Chantal Hinds Submits Public Testimony to the New York City Council Committee on Finance on Behalf of New York City Students in Foster Care

On Wednesday, May 25, 2022, the New York City Council Committee on Finance held a hearing on the fiscal year 2023 executive budget. Next100 policy entrepreneur, Chantal Hinds, testified during the hearing and submitted the following written testimony to the Council for their record. This testimony calls for the Council to ensure that the New York City Department of Education fully staffs the promised office for students in foster care and allocate $5 million for door-to-door transportation to support school stability for students in foster care.

The text of Chantal Hinds’ testimony is presented below.

The New York City Council Committee on Finance

Honorable Justin Brannan, Chair

Re: FY 23 Executive Budget

May 25, 2022

Testimony of Next100

Good afternoon Chair Brannan and members of the Committee on Finance. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about the proposed budget. My name is Chantal Hinds and I am a policy entrepreneur at Next100, a startup think tank working to diversify the public policy sector. As a policy entrepreneur at Next100, I conduct original research and provide policy recommendations at the intersection of foster care and education—an intersection I am familiar with having advocated on behalf of these students and families for seven years. Prior to Next100, I was an attorney at Advocates for Children of New York, where I represented students and families in foster care in New York City, ensuring those students received the supports and services they needed to succeed. 

As an advocate who has worked closely with students in foster care for many years, I have seen the need for investments in education to help these students thrive. I am here to ask the City Council to support students in foster care by: first, ensuring the Department of Education (DOE) will follow through on its commitment to create and fully staff the promised foster care office; and second, for the budget to include $5 million to guarantee transportation for students in foster care.

It’s important to understand who these students are—students in foster care are disproportionately Black and come from the city’s poorest communities. In 2019, over half of the children and youth in the foster system were Black, even though Black children only make up about 22 percent of New York City’s child population. Furthermore, both Black and Latinx children and youth make up about 80 percent of the City’s foster care population while only representing about 57 percent of the total child population. Additionally, according to 2020 data, over half of the children in the City’s foster care population are in the Bronx and Brooklyn. In 2019 the top five foster care placements, by borough, were in the following Community and City Council Districts: Staten Island (Community District 1/City Council Districts 49 and 50), Bronx (Community Districts 1, 3, and 6/City Council Districts 8, 15, 16, and 17), Brooklyn (Community Districts 5 and 16/City Council Districts 37, 41, and 42), Queens (Community District 12/City Council Districts 23, 24, 27, 28 and 31), and Manhattan (Community District 11/City Council Districts 4, 5, 8, and 9). 

Many students in this unique population have significant academic needs—nearly half of them have special education needs and less than half graduate high school in four years. At the City Council Committee on Education’s recent oversight hearing on April 20, 2022, the Department of Education testified that nearly half of its students in foster care have Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and nearly half of those students are in a special education class, compared to 30 percent of students overall with IEPs. Additionally, over 20 percent of students with IEPs in foster care are in District 75—the city’s most restrictive specialized district that solely serves students with significant special education needs—compared to a little under 10 percent of students with IEPs who are not in foster care. Students in foster care are also overaged and under-credited at a rate of 6.5 percent as compared to the citywide rate of 2 percent. According to New York State Education Department data, in June 2021, only 40 percent of students in foster care graduated from high school after four years—almost 40 percentage points below the overall City graduation rate of 78 percent. Additionally, a recent study from New York City’s Center for Innovation through Data Intelligence reveals even more startling numbers—students in the 2015 cohort  who were in the foster system for at least seven days during high school had a four-year graduation rate of only 25 percent. It is imperative that the City make significant investments to appropriately serve these students’ needs—the need is clear and the time is now. 

The DOE must move quickly to hire and fully staff its first-ever team focused on students in foster care. Despite the obvious and urgent needs of students in foster care that the City has struggled to meet,there is not currently a single person at the DOE focused full-time on meeting the needs of these students—resulting in barriers to education for this population often remaining unaddressed. The DOE should create an office focused on these students to improve policy development, educational interventions, and data collection and transparency. We should be able to learn more about this population’s educational outcomes and experiences beyond City Council hearings or Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests. In addition to regular data collection and reporting, the DOE can review and analyze this data to make appropriate decisions regarding academic and social emotional interventions for these students. Finally, such an office can improve the DOE’s ability to work with other agencies to improve coordination and services for these students. 

This fall, the DOE finally announced that it would hire a small team of staff to focus on students in foster care. However, none of the positions have been filled. While the DOE has started posting the positions, it is important that the DOE hires all eleven of the promised positions focused on students in foster care. So far, the DOE has posted less than half of the promised positions. 

The DOE must guarantee bus service or comparable door-to-door transportation to students in foster care, as children cannot succeed in school if they aren’t able to get to school. Federal and state law requires the City to provide transportation to students in foster care so they can stay in their original school, unless it is in their best interest to transfer schools. However, since this law went into effect in December 2016—nearly 6 years ago—the DOE has refused to guarantee bus service or another comparable mode of transportation to these students. As a result, students who cannot travel to school on their own have been forced to transfer schools, or even transfer foster homes, even when it is not in their best interest. During the 2019-20 school year, one in five NYC students in foster care had to change schools upon their initial placement in foster care. The City should include and baseline in the final budget $5 million for the DOE to provide bus service or other door-to-door transportation to the small number of students in foster care who need it to maintain school stability.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony and for considering the importance of funding and support for students in foster care.

Submitted by:

Chantal Hinds

Policy Entrepreneur, Next100

[email protected]