Carter Booth, Chair Antony Wong, Treasurer Daniel Miller, First Vice Chair Valerie De La Rosa, Secretary Susan Kent, Second Vice Chair Amy Breanna, Assistant Secretary Bob Gormley, District Manager C OMMUNITY B OARD N O . 2, M ANHATTAN 3 W ASHINGTON SQUARE V ILLAGE N EW YORK, NY 10012-1899 www.cb2manhattan.org P : 212-979-2272 F : 212-254-5102 E : [email protected] Greenwich Village v Little Italy v SoHo v NoHo v Hudson Square v Chinatown v Gansevoort Market FULL BOARD MEETING AGENDA DATE: Thursday, March 19, 2020 TIME: 6:30 PM PLACE: Via Video-Conference I. ATTENDANCE – Virtual Voice Roll Call Vote II. PUBLIC SESSION: Public Testimony Submitted by email to [email protected] will be summarized. *Public testimony must be submitted by email only before 5:00 p.m. March 19th, 2020 to [email protected] III. ADOPTION OF AGENDA IV. REPORTS TO THE PUBLIC 1. Elected Officials’ Reports 2. Borough President’s Report Andrew Chang 3. Chair's Report Carter Booth 4. District Manager's Report Bob Gormley BUSINESS SESSION V. APPROVAL OF FEBRUARY MINUTES VI. STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS AND OTHER BUSINESS 1. Schools & Education Jeannine Kiely 2. Arts & Institutions Robin Rothstein 3. Traffic & Transportation Shirley Secunda 4. Landmarks Chenault Spence 5. SLA Licensing 1 Donna Raftery 6. SLA Licensing 2 Robert Ely 7. Quality of Life Joseph Gallagher VII. NEW BUSINESS EXECUTIVE SESSION VIII. EXECUTIVE SESSION Meeting will enter into Executive Session for Board Members Only to discuss personnel matters 8. Personnel Committee Carter Booth IX. ADJOURNMENT Carter Booth, Chair Antony Wong, Treasurer Daniel Miller, First Vice Chair Valerie De La Rosa, Secretary Susan Kent, Second Vice Chair Amy Breanna, Assistant Secretary Bob Gormley, District Manager C OMMUNITY B OARD N O . 2, M ANHATTAN 3 W ASHINGTON SQUARE V ILLAGE N EW YORK, NY 10012-1899 www.cb2manhattan.org P : 212-979-2272 F : 212-254-5102 E : [email protected] Greenwich Village v Little Italy v SoHo v NoHo v Hudson Square v Chinatown v Gansevoort Market SCHOOLS & EDUCATION COMMITTEE March 2020 The Schools and Education Committee of Community Board 2 met Monday, March 9, 2020 at 6:30 p.m. at The Clinton School, 10 East 15th Street, Auditorium. The public forum topic was Dyslexia & Other Learning Disabilities: Legislation That Can Change the System. Board Members Present: Jeannine Kiely (Chair), Patricia Laraia (Vice-Chair), Keen Berger, Amy Brenna, Rich Caccappolo, Mar Fitzgerald, and Matt Metzger Board Members Absent with Notice: Maud Maron Public Members Absent with Notice: Barbara Glassman (Happy Birthday!) and Michael Markowitz Other CB Member Present: Tricia Joyce, Chair of the Youth Education Committee, CB 1. Mae Lee, Chair of the Health, Seniors, & Human Services / Youth, Education & Human Rights Chair, CB 3. CEC Members Present: Emily Hellstrom, Chair, Students with Disabilities Committee, CECD2. Vincent Hom, CECD2. Elected Officials Present: Jacob Priley with Senator Brad Hoylman. Kyshia Smith with Councilmember Mark Levine. Christopher Marte, State Committee. Ben Yee, State Committee. Other: Esther Friedman, Former Executive Director, Literacy and AIS Division of Teaching and Learning, NYC DOE. Randi Levine, Policy Director, Advocates for Children. Maggie Moroff, Coordinator of the ARISE Coalition, Advocates for Children. Attendance: More than 100 people attended the forum. MINUTES Parent Stories. We heard from three parents about how their child struggled to read, before appropriate intervention, or how their child is still struggling to read. • Johanna H. shared the difficulties of navigating the DOE system for non-English speaking parents and how her son’s reading struggles were criminalized. • Kate W., a PS 41 parent of a 2nd grade child shared how her daughter is struggling to read, despite many advantages such as attending an excellent public school and receiving extra help both in school and outside of school. • Akeela A. shared how her son’s underlying learning disability was misunderstood as a behavior problem and after receiving a privately funded diagnosis for dyslexia and Schools & Edu. (page 1 ) dysgraphia, her school told her that “the DOE does not hire reading specialists” and “you will get no help with reading.” Panel Discussion. Danielle Scorrano, the Research Coordinator at The Windward Institute and the host of READ Podcast moderated a panel discussion with State Senator Brad Hoylman, State Senator Robert Jackson, Assemblymember Robert Carroll and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon. They discussed legislation to mandate early screening in elementary schools and in prison, intervention with structured literacy curricula, the formation of a dyslexia task force, the establishment of stand- alone schools to teach students with dyslexia, unlimited time for test and the inclusion of the science of reading and how to teach structured literacy in higher education degree and certificate programs. Key highlights include: • Senator Jackson shared that identifying and teaching reading is a critical part of criminal justice reform. • Senator Hoylman believes that screening for the risk of reading failure is critical. He compared it to identifying students who may need glasses. Unfortunately, the cost of late or undiagnosed learning disabilities is significant. • Assemblymember Simon shared how important screening is for identifying students at risk and why changing higher education requirements and ongoing professional development will build a pipeline of educators to help these students. Currently, most schools are not teaching reading using a structured literacy approach. • Assemblymember Carrol shared his own experience as a dyslexic child and how he got the intervention he needed, why screening is critical and that some students, not all, will need intensive, all day instruction to learn to read. Next Steps. Decoding Dyslexia prepared a detailed summary of NY state dyslexia legislation available at bit.ly/DyslexiaLeg. Educators, parents and advocates are encouraged to call their state legislators and ask them to sign on as co-sponsors. Respectfully submitted, Jeannine Kiely Chair, Schools & Education Committee Community Board 2, Manhattan RESOLUTIONS #1 Resolution In Support of State Legislation to Mandate Early Screening, Intervention, Dedicated Schools and Teacher Training Programs for All Children with Dyslexia and Other Phonological Learning Disabilities Whereas: 1. The NYC Department of Education has failed to develop comprehensive early screening, curriculum, teacher training, programs and schools to support and teach children with dyslexia, creating a deeply inequitable system that is out of reach for the vast majority of New York City families; 2. New York State legislators have proposed a series of bills to address these deficiencies: Schools & Edu. (page 2 ) a. Mandatory Early Screening: S4341/A5259 requires school districts to conduct mandatory early screening for dyslexia for all children; b. Dyslexia Interventions & Task Force:S5608/A7210 establishes interventions for children with dyslexia and S7093/A8786 establishes a dyslexia task force; c. Dedicated Schools: A6911 establishes schools dedicated to teaching dyslexic students in school districts that serve more than one million children; d. Testing: S5697/A5038-A provides that any standardized test or examination shall not be subject to any time limitation when administered by the city district; and, e. Higher Education: S4342/A6450 requires higher education programs for teachers incorporate evidence-based, structured literacy methods for teaching reading; 3. “Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction,” according to the International Dyslexia Association(1); 4. Dyslexia is common and affects 10-20% of the population, regardless of primary language or background; occurs on a continuum, can run in families; but it can be remediated with scientifically proven structured literacy approaches, like Orton-Gillingham(1); 5. New York is a “Wait-to-Fail” system: a. The achievement gap between typical and dyslexic readers impacts students as early as first grade and persists and often worsens over time(2) making addressing the needs of dyslexic students a critical education and equity issue; Schools & Edu. (page 3 ) b. In NYC, by 7th grade, students with disabilities are the lowest performing subgroup in ELA (other than current English Language Learners), with only 11% achieving proficiency on State exams(3); and, c. Left untreated, dyslexia increases risk for anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, peer rejection,(4) absenteeism,(5) dropping out,(6) and involvement in criminal justice system(7); 6. Currently, the DOE lacks screening, curriculum, teacher training, and public school programs to address the needs of students with dyslexia and other language-based learning disabilities, including: a. No universal screening in grades K-2 to identify struggling readers sooner so that they receive interventions needed to learn to read, even though 30 states have passed legislation that mandates some level of screening for students at risk of dyslexia(8); b. Limited curricula based on scientifically proven structured literacy approaches, like Orton-