus drivers and servicing that our children also we are parents as well. So as we are driving and we are caring for your children, we also need to be protected too with equal employment protection, um, provisions. Thank you. The next group of speakers rayon me
Ky Neil Straw. Cory Muirhead and Janelle Canals. Thank you. Chair, Please state your name and you may begin speaking. Oh, to my right. Hi, my name is Denise Martinez. Okay. Um, I'm a parent. This is something that I'm, I don't think your name has been called yet. We are calling them in order. I know you've signed up, you're signed up. But let us follow the No problem. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Chair. Uh, my name is Radio I'm Meki. I'm the owner and director of Little Masters Development Center. We're an early intervention provider serving children, uh,
for early intervention services who have autism zero to H three across the Queens area. I'm here today because the lifeline are bus transportation company. Alina and others like it are being pushed to the edge by contract uncertainty and bureaucratic delays. I'm here today not only as a provider, but as a voice for families and children who depend on early intervention services every single day. Uh, for many of these families, the bus isn't just transportation, it's the bridge between access and exclusion. Between progress and regression. Our bus companies are the silent partners
of early intervention system and without them the most vulnerable children, those who cannot safely travel by any other means to get to school simply cannot reach their destination and get their therapies. Yet these companies face contract delays, underfunding and uncertainty that threatens to dismantle that bridge. Uh, when a route is cut, a classroom sits empty. When a contract renewal stalls, a therapist waits and a child loses round and essential services. The cost of Inion is not measured in dollars, but in lost developmental milestones.
I urge this committee to act decisively ensure fair, timely, and sustainable contracts for our transportation partners. They're not just optional vendors, they're an essential lifeline and a system that depends on reliability and compassion. Let's affirm that transportation for early intervention isn't just a service, it's a promise. A promise that no child will be left behind and no parent will be left helpless. I yield my time. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Corey, me and I'm the Executive Vice President of Logan Bus Company. Last night we listened and I spoke at the Pupil Transportation Advisory Commission.
I wanna make one thing clear to every parent in New York City, we hear you, we acknowledge you and we share your concerns. We want a seat at the table for the record. I asked to serve on the advisory commission but was denied. We are working hard to serve your children safely and reliably, but we've been left outta many important conversations that directly impact families and our employees. True transparency means everyone is a seat at the table. The PEP parent organizations, the DOE, the unions, and yes us, the bus operators who make the system run. Without that collaboration, we can't build the trust
and stability our students deserve A few facts. Bus contractors do not control routing pickup times or route links. We were not included in the development of the parent tracking app, even though we offered repeatedly to assist and be a part of the solution. We were not the ones who made the decision to shut down the school bus industry for four months during COVID, which led to the driver shortage we faced today and are trying to overcome. As acknowledged by the DOE at the 2022 City Council hearing, we are the companies that rescued the children from 14 big companies that went out of business and each time stepped in to kept the routes running. We are the companies this past August 200 routes were left
uncovered by bid companies again and we the legacy contractors stepped in to ensure students got to school. You have repeatedly asked for after school weekend and summarizing service. We hear you and we agree. And over the past two years, we've given proposals to the DOE and each time we've been declined, we also urge them twice to bid the out again to no avail. So I wanna go on the record to further prove how much the contractors have listened to the parents, to the community and to this panel. Just today we attempted to reach an agreement with this PEP prior to this meeting and we were rejected also today we proposed a five borough task force to discuss community concerns.
So I ask, what does a bid accomplish that this five year agreement does not? Our contracts already have the strongest EPP and we will still adhere to the significant accountability enhancements through expanded staffing, mandatory reporting, vendor engagement, additional training, 200 electric vehicles, $340 million in minority and women business spending. Let me repeat myself. We want to sit with you. We wanna be a part of the solution. We want the kids to get to school. It took over a year to negotiate our contract with City Hall and the DOE. We have moved mountains in the days leading up to this tonight.
This agreement provides abil accountability, stability, and security for thousands of school bus workers and for every New York City family that depends on us. It's time to end the uncertainty and it's time to move forward together. Thank you for your time. Appreciate speaker to my right. Good evening. My name is Neil Stroll and I've had the privilege of serving on the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union Pension Board for more than 25 years now as its secretary. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify the importance of the Employee Protection Provision or EPP in New York City School bus system. Contrary to popular belief, EPP is currently included in the legacy school bus contracts
that expired on June 30th, 2025. This provision safeguards the job, seniority and pensions of the drivers in attendance who safely transport our children every day ensures continuity for schools, families, and the city's transportation network. We've seen what happens when that protection is weakened. In 2015, a company won routes through an artificially low bid based on a plan to cut costs on the backs of labor. When it became clear those savings would not materialize and the company could not sustain its operation, it collapsed and was facing at the time a massive pension
withdrawal liability of over a hundred million dollars. The city was ultimately forced to take over now operating as nice bus after the operator paid the city a nominal amount to assume control and that liability through a city run bus company that was given a five-year extension at the time by the DOE and PEP because they knew this was the only way a company would've any chance of succeeding. I know this to be factual, not from newspaper stories or hearsay, but because I was directly involved in those proceedings from start to finish to ensure that the pension fund was protected even with fewer rules
and restrictions than longstanding operators. Nice bus provides inferior service and cost the city over 30% more per day and now sits with an unfunded pension liability. There's an undoubtedly larger than over a hundred million dollars than it was in 2020 when the city took over Just two years earlier, another company went bankrupt during the Christmas break leaving the city to cover nearly $80 million in unfunded pension liabilities simply to keep buses running and students stately transported. And you know what? The worst part of this is incredible dedicated movement of drivers
to different bus companies and who really suffers our most vulnerable the children. This is not acceptable. These examples make one thing clear. The EPP isn't an obstacle, it's a safeguard. If the EPP were part of a new open bid, every responsible company would have to build in hundreds of millions of dollars in potential liabilities driving up cost to the city without improving service. And once again, the children would be the ones to suffer through all this transition. Children who thrive on stability and unfortunately through no fault of their own struggle greatly with all of this unnecessary change.
The good news is that the solution is already in place through a contract extension with the city that has already been agreed to. We've achieved a framework that greatly strengthened surface accountability and stability, including new measures. Speaker's time has expired such as a $35,000 fine Speaker. To my left, please state your name and you may begin speaking. Good evening, Janelle Canal and thank you for this opportunity. I am from Advocates for Children of New York and we support families in New York City with accessing their education. A FC routinely hear from hundreds of families year after year, struggling with transportation and busing.
While families are always grateful for the service that they're receiving for transportation right now, they are not equipped to support today's students and families. Families often call us to say that there's no route for their child, that it's inconsistent getting their child to school late or picking them up early. We hear from families that the bus rides are extremely long or that their child can't get accommodations on their buss and can't attend school. They can't participate in afterschool programs or after, um, afterschool programming. These route issues disproportionately impact students
with disabilities, students who are homeless, students in foster care who are more likely to rely on bus service Similar past year. This year we have received numerous complaints from families asking for support from the beginning of the school year. And it is only October, for example. We continue to hear from families that their children with disabilities do not have a route and haven't even began school yet this year because there's no company available to take their route. Continuing the status quo simply doesn't work for students and families anymore. We are extremely concerned about the risk
of widespread disruption that bus service would give in the middle of the year to students and families. A disruption in bus service would be devastating to the families of New York City causing students to miss critical instruction and placing financial and emotional burdens on families, again, impacting some of the city's most marginalized communities, students with disabilities, students in temporary housing and students in foster care. We urge everyone here to put families first by providing uninterrupted service to support the city in moving forward and and taking the steps needed
to address the longstanding challenges that have existed with the transportation system. We urge the PEP to pass the resolution and to work with the city and the companies to engage in the steps necessary to create state level change, to include epps in the contract and allow for the changes needed to create a transportation system that works for all families. Thank you. Thank you. Sarah Schaffer Berg. Antoinette Giardano. Whitney? No. Yes. Whitney Tucson and Alicia Gittens.
Good evening. My name is Antoinette GI from Staten Island, IC bus and I'm here on behalf of my brothers and sisters in the school bus industry. Let's start with what's most important. Stability. We're asking PEP and the city to sign a five-year contract. Stability is essential not just for the companies, but for the children, the drivers, the matrons, and the owners who make the system run every single day without contracts. How can a company continue to operate? These agreements are vital for meeting payroll, obtaining financial financing for new buses, and ensuring safe and reliable
transportation for all students. Without a firm long-term commitment from the city, companies can't make the long-term investment that keep the system strong. Parents need stability. They deserve to know that their children's transportation is secure. Workers need stability. They deserve to know that they have a steady job, not a month to month guessing game. And owners need stability. They deserve the ability to plan higher and grow responsibly. We also need to address some ongoing challenges. Too often the drivers or the owners are blamed for mistakes like wrong addresses or incorrect phone numbers. But that's not on us. That's on OPT and Board of Ed.
They need to return to the office and be fully engaged, not working remotely while critical errors are happening. And when it comes to routing, each borough should have a local representative who knows their neighborhoods and could sign routes that make sense. It's time to fix what's broken, not point a fingers. Finally, department of Education needs to expand the number of programs in each borough. Right now. There aren't enough options As a result, students are sent to schools across zip codes, boroughs creating unnecessarily longer routes than there should be.
At the end of the day. We all want the same thing. Safe, reliable, and stable transportation for all the children. Let's work together to make what, to make that happen by committing to a five year contract and real accountability. Thank you for all. Thank you All. Figure to I Right. Please identify yourself and begin speaking. Hi, my name is Sarah Shachter Berg. Wait till the timer starts. Oh, all right. Thank you. Hi, my name is Sarah Shachter Berg. I'm the Director of Vocational Rehabilitation Services at the Center for Independence of this disabled New York.
I'm also a parent of two kids in the New York City public school system. I'm here today in both my professional and personal capacity. Um, off my notes, I just wanna say thank you to all the drivers and staff in the room for the work that you do and for the level of expertise that's coming out of these fraud. The comments, the lived experience, and the expertise of people who know what these roots are. Um, at Sydney what we do is we advocate for people with disabilities, for children with disabilities. Um, we know that the stats for students with, uh, disabilities and travel aren't great. 43% of the students who take these buses have at least one disability.
And unless it's otherwise noted on their IEP, the students that legally allowed to spend up to 90 minutes on the bus. And I know the drivers don't want that for anybody. They care about kids. You don't do this job 'cause the cash is great. You do it 'cause you give a crap. And I appreciate that. Sorry, that's not really professional. Um, don't tell my boss. Um, the travel for these kids with disabilities is, is onerous and, and unnecessary in so many ways. The families connected to Sydney and people in the community speak of the delays that make the school commute so terrible for their kids. That also buses as the Advocates
for Children Representative said, buses just don't show up. And again, it's not because the drivers don't wanna show up, it's because they can't do it because of the roots. Um, students with disabilities have so much to contend with and they can't get to Summer Rising. They can't do afterschool programs. They can't be part of their world. Our goal at Sydney is that for people with disabilities to be fully engaged in the world around them and buses are, and transportation is a vital part of that. Um, the first step is ensuring that, that the contracts are supportive of these goals.
Um, these are vital. We ask that everyone also support bill S of 10 18 A oh 8 4 4 oh that are the state level to help support busing as well. Um, it's just, it's so important that the staffing shortage exchange and that the bus routes are improved so that students, all students and especially students with disabilities, are getting where they need to go and getting full services within the New York City Public School system. Thank you. Please state your name and you may begin speaking in the speaker. Could be good. Hi, my name is, uh, Whitney Toussant.
Again, I'm the co-president of Community Education Council 30 in Western Queens. I'm speaking on, uh, my own personal behalf tonight. Um, I do wanna thank all the bus drivers for staying here late this evening. I know y'all gotta get up extra early in the work tomorrow morning. So thank you all for being here tonight. We really do. I'm a parent. Um, we really do appreciate what y'all do for our children. We know y'all love our children. Y'all are the first friendly faces they see on their way to school in the morning. So that's what I really wanna say. Um, but we do want y'all to get paid what you should get paid. We want you all to have the EPP that y'all are asking for.
That's what we want you all to have. Now, I did hear this, this beautiful young lady here. She said, y'all need better EPP. So I have a question. The bus company owner just said, y'all have Epps. Do y'all have what y'all need? And so that's what we're asking for and that's what we want you all to have. We want y'all to get paid what you need to get paid. We want y'all to have buses with heat and ac If there are children on your route that need a para or a bus mat, we want y'all to have them. And that's what we're asking for because we have these questions and it looks like this resolution is just asking
that y'all get the EPP that y'all need. And it's included in these five year contracts. And that's what we want to happen for y'all because we really do appreciate how y'all get our children to school safely after school should be included. Some arising should be included. My son had to ride a bus to summarizing and the entire summer they did not have air conditioning and that should not have happened to that bus driver. And he was the nicest older gentleman that got my baby there safely and back every day. And so that's what we're asking for. Now, I know the bus companies had y'all come here
and y'all are listening to them because you know they pay y'all. I appreciate that. But we want y'all to have the best that y'all need to have what you need to do your job well and keep our children safe. So that's what we're saying. And so I don't wanna hold everybody's time. The drivers are here. They gotta go to work Early in the morning. But please, please make sure they get what they need. That's what we're asking for. The next group of speakers are Kra, Salas, Manny Ali, Denise Martinez, and Lisa Michelle. Thank you. Good evening everybody. Um, I just wanna start off
by saying that this directly affects me. Um, I have a 6-year-old son. A lot of you don't just see a number. It's 150,000 students, but my son's name is David, and every single one of those students have a name, so they shouldn't matter. Um, he received special education services, so he relies on this. So, with that said, I'm gonna say the speech I wasn't able to say earlier. Um, my name is Denise Martinez and I'm pleased to be given the opportunity to speak to all of you this evening. I want to express my sincere concern and strong support for the renewals, the school bus contract
that my children and many other students rely on today. This service is far more than a convenience. It is a vital part of our daily lives, ensuring our children arrive at school safely, consistently, and on time. Not only do my children depend on this service, but 150,000 other students as well. It is also important to remember that many special needs students rely on the school bus service as their only safe and dependable means of transportation For these students, the bus is more than just a ride. It provides stranger drivers and needs who understand their unique needs, creating a supportive environment that helps them begin and end each school day with care and dignity. Dignity. Without this service, these children
and their families with face tremendous hardship as finding suitable, specialized transportation is not only costly, but often unavailable. As a single parent, I depend heavily on disservice to balance my work and family responsibilities. Having access to the school bus program has given me the opport, the ability to remain independent and to continue excelling as both the parent and a provider. It allows me to focus on my job, confident that my children have a safe and reliable transportation to and from school. If this contract is not renewed, the impact on my family will be immediate and severe. Without the school bus, I would face enormous challenges
finding alternative transportation for my children. This could result in lateness and absentee absenteeism that would directly interfere with my ability to maintain steady employment. Losing this service could realistically put my job and therefore my family's financial stability, a serious risk, and jeopardize my children's education. It is also very important to recognize that the renewal this contract affects not only families like mine, but also the dedicated bus drivers, monitors and support staff who rely on this employment to support their own families. These workers provide an essential service to our community, ensuring our children's safety and comfort every day.
The continua continuation of this contract protects your jobs. And since there's a network of caring professionals who make a difference in the lives of our students, they too will suffer instability. Needless to say, this is all happening near the holiday season, which is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. For these reasons, I respectfully and urgently act that the school bus contract be renewed without interruption. The services intention, not only for children's safety and education, but also for the stability and wellbeing of many families, including staff who depend on this and who will slowly sure to lose employment as a direct result of this decision.
You're all here to make. Thank you so much. Have a good night. Speaker on my right. Yes. Good evening. Uh, my name is Manny Ali. I wanna know if 1181 is in the house. I need you guys to stand up. Come on, let's stand up. Okay. And, and for that matter, I think all school bus matrix and our drivers should be standing up. I wanna see some solidarity guys. Come on. Let's show them where we, uh, we mean business tonight. All right. Uh, I'm a proud member school bus driver and member of a TU Local 1181. My career began back in 1989. I am employed by the Logan Bus Company and have the honor representing my brothers
and sisters as their elected shop steward since 2020. Just like my brother and sisters, many of our families, partners, spouses, nieces, nephews, cousins, siblings joined this industry as well. Over the years, we have witnessed firsthand the incredible importance of our work and the mely challenges and changes this industry has faced, especially since 2013. We know that disaster that happened in 2013, yes. School bus workers dedicate long demanding days to ensure students across New York City get to and from school safely. Okay, I've done this for 36 years,
approximately, no complaints. Okay? And I think that needs to be taken into consideration. Well, most of these drivers and ma have a lot of experience on the job, okay? Uh, many of us begin our day as early as 5:00 AM sometimes even earlier. I've noted routes that start at five 10 in the morning. That's ridiculous. What parent wants to get their kid on the bus at five 10 in the morning? Whose fault is that? That our fault? No, that's the router's fault. So I think OPT needs to address that as well. Our responsibilities extend beyond morning and afternoon routes. We cover midday, ongoing
and last minute field trips out of borough, okay? Including out borough field trips with our ridiculous lately, by the way. And late dismissals. For many of us, that means returning home to our families well after 7:00 PM So in my case, I start at four o at four o'clock in the morning, and yes, I do get home after 7:00 PM That's a pretty long day. Thank you. We leave for work in the dark and return home in the dark. Despite misconceptions, this job is far from easy. Every day we answer to multiple parties, our employers, schools, parents, and the DOE, all while keeping the safety
and wellbeing of the children. We care as top priority, our most precious cargo. These long demanding days have contributed to a serious retention problem. Many professional experienced school bus drivers are leaving the industry because of the workload become has become increasingly grueling and unsustainable. As my brother and sister stand united in solidarity, we urge the PP to vote Yes on a five year extension. Okay? Yes. This extension will provide much need of stability, not only for our students who rely on safe, dependable school,
bus transportation, but also for the hardworking school bus workers and drivers who have families of their own, including children with special needs to care for and support. Alright, uh, in summary, real quick, as of this coming Friday, actually your time has expired. Okay? I allowed you a few, let me finish, let me finish. Okay. I allowed you a few extra seconds, but you'll have to wrap up please. Alright, I'm wrapping up now. Uh, in summary, this Friday, 12,000 drivers, masons and, and mechanics stand to be laid off. Okay? We have bills to pay no health coverage.
As of Monday, 150,000 students are gonna be without transportation. I think something needs to be done. Thank you very much for your time. Okay. Everyone, would you please, please take your seat so we can proceed and listen to the other speakers. Science, science have to come down and let's proceed with the remaining speakers. Thank you. Can everybody please come to order so that we can proceed and have the remaining speakers have an opportunity to speak as well? The speaker to my left. Oh, there comes. Good. Yeah, go ahead and proceed. I'm sorry. Thank you. That's okay. Good evening. My name is Lisa Michelle
and I'm currently the director of onboarding and talent Acquisition at Total Transportation. With 25 years of operational experience in the New York City school bus industry. And as a parent of a student who rides the bus, I understand firsthand the enormous responsibility of our drivers, monitors, and administrators carry every single day. School bus professionals in New York City operate under some of the strictest standards in the nation. They comply with D-O-T-D-M-V and education department regulations at federal, state, and local levels. In addition to our own company policies, this means multiple background checks, substance testing,
physical qualification, exams, and extensive training requirements before they ever even transport a child. The resources required to staff and maintain this workforce are significant. Last school year alone for our company, we hired over 600 new drivers and monitors. That effort represents millions invested in recruiting, onboarding, and training, and millions more in ongoing compliance and safety refresher programs. The labor market has changed dramatically in recent years. Years ago, many applicants walked through the door with commercial licenses. Today about 80% of our driver candidates start without one.
We train them from the ground up, help them earn their commercial permits, master modern vehicles and technology, and learn how to care for some of the most vulnerable student populations in the city. Our pre-employment curriculum is provided in large part by the New York State Education Department, entailing training that focuses heavily on working with special needs students and safe driving practices, especially relevant in the New York City market. Following classroom training drivers undergo several additional weeks of skills and on the road training to prepare them for state DMV testing and everyday driving in the New York City streets. Beyond that, drivers complete an additional basic course
for school bus specific instruction, ref refreshers twice yearly, and recently, DOE added three extra classroom sessions to address local needs. However, once completing all this training and motivating drivers and monitors to approach this job with students and safety at top of mind, our operation staff faces the challenge of retaining those staff once they are presented with routes that have become more and more difficult with each passing year. Student routing is largely out of the operator's control and makes retention of new employees that we have invested precious time and resources on, often untenable despite labor shortages
and unexpected surges in student enrollment. In recent years, including crisis within this shelter system, we've adapted in real time to keep students safe and supported. These challenges have tested our industry, but they've also strengthened our commitment. We remain focused on continuous improvement, enhancing our recruiting, onboarding, and training strategies. And share your sentiments that every child deserves a safe, reliable ride to school. Thank you. Hi again. This is what happens. You sign up for every agenda item. 'cause there's always something to say. I'm Dr. Sala, president of CC four. I just wanna commend the folks in this room
because this is what democracy looks like. And it's been a long time since we've had a lively pep meeting where folks were being held accountable. I also wanna say that corporations do a really good job at separating consumers and customers and laborers. So front and center, we are all here for children. And because of that, I'm gonna yield my time to CC eight member Wanda, to speak about her lived experience as a, as a parent that needs busing. Thank you. My name is R baes. I am a proud mother of a child who no longer the child.
She's 18, but she goes to high school in district 75 P 17 x My experience, I don't think it's worth going through all these help for everybody to continue doing the kind of giving the kind of service that they have provided. Alexa, this is important for all of us. Just letting you know, for all the drivers maintenance, we are on the same side. We want our children to be safe. I know I have a great relationship
with pretty much every single bus driver that Alexa has ever had. I have a great relationship with the mutual that Alexa has ever had. But at the same time, it is unfair for all of us, not specifically to my daughter, but it is unfair that when we have to discuss something like this, that the people we're gonna come and say anything. And I bet, and I'm sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I doubt that anybody, the drivers, the maintenance, whoever that's supporting or showing these car or posters or whatever, have you read the contract?
Have they discussed it with you? How many have you been laid off? This is unfair. I am Puerto Rican, so I'm gonna say it in Spanish. Thank you. Okay. Ho Hold, hold on a second, doc. Dr. Smith. Okay. Okay, good. Okay. I can say it in English if you, well Just ask you, but I guess you had already explained it in the, in English at the beginning. No, I can, well, I did not. I went to my Puerto Rican to my native language, which is Spanish. I'm gonna say it in English. Your beams are my beams. Every single one of us work over here to support our family
to have a, a steady roof over our head, A bed where they can lay down comfortably at night. They have a plate of food in their table. And I do not want to give you the impression that the parents and the bus drivers on the maintenance are in opposite outside of the spectrum. I know the spectrum. My daughter has autism, profound autism at that. And with that, I am saying we are all in this together. We need to work together. Please read the contract. Please know what you're talking about. Please do not hold. I am, I'm telling actually the company, do not hold your employees hostage
because host, you are holding us hostage. That's it. Thank You. Thank you. The next group of speakers are Gavin Healy, Jeanine Marucci, Laura Simpson, and Scott Gutterman. Okay, everyone, please, uh, please come to order the speakers beginning. Okay, Mr. Healey. Okay. Um, I'm back. I'll be, I'll be brief, um, because it's, it's kind of hard to to top what, um, has come before. And I, yeah, I just wanna reiterate some of the things I've heard as I, I've been the chairman
of the, uh, committee of on students with disabilities for CEC two. Actually, uh, for those of you who don't know, we're, we're, right now we're in community education Council district too. Um, and you know, we've heard so many, so many complaints and struggles of families who are particularly of students with disabilities in, in busing. And we've heard them many times at the pep. Um, and so I just wanna just agree with some of the, the previous speakers who said, who said that we need to, we need a, we need a contract that respects the rights
of our students, respects the rights of them to get to school on time. We also need a contract that respects the rights of, of our workers, the bus drivers of matrix, particularly EPP protections, not just in one contract or a handful of contracts, but in all the contracts. And so we also need to advocate at the city and state level to ensure that that is, you know, written into law. And, and I yield the rest of my time. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I am Scott Gutterman. I'm a special need. I'm, I'm a father of two special needs children who take, uh, the school bus every day, uh, to and from school. And I think we need to take a step back
and ask why is the system not working as well as it could Right now? I think the answer is because it's designed by bureaucrats to fail. Basically a special needs parent needs to deal with the school, the school district, OTPS, the bus company, the Office for Student Health, just to get busing done. Add to this the Pupil Transportation Advisory Commission. And then this panel of which I was blissfully ignorant just a few months ago. And you have a recipe for disaster.
You have half a dozen government agencies, all very costly designing a system that does not work. As for this panel, I would think your number one priority would be to make sure that the kids get to school. Unfortunately, you're not doing that. You're gonna be delivering not only bad bus service, but no bus service is your solution, which doesn't work. And what does a be bewildered bureaucrat do when they don't have a solution? Well, they hold hearings like this.
They form committees, they pass resolutions, but they don't get to the heart of the matter of which I don't see you doing. The bus companies do need. They are business. They do need some consistency to invest in their employees and invest in their equipment. So what about your contingency, contingency plans if there's no bus service? You know what, this is not a contingency plan. A $3 omni card, many special needs students cannot take public transportation. And guess what? Parents have to work to afford the high taxes and high cost of the city.
And we can't go back and forth or back and forth to school every day to take our kids to school. So what I'm asking in conclusion is that this committee, instead of holding hearings, locks itself up with the bus companies. It gets a deal done and a good deal for everybody. I would also expect that in the case of a bus action, any self-respecting member of this committee should resign. Thank you for your time. Okay. Let's, okay. Thank you everyone. Let's, let's proceed to the next speaker. Thank you. Next speaker.
Good evening. My name is Laura Simpson. I'm a Q 300 parent in District 30, secretary of the CC 30. But I'm speaking in my capacity as a parent of a 6-year-old bus rider in a school when many children ride the bus. And I'm here to strongly support tonight's resolution. The bus system is broken and families and drivers are paying the price. At my son's school, parents use air tags, WhatsApp groups to track the buses. Because the GPS app fails or it's not turned on, missing instruction time or scrambling when the stops are skipped, that's all
between us and the bus driver. Try to figure it out. We shouldn't need these workarounds to know that our kids are safe. This past summarizing my son's afternoon bus took two hours to go two miles without ac during a heat wave. The busers, the bus driver, suggested that I pack ice cream at 6:00 AM to start the day. Oh, but here's the thing. Bus bus companies self-report their own delays. One route had 24 parent complaints that vanished from official data. They, this week they were bus drivers on one of my, uh,
parents' routes in my school that was handing out letters that basically asking families to support the contract renewals or the drivers would be fired. Now this is to the owners and your lawyers. This is corporate hostage taking for a manufactured crisis. I've been going to these meetings. I went to the P tac last night and I've heard from you guys and you can't shame the shameless. So I'm gonna move on. Drivers deserve job security. And the students deserve working buses. These current 46-year-old contracts, they're not doing it.
They're not doing it for us. They're not doing it for the drivers and the resolution. I sat down, I read it. Um, I'm drafting one for my own, for my cc because what we want is accountability. We want modern standards. We want AC on buses, and we want an EPP for the drivers. You guys take care of our children. I would say our most vulnerable students, they deserve better than air tags. Prayer and emotional blackmail. They deserve modern contracts, real, uh, accountability. And they deserve these people to be protected. You guys are really important. Thank you.
Next group of speakers, Jamar Clayborne Sha Davis Curry, Matthew Harish, Mark Gonzalez, and Quentin Ma Zein. I'll say the names again. So, Okay. Can everybody settle up so we can hear the names? So that if people, uh, who are incident speaking will know that the name has been called Jamar. Clayborn. Shaday. Davis Curry. Matthew Harnish. Mark Gonzalez. Quentin Zein. Okay. You can proceed when she hit the mic. Right? Arrive at the mic. Okay.
Mark Gonzalez, uh, co-president say, why counsel on special education, but I'm speaking on my own behalf. I have a for, uh, son who's been on the bus service for now 14 years. Amazing. Dr. Okay, let's, Let's, let's wait until everybody, um, settles down. Well, I'd like to recla my time. Yes. Chair, Please. Yeah, you will. You will. Thank you. Okay, appreci, you can proceed. Can I have it back to two 30 please? Chair, I I'm gonna give you a chair. You'll get the additional time. Thank You. I have a son who's been on the bus routes for 14 years now. Amazing drivers, matrons, parents, paras. Thank you all. You do an amazing job in a horrible, horrible system
that's been built for all of us. My son's been on routes. They've taken four hours to get home, but guess what that means? The para, the drivers, the matrons have been on a heck of a lot longer 'cause they're the first ones on the bus and the last ones off the bus and they're going through it just like my kid, but only worse. The challenge though is we've got a system that's broken and the very first speaker from a bus company made it clear it's broken. They've asked for changes to the contract. They've asked to add an afterschool. Parents are asking for afterschool 'cause that's what's in federal law. That's an idea. And we don't have it in IDEA in these bus contracts.
We need afterschool, we need weekend busing. We need summer school busing at the three o'clock and the six o'clock hour. So our kids who want to stay for the entire summer rising can do the entire summarizing. So our kids can play in sports so our kids can do after school or actually have tutoring after school like every other student is entitled to. But we don't have that now. And the bus contract apparently doesn't have that now. So that's their absolute reason not to sign a five year contract. Fix the contract if it's so good, open it up. Let's publish it on the DOE'S website.
Let's see everything in the contract because if it's not in there, it doesn't deserve to get signed. We need to protect the bus drivers, the mats, the paras. We need to protect the bus companies too. We need 'em around also. But we need to protect our kids and they need their rights protected. And if it ain't happening, fix the contract and there's someone in the DOE that doesn't wanna fix it, then get 'em out. This is unacceptable. And if it's the mayor's office, don't worry on Tuesday, we're getting him out. But we need the contracts fixed to protect our kids. First and foremost, the contracts are not for adults.
They're to get kids to school, gets kids on school on time. Our kids are getting punished and penalized because they are missing classes. 'cause the routes stink. When a kid doesn't get to school until two hours after the start of the school day or a half hour, they're missing critical class time. They need compensatory services each and every time. If it means the DOE needs to be fined to every class, then we need to start finding the DOE and paying the kid for not getting their services. Thank you very much. Good evening everyone. My name is Shadia Davis Curry and I serve as a recording secretary and district 75 representative for CEC 29.
But tonight I'm speaking as the mother of my son, Solomon Davis. Solomon has cerebral palsy. He's non-ambulatory and medically fragile. The only way that he can attend school and get there safely is because he has a one-to-one nurse who travels with him on the yellow bus with his bus driver every morning. She stays by his side and she is with him throughout the day. That bus is not a convenience, it is a bridge between his home and his right to education. When I read the city's contingency plan, I saw a lot
of well-intentioned measures, omni cards, but I also noticed what was missing. It doesn't speak to children like my son. Those alternatives simply don't exist for families like mine. His nurse can only accompany him on that bus, not on Uber, not on Access-A-Ride without it. He simply cannot attend school. And that is a fact. If those buses aren't running, Solomon loses access to his school. He loses access to his services and supports that have taken years to coordinate. Even a short disruption could mean losing access to the nurse that he's had for five years.
For a child with complex medical needs, it isn't just a break that's inconvenient, it's destabilizing and potentially harmful. And let's be honest, our drivers are not being treated fairly. They're being underpaid, underappreciated, and expected to carry the weight of our most vulnerable students without being given a living wage. They deserve so much better and so do our children. We're at a moment when families are already stretched in. There's a government shutdown layoffs, snap is being threatened. And here's another barrier that's being between our children and school where they could get a possible free meal.
So I'm asking that we explicitly address the students who rely on one-to-one nursing supports and our contingency plan and name them in the policy bill Transportation guarantees that recognize their reality and ensure that continuity of bus service for this population is not negotiable. Because for these children, there are no alternative options. No subway, no ride share, no carpool, just that bus. And when that bus stops, so does their education. Thank you so much. All right. My name is Quentin Mezzan. I am the president of, can you Hold one second? I won charge. Can
we have a, a little bit of order in the other corner of there? It's a little difficult to hear with the competing noise. Yeah, go go ahead, sir. All right. My name is Quentin Mezzat. I'm the CEC 28 President. I, I'm on the Queen's High School President Council Executive Board. I am the Vice President of D 75 President's Council. And thank you. Thank you. And what am I leaving now? And I'm the PTA president of my son's high school. I believe that's everything, but take those away. I'm just a dad. I'm a phenomenal dad. That's president of his kids' lives. And this is about my two sons who are on the spectrum that
utilize the buses. So as a dad, I share all the sentiments of all the other parents. And this situation right here is putting parent against parent when in truth, we all want the same thing to provide and protect our children. We live in the highest cost, hardest working states in the country, and yet we still continue to show up as strong parents. The energy here is just uncertainty. Parents are worried about how their children are gonna get to school on Monday and the company's worried about if they're gonna have a job. I get it. We're all juggling bills, childcare and making sure our kids get to school safe each morning.
And let's be clear, this isn't on the drivers or matrons. My driver, Joseph and my other driver Ron, are phenomenal. We are homeboys and thank you. We need to talk to OPT 'cause they have me waking up at 5:00 AM to get my kids ready. I want more sleep. My kids want more sleep. The drivers want more sleep, but that's out of our control. So we don't need to be going after each other. Um, because I feel that, let me say skip, skip, skip. I want to just say, you know what, thank you. Thank you drivers for actually getting my
sons for the last four years. Home safely every day. And thank you for all the other children that you do the same thing for, for your patience. 'cause my son likes to take over seatbelt and the care and your commitment to our children's safety. And thank you to our educators for providing this phenomenal therapies and academic and vocational support. Now, today we need to talk about solutions. We need to keep our drivers and matrons employed and valued. Ensure that every child is picked up and dropped off safely. Hold OPT accountable. Invest in modern updated buses that actually work and build contracts that value people
and children over profits. We don't need another five years of broken promises. We need five years of accountability, stability, and compassion for the families and workers and most of all our children. Thank you. You may begin. Great. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Matthew Harnish and I'm a representative with some of the bus companies, uh, in the spirit of collaboration that's been put forth with a lot of speakers. I'm gonna do a little exercise for everyone that's still in the room. Hands up and panel. Please join in and we, everyone wants us to work together. Hands up. If you know that the last bus extension contract
was a five year contract. Anyone hands up? No one on the panel knows Who here knows that There's currently a negotiated five year contract. This mystery contract that's being referred to, that's done. Do you know that it was completed back in June? We're here it's almost November. It was done in June. Who here knows that it was blessed by the mayor's office, the law department, the DE Department of Education and this mystery contract. Who's read it? It's right here. Do you guys need copies? Fraud, extra? Not a problem.
I brought extra. No, no, no, no. Will will the gentleman please take his seat? I'm gonna ask that you please take your seat. So if you guys don't wanna read the contract extension, but vote on a resolution, it seems a little odd to me if there's a school, you gave me an F and you didn't even read my paper tonight. I've heard a lot of stories from real people, real people that work hard and care for the children of this city. One speaker tonight, gentlemen, gets up at four and doesn't get home till after seven.
He expressed a desire to see this done. I think the panel has to answer to everyone in this room how it inexplicably failed to put this contract on the agenda so it could be voted on in a timely fashion tonight and, and avoid disruption since it's been done since June. And another gentleman suggested that the panel locked themselves in the room with the bus con companies to get this done. The panel has to answer to everyone in this room how the bus companies came to them today with option years just to get this done, just to keep buses running on Monday.
And they were rejected. Okay. No, No. Have, have, Okay. The next, the next speakers are Ramada, Slan, uh, and Maggie Sanchez. Yeah. Yeah. Not a public contract. There are still speakers who have signed up to speak as well as, um, the document that the gentleman referred to as not a public contract. It's not an executed contract. It should not be publicly shared. Okay. Can everybody, those who are leaving, we'll wait to let the room clear and then we'll proceed. There are still Hello? I know.
Can I ple can I speak please? Well, I want to, I just want be respectful and let the room clear and then you, so you can be heard. Okay? The EPP part Leave quietly and, um, There's a couple of people who I don't know why they, um, sorry. Yeah. Oh, they're gonna go. Okay. Let's, let's see if we can proceed with the next speaker. My name, my name is Ramco. I'm a former parent of CE C3 and I'm a community organizer either and, Okay, can everybody please be respectful
to the last to our speakers? Okay, let's proceed. Uh, um, I'm the parent of West Prep. I'm in the PTE and I'm talking, um, today I'm talking about my, my daughter. She started the bus this year on September 15th from se September 15 till today. My daughter miss all the day from September 15 till today, October 29th, 29th, 29. She missed all, she missed science class
from 15 to today. She missed science class. She missed speech class from September 15th to today. Now I'm talking right now, I'm talking to the boss driver. This is fair. I I don't even, I don't, can't even, I can't even speak to my, my boss driver because he does not speak English. I called the bus company. They rule, they hang up the phone. I called the bus company more than 30 times. I understand you guys want the contract,
but I understand you guys want the contract, but you guys have to do better ly because what we facing is not right for our kids either. I mean, you guys have to, do you guys think that's fair? I called o PT two. I tell o PT two and I called the boss driver. I called the company too and they hang up the phone and they, I'm blaming both of you. I'm not blaming only OPT. Don't blame OPT two. What all you do, Okay, ho hold it. You'll hold, we'll give you time. I'm gonna ask you again if you please allow the speaker to complete. Okay? I'm sorry.
I I'm blaming OPT, I'm blaming the boss company that I have, you think that you think is right. Since September 15th, my daughter missed all the classes till today. And today they call me my, they came to pick up my daughter at six o'clock in the morning and my daughter still went in class late at eight 10 up. I talked to apt. Trust me, I talk to OPT. So I'm saying I, I understand where you guys coming from, you guys under you guys. Listen, I'm not a guest of your contract.
I'm not, but you guys have you, I'm not a guest of your contract. Trust me, I talk to A OPT every single day. Okay? So you guys have to figure it out and at least the end, this pep you guys, you guys have to remember that the parents put you over here because what I see today, that's why I left the CC three. Don't accept to be a puppet. You put you over here. We voted for you guys, be for the parents and for the kids. Thank you. Thank You. Okay, next speaker.
Thank you Maggie Sanchez. CCSC speaking here in my personal capacity. Hey, New York City Public Schools come up with a more accessible contingency plan for families who may be left stranded at home without their critical services and instruction. Look into a remote learning option as it was available during school. Snow days, bus staff, they're underpaid, they're overstaffed, they're overworked. This is not working. The status quo is not working. Hey, bus company owners and a TU leadership.
Please detail exactly where in the language of the contract, where it details the so-called parts where it includes EPP. Okay, let's take a look. The Employee protection provisions, EPP bill sits on the New York State and Finance Committee since May 27th, 2025. I encourage everybody in the room and all and all those in the, in the, the A TU to head to Albany and advocate for the passage of that bill. It's called S 10 18, a
8 44 4 0 8 4 4 0. It would allow the city to move forward with a new bus contracts while keeping current job protections in place. It's not about the planting, it's about making it better, not just for the students with disabilities, but for the workers as well. It is not fair for workers to be in, in, in on air conditioned buses. It's not fair for students with disabilities, with multiple disabilities, with severe disabilities
and wheelchairs to sit in buses that are not air conditioned. Okay? As it stands, a five year contract extension on outdated inefficient contracts that have not been updated since 1979. Bus companies and leaderships of these companies threaten to let busing staff go on, uh, on November 1st. So let's be clear about something. Okay? They are working very hard to pin us against each other and we're allowing it. Read the contracts. You have a copy now, read it. Okay?
And I'm gonna ask the, the, the pep thank you for hearing us. Thank you for holding this meeting. Thank you for the respecting democracy and let, letting everybody speak, please approve this resolution. And don't give in families, stay strong. We protect each other and we look for each other. Okay? We are gonna resolve this issue. We with our voices, Albany, go to Albany and contact your legislators, each and every legislator, your council members as well, your mayor.
Well hopefully we will get a new representation at the mayor's office. So speak to them. Mr. Chair, my name is Steven Hightower. I signed up for the public comments, but would like to have my remarks heard during this resolution. Is it, is it on the resolution? Yes sir. Yes you can. So my name is Steven l Hightower ii. I'm Chief Operating officer of Hightower's Petroleum Company, the fuel supplier of the city student transportation system. We we're asking to renew the total transportation contract, not only because it means reli, safe and reliable transportation, but because of what it means for the diverse local businesses
that power the system behind the scenes. Our company provides fuel supply, fleet card services, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure that keep total transportation's buses operating efficiently across New York City. This partnership has enabled us to invest in local jobs, expand cleaner energy options, and ensure continuity for the families who depend on this service. Our commitment to New York City goes beyond daily operations during Hurricane Sandy and other, other critical times, high towers petroleum supported emergency response efforts demonstrating our reliability
and ability to serve the city when it needs it most. Renewing this contract ensures stability for essential workers, continued progress towards admission reduction goals, and sustained opportunity for minority owned business enterprises that have invested in this city's future. We urge the panel to support renewals so that we can continue to do our part fueling the buses, the students and future of the New York City and the, and the bus drivers. Thank you for your time and we are for com, your commitment to equitable sustainable public education. Thank you. There are two speakers who didn't indicate
where they wanted to speak, so I'm just going to call them to make sure it's not on this reso. Steven Galster and Behan Carol, it's just a public comment. Okay, thank you. I believe, let me just double check my color coding. I believe we have gotten to the end. We Have concluded the, uh, public speaking comment events period on the resolution. We'll now open the floor for panel members who may wish to comment. Panel member Alban. I'm sure there'll be others. Panel member Alban proceed. Oh wait, there's someone out there ho Hold it. Have do it. Okay, You can begin. What's
Your state your name, Please say your name. My name is Tamara Farrell. I am, um, on CEC eight. And um, I am here. Well, I yielded my time to Sarah, but um, I'm here to talk about two things. Um, the first thing I'm here to talk about is, um, food, um, Lila that It it's okay. It's open comment, right? No, no, we not an open comment yet. I don't remember. No, no. It'll be open comment in about 37. You well, I heard, Heard you say open comment then I heard my name. That's why I came down here. No, no, I'm sorry. Okay, so Panel member Alban, I'm sorry, I signed up but I didn't hear my name called.
My name is Priscilla Montero. Thank you. I represent District 29. May I speak letter? Just, just give us a second. Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah, go ahead. Thank you. So my name is Priscilla Montero. I represent many councils citywide and, um, district 29. I'm the CEC transportation chair, president of President's council, district leadership team chair and cpac second vice chair. Um, I come from a place of CoLab collaboration and solutions. I've been dealing with the OPT and the policy director here on the pep.
I urge the DOE to implement a mid-contract audit and community review before automatic renewal and bid of this contract extension with contingencies, performance-based contract, including performance-based clauses for future DOE contracts such as this one, um, to ensure measurable service metrics, award renewal priority and bonuses for vendors maintaining 95% or higher on time performance, applying financial deductions and penalties when they don't adhere to those performances. Medical paraprofessionals, perhaps riding on the bus
with our most fragile students and offering them pay their differentials joint vendor and OPT accountability. I'm hearing tonight there are a lot of, uh, issues and conflicts between the bus companies and OPT and perhaps they can be aligned and work eff effectively to make sure that we remedy these inconsistencies with buses. I see these bus drivers here tonight, and I thank you for your service. Um, you do your best to get our children to school on time every day and we thank you. However, there are some issues
and additions we would like to see with this contract. And if you would, besides the medical professionals, some exceptions. Um, for multiple districts creating a sunroom zone in policy for families living across multiple district lines and expanding sibling and dual district eligibilities to keep our families together. That would be all. Uh, okay. Are you signed up for the resolution or a general public comment? Uh, I was signed up for the bus commentary, but I didn't hear my name. What's your name? What's your name? Caitlin Han. I don't have it, but
Let speak. Okay. You can proceed. I can speak. Okay, great. Outta respective everyone's time, I'll abbreviate my speech. Um, appreciate all the bus drivers in the room who spent the night with us. Um, in support of this, uh, my name's Caitlyn Dunhan. I'm the VP of operations at Bird Bus Sales and Factory direct bus sales. Um, here speaking on behalf of the New York State Bus Distributors Association, which represents the people and companies that plan, supply and service the school buses that transport over 2 million students across New York State every single day. That's not just a number.
It's 2 million families who depend on the partnership of the people in this room to get their children to school safely. And here's the reality. Without stability around contract renewals, there will not be reliable new school buses. School bus contractors plan their staffing fleet replacements and financing over the full terms of their contracts. These are major capital investments that require predictability and confidence in contract duration. When contract timelines are shortened and renewals are uncertain or delayed, the entire bus planning process collapses.
Buses are not products you can order overnight. They require months of lead time and millions of dollars in investment. And without clear long-term contracts, that supply chain grinds to a halt. As a dealer, we cannot responsibly order new buses or safety equipment without knowing that the contractors who purchase them have secure agreements in place. This is not a hypothetical risk, as you've heard from many people tonight. It's already happening. Inventory orders are being paused, production slots are being lost, and the ability to replace old aging buses is shrinking by the day. Meaning fewer new buses on the road, more aging vehicles
for the drivers all around us tonight to drive and potential disruptions to truden student transportation across the city. We all share the same goal, and that's been made very clear, ensuring that every student has a safe, reliable ride to school. But that can only happen if we can ensure that the system behind that promise is stable. So with that, we urge the Department of Education and all involved parties to swiftly move to restore the certainty of the contracting process. The New York State Bus Distributors Association stands ready to be part of the solution and appreciates all your time.
Thanks. I'm going to go through the list of people who signed up for open comment because I think there probably were some missed signups. And if you are intended to speak about the reso, when I call your name, work your way down, I'll do it again. In groups of five, we will be doing open comment on other issues after we deal with the reso. Lauren Ashkenazi, Christina Marlo, another Ashkenazi, um, Rachel, Kate Miller, Amy Dowd,
Sarah Rother Mill, I and Maria Moray o Rodas. I really apologize for the pronunciations, if any, any of those names Wanna do speak on the reso. Okay, keep going. Lori Crawford. Jamie Paulsen. Francis Garris. Suzanne Ramos. Alex Ivi. Amy Crane, sky Hollenback. Anybody? Okay, we're doing good. Donna Chin more Moreno.
John Cilo. Rachel Miller. Jacqueline Schiano. Okay. She's okay. Did I get somebody? Yes. Okay. Give on the resolution. It's just the sign up was confusing. Yes. Please say your name for the record and start speaking. Um, good evening. My name is Ti I've been a bus driver for almost 25 years. Um, it is so sad to all of us drivers that this, um, negotiation is going on for a few months
and at the last minute they come and tell us like, um, we've been giving so much services to the parents, to the company, but then at the last minute we are all lost. I don't think it's fair to us that last week they sent us a, a letter through email saying that we are going to be unemployed, especially all of us that we have, all of us, we have family. I don't understand why the Bove
is doing this to all of us, especially to the parents. Um, I have grandchildren and it's not fair that especially to the special need parents, that when the children go to school that they put them in the bus to go to school. It's the time for them to rest and have some kind of release because it's not, it's not, it's not so easy to have a special neat child. It's a big responsibility. But here we are putting all
that in jeopardy. Our food, we have a life, we have responsibility. And right now, um, we are all here, but I do not see none of our supervisor dispatch here, but we are here because it is our responsibility to fight for our right as a driver that we are. Um, I'm really sorry that mostly all of us, we woke out. Why? Because we are tired.
We wake up at 4:00 AM in the morning. We have a big responsibility. We gotta be awake tomorrow when we are driving the bus. And I don't think it's fair to us. We leave far after the bus ride. We gotta take our vehicle and drive home. Some of us, we gonna have to pay parking because we don't find parking at this time. Um, and I think that it is fair that we all work together, work together as
we, as we are employees. All of us. I, I Hate to interrupt, but your, your time has expired, so could you please wrap up? Yes, sir. With all your respect, all night, you've been, you've been very rude. You, you, you let people talk all for the same thing. Thank you so much. And this Thank you. Sure. Okay. S Sky, Hollenbeck, Jo Jail, goad, Steven Galster, RA Castillo, Bethany Carroll, Christine Tad,
Lisa Walker, G Key, and Deanna Oliver. This is not open comment. This is, I just was make the, I wanted to make sure we got everybody who wanted to speak on the reso. We will do open comment after the vote on the resolution. Okay. Back to you Chair Paul. Okay, We'll, we'll now proceed with panel member comments. I think it was who? Pamela Albin. You Can you hear me now? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here. My name is Shirley Obe and I am the Queensborough President appointee to the panel
for educational policy. I'm gonna speak to the reso. So the owners or the bus vendors want to educate us. Well, it's our time to educate you. This is a panel for educational policy. Our responsibility is to approve or disapprove contracts. We don't negotiate contracts that is done with the Department of Education or also known as New York City Public Schools. We are not here. We are a public body. And we've been here every month. We've been through the threats of oh,
we are not gonna have service for summarizing. We went through the threats of of we are not gonna have bus service for first day of school. We are gone now we having threats of not providing services for the holidays. What we have been doing, we've been approving extensions every other month to make sure there is no disruption in services. That is what we do. We cannot negotiate contracts and the owners know that we are a public body negotiations are open behind doors and that's not our role.
We don't do negotiation. Yes. The five year contracts that ended July, we approve extension while negotiations on the contract between Department of Education, also known as New York City Public schools are doing what is best, that is equitable for all this resolution is to protect our student rights, our scholars and the employees. This is what this resolution and if you follow, because this is a monthly panel under the state law.
Right. Every month. And if you go back, even two school years, BUS has been discussed and we, this is not personal to the bus company. Yes. The resolution is against five year contract. We're against five year contract for all vendors. It's not specifically about the bus country. Um, the bus companies because those long contracts sometimes hurt the system more than it helps. Right. So we need to be able to improve Now they wanna make it seem like since the pandemic
or since now that these services are horrible. It's been decades. It's been decades. Let's be realistic about that. It's been decades. Is the system perfect on OPT and No, but we have been doing due diligence, or I should say New York City public schools have been doing due diligence to work out a equitable who decided not to sign an extension. It wasn't the panel for educational policy who decided that. They was like, well we're gonna use
layoffs as a pressure point. Yeah. For us to vote for a five year contract if it's really about our students and it's really about the the ones, uh, the, um, employees that service our children. Shouldn't they be first? Shouldn't they deserve the services and the rights? Is it fair for a child to pass out overheat? Is that fair? Is it fair for a child not to get to school for breakfast, let alone missing 20 minutes, a half an hour of the first period? Is that right? Is that their educational Right.
This is what's happening and it's not yesterday's problem. This is decades problem. Right. And so when we gonna say enough is enough, what about those parents who are willing to able to go through a little disruptive disruption to make sure the services for their child is what they supposed to be minimally. That is what is here about, it's not personal. Right. Everyone want the facts out there. We do not negotiate contracts. So they know that coming to us to ask to negotiate. It's not our role of function.
The who said that they will not do, they will not negotiate anymore if we sign this resolution. It wasn't us. What does that has to do with negotiating in good faith with the Department of Education? Yeah. And New York, or as known as New York City Public schools. I just wanna put it 'cause I was gonna be quiet, but I'm hearing a lot of these misinformation and again, I think one of the parents said it, Phil, we want to separate the conquer and divide. Right? We're conquering the parents, the scholars and the, the workers, the employees. And we are actually all on this side. This is what this resolution is to make sure all parties
are fair and equitable, including the bus fenders. Right? That is what this our role, that is what this resolution is about. That's why we don't want a five year contract, but we are willing to sign extensions because we don't want disruption of services. We didn't put that on. Oh s**t. New York City Public Schools didn't put that on the table. Your the employers, the vendors did that. Not us. They're the ones who doing that. Why are they disrupting November 1st? Uh, services, they still got under, you know, the extension, but they so choose to, to get five year contract.
If it's about the children, what's wrong with a one year, what's wrong with a two year, what has to be a five year contract? And that's all I have to say then. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other panel members? Are any other panel members who wish to comment? Yeah. Panel member. I Thank you Chair first. On behalf of the comptroller, I want to express gratitude to this panel and to you chair in particular for the time and effort you have spent over the past year
trying to really understand this issue and it is a complicated issue and for supporting our students with this resolution. I also want to acknowledge the many dedicated school bus drivers and attendance and administrators who took time out of your lives to be here this evening. Nothing I am going to say should diminish the respect we all have for the work you do every day to ensure that students arrive at school safely and are earnest desire to see you paid a living wage
with the protections and provisions for better working conditions you need and deserve and that are needed to grow the driver workforce. And yes, there is plenty of blame to go around for the problems plaguing our school bus system, but I want to set the record straight here and uplift what panel member bin just had to say, the only reason bus driver jobs and service to children may be in jeopardy tonight is because of the breathtakingly bad faith actions
of the school bus company executives who have manufactured this crisis and used your jobs and service to 50,000 students, many of whom have disabilities live in foster care or experiencing homelessness to strong arm this panel and the DOE into giving them five year contracts. They did this by refusing to sign the 60 day emergency contracts that would continue providing service beyond Friday. The fear that these leaders
of these companies have introduced into the lives of families who depend on bus service, the time and resources the DOE has had to expend to try to come up with contingency plans in the event that these companies make good on their threats, not to sign their 60 day emergency contracts is totally unacceptable that you would do this to vulnerable students. To pad your bottom line shows us who you really are vendors
that most definitely do not deserve a five year contract. You should be grateful if you, if you get folks, Folks please come to, I'm sorry, this just everybody piece come to order and let's hear all of the speakers out. Thank you. The disrespect shown tonight to this panel during this meeting. How does that entitle you to a five-year contract? As the contra comptroller noted in his op-ed yesterday, there were 83,000 reported school bus delays in the 20 23 24 school year. That is an unacceptable level of poor service. How does that entitle vendors to five year contracts
and to those bus executives suddenly here at PEP tonight, where have you been for years as parents came to these meetings and meetings all over the city to beg for better service. Where have you been? Because it's only when your bottom line is in jeopardy that you come to care here and talk. Okay. Again, I'm gonna ask everybody to please come to order. I'm gonna ask the speakers to please, you know, we're being, we're being pretty patient here. I'm gonna ask you to please come to order All the wonderful benefits
that the bus company executives have talked about today. Enhan Enhancing Staffing and Accountability. MWBE spending. Those are not things that are limited to five year contracts. We could have those things in two year contracts. There's nothing specific about them to five year contracts. Last night at the public hearing on busing by the commission, we heard horrific stories from parents, parents with cancer who have had to deal with the repercussions to their children and themselves from poor service locking these students
and families into five more years. A bad service is not in the best interest of students in our city. New contracts can mean better service, better wages for drivers in attendance, air conditioning after school, and the systemic changes needed to create a new system of bus service in this city. We should not have to wait until 2030 to create that better system. Thank you. Thank, thank you. And I want to, and I also want to acknowledge the controller and I also, folks, if you please come to order.
Okay. So I want, I wanna thank the controller for your leadership also. And I want to thank especially the panel for, uh, being steadfast and, uh, and, and, you know, moving forward with the, uh, contract in this conversation. So, oh, I'm sorry. Panel member who, who's cast ready? Member MCC Casre, and then panel. Um, Giordano Giordano. Thank you. Thank you so much. Camille ca Um, Brooklyn Borough President Appointee. Uh, I'd like to read a statement from our Brooklyn Borough
President Antonio Renoso. 150,000 of our city students take the bus to school every day. Nearly half of them are students with disabilities. Students who, like my youngest son undress, may be nonverbal and unable to speak up for themselves if they experience something terrible. And with 46-year-old contracts devoid of oversight and accountability, terrible things happen on our school buses all the time. Some days young kids ride the bus for hours. They overheat without air conditioning. They miss class.
They endure lengthy delays and are left behind by buses that sometimes never stop at their homes at all. All the while parents are left in the dark. They spend the day wondering what time their kids arrived, if they got carsick along the way, or if they're being cared for in the way they should. When the buses late, the parents are late for work. And when the bus doesn't stop, they pay out of pocket to get their kids to school. I hear these stories all the time as borough president and I live these stories myself. As the father of a 4-year-old with autism city,
data confirms them and news story news reports lay the reality bear. Yet every few years, the worst bus operators are entrusted once again with caring for the city's most vulnerable kids. It's shameful and embarrassing, and it's a failure of our legal mandate. For decades now, children have been caught in the crossfire of a policy dispute between the state and the union. Enough is enough. We are now living the worst case scenario where the best option is one more year of poor undignified bus service for our kids so that the state can finally do the work they've spent
decades delaying. Today I stand in solidarity with our panel for education policy members as they vote on a resolution. Disavowing another five-year extension and calling for true longstanding reform in our school bus system once and for all, the governor and state legislature must pass and sign into law Senate bill 10 18 and assembly bill 8 84 40 to protect school bus workers, wages and benefits. And our city must launch a competitive RFB
for our bus contracts that prioritize transparency, accountability, innovation, and a standard of service that is safe, reliable, and attentive to the needs. Our, our youngest and most vulnerable New Yorkers. None of us should be able to stomach this broken system any longer for the safety of our students and the benefit of our bus drivers. It's time for our school bus system to leave the past behind. Thank you. Thank you Panel Madano. Thank you chair. Um, for all the union members here, thank you so much for coming. Thank you for, for all the work you do.
No one is blaming you. This is a, a case of misdirected aggression. We are on your side. We want the driver. My grandfather was TW local 100 drove his bus out of Jackie Gleason. So did my uncle, my dad's UFT. Everybody up here, we're all different diverse group, but we all care about working families, we care about unions, we care about labor. I promise you, when it's time for your CBA, uh, this board will be happy to come support you for your CBA. So don't, don't forget, this is the bus companies. This is essentially a lockout. This is what they're, we're, we're not saying it.
They're saying it. We want to work together. We've given different potential ideas of how to, how to fix this. So you're this being co-opted by the lobbyists that were here, distributed contracts inappropriately before. Uh, it's completely inappropriate, completely wrong. We're on your side, this whole board. I bleed labor and so I'm with you guys a hundred percent. And I know I, I'm not speaking for everybody, but I'm telling you everybody I know what the, what the, what the feeling of this board is. We care about working families, period. This chancellor cares about working families. Period. So I'm glad that there's, I I, I see,
I see a lot of the union leaders here. Just hope you know, we're all volunteers. None of us are paid to be here. We also sit on pension boards. We sit on the pension board for the board of education and I sit on the teacher's board for, for, for the chair. We give every day for a living. We feel your pain. We understand 4:00 AM we get it. We are with it. We want it better for you as, but it's gotta be the same for our students because ultimately kids being on buses for three hours is insane. We are with you. We're with you. We're gonna use AI to fix that. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, anyway, uh, anyway, I yield my time. Goodbye Was waiting for something, you know.
Okay. Uh, lemme go around. Um, is panel member, panel member SAP here? Back back. Um, are there any other panel members until panel member SAP returns that wish to speak? Okay. Yeah. Panel member STO and then panel member Hannah Jones. Okay. Panel member. All right. So good evening everybody. My name is Rema. I'm the Bronx Borough President. Appointee. We wanna get outta here on time. I appreciate it. So thank you. Um, but I'm also a parent. I'm a bus parent of a disabled child. Not a special child.
A disabled child, severely disabled child. And that child has been on a bus for 18 years. If, if a company takes too many routes, why are they doubled up then? So why is the route three hours? Have y'all ever seen the contract that you're fighting for? It doesn't say we can't have after school. They're charging us a arm and three legs for it. So there, there's problems with the language. So if you wanna educate this panel, you had 46 years to do it every month. Every month. I was out there for years
with my two minutes fighting every year for 10 years for busing. And that's why I got on this panel. That is how I got appointed. So let's go down the list. You mentioned vehicle enhancements and purchasing new vehicles and replacement. What is the schedule for this? Because we still have buses with no dual climate control. We have students that are routed for wheelchair buses and the company never has a wheelchair bus to send. How is that t's problem? Like how did OPT create that problem? OPT creates problems. I'm with you. We gonna get to them. They'll have their day.
That's not today. That's not this resolution. That's not this contract. We are for the workers. I've been out there with the workers fighting for your contract. I've been out there fighting for y'all to make sure that my route is not doubled up anymore. So you don't have to get home to your families at six, seven o'clock at night. Y'all wake up at four. We wake up at four. 'cause we gotta get those kids ready to get on that bus at five o'clock. Workers. We are not here about you. This is about the people that employ you, that get paid more than you do, where these contracts are lopsided. You are 12,000 of y'all. There's 150,000 children.
We have a fiduciary obligation to the students. We don't get paid. We are volunteers. And when the buses don't come, we do your job for free. For free. And I'm still saying that a five year contract is too long and I'm accepting that me and every other parent like me, I have three kids on the bus. It's gonna take me a long time. And I'm okay with that because I'm here to fight for you. The workers deserve better. This resolution is not about kids. It's about protecting workers so we can protect the kids. Listen, y'all haven't been working for the companies
for 46 years, but they've been extending these contracts. No other vendor has a 46 year extension. This is unfair. This is anti-competitive union. This is not competitive when 48 companies hold a contract for 46 years. Please hear us. We are here for students. And the last RFP for VS. At 172,000. It's not just the New York City Public School students, it's all the students in New York. So please understand that, that they are putting us against each other and that despite everything that y'all said to us tonight,
disrespecting the parents, telling a child that they're a plant. 'cause we hear you. That's not true. These people are upset. They're here every month. Where have you been? We've been here fighting for you workers. We've been begging them to air condition your buses. I scanned my buses on my campus every year. 131 degrees is unacceptable. We had a heat wave this year and I had a bus, a child, a kindergarten, D 75, non-verbal, non-speaking, excuse me, student pass out a my middle schooler's bus on a bus for 30 kids.
40 kids. OPT doesn't control climate, neither do we, but they have enough money. $1.9 billion in contracts to get y'all a ac vehicle for our kids. So please understand, we're here for you, your kids, your job, your livelihood. We're a union city. We support you. Y'all need to support us too. They are making money on all of us, and it is not fair. Thank you very much. Panel member. Okay, um, did, uh, panel member return? No. Are there any other panel members who wish to offer comment?
Are we ready to proceed to a vote? No. You're out. No, excuse me. Excuse me. You're not running this meeting, sir, would you please remain in order? Thank you. We no, we'll proceed to a vote. We have To come back next month. Hold on. No, let's not engage. We'll proceed to a vote. Okay. This, this point before we, before we proceed to a vote, we'll hear from the, uh, chancellor. Thank you. I wanna thank everyone who came and spoke tonight. We've said time and time again, this is a top issue and we get feedback on. And tonight was no exception. I especially wanna thank the drivers who came out and I want to say that we'll
be reaching out to meet further. Please know that we have been working diligently to persuade us to persuade a select group of bus vendors of not to make good on their threat, to lay off their workers as some of the first phases our students see in the morning. I know that you could be very helpful to us in thinking through what should be included in the contract when it comes to drivers. This includes bus working conditions on buses, which we've heard so much feedback on. I wanna elaborate on two key points. First, we appreciate that more than half of the companies did sign the emergency extensions they received last week and took that step to ensure some students will
not see a disruption in service. Those companies have avoided this conversation about layoffs of drivers and are prepared to continue service on Monday, November 3rd. Second, prioritization for busing services will be given to students with IEPs as legally required, including those with one-on-one nursing. Okay. Are there any other, uh, oh, pan member. Did, did you return Panama? Sap? Did you want to comment? Oh Yeah. Hi, panel member Maisha SAP here. Um, I don't know if I can add anything to what the other panel members have said, but we don't get paid for this job.
We don't even get paid to fuss like it is. It is unapologetic the amount of time and energy we spend connecting with parents and community. And then we all show up with a variety of backgrounds. Some com, um, community liaisons, people who look just like you. Where you going? I'm going to work. Where you going? I'm going to pep. You're, you're in the same, there is no disconnect. I think what happens is, is that we have to be comfortable examining everything.
And that is one thing that this panel can do. It can say, let's put it out there and at least examine what is actually going on. What are people actually saying? The problem is, is that there's a level of disconnect from the people, from, from the people who are at who this greatly impacts. You're sitting amongst the 2% of the people who is not working for, you're sitting right where they come every single month. And I think we really need to close those gaps. And as parents
and the, uh, reflecting the community, we really have to understand what the setup is, what the game is. Because if we can create tension amongst ourselves, then you have people that are just watching it play out. Now we have to know that that is actually what happens. Because as soon as we leave here, we'll be having some other parent meetings. We have to take it to the streets. That's our job as pep members. We, we are the people. We are no better than anybody else. We are a reflection of the people in real time. Not in industrial age time,
but in real time in today's time. Like now, now means now, now, not now, five years from now, but what is actually happening And we can't allow people to get in between those conversations and tell you some other stuff. No, I hear, I get it from the horse's mouth. I get it. Why? Because I just left the person and the people who we're supposed to be representing every single day. This is not a game for us. We are the people. A parent comes up to me, Hey, you are on a panel. I say, I am you. I'm a, a reflection of you.
There is no play, play here. We are the people. So anybody else who can tell you anything else, let's start examining what people are telling us. Just put it in front of you and just look at it and, and, and, and have enough courage and enough. Dag I really worked so hard for this. Let me see what's actually working. I don't wanna be amongst the 2% that this is not working for. Those are somebody's children that didn't make it. So all we're saying is this panel, if it's one thing that we're able to do, it's just look at it
and examine and that's, and I yield. That's all. Just examine. That's our job. Thank, thank you panel member. Are there any of other panel members who have not spoken that wish to speak? Okay, I think we're ready to proceed with a vote. Um, I'll ask secretary to please call the role on the resolution. Yes. Motion. Motion Unanimous. Okay. Uh, is, I see a lot of seconds for unanimous consent, um, which makes a powerful statement. Is there a is there, is is there, say again? Objection.
Yeah. Is there objection to unanimous consent? No, without objection. The resolution is adopted and, uh, let me say, I'm hopeful that, you know, we can reach some resolution. We have, you know, some, some time and hopefully we'll be able to reach a resolution that, um, will be fair and equitable to all. Um, guess what folks? Fair before we go to public comment, I wanna announce vote. Oh, Yes. We wanted results of that first vote, right? Yes. So other than items 20 through 23,
all the remaining items on the contract resolution passed by a vote of 18 in favor, no apo, none opposed and no abstentions. Item 20, um, did these items did not pass, but the vote for item 20 was nine yeses, four nos, five abstentions. Item 21 was 10 yeses, four nos, four abstentions. Item 22 was nine. Yes, four nos, five abstentions, and item 23 was nine yeses, five nos, and four abstentions.
So none of those reached, received a majority of the whole votes for passing. Okay, thank you very much. Are there any, uh, additional comments or questions before we adjourn? I think we have to do open comment. Sorry, Open comment, open. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We'll now move to open comment. Oh, okay. So we'll now open the floor for general public comment. Um, and I ask the secretary to call roles for anyone who's signed up for general public comment. I'll call group names and groups of five. Make your way down to the microphone. Lauren Ashkenazi. Christina Marlo.
There's another Ashkenazi, rayon, Meki, Rachel, Kate Miller, or any of those names here? Here. Okay, great. Work your way down to the microphone. Introduce yourself and Hi. Begin. Hello. Hi. This good? Mm-hmm. Oh, you're here. Okay. No, it's okay. Um, I'm Rachel Kate Miller. Uh, if that's okay, we're just switching our order a bit. It's fine. It's fine. Great. It's late. Let's just skip through this. Um, hi, I'm Rachel Kate Miller. I am a mom of third grader Chloe and a kindergartner Max
and co-president of the River School. PS 2 81 PTA. We're a beautiful school located in the 35th and first in Manhattan full of bright, vibrant kids and some of the most dedicated teachers you have ever seen. And I'm here today and continued advocacy going on five months for the students and teachers this past May. Our PTA raised concerns with the district about our current leadership, principal Orleans citing egregious teacher turnover due to a psychologically unsafe work environment. And what we learned as parents is systematic denial, delay in refusal of students with IEPs. She didn't even apply for class size funding. This year.
In June, our incredibly brave teachers shared their stories, banded together and held a 93% vote of no confidence in Principal Orleans. Investigations were launched this August. Our community was informed that Principal Orleans returned and we were promised she was committed to change. We have seen no change, no acts of unity, no listening sessions. What we have seen is complete failure of leadership, no acknowledgement of the vote, of no confidence, no accountability or responsibility for any students or wrongdoing, no community building. And she continues to act as none of this has ever happened.
How can we repair the damage done to our school by the years of losing amazing teachers and by hurting students with someone who will not accept what has happened? You cannot talk about trust with a leader who disappears, gaslights and when is seen, offer statements that have the thinnest connection to the truth. Truth. In the PEP meetings that I've attended and listened to, the panel deals with meaningful, impactful themes that touch all of our citizens and our wonderful, wonderful city, racism, ableism, and bullying. We are appealing to you today to help make a change to the river school that that 500
of our most vulnerable citizens and 40 of the most dedicated educators may learn and teach with dignity. Thank you for your time. You, you can begin. Okay. Hi, Jesus. Sorry. Hi. Hi. My, that was my teacher voice. My name is Lauren Ashkenazi and I am the UFT chapter leader at the River school. I have been a special education teacher for 19 years, and I've been at the river school for nine years. To echo what Rachel is saying, since the nine years that I've been there, there are only three teachers left that I started with. We had a turnover last year of 13 teachers leaving due
to our toxic work environment. I would like to read to you what was included in our vote of no confidence. On June 3rd, 2025, we engaged in a no vote of no confidence in the leadership of Jessica Orleans, which resulted in 43 staff members voting, only one person voting for the confidence of Principal Orleans leadership. Individuals have witnessed experienced conduct of principle that includes, but is not limited to retaliation against staff who raise legitimate concerns to advocate for the wellbeing of students and colleagues. Consistent bereavement, belittlement of staff, creating a climate of fear and intimidation, inappropriate
and disrespectful interactions with students, which undermines their sense of safety, dignity and respect, unprofessional physical contact with students. Persistent failure to collaborate with U-F-T-N-Y-C caps contractual committees to pro, professional, supportive, collaborative environment, engaging in unfair labor practice and union. Unanimous failure to create an environment for families, which allows caretakers to bring up issues, questions, and concerns about school community, deliberately targeting the deliberate targeting of students and staff who are part of a legally protected class such
as people of color and persons with disability. In light of these serious allegations, we requested that our superintendent, Kelly McGuire and the district two take immediate action to conduct independent unbiased investigations into principal orleans's management practice. We are now here almost in November, and nothing has changed. Yesterday I sat at my monthly consultation meeting with Principal Orleans and asked a simple question, what concrete steps have you taken to build trust with your staff? She could not provide any examples and had no answer to me. If she continues to run the river school, it is sending a message to all of the district two teachers
and families that no one cares about us and no one is willing to help us. And I also wanna just say, you are patients. Thank you so much from a pre-K teacher, it takes a lot to deal with all of that, so thank you. Thank you. Another Ashkenazi, this is the other Ashkenazi. Good evening members of the panel. My name is Bonnie Ashkenazi and I am here tonight as a parent of a child at the River School. PS 2 81. I wanna share what my family has experienced under the leadership of Principal Orleans. My child has been gaslit, bullied,
has had her mental health questioned. Comments have been made about her ethnicity, including, you're lucky you don't look Jewish and asking if her friend's school is black. She has also been physically intimidated in meetings and told maybe the river school isn't the right place for you. After raising the concerns about Principal Orleans, my daughter Lauren Kin have the 19 year veteran teacher with the New York City Department of Education. She has dedicated every, every ounce of her energy to those children, and now she has to put more energy into
a situation that is not of her doing. Yeah. After the previous chapter leader left, she stepped up as the UFT chapter leader and she quickly discovered this administration was not supportive, not transparent, and not following contractual obligations. The staff has been threatened in silence and parents are being told that they're struggling. Children might be better off at other schools instead of receiving the entit, the support that they're entitled to. Families have struggled to access basic department of education mandated services,
and educators have been discouraged from communicating with the PTA. These conditions have led to a high staff turnover and a serious decline in morale. Last May, the staff held the vote of no confidence in Principal Orleans. Only one person voted in her favor. This is not how a school should operate. Our children, our families, our educators deserve leadership built on respect, transparency, and accountability. Thank you. Okay. Well, can I ask you, but, but Suzanne, I I think one of the specific things you mentioned, we really need to follow up, um, specifically on that.
Um, uh, so if you could make sure that we have your information. Uh, is he here? Yep. Mark Is Mark ent. I thought I saw him. Is Mark Rampant still here? There he is. There he is. Lauren's had meetings with the assistant superintendent, the superintendent, the super superintendent. Uh, you know, it's all documented. There's, it's, it's there. Yeah. So we need you to meet With our chief back there, chief rampant. Just raise that. Yeah. Yep. There we go. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, I'm, my name is Maria Moreno.
I am the mother of a neuro divergent child at PS 2 81, the river school. I'm here to express my deep concerns about continuing to have principal orient in her position. Despite multiple concerns from parents and about of no confidence from teachers, my son has an individualized education plan. In November of 2024, it was determined that he required a full-time paraprofessional. Although this was approved early in November, it took around three weeks or a little bit more for the pro pro paraprofessional to be assigned, even though there was one in staff available during
that time, my repeated emails, my calls, my ipro two in-person visits were unanswered. The assignment only happened thanks to the persistent advocacy of his teacher, Ms. Eskenazi, let me be clear. The teachers and classroom staff at River School work tirelessly for our children every day. The problem lies with school leadership where decisions are too often delay, dismiss, or simply ignored. This school year, we have gone two months without occupational therapist, not on site, not external,
two months of missed services. The only reason someone is finally being hired for, um, hopefully mid-November, is because of parents advocacy directly to the district. Even though Principal Alliance knew about this and how many kids needed OT services back in June as part of children with disabilities, we already navigate a complex system between appointments and advocating for our children. We should not have to fight this hard for having our children get the rights that they legally the services, services
that they legally deserve. These barriers are barriers to equity and inclusion in our public schools. The experiences of my family and many others at River School that you will hear tonight are not isolated mistakes, but systematic failures that demand attention and accountability. And I know that math is up by Morgan Stone. This incident reflect the payload in leadership, and we are asking for inclusion, transparency, and respect in the school community. We are calling for a change in leadership to ensure that the river school becomes some place where inclusion is not only promise,
but it's actually practice. Thank you. Uh, hello. My name is Christina Marillo and I'm in support of the River School. I'm reading a statement from a family that fears retaliation from principal Jessica Orleans. I believe my son. It speaks to many family's experiences at the river school today. In my son's case, he was denied both a para and a physical therapy sessions, even though these supports were clearly written into his IEP. Jessica Orleans denied the services saying that the school didn't have the resources to provide them. We were told that the only way for my son
to receive the support he needed was to transfer to another school. Ms. Orleans put a lot of pressure on us to accept a placement elsewhere. This pressure occurred in a verbal manner in her office, one-on-one warning that if we didn't decide quickly, our son might have to be sent outside our district. Later. I found out through advocacy group, adv advocacy groups and organizations that support special needs families, that funding was probably available for him. Learning that was heartbreaking, not only because of what it meant for my child, but
because it showed that the denial wasn't about resources at all. It was about a choice, a choice not to support a child who had every right to be there and receive the help he needed. I was told by these adv adv, oh, sorry, these groups to look for the social workers who were only maybe available one or two days at PS 2 81 back then. And had he helped us in future communications with Ms. Orleans, I told the social worker that the emotional stress was too much. We understand that our child needed a smaller group setting
in order to keep up with the academic rigor. However, the way it was communicated with by, and the interactions with Ms. Orleans made us feel unwanted, and she made it clear that it was an urgent matter to relocate my child to a different school. Until this day, my husband and I remember those rough days. This is not just our story. The next group of speakers are Neil Straw, Amy da, excuse me, Sarah Rothermell, um, Mariah Moray Roddas, and Lori Crawford.
If I've called your name and you get to the microphone, you can introduce yourself and begin speaking. Uh, Amy Dowd. I'm a paraprofessional celebrating my 25th year of service to the city and the children in November of next of this year. In June of 2025, our UFT chapter of Richmond pre-K teachers and Paraprofessionals United to Vote No Confidence in Principal Joy Abrams by staggering in historic 96%, there were 36 grievances. In the document, we created 36 reasons why the majority of my colleagues and I find Principal Abrams unfit
for her position leading our school. Principal Abrams repeatedly fails to communicate with our staff in an appropriate and timely manner, leading to situations where staff that deal directly with our students' instruction and needs are in a near constant state of choosing between what best suits the children's needs versus what would best please Principal Abrams. Principal Abrams will frequently leave emails from staff on red or on ignored for days or weeks at a time last week, I followed up in a conversation regarding training by sending a registration link she had requested. I followed up three times over the course of a week.
The only response was an invitation to a virtual meeting that took me away from my class. During morning arrival, a particularly crucial time for our two and 3-year-old students. Principal Abrams never joined the meeting she set up. I sat alone in front of an iPad for 20 minutes, not very productive use of my workday, reminiscent of when she denied my right to request time for cancer screening. During a day when students would not be in attendance, she mandated that I instead take that time from an instructional day, either requiring a full day substitute for the two hours I required, or creating a staffing shortage at my site, not safe for the children. When Principal Abrams replied to my next inquiry,
she request regarding the information she had requested, she suggested I phone her at another site when I had a chance Panel members. My work date is not allowed for chance. Phone calls. I'm with students every working moment of my day. I should expect the leader of our school to know that I should expect her to show up for meetings. She schedules. I should expect her to know the policies and guidelines of the Department of Education that she represents. I should expect her to put the needs of my students above her need to micromanage with no follow through. This leader is failing to meet our school community's expectations and needs. Joy Abrams is unfit for this role as I
and historic 96% no confidence vote of school staff half presented to, to 31 Superintendent Polton and the Chancellor's Office. Thank you for your time. Begin council members. I know it's late, but I stand before you tonight as a parent of a thriving, thriving river school student to speak on behalf of the incredible educators who serve our students every day. They are the definition of dedication. They arrive early, stay late, and work tirelessly to ensure student success, including my daughters. Despite the environment they are forced to navigate, they are the single greatest asset of this school.
We are not here tonight because of their failure. We are here because of their success and is being actively hindered by terrible leadership and management. I can appreciate the length and thoroughness of the investigatory process and the great power of unions, as I have spent many years on the management defense side, including school districts. But I have also seen the harm caused by poor leadership and institutions failure to address it. We need to address this situation now, not months from now. As you've heard, we are not dealing with a rumor of a small grievance. We are dealing with an overwhelming statistical fact.
A 93% vote of no competence in Principle Orleans. Think about that number. That is not just a majority, that is a near unanimous rejection of the current administrative style. This level of consensus across a professional staff is unprecedented except for Richmond pre-K. The dedication of our teachers to their students is what makes this school great, not its principal. They continue to put in the work, not because of the leadership, but in spite of it. They know that if you don't have respect, you don't have anything. And for too long their professionalism has been met
with disrespect and ineffective management. By keeping Principal Orleans in this school, we all but guarantee the continued loss of our most talented teachers. They are being pushed out or overwhelmed by a toxic environment, forcing them to choose their wellbeing over their love of our children. This constant unnecessary turnover directly destroys our institutional knowledge and breaks the crucial continuity essential of student success. Nothing has changed despite this obvious crisis. I need seven more seconds. The doe's action in keeping Principal Orleans in her position, despite the vote of no competence
and other issues that you've heard is a clear message to our teachers. Your concerns do not matter. The data is clear. Uh, furthermore, the policy must address ethical accountability. The very existence of a police report filed against Principal Orleans on behalf of a student creates an unacceptable risk and uncertainty within our school environment. The data is clear. The dedication of our faculty is clear. The need for change is absolute thank. Am I right? Hello, my name is Lori Crawford.
I'm here tonight to ask for your help. I've been a substitute paraprofessional for seven years, including the last two years doing long-term work at the district. 31 pre-K Center at the Teleport in Staten Island on June 18th, 2025. Immediately following a pre-K graduation principal, Dr. Abrams yelled at a parent and myself in front of students, families, and staff when we both raised a safety concern created in the classroom by Dr. Abrams, a safety concern which affected our youngest learners.
Her words were humiliating and unprofessional. She did this in front of the young children who were already confused and upset by the scene. The next day, I was informed that I could no longer work, not only at the Teleport, but any Department of Education School due to false allegations. There is absolutely no truth to these claims. I have not been able to return to work since this is completely devastating. She has not only cost me months of work, loss of income for my family. She's trying to destroy my character. Principal. Dr.
Abrams consistently treats staff and substitutes with disrespect. She uses intimidation and humiliation instead of leadership. I'm here today to ask for accountability and fairness. Please. No educator should lose their job because of lies and retaliation. Thank you. My name is Yael Gola and I'm a parent of a student at the River School. Tonight, I will also be reading a testimony on behalf of another River School family, a family who wanted to share their story, but prefer to remain anonymous.
These testimonies reflect the experiences of parents, of children with disabilities who have faced delays, intimidation, or barriers, while trying to secure the services and support their children are legally entitled to. I share their words tonight because every child deserves access to an inclusive, supportive, and equitable education. And no parent should have to be afraid to speak up for their child's rights. Here we go. When my child was in third grade, he was diagnosed with autism, A DHD, and intermittent explosive disorder. Because of these conditions, he faced challenges with focus,
emotional regulation and behavior, which affected his grades and classroom experiences. Instead of providing the support and understanding my child needed, the school administration often failed to meet his needs. They regularly called me to pick him up whenever he had a tantrum or emotional outburst. Rather than using calming strategies or providing behavioral support, this happened almost every week and it made it difficult for my child to feel stable and included in his learning environment. The administration also insisted that my child should be transferred to District 75.
However, I believed that with proper support, accommodations and trained staff, my child could continue to learn and succeed in a general education setting. The school is a good environment for typical children, but it is not supportive for kids with behavioral, emotional, or developmental challenges such as autism or A DHD. Through this experience, I realized how important it is for schools to be more inclusive and to have staff who are trained to understand and support children with special needs. Not to exclude them, but to help them grow
and reach their potential. Thank you. Next group of speakers is Corey Muirhead, Janelle Canal Canals, Jamie Paulsen, Francis Garish, and Suzanne Ramos. Hello. Thank you so much for continuing to be attentive and to be here. Um, my name is Jamie Ine. I work with the United Federation of Teachers. I am I taught special education for 11 years in the Bronx. Some of those years overlapping with Chancellor at Truman.
Um, so thank you so much to the Chancellor, um, for, for being here. And thank you for your professionalism, your patience, and your continued voluntary commitment to this work. Um, and thank you to everyone who's still here. It's, it's been a night. Um, the chancellor recently began an initiative kindness over bullies, and I'm very grateful that this is a priority and I enthusiastically support it. Unfortunately, sometimes those bullies are principals of our schools, and I'm here in solidarity
with both the River school and my siblings in Staten Island. For years, the River School's trust scores and administration have been alarmingly low. Most recently, only 31% of respondents felt they could trust the principal at her word, or that the principal cared about the welfare of the staff. While a concerning number, staff members actually believe these results are inflated, because some members who had been vocal about their concerns with the administration were not given a code for completing the survey. How does the DOE use this data
and how do districts, districts respond to the data and provide support and oversight? Please help the River school and please help the schools across this city telling you with their survey results that there is a problem. Please help our schools find their way back to kindness. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Suzanne Ramos and I work at the District 31 pre-K Centers. Um, this is my 29th year teaching and, um, our leader is a pers the most challenging personality I've encountered. Um, I'd like to tell you about how chaotic
and unorganized our leader is and how that trickles down to the staff. The beginning of our school year is a great example. On the first few days of school before tea, before students arrive, we have to receive certain important documents, a class list and emergency blue cards. Those are imperative to help us to be un to be organized and be ready to receive children. We did not receive our class list until the morning of the first day of school for children. We did not receive the emergency blue cards until two o'clock moments before dismissal.
We need those emergency cards in order to dismiss three and four year olds. We don't know the families yet. We didn't receive those until two o'clock. Um, all of these documents help us to be organized and as I said before, she's not organized and that trickles down to us not being organized. And not only is, um, everything chaotic and unorganized, but she has shown time and time again how she has no respect for her staff. I mean, we experienced this, um, monthly at our consultation meetings,
whenever we bring up a topic, an issue, um, a problem. Her response is always, I'll take that under consideration, under advisement. And, um, there's never a resolution. There's never, um, a problem solved. An example of that is procession opportunities. Um, we've been directed to volunteer for after school and other functions for the children, but, um, never being offered per session. Always asked to volunteer. Um, district leadership forced Dr. Abrams to share the budget with our chapter leader,
and we noticed that there was a budget line of $65,000 allocated specifically for procession activities. All of these events could have been paid per session, but she asked people to volunteer when this subject was broached with her, um, that there was money set aside for this. Dr. Abram said, I'd rather the money went back to the DOE than to give you procession when we know that Dr. Abrams herself was receiving procession monies. Right? This is the kind of leader that Dr. Abrams is. Um, she's chaotic, disorganized, negligent, cruel,
and hypocritical. Not someone that should be the leader of three and 4-year-old children. This job should be sunshine and rainbows and she makes it not that at all. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Fran Garish. My son is a student at the Richmond pre-K Center at the Teleport site. A child's first bully should not be their principal. He is thriving at the Richmond pre-K Center due to the teachers there. And in spite of the awful leadership of Principal Joy Abrams, as a parent of a preschooler, it's a leap of faith to leave your children in
the care of strangers. The teachers at this location have been fantastic, all while experiencing constant harassment from this principal, and they've done it with smiles on their faces. However, we cannot let this continue. This principle does not communicate, can be outright cruel and refuses to answer even basic communication like emails from parents. I'm still waiting for an answer for one. I sent myself looking for an explanation of why only my son was split off from the rest of his three K classmates. He was the only student that had not one student in his class from the previous year. When I asked the one assistant principal who did speak with me and didn't ignore my emails,
I was told the process was random. Why? Why would it be random? Why would they not take the social emotional wellbeing into the child of the child into consideration when choosing the class for each grade? Because it was only decided the morning of when the teachers got their class lists. My son cried every single morning entering school. Why? He asked and asked why he was separated from his friends. It is not a concern of Dr. Abrams to be concerned with the social emotional wellbeing of her students. Neither is following protocols or providing orientation for students. And if it were so many
of these issues could have been addressed. But instead, she scheduled the sneak peek and then canceled it and then with no word and no orientation for the students, we found out who our children's teachers were going to be the morning of the first day of school last year, my son was in an ICT three clay class, and every day at pick up, the teachers would come out and give you a little update. It was great. And then Dr. Abrams decided that teachers were not allowed to come out and speak with the parents. And she said, first it was the guys that, well,
a teacher needs to remain in the classroom. Well, he was in an ICT class. There could have been a teacher in the classroom and a teacher that came out to meet with the parents. It's just an example of how Dr. Abrams would, would, would try to prevent the parents from speaking with the teachers to find out how dreadful the conditions were for those teachers. I hope that us being here and obviously staying here throughout this kind of circus that we've had tonight can just highlight how important it is for me as a parent to be here this late at night in support of these teachers and how fearful we all were last year to even bring up any
of these concerns and fear of retaliation from Dr. Abrams. You Mind speaking? Your time has expired, so if you could just wrap up. I, I appreciate and I really appreciate you all listening to us and Sure. Doing this as volunteer work. Obviously we understand what it's like to Do this. Our children, thank you for staying late into the, uh, into the evening. Thank you. Hello, my name is Christine Shi. I know I'm not on the list, but I am the wife of the para who was working at the river school. My husband has a disability. He has cerebral palsy.
He is also the one who was mentioned by some of the teachers and parents who also work at the river school. He started in 2022, got hired by her, but he's been with the DOE since 2015. She has him monitoring 30 kids by himself sometime in the lunchroom, sometime out in, in the yard. She send him into the yard for three hours during fall and winter when it's cold,
he doesn't do well with cold. She also had, um mm-hmm. Harassed him to the point where every morning he comes in, the first thing he has to do is go into the office after or to Daria every single day. He was supposed to be given a child, and mind you, he's apparel. You have t the parents who just testified a while ago to you that there are kids with IEPs, but for some reason she doesn't give him a child. Instead she have him doing hall duty, yard duty in the cold,
in the lunchroom, sitting in the hallway. Also try to have him be the security guard at the front door, which I end up sending a message to Lauren. Lauren send it to the UFT, um, rep who end up sending it to the, to the superintendent who chewed her ass out Monday morning about it. I am not one who, who basically likes a bully. I don't like anybody taking advantage of anybody who has a disability. I am fierce, very fierce when it comes to my husband.
Okay, let's get that straight. She stressed him out to the point he has headaches. Headaches that were unexplained. And for somebody who has cerebral palsy that can lead to anything, I had to take him to his doctor, had the neurologist talk to him, set up a CT scan. Thank god nothing was found. Okay. Uh, unfortunately your time has expired, but we would like to follow up with you with some of the things you said. If we could identify somebody that could collect. Is somebody here? Yeah, we could just share information
with, uh, where's Mark? Ent? Oh, he is in the back. Okay. The gentleman in the back with his hand raised, if you could connect. No, I saw her. She just said yes. Well, I, whoever, you know, just connect with him and, um, One more thing. I I, I actually can't because we actually inserted you, you weren't on the list. We, we, you have an opportunity to speak. We, we heard your message and we're asking you to follow up. Okay, thank you. Oh, yeah, actually, yes, if there was additional testimony, you can submit it in writing to our, our website and we'll, you know, and it'll get reviewed Also
Talk to more. Okay. But in the meantime, don't sit down or make sure you connect with Yeah, Please speak to the gentleman. Uh, way in the back. Yeah. Oh, Thank you. The next group, um, Sarah Shater Berg, Tamara Farrell, Alex ao, Vic, Amy Crane, sky, Hollenback. I think it's okay. You can start speaker To the right. Okay. I'll go first. Okay. Good evening. My name is Tamara Ferrell. I am the CEC uh, rep on eight.
Um, I am talking right now about, um, school foods. Um, Lila talked about it a little bit earlier. Um, I am not, I'm no longer the D 75 rep on seven, but I'm still getting calls from the school, um, complaining about, um, school lunches. Um, last month at pep we was at Queens and they had chicken lo, main fresh fruits, all those things. Principals and teachers and seven and eight are telling me that their kids are not getting, that their students are getting, uh, mozzarella sticks that's not fully cooked. Um, pizza, the same, same things over and over again.
Lala talked about it earlier. Um, I have a meeting with a teacher in district seven, a principal, excuse me, in district seven to talk about, um, school, um, lunches. Um, just wondering what, uh, what can we do because like they're, they're not getting the same, the school, all the schools are not getting the same thing and it's, um, disparity. And so I'm just here to mention that. I also wanted to touch bases on, um, the busing contract, but most of the bus companies are gone.
Um, but I did wanna say that as adults, you would think that they can handle themselves better than that. To be hacking a 11-year-old is disgusting. And, um, Mr. Faulkland, you had a rough night tonight. Even Lala gave you some heat and, um, I don't know where Lala is at, but do not, you lose, do not lose that spirit. Uh, speaking on behalf of her siblings who take the bus. As long as they thought that she was speaking on the behalf of them, it was let her talk. But now that she's telling her experiences from her siblings point of view, it wasn't let her speak.
And I just think that as adults, if that's the way you treat an 11-year-old, I could imagine with the, with, with our children who would have limited speech, which my son had limited speech is going through on these buses. And so, um, tonight, uh, my heart went out to Eli because, um, if I was her parent, it would've took a lot for me not to be just one person against everybody in the room heckling her. So that's just what I wanted to say. Uh, I've been hot trying to hold that in, so have a good night. Speaker to my left. Good evening, all.
My name is Sky Hollenbeck and I am a former River school staff member. In June, I made the decision to resign after trying to work under the often trouble troublesome leadership of Principal Jessica Orleans. Tonight, I would like to share a personal story with you. In 2023, principal Orleans asked me to join the River School as a paraprofessional to work directly with a second grade student who had high support needs. Because she was familiar with my background as a behavioral therapist, the student and I had tremendous success together To witness this young person transform from refusing to enter the classroom door
to being interactive on the carpet in mere days is some of my happiest, most rewarding work to date. Then abruptly, I was pulled from the classroom and resigned or reassigned to support in the main office. When I questioned this, it was explained that we don't want the student to have too much success in the classroom because if he did, the parent would have no reason to find a new school. As I'm sure many of you in this room are aware, it is a public school. A public school in New York City has the responsibility to serve all students who live in its own to the best of its ability, even if an alternate placement is deemed
necessary until that new setting is finalized. Instead of doing that, we were instructed to withhold services so that this family would be motivated to get out of the school quicker. While I was in the office alphabetizing files, this child was upstairs regressing to the point of daily bathroom accidents that were not happening before, and the parents were being told we simply did not have the staff to support his needs as someone qualified to help this child and available to do so. I was and remained disgusted by this lie when the father came in to ask why his child's basic needs were being ignored.
Principal Jessica Orleans shut her door. Whether the decision to remove essential one-to-one services for a student with disability disabilities was made out of sheer ineptitude or outright ableism. We can only speculate what is not speculation is the observable regression and distress inflicted on the student and family. As a result, the school has a leadership problem that is causing real life and long lasting harm. We came here tonight, PS 2 81 to ask you to ask you the panel to support our call for the removal
of Jessica Orleans from PS 2 81, the River School. We demand accountability and leadership change. Thank you. Next speaker. My name is Amy Crane and I'm here tonight to ask for your help. I have been a teacher at the district 81 pre-K centers for 11 years. I'm also its chapter leader. For the past five years, my school has been led by Dr. Joy Abrams, a principal who has created a toxic school culture where staff members do not feel valued. In June, my school conducted a vote of no confidence against Dr. Abrams, which resulted in 96% of staff voting.
They had no confidence in her leadership. The New York City Public School's own survey for staff showed issues with Dr. Abrams, instructional leadership, teacher influence, and principal to teacher trust showing sharp declines in these areas. During Dr. Abrams tenure as principal, for example, the D 31 Teleport site survey shows principal to teacher trust at 33%. This is 61% below the citywide average of 94%. Over these past five years, her leadership has originated confusion, chaos and safety concerns.
Her toxic leadership has made good educators and staff question their abilities every day, causing good educators to leave our school. My school currently has 12 open para nominations. We have been told by our superintendent to resolve issues at consultations, but these meetings have been useless, sometimes even volatile. Her responses are challenging to understand, never resulting in resolutions or providing clear directions. She uses responses. I am not aware of this, or I'll take that under advisement. As avoidance tactics. When her mismanagement is exposed, her lack of clarity is simply her way of avoiding accountability.
It is clear she does not want to be responsible for the difficult task of principalship. In the past, district leadership has allowed her to hide behind frivolous excuses of why there continued to be problems. When staff state that daily school operations run smoother, when Dr. Abrams is not there, it is apparent that she does not belong in the role of principal. The students, families, and staff of District 31 pre-K centers deserve a principal who wants to build culture and capacity. Until these deeper issues are addressed, the problems will remain. At District 31 pre-K centers, our youngest learners and the staff who support them deserve better there.
Hi, my name is Alex Alevi. I'm the father of Michael Alevi 4-year-old child with CP who attends the Richmond pre-K Center at Teleport. I need to say that our children are not the subject of a performance plan, especially at three and four years old. Dr. Abrams is currently in her performance plan. She was an assistant principal at a school in Brooklyn where many similar allegations were made about her insufficient leadership and retaliation tactics. Somehow she was then promoted to principal over preschool centers in Staten Island. I never thought you could have a core reviews complaint and still get promoted. For whatever reason the promotion was given. It did not work. Dr. Aburns is still an inadequate, insufficient,
and simply poor administrator. Our time to prove herself needs to end The next group of speakers, Andre Thiel, Steven Galster, Benny Carol, Donna Chin More Moreno. You can start. Just please introduce yourself. Hi, Bethany Carroll. I stand here tonight. A veteran, retired teacher with 32 years experience in early childhood education. Although I am no longer under the supervision of Dr. Abrams, I am concerned for the students and staff who are I have been on the receiving end of Dr.
Abrams inappropriate sarcasm and condescending comments during consultation meetings. When she questioned my expertise in social emotional learning, all I asked for was clarification on a school policy. Dr. Abrams came to Richmond pre-K centers with limited experience in early childhood. One would think that she would be invested in the expertise and experiences of early childhood teachers and respect their input and knowledge into topics discussed. However, the reality is she's unwilling to listen to our concerns or to collaborate.
I have also been on the receiving end of her retaliation efforts when I received an unsatisfactory on my end of year review rating in June, 2024, her basis for giving me a u rating, my not volunteering my time after contractual hours at my grievance hearing when she was asked to present her evidence for granting me a u rating. All Dr. Abrams presented was a satisfactory rating on my formal observation for the 2324. Second, I I noted this is an important conversation back,
but it's a little, um, distracting. If you need to step outside maybe to, to complete that conversation. But, um, I want to make sure we can focus on the speakers. Continue. I'm sorry. That's okay. Uh, my grievance hearing when she was asked to present her evidence for granting me a u rating, all Dr. Abrams presented was a satisfactory rating on my formal observation for the 2324 school year prior to the receipt of my unsatisfactory rating. I was never informed that I was not performing success successfully in the classroom, nor was a subsequent calendar
of support provided. Dr. Abrams is not well versed in the early childhood curriculum creative curriculum. Her compensation is to bog down staff with redundant, duplicative paperwork and keep staff from having the time and the means to work collaboratively. Dr. Abrams has not been a successful leader of Richmond pre-K centers. Her lack of expertise, professionalism and lack of true concern for students and staff presenter, from providing a nurturing learning environment for students and creates a hostile work environment for staff,
we hope this can change. Thank you. I'm Ria Moreno, but I'm Laura. Thank you. Um, hi. Hello, my name is Laura Simpson. Uh, today I'll be reading a testimonial with permission from my river family. The names have been changed at the family's request. Let me tell you about a student named Maya at the River School. Maya now in third grade is navigating the complicated path of formalizing an individualized education program. IEP. Her challenges are significant. She struggles daily with both A DHD and anxiety disorder from the IEP team to truly help her.
They don't just need data. They need a so deep understanding of her entire educational experience. They need her history. The crucial life-changing difference came from Ms. Rebecca. Ms. Rebecca was Maya's second grade teacher, and tragically she's the only teacher remaining from the staff. Maya has known since she first walked into the river school in pre-K because Ms. Rebecca stayed because we would retain her. She was able to sit with the IEP team, provide the institutional memory that literally saved Maya's plan. She didn't just report grades. She recounted the precise moment in the winter
of second grade when Maya's A DHD symptoms escalated. The specific audio and visual cues that reliably interrupts an anxiety spiral and the nonverbal signal that lets Maya know that her teacher sees her struggle without signalling. Without signalling her out. Ms. Rebecca's retains knowledge provided the long longitudinal longit in Joel, sorry, the human data, the rich narrative of Maya's growth and struggle with no new hire, no matter how talented could ever replicate this deep, unspoken,
unbroken, uh, relationship, was instrumental in crafting an IEP that truly dressed the complex intersection of Maya's A DHA and anxiety. Not just treating symptoms but honoring the whole child. This is why teacher retention is not just an abstract goal. It is a moral imperative, especially at the River school where a district who, well, for a district two school turnover has been consistently high year after year. When we allow experienced, committed elementary teachers to leave due to a toxic work environment, we are not just losing a staff member. We are raising a part of the childhood story.
We are sacrificing the continuity that is a lifeblood of learning, especially for those with the most pronounced needs. We must commit to retaining our elementary educators like Ms. Rebecca. We must do it for all students like Avaya out there. Their presence is not a convenience. It's a very foundation of their future. Let's stop the exodus and restore the stability our children deserve. Thank you for your time. Good evening. My name is Donna Chin. I'm here as the ENL teacher at the river school, 10 years, um, 25 year DOE veteran. Um, thank you so much for your time and, uh, let's get into it.
At our river school, we have some rivers. So I'm gonna start off. I hope you're river ready. We're gonna start off with a river recap of tonight's, uh, speeches and hopefully end with a river request. Right now with our students being right now, our students are being directly impacted by the lack of communication and staffing under our current principal. We still do not have an ot, which was, um, spoken about. So I'm gonna skip that part. Um, in addition, we have students with severe health and behavioral needs who don't have an assigned paraprofessional, and teachers and staff are being stretched thin, trying
to fill those gaps, but is not consistent nor sustainable or safe for students and staff. We want to work together, but commun, but communication breakdowns and unfulfilled positions are creating instability, anxiety, and inconsistency for our children. Additionally, with our high staff turnover rates 30% each year. For the last three years, majority of our staff is untenured. And within the first five years of their teaching careers, we need more training and more support, not only in that topics, um,
but also how to support children with diverse learning needs. Monday was our first ever all staff sped pd, thanks to the, uh, the contribution of the UFT and, um, those efforts. We demand transparent updates, accountability, and timely staffing so our students can receive the consistent quality education they're entitled to. This has been so extremely difficult and challenging given our current leadership. In closing, here's the recap, river recap. We have a river request for a river, river removal
or reassignment for Principal Orleans. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next group of speakers, Jean de Leon Antoinette Giardano, John Ello, um, Jacqueline Schiano, late Amari Brown. You can make your way down to the microphone and just introduce yourself. You're there. You can start. I Can start. Oh wow. Hi. Hi. Okay, so I did not know I was gonna be here this late. And it's so many issues that so many parents,
and of course I stand with the teachers, the para, the TAs. And because my son is on the spectrum and takes the bus, I rely on the bus in order for me to go to work. So I stand with them as well. But the staff, the dispatcher and the bus staff has to also be respectful to children who can speak to them and who cannot speak to them. So this might be minor to some, but it's very big for me because my son can't speak, so I have to be his voice. So I was told today, and I need you guys to inform me because I'm only been a mom for about to be four years,
and my son's on the spectrum, so I'm not well versed on things. But I was told today that it's a policy that, uh, the bus drivers and the bus matrons do not have to speak to parents or the students. And being that my son cannot speak, but he can hear. So after he leaves me and I say, you know, have a good day, whatever. The first two people, I, a parent mentioned that, that the first two people who they see are the bus drivers and the bus matron. So the least he can do is be greeted when he gets on the bus. And of course he should be, you know,
when he gets off as well. So I need to know first is that a true policy that they don't have to greet the parents or the students. But I also feel like, you know, not, it's not forget me, but even if I'm not greeted, I'm grown. I can handle it. Why is my son not being greeted? I understand it's a lot of rural parents. Um, but you people have to understand passion is not attitude. So when I call about questions and concerns about the buses, and I'm, you know, speaking to people, I'm not, I don't have the attitude with the dispatch. I don't have, I have the attitude with, as people mention,
why is my son not home yet? And he'd been on the bus for an hour, whatever, and he can't tell me what happened while he's on the bus. One time I thought that my son was damn near kidnapped because it was an hour and a half and he was still on the bus. So when I'm calling, even right now, people hear my voice. I mean, some people, we are familiar with the black community, but people hear how I'm speaking and take it as an attitude when it's just passion. So I need to know, once again, if it's a true policy that they do not have to greet parents and students, which is the least thing that we can do is common courtesy
and everything that everybody mentioned with the not getting paid and the contracts, the least we can do is be kind to each other as a retired b***h. And I apologize, but as someone who was once angry at things and upset, we all have been that way. We don't take our attitudes to work. So the least we can do once again, is just simply be kind. What's so hard to say? Good morning. Like I said, my son can't speak back, but he can hear. So I don't know if that's a real rule, but I do wanna speak to somebody because I want it to change. I want to, when I say good morning, I want it to be said back to me. And I want my son to be spoken to
because until he can talk, I'm going to be my son's voice. Yeah. And that's it. I'm, I've been here for what, four or five hours. I never knew about this. This is my first meeting. I did not know that you guys volunteer. That's crazy. I don't, something has to be done. So I feel like teachers, everyone that works with children, it needs to be erased. Thank you. I, I talk a lot, so I know the time has ended, but I'm gonna use my platform. I'm gonna use my platform 'cause I am on social media to talk about this meeting, to address these issues and to get the word out there because a lot of people do not know about
what happened here today. So I know a lot of the bus drivers left and we still, Michelle, I do need to get paid. You do need all these things, but you also need to treat people how you wanna be treated. And once again, I will be my son's voice and so he can speak. Yeah. So whoever can talk to me and let me know if that's a real policy, please let me know. And if it's not, I would like Phillips's bus company to acknowledge that that is not okay. That they do not greet me or my son when I say good morning, in the morning times. And please do not take mistake, passion for an attitude. That's it. Thank you. Good job. I think somebody's approaching also to Talk to, you have to follow the speaker to the right.
Good job. Good morning. I am mean. Good evening. My name is Jacqueline Scanner and I'm the parent of Michael Ivi, a 4-year-old student at the Richmond pre-K Center teleport location in district 31, the forgotten borough. I, I am here tonight to address these significant and grave concerns about the safety and wellbeing of three and 4-year-old at the Richmond pre-K Center under the direction of Dr. Joy Abrams. Michael, my 4-year-old son has cerebral palsy. While his cognitive abilities are consistent with those
of his age groups, cerebral palsy has significantly affected his and impacted his physical abilities and motor skills. We chose Richmond pre-K center teleport site because it's the only truly barrier free preschool on the entirety of Staten Island. And we did not want our child's first school experience to be dependent on a non-working elevator. Ironically, we've been met with nothing but obstacles through our time at Richmond pre-K Center. Due to the inadequate leadership of Dr. Joy Abrams. Here are some highlights, persistent
and systematic failure in communication. That's been a significant barrier to educational progress. Our repeated attempts to collaborate, including numerous email requests, have been consistently ignored or met with hostility. Most notably, my family had offered tens of thousands of dollars in equipment that my son could use at the school. And that had been with, met with a lack of response or hello, oh, or uh, or, or complete contempt. And that was at no price to the DOE. Don't worry.
We are, we can continue. The decisions made under principle of Abrams leadership have consistently compromised student safety with particular detriment to our son. And it is because of retaliatory actions. The most pertinent example that we've experienced is when we requested the continued assignment of Michael's paraprofessional. I'm gonna continue talking. Sorry. The other speaker did. And this is real important, uh, uh, and she denied and continuously denied and ignored that request. And we, and met us with contempt and attitude
and it was true attitude. Uh, and whereby she wound up involving legal in our conversations whereby legal agreed with the parents and acknowledged that our requests were not unjustified. And last, but certainly in OT leads. And I need to get this in. She ha there is an issue that's garnered over 1 million views on Instagram and TikTok. And if you don't know the video, we are happy to email it to you in June, 2025. On graduation day. I'm gonna Ask you to wrap up 'cause I just, I'll, I'll absolutely give you additional time, right? I'll absolutely wrap up. But she spoke for a lot longer.
So we're going to finish this four hours. We're here. I'm not here because No, we're gonna, No, and I, and I am sympathetic to that, but we have a lot of other speakers. One, One more waiting, one more point. In June, 2025, she allowed an irate parent into the building without that parent's child being present. And guess what? That person made a complete scene. And school shootings are undisputably on the rise in the United States. And here's the thing. She allowed this irate parent, for whatever reason, who was thinking I ideologically and angry. And in allowing that child, that parent into the school,
she exacerbated the potential for harm. My child can't run, my child can't walk, my child can't hide underneath a desk or in a locker or in a closet. So when you exacerbate the harm or the potential of harm to a child because you allow an iry parent into the school without their child and they make a scene, that is a great issue. We're here because, so the superintendent Polton and deputy has now expired, has not responded, and we need her time expired to get her out. Thank Thank you. Whitney Toussant. Alicia Gittens, j Gola
RAs and Manny Ali. All right. Hi, I'm gonna be quick. Whitney Toussant, CEC 30 co-president here representing myself as an individual. I did have some other comments tonight, but I do wanna support the, uh, teachers from the pre-K Center in Staten Island. They came, they got a long way to get home tonight. And the teachers from the river school that came tonight, I support all their comments. I did wanna add, um, to the bus companies. They're not here. They left. Um, I appreciate the comments that Rema and Shirley made to clear up everything that was discussed tonight. You all made it very clear. And your comments too, sir, I forgot your name. Him right there. You know about your godfather. Everything.
Appreciate your union town. Thank you. Um, because it really made it clear for everyone here, you know, what was going on tonight. Um, chancellor Ramos, thank you for giving us your comments tonight about the 15 bus companies that have signed the extension already. Please name and shame the ones that didn't because they had a lot of the bus drivers here tonight for a long time, um, under some lies. And then one of them pulled the biggest stunt queen move I have seen in a long time in one of these meetings, throwing out copies of the contract. I did grab, um, one from someone.
They let me take a few pictures. They didn't let me hold it. Um, but, uh, some of the items that were in the table of contents did not appear to address the concerns that we parents had. And some of the drivers had talked about the term of extension. Um, the composition of the extension governance payment, escort, escort reimbursements, amendments to the insurance provision. MBWE participation vintage vehicle requirements. That's what I wanna touch on because what it looked like in this contract was that essentially the fleet of the buses could be up
to 15 years old. Now, I don't know about y'all, but a car or anything that's 15 years old is not gonna have ac, it's not gonna have heat, it's not gonna work. And I have two boys. I have to get a couch every couple years because they tear my furniture up. But what is a bus full of children gonna do for a fleet that is 15 years old? So I think that little stunt backfired on him. Y'all need to go ahead and let other people look at those copies that were passed out because that was a stunt queen move. It looked horrible. And these contracts definitely need more review. So thank you for the resolution tonight.
Um, thank you all for staying this late. And goodnight everybody. Good evening. KCEC four. I just wanna remind folks that when we sign up for these positions, we might be here a little late. Um, I wanna acknowledge the work that Drdo has done for years, not just for this panel, but also for parents across the city, particularly our district 75 students, that has brought a lot of clarity to a lot of spaces. And I know that sometimes she doesn't get the recognition that she deserves, but rema, if it weren't for you, a lot of us wouldn't be able to do the work that we do.
So I wanna shout you out wholeheartedly. I also wanna say that Lila has been part of this space for a really long time and has been an advocate as a student, has raised her voice from very, very young. And I, as a parent, am incredibly disappointed that Chair Faulkner addressed her in that way. She is 11 years old, and it is absolutely unfair for any grownup that is not her mom to use the word disappointed. And so I'm really, really heartbroken that you knowing Lila and her coming into this space for a long time,
use those words with her. And I hope that at some point, if not in public and private, you do apologize to her. I wanna stand in solidarity with those educators and those parents that are coming to talk about leadership in their schools. That's how my advocacy work started. We have a long way to go in trying to reconcile when leaders are no longer a good fit for our school communities. And I know there's lots of layers to that. Um, but it's super important that we really find a way with the unions, with the Divid division of leadership
and with our superintendents to have much trans, much more transparent conversations, particularly when kids are being hurt and harmed in different ways. Um, and our teacher's conditions are students' conditions. And so I stand in solidarity here. We have a parent in this space that's also struggling in her school. She may or may not share, um, about that, but it is happening in Manhattan too often. Um, and I will end there. Thank you. Denise Martinez, Lisa, Michelle, Gavin Healy, Steven Galster, I I guess maybe I'm the only one left. Um, greetings, uh, thank you for being here.
My name is Gavin Healy. I wanna speak. Um, uh, first of all, it sounds like, um, I I just want share my solidarity with families in the river school and also, um, families in, in Richmond, pre-K. Um, I think that principal Orleans from the River School, principal Abrams from, um, from Richmond, have have a lot in common. And maybe there's this place that they could go to be together that is not the school. I I won't re reiterate what other parents said, but I wanna speak to my, my direct experience visiting the River School as the CEC liaison there, uh, just a few weeks ago. Um, we all know that there's been a tremendous amount
of turnover at the River school. A third of the teaching, teaching staff, like leaving each year, not just, not just one year, but like year after year after year. And so I had a had a chance to ask Principal Orleans, like one-on-one directly. We were in her office. Like, what's, what's the reason for that? And, and her, her response really kind of bowled me over it. It really left me with deep concerns. She said that she had usually hired young teachers fresh out of school. She said they're motivated, but after a few years, they get married and have babies and they stay home with their babies. And she said a lot of teachers leave
for that specific reason. So to deal with that, with that problem, she said she decided that she would from now on hire like a mix of, of, um, young teachers and veteran teachers. And frankly, to me, that sounded, um, perhaps discriminatory, almost illegal. And, and also I think there's, there's some, some untruth in in some of those statements because we know those teachers aren't just leaving to stay home with their, you know, with their babies because some of them are teaching at other schools, including other schools in our, in our very own district too. So, so we know that's not the case. So I think that it's great that you refer parents
to, to Chief ramers percent. Chief ramers Percent is a very, you know, he's a solutions oriented. He's an honest, he's an upstanding guy. But I think if you're referring parents to Chief ramers percent, it's because there was a failure at some, some level. And so it shouldn't be up to him to clean up the mess. It should be up to people, perhaps in the division of school, leadership in other, you know, other senior leaders to make sure those messes don't, don't happen in the first place. Thank you. Uh, Scott Gutterman. Jamar Claiborne Dys Ra Castillo sha Davis. I'm gonna keep talking till people stand up.
Christine Tatler. Matthew Harnish. Lisa Walker. Mark Gonzalez. Quentin Mezzan. Alright, I'll stop. Sheriff Faulkner Cap members, first of all, thank you. Thank you for your courageous votes tonight. The three resolutions contract one through 30, turning down 20 to 23. Thank you. You know, we need to figure out AI and how to do it. We need to figure out how to do it in-house. We're in New York City. We are tech center. We're AI central. We need to figure out how to bring people into the DOE to build it in the DOE,
keep all the data in the DOE because we cannot be outsourcing it. We saw what happened today with Microsoft and Azure system where it took down our DOE systems, couldn't get on the websites because we're outsourcing technology. We need to bring that stuff in this house. We've got the talent, we've got the schools. We've got the universities. Bring the kids in. We've got a lot of college graduates who are talented, who can't find a job, bring 'em in the DOE to build this stuff for us. Plenty of talent in New York. We've gotta start using it. There's no reason to outsource it out west out to another country. Bring it here, build it here, do it here.
We're the city to builds. We need to build the technology here and do it here first and foremost. Second, we heard some horror stories. We've gotta figure out how to, again, focus on the kids. There's too much where we're focusing on the adults and protecting adults and not protecting our students. And we've gotta fix that. The system has to be kid focused always. And when we're not doing that, when we're worried about protecting this person or protecting that person, or this contract forbids us from doing the right thing, we gotta fix the contracts to focus on taking care
of the kids first and foremost. Nothing else should matter. And we're not doing that. And I understand there's a lot of politics beyond going into that, but we've gotta figure a way of doing it. Right? And you've started that pep tonight by saying, we're gonna take care of the kids with these resolutions. With looking at the contracts. Thank you. And I, Gee, G key, Deanna Oliver, Anita Rao, Ramada. Slan. Okay. Got take. Okay. Sorry, I'm a little tired. I don't know how you do it.
Congratulations on, um, making, uh, you know what happened earlier. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Uh, I'm Anita Rao, the president of the PTA for Columbia Secondary School, MS 360 2 in Harlem. I'm here this evening in my personal capacity and my opinion, uh, and my opinions. And I wanna shed some light on the deterioration of our wonderful school community, which has been breaking down over the past couple of years. Um, many of us at CSS have reached out to you, chancellor Aviles Ramos.
I have even connected with you on WNYC, the media outlet. I am here asking for a response to my written testimony that was submitted to this panel of educational policy last month on a September 25th. To date, I have not received a response, therefore, because I have submitted that testimony, I will not repeat it again today. Um, but we do continue to experience the same, uh, mechanisms in our school. We continue to receive, uh, minimal information that offers
no transparency, no transparency, and just a whole lot of union rhetoric at this point. Here are some additional updates. Today. There is negligence of education around special education rights and service management. Um, one issue it around sped. Um, we were supposed to have a separate subcommittee when it comes to the curriculum because, um, there is a need to weave it together with all the other subjects, with all the subjects within the curriculum. However, it is opposite of the inclusion model that our school embraces as part of our mission statement.
My second update as a, uh, concerned Parent at Columbia Secondary School, I urgently request that your assistance in allocating an additional school safety agent in our campus. Columbia Secondary, is co-located with PS 1 25, um, which is on the northern edge of Morningside Park on West 123 Street. Together, our student populations exceed 1000 students in grades k uh, pre-K through 12, serving Harlem and the upper Manhattan communities, and making our facility a vibrant, diverse
and highly regarded learning environment. Our 65,000, uh, square feet foot building, sorry, um, includes a main building annex, which are connected only by the second floor. There are four doors in total along West 1 23 for both the main building and annex. The primary entrance is equipped with the safe access button and is used by PS 1 25. Um, what it comes down, I, I'll skip this since I don't have much time, but what it comes down to is the current situation raises several safety concerns
around inadequate coverage, entrance monitoring, response time, and events in our neighborhood. Even one last a few days ago, um, in our neighborhood in the building over and within the building over the past couple of years, including a school shooting threat and a shooting incident around the corner from our school have underscored the importance of addressing this issue promptly. We are respectfully requesting your support in the allocation of an additional school safety agent for a campus. We believe that the permanent assignment of an agent of the annex entrance, along with the addition
of a safe access button, would take pressure off the demands of the primary entrance and allow the agents to work in tandem to monitor building entrances, conduct rounds, and maintain a strong visible presence that deters potential threats. I'm gonna stop here because I'm gonna submit this in a written statement, but I am asking for your office, one of your deputy chancellors, maybe perhaps Donica rux, to come to our SLT meeting tomorrow, which is which, um, I thought, I thought someone was to come last month,
September 18th, but if someone can please from your office, come on October 30th at 4 45 in our library, I would very much appreciate it. I, I think, I think standing behind you is the director of security and, uh, so you connect when you, uh, Okay. Thank you so much for this very informative evening. Thank You. Thank you. Maggie Sanchez. Yep. I'm just reading Ellen Ramirez, Paula, guy, shawarma, Lockhart. Anybody, any of them? That is the end of the list.
I just wanna thank everyone for, um, coming out tonight and, uh, you know, especially, I know I got to speak earlier with the river parents and, um, you know, I kind of mentioned to you that it would probably be a late night and it was, I didn't think it was gonna be as late as it is, but I thank you for coming in. The other school representative that was here, uh, we get to do this all. Yes. Yeah. As your, I see your hand, You spoke, You, you spoke, You spoke, didn't you? Someone muted their time to me. Yeah, so you spoke. Okay. Yeah. But, Oh, well
It, would it be possible for you to do it in written comment? Oh, go ahead. Um, it's super fast. Um, so I'm request, I'm Laura Simpson, CC 30 speaking as a spouse of someone on an SLT. Um, what I'm asking is for the PP to update the chancellor's regulation, a dash 6 55 to clarify alignment with the New York State Education Law, 25 90 dash h and Public Officer's Law, article seven 100 dash 111. This is about SLTs being able to do video conferencing
so that they can be just as great as CSC thirties meetings and the PPPs meetings. So I'm gonna keep it short. I'm gonna submit something in inviting later. Just wanted to say it. Thank you. Okay. Again, thank you everyone for coming out tonight. We get to, uh, in less than a month. Did you wanna cook everybody? Yep. Panel member. The XOTI Think your microphone is not. Hello? Yes. I wanted to address that real quick. A 6 55 with the school leadership team is regulated on the open means law. Right? We cannot change that.
And when we have these conversations over and over, you have to go to state legislation to change the law that video conferencing is for observers. Unless there's a extenuating circumstances school leadership team to get quorum has to be in person. That bottom line, it's been like that before the pandemic and before we came out of it, we've been advocating You want that to change? You gotta go to Albany. You gotta go to Albany. We cannot change a 6 55 until Open means law changes
for a school leadership team. That, so it's not up on us and it's not on the Department of Education or New York City Public Schools. Okay, thank you member, uh, panel member for that update. Okay. Um, we get to do this all over again on November 19th, that Prospect Height High School in Brooklyn. That concludes. Are there other comments? Yes. Hello. Uh, thank you Chair Faulkner. Uh, we haven't spoken at all about new and New Yorkers and immigration today. I wanted to highlight that issue. Uh, just this morning. I hear, can You repeat, Uh, new and New Yorkers and immigration.
The, just this morning we, uh, got a report that two public school students were taking. I think the Chancellor's office has been informed. We're still trying to get details of what's happening in our federal courthouses. It's essentially terrorizing families, uh, who are of mixed but legal documentation status. They're following the, the laws and the rules, and it's not being respected. We have families that have special immigrant juvenile status for kids with guardians going to hearings, it being disregarded. And the kids who are at this point starting to be under 18 minors, taken alone, uh, by, by ice.
And I wanna thank the Department of Education for supporting, uh, our work along with Immigration Coalition and all of the other advocacy groups that are, that are trying to hold this together. While our federal government is, is harassing and kidnapping kids. And I hope that we can continue to organize. I spoke with, uh, Tina Collins, who's in the audience, uh, that the UFT is is starting to ramp up school by school efforts. Uh, unfortunately things are probably gonna get much worse in January. Um, and, and I hope we have, uh, everyone's partnership on this going forward. Thank you as always. Okay. Thank you for continuing update on this Pam Ro
All I wanna say is that it is National Bullying Prevention Month and School Bus Safety Month. Have a good night. See you next month. Okay. Thank you again. We'll, and next month we'll see a Prospect Heights High School. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Is there a second? I assume this is unanimous consent. Meaning is adjourned.