As 12 Early Community Schools Face Funding Cuts, Advocates Question City’s Long-term Commitment
In New York City, an unexpected fight has flared up between proponents of social service-filled “community schools” and the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, one of the nation’s most outspoken champions of those schools.
The skirmish centers on a dozen community schools that used state grants to finance after-school programs, tutoring, and student health services over the last three years. The city has not yet promised to pick up the tab for the schools when their $6 million expires at the end of June — even though state officials said Monday that the city could use a pool of state funds to do so.
That has frustrated advocates who say those 12 community schools, whose programs date to 2013, were at the forefront of an approach that de Blasio is now trying to establish in nearly 130 other schools across the city. It also has stoked fears that his administration might let the funding lapse at other community schools in the future just as new programs are taking root...