Anna Arkin-Gallagher, Associate Director of the Civil Justice Practice, testified before The New York City Council Committee on Education regarding the DOE’s provision of special education services.

"The Department of Education (DOE), the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), and foster agencies often exclude parents from their children’s educational lives when families are separated by the foster system. This often happens because schools wrongly believe that the presence of ACS or a foster agency means that parents are no longer permitted to remain involved in their children’s educations. In fact, a parent remains the educational decisionmaker for their children who have been placed in the foster system unless there is a court order expressly stripping them of the right to make these decisions."

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"Young people on Rikers Island have a right to educational services through the school year in which they turn 21, and should be enrolled in school within 10 days of requesting educational services. Nevertheless, school-aged youth on Rikers Island – including many students with special education needs – continually struggle to access educational services. For years, BDS clients being held at Rikers have reported to our staff that they were not aware education services were available on Rikers Island, were not told of their eligibility for school, were not brought to school after enrolling, were inconsistently escorted to school, were not permitted to enroll in school at all, and did not receive the special education services they require."

Read the full testimony here.