D75 Back to School, a Big Win on Tuition, Busing Woes, 40+ October Events, Student Art & More

Hello all — Brian here. If you’ve never been to the D75 Back to School Bash, it’s well worth checking out. On October 3, at the Javits Center, I talked with dozens of D75 teachers and principals, parents and kids, including a teacher who’s the unofficial “D75 DJ,” a nutritionist who gave great tips on how to diversify your child’s palate, and much more.

And there was this:

And this:

I went around the hall and talked to a bunch of dedicated, wonderful people, all of whom are on a mission. Here are some of the questions I asked:

What is one of the big misconceptions about D75?

“I think it's important to note that D75 is the biggest special needs program in the country, and in the world — it services roughly 150,000 special needs children annually. And while we do send out some children—the ones that truly need extra support that we can’t provide—that's true with any type of program.”

“The truth is that the majority of school districts send their kids to us because we can service them — Westchester school districts and Jersey school districts and Long Island school districts. I think that D75 gets a bad rap in that regard because, in fact, we are taking on more than we ever outsource.”

—Michael Sovak, assistant principal at P12X, The Lewis and Clark School in the Bronx

What's new in D75 classrooms this year?

“One of the things we're doing this year at P231K is a main focus on MTSS-B (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Behavior), which is tiered services for students who need a little bit more one-to-one instructional time. It’s developing data systems to track what the students are doing, and seeing what protocols and tiered responses are appropriate for them. It started at the end of last year, among all D75 schools, but we're really starting to see that the data we are running is showing us exactly which students we need to pinpoint.”

— Sal Terranova, assistant principal at P231K in Brooklyn

How important is it for teachers to communicate with parents?

“Just recently I had to talk to a parent. A student ticked another student off, the kid got mad and started scratching himself. Communication with the parent is key because without it, that child would have gone home and told a story, and the parent wouldn’t know what really happened and they’d get upset. So while the child is there, in school, after the incident, you talk to the parent. They can come in [to the school] and it's better that way. Communication with parents is huge.”

— Ernest Agyeman, physical education and crisis intervention teacher at P469, The School for Continuous Learners in the Bronx

What if my child will only eat Chinese take-out?

“Have them get more involved in the kitchen. You'd be surprised how they react when they have their hands in whatever you're making. Make a salad. Identify the colors together. If they're the ones chopping with a child-safe knife, or mixing or stirring, they take pride in that. And they may not love it right away, but I think they'll be more willing to at least taste it.”

— Anastasia Gialouris, a chef and dietitian with Foodstream

This is big news: A federal judge just ruled that families who can't front tuition can still ask for private school funding. Attorney Mark Gutman says it could help any family whose child was denied an appropriate education and who can't risk signing a private school contract.

The short version:

Why it matters: Families who couldn't pay private school tuition up front could win their case and still walk away empty-handed. A federal judge just rejected that reasoning.

Driving the news: The boy's IEP called for a state-approved private special ed school. DOE never found one.

Zoom in: On September 25, Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan called the state's reasoning "Kafkaesque." Under that rule, nobody could judge whether the school suited the boy until he went there. His parents couldn't send him there without a ruling first.

What the family gets: The case goes back to a hearing officer to set make-up services. "This is a child who was entitled to an education but didn't receive it for the entire year, and now we're two years removed from that," said Gutman, the family's lawyer.

"So something substantial needs to be ordered to get this kid back to where he should have been had he been receiving an appropriate education all along. That would likely be a significant amount of services."

What it means for parents: The ruling may reach more families than the D.S. case suggests. "It helps basically every single family that has been denied an appropriate education by their school district but are hesitant to sign a contract with a private school for hundreds of thousands of dollars," Gutman said. "It definitely doesn't only apply to students who are recommended for non-public schools."

What to watch: Will DOE take this to a higher court? Gutman says the family is ready: "If the DOE wants to test this ruling in a higher court, we're happy to meet them there and make this ruling the controlling case law across New York, Connecticut, and Vermont."

Read the full story and what other lawyers are saying.

On Sunday, September 27, we went to Irving Plaza to watch a dozen performers take the stage for Stars of the Spectrum. The performers, all of them on the spectrum, played pop, hip hop, rock, show tunes, Ghanaian drumming, Cumbia, and a bunch of impressive original songs. Epic Players, NYC's neuroinclusive theater company, opened the show.

The Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism runs the yearly tour.

Irving Plaza was a sensory-friendly wonderland, and the performers hung out after the show to talk to the kids. Sam the Sentient MC from Chicago credited his parents, who had him take piano lessons when he was a kid.

We asked Sam what advice he would give to parents who have a child with talent. “Continue feeding it,” he said. “Support it, and keep continuing to spark that flame unapologetically.”

At the end of the show, kids in the audience rushed the stage (they were invited):

Read the full story →

On Saturday, September 26, I went to Brooklyn Public Library’s Inclusion Fair. I was talking with Liliana Diaz Pedrosa, director at Advocates for Children (AFC), one of a dozen or so groups tabling there.

We were trading stories when a mother and her son approached the table. She described how a few years ago her son was dysregulated and unhappy in his public school.

She had reached out to AFC, and they walked her through the legal steps she needed to take to get him into a non-public school with the supports he needed.

“I followed your directions step by step, and I got him into the right school,” said the mother. “It was life-changing.”

Then she began to cry. Liliana got up from her seat and walked around the table for a big hug.

AFC's free Education Helpline: 866-427-6033

After the Brooklyn Public Library Inclusion Fair, I walked over to the Brooklyn Museum to see what kind of sensory-friendly events they have (see below). I stopped in front of this marble sculpture, The Fallen Angels, an 1893 piece by Frank Albano.

Why it matters: Parents say this year's busing is the worst in memory.

What the Chancellor said: At the September 17 PEP meeting, Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels addressed it:

"We are focused and really challenging ourselves to ensuring reliable transportation. We are running a record number of routes, nearly 9,000, and contending with a nationwide bus driver shortage. We've made significant progress ensuring consistent service and that all students with disabilities who had unassigned routes at the start of the school year now do have assigned routes. That has been addressed."

The reality: It may have been addressed, but it's not resolved.

Also at PEP: Chair Alan Ong named Marjorie Dienstadt to lead the Students with Disabilities Committee.

“I think the G in Via GPS stands for ‘glitch.’” — Sara Catalinotto, who runs Parents to Improve School Transportation (PIST).

Writer Anya Kamenetz, at a Sep. 24 Gateway School Gathering, “Can AI Be the Great Equalizer for Neurodiverse Students,” on how she explained AI chatbots to her child: “It’s like a smiley face, and behind the smiley face is a scary robot.”

The student member, any senior with an IEP, will bring their perspective, raise school-related concerns, and advise the council on education issues; the role has a voice, but not a vote. The application is posted on the CCES website.

In June, we went to the D75 student art exhibit at the Guggenheim. All of it was inspiring. We saw this piece, from a student at Jeffrey M. Rapport School for Career Development (754X).

Art teacher Maura Lane wrote: “We learned about the artists Franz Marc and Gabriele Münter. They changed the way real places looked by using unrealistic colors and abstract shapes. For this project, we chose a favorite place or a place we wanted to go and we transformed the place by changing the colors and abstracting the shapes on clear paper using gel markers. We had a lot of fun changing the way the places looked and making it our own!”

Need to know about quiet rooms, crowd sizes, or wristbands? See accommodation details for every event →

If you know of events or organizations that should be listed here, please email us at [email protected]

If you find any of this newsletter helpful, please forward to family who could use it. Apologies for any typos!