Last week, our members rallied at City Hall to demand that the NYC Council save critical education programs on Mayor Eric Adams’s budget chopping block.

While the mayor’s proposed budget includes funding to continue important education programs, it cuts several key programs impacting immigrant and Black and brown students, like restorative justice practices, the Mental Health Continuum, immigrant family communications and outreach, Student Success Centers, and school nurses. That’s not all, the proposed budget’s investments in 3-K and pre-K, preschool special education, and community schools don’t represent a full restoration.

Email the mayor and City Council members to ask them to save education programs that provide critical support to students & families!

Our members, including parents and youth leaders, shared powerful testimony to demand Mayor Adams and the City Council restore these cuts to education.

Luz Chacon, a Make the Road NY member leader, shared how these cuts would impact our members’ children: “My daughter is a special student, which means that HS 368K needs more funding to be able to meet my daughter’s needs. The mayor must increase the budget to offer more special programs and mental health support. We want our public schools to be fully funded so that our Black and Brown children receive a quality education and the ability to thrive in New York City, and we cannot do that unless the City Council and Mayor fully fund education.”

Youth leaders also testified in front of the City Council Committee on Education on the need to reallocate resources from school policing and into the crucial services they need to succeed. Our youth leader Anderson Guaman said: “New York City has the largest school police force in the country, with a budget of over $400 million. However, this excessive police presence does not make us feel safer, but instead creates an environment of fear and mistrust in our schools…The city must instead fully fund community schools like mine so we can have quality mental health support by adding more counselors, social workers, psychologists and restorative justice coordinators.”

New York City leaders must prioritize funding initiatives and services that students desperately need to have a better future. The final budget must include care, not cuts!

In solidary,

— Julissa Bisono, Co-Director of Organizing