Speak Up for New York’s Youth: A Call to Action
Edited by Stephen Braren
On the eve of the New York City budget deadline—which is June 30th—negotiations for the next fiscal year’s budget remain ongoing. Protesters have been occupying City Hall around the clock, calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio to defund the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, which spurred an amplification of the Black Lives Matter movement. These protests have been echoed by increasing calls to re-allocate funds to youth services, following de Blasio’s proposed budget cut of $827 million from the Department of Education (DOE) and elimination of youth services, including the Summer Youth Employment Program that serves 75,000 young people.
Today, Mayor de Blasio voiced commitment to meeting the demands of protesters, by defunding the NYPD by $1 billion, however the fate of the budget for youth educational and enrichment services remain unclear.
The Mayor’s proposed Executive Budget, released in April, includes budget cuts that would directly impact school staffing, counseling services, school supplies, arts and other unspecified programs, as well as cuts that would reduce or eliminate DOE-led diversity and equity initiatives. Such cuts risk disproportionately impacting high-poverty school districts (which serve greater numbers of racially-marginalized children), as well as significantly disrupting services vital to student social-emotional health, academic progress, and enrichment.
Furthermore, the proposed reduction of funding would come when the city’s youth need support more than ever: in the wake of school shutdowns due to COVID-19. Students continue to rely on school and youth services—either remotely, or in settings where public health measures can be strictly enforced—to prevent or overcome learning and career opportunity gaps, but also to connect with peers, counselors, and mentors to buffer against the stress, isolation, fear, and loss that the pandemic has created. Indeed, we have previously reported that ensuring that children stay socially and emotionally supported throughout the pandemic (and beyond) is paramount to their overall health and readiness to learn. Ultimately, by reducing or eliminating the continuation of direct services to students and school communities, the proposed budget cuts risk worsening existing learning inequities and exacerbating the challenges that students (and schools) are facing as a result of COVID-19.
To help prevent enduring consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on our city’s youth, we call upon you to join us in advocating for increased rather than decreased funding to vital youth services. Today is the final day before the budget deadline, so please act now!
Below we provide some ways you can help support our call to action, including a sample script you can use for calling and emailing.
Our Call to Action
Contact Mayor de Blasio to speak out against the planned budget cuts to the Department of Education and summer youth programming, and to demand increased investment to these vital services. You can contact the Mayor by filling out this webform or by calling 311 (or 212-NEW-YORK if calling from outside New York City).
Write, call, and tweet to your Federal Representatives to ask them to fund New York Schools.
Sign this petition (and share it on social media), calling for the NYPD to be defunded and removed from public schools.
Email and call your New York Legislators to speak out against the planned budget cuts to school and other youth services. Identify which legislators serve your district (and find their contact information) by typing your street address into the Open States search engine.
Email and call New York Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (scousins@nysenate.gov; 914-423-4031), as well as Speaker of the New York State Assembly, Carl Heastie (speaker@nyassembly.gov; 518-455-3791) to demand re-direction of funds to schools and youth services.
Sample Call/Email Script:
Hello, my name is [NAME] and I am a [TEACHER/PARENT/ADVOCATE] living in [NEIGHBORHOOD]. It is unacceptable that Mayor de Blasio’s proposed budget calls for huge cuts to vital youth services, including budget cuts to the Department of Education and cancellation of all City funded summer camps and summer youth employment programming. Our youth and families rely upon these services, which are essential to youth development and opportunities, and need them now more than ever, as they face unprecedented stress, isolation, fear, and loss as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We need a fair budget that works to address racial inequities and invests in the communities that have been hardest hit by COVID-19. The pandemic has starkly revealed and exacerbated every measure of inequality in New York City. [If comfortable, shortly explain the impact of cuts in terms of the scope of services you can provide vs. the need]. Will you promise to cut at least $1 billion directly from the NYPD FY21 expense budget and redirect the related savings into schools and youth services to help ensure an equitable recovery in the pandemic?
