Mayor Eric Adams announces the city will be able to restore $10 million in funding for New York City Department of Education (DOE) community schools and make $80 million in new investments. | Photo by Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
NEW YORK – In a reversal, the City will be able to restore $10 million for New York City Department of Education (DOE) community schools and make $80 million in new investments in Summer Rising, jointly funded by the DOE and the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD), Mayor Eric Adams has announced.
Last month, the United Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit against the mayor to block his slashing of education funding, which said schools would lose nearly $2 billion. UFT also challenged his cost projection to provide migrant services, which UFT said the mayor claimed the migrant surge would cost $11 billion over the next two years.
Community schools partner with community-based organizations to provide holistic support to students and their families, including health care, additional learning opportunities, and social and emotional counseling. This funding will be spread across 170 community schools.
Summer Rising is the City’s summer program that connects 110,000 elementary and middle school students to fun, culturally relevant, hands-on experiences to strengthen their academic, social, and emotional skills.
According to the City, Summer Rising, a permanent program, will now be supported for the first time with city dollars. The previous administration funded Summer Rising using exclusively temporary COVID-19 federal stimulus funds.
The funding restoration is geared towards the Adams administration’s investments in young people. This includes expanding the Summer Youth Employment and Summer Rising programs to serve record numbers and increasing spending on young adult career success programming by 25 percent, as envisioned in Adams’ “Pathways to an Inclusive Economy: An Action Plan for Young Adult Career Success.”
The mayor said investing in young people is investing in the future of the City, which can be achieved with programs like Summer Rising, which provides a full year of education, social interaction, and active play to our young people.
“This funding will continue to open the doors to opportunity for a record 110,000 New York City children while community schools continue to provide essential support to young people and their families with the resources they need, both in and out of the classroom.”
The City also said the restoration follows targeted and practical steps taken to mitigate a $7 billion budget gap in Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 due to federal COVID-19 stimulus funding drying up, expenses from labor contracts the Adams administration inherited being unresolved for years, and the growing costs of the asylum seeker crisis helping put migrants on the path to self-sufficiency and reducing per-diem costs.
The restorations will be reflected in the FY25 Preliminary Budget, which will be presented next Tuesday at the City Charter deadline.
