Brooklyn educators slam proposed
cuts to at-risk youth program
BY BEN VERDE
Brooklyn educators are demanding
that the city continue
funding a program that provides
struggling students with
paid internships and counselors,
arguing cutting the program
will be disastrous for the
thousands of students who rely
on it for stability.
The city’s Department of Education
is currently weighing
cutting the Learning to Work
program by 72 percent, a move
Brooklyn educators say would
be detrimental to struggling
communities across the fi ve
boroughs.
“LTW’s are extremely important
to the fabric of New
York City, and the lives of these
young people,” said Allison Farrington,
principal of Research
and Service High School in
Bedford-Stuyvesant, at a virtual
press conference on Oct.
15. “The impact of cutting LTW
is way larger than just simply
hurting students, it hurts communities
that are already marginalized
and hurt.”
The program currently
serves roughly 3,000 students
and is based out of “transfer”
high schools that serve students
who are in danger of failing out
of school. Schools involved with
the program receive counseling
COURIER L 12 IFE, OCT. 23-29, 2020
staff from nonprofi t organizations
that are matched with
a small group of students who
they are tasked with building a
relationship with and making
sure they are staying on track
with their schoolwork.
“It’s not like they are going
to cut a program and all
of a sudden I’m going to lose a
part of my school,” Pat McGillicuddy,
principal of East Brooklyn
Community High School in
Brownsville, told Brooklyn Paper.
“The whole school was created
with this.”
East Brooklyn was founded
with a grant from Learn to
Work to create more transfer
high schools in the city. From
its onset, it has had a partnership
with the nonprofi t SCO
Family Services, which provides
counseling.
McGillicuddy says the close
attention students get from their
counselors has led to a graduation
rate of 80 percent and an attendance
rate of 70 percent, but
he fears that will come to an end
if the funding is cut.
“Without the funding,
there’s no way we have a graduation
rate close to that, there’s
no way we have an attendance
rate close to that,” he said.
The program also connects
students with paid internships
at community organizations
and local businesses. Many students
rely on the income from
their internship to help keep
their families afl oat, and some
pursue careers in the fi elds
they landed internships in.
“The internship program
is a vital part of that for our
students,” McGillicuddy said.
“Right when they leave high
school they’ve got skills to get a
good job, and leadership skills
that help them to keep being
successful.”
Many students form lasting
relationships with their counselors,
such as Quintin Williams,
an alumnus of Downtown
Brooklyn Young Adult
Borough Center, who now
works as a driver for UPS. Williams
said he still regularly
texts with his former counselor
Alisa Garcia despite graduating
years ago.
“She’s still one of my go-to’s.
To this day I text her when I’m
having a hard time,” he said at
the virtual rally. “When COVID
hit, she was a good person to
speak to because she kept me
motivated.”
DOE has insisted that no
cuts have been offi cially proposed
yet, while the city agency
is forced to make diffi cult budgeting
decisions due to the defi -
cit crisis brought on by the coronavirus
pandemic.
“We are not eliminating the
Learning to Work program,”
Department rep Katie O’Hanlon
said. “The funding level for this
fi scal year is being evaluated
in light of the pandemic-driven
crisis that has caused the City
to lose billions of dollars in revenue,
forcing very diffi cult decisions
about programming
across City agencies.”
O’Hanlon also disputed the
data released by the city’s Independent
Budget Offi ce that show
the program facing a 72 percent
cut, arguing the estimate is based
on preliminary fi gures.
“These numbers should not
be published as they do not represent
the fi nal decision of the
administration,” she said.
Still, education experts contend
cutting LTW would be antithetical
to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s
pledge to make New York
City the “fairest big city” in
America, and say the program
should be expanded if anything,
due to the bleak economic landscape
and rising crime rates
the city’s youth must now contend
with.
“You cannot claim to care
about marginalized communities,
under-resourced communities,
and dare to cut LTW,”
said Brooklyn Councilman
Mark Treyger, a former educator
who chairs the Council’s
Education Committee. “You
cannot claim that you are the
great equity leader of the city,
the fairest big city in America,
and then dare to cut LTW.”
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