teaching

For the past 10 years, I’ve been teaching math to middle school kids in New York City. My classes are filled with children, ages 10-14, concerned with their friends, their responsibilities, phones, and, if I’m lucky, pre-algebra. In that way, these students are the same as they were a decade ago. But in so many […]

Derry Oliver was in fifth grade when she first talked to her mom about seeing a therapist. She was living in Georgia with her uncle and grandparents while her mom was in New York scoping out jobs and apartments ahead of moving the family. It was a rough year apart. Oliver, now 17 and a […]

Mayor Eric Adams’ school budget cuts will soon hit New York City students square in the stomach. A $60 million November cut to the city’s school foods budget is forcing the Education Department to thin out next month’s school cafeteria menu by removing a host of pricier items, including student favorites like cookies, chicken dumplings, […]

New York City is expanding programs for students with autism, part of a broader pledge top Education Department officials announced Wednesday to create special education programming closer to where students live. Beginning next school year, the city will guarantee that rising kindergartners in three local districts won’t have to leave their neighborhoods to access some […]

When the Queens public school where she was working assigned Antonietta Auriemma to seven classroom sections, she realized something was wrong. Between January and June 2023, Auriemma, a substitute teacher, filled in for two different teachers on long-term leaves of absence, on top of extra classroom periods as needed. According to her handbook, she should […]

Millions of dollars in unused NYC pandemic food benefits could begin to expire next month, as the deadline for families to use them rapidly approaches. The funds — known as the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer, or P-EBT — were sent to all New York City public school families in several rounds over the past four […]

Governor Kathy Hochul announced that more than $5.1 million was awarded to support 137 school-based mental health clinic satellites throughout New York State, including 82 at high-needs schools. Administered by the New York State Office of Mental Health, the funding is part of the governor’s $1 billion landmark plan to transform New York’s mental health […]

For years, students and staff at Bushwick Leaders High School for Academic Excellence in Brooklyn had a recurring complaint about their aging school building: There were no working water fountains. Staff and students tried in vain to get them fixed, and Principal Enrique Garcia resorted to stockpiling bottled water to hand out to thirsty students. […]