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Overcrowding in East Side public schools threatens to deny a generation of children their constitutional right to a "sound basic education." We must make more school seats available now, build more schools to keep up with current development, and investigate new solutions for building educational infrastructure.

I have a strong commitment to public education that stems from being a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, State University of New York's University at Albany and University at Buffalo Law School. I helped create Community Board 8’s Youth and Education Committee, identified a Free Yellow Bus Program for local youth service providers, and created an internship program to better serve the youth and education needs of our community. As your Council member I will continue to fight for increased funding for youth services and education.

Our Town UES Gets 60 Pre-K Seats Added by Madeleine Thompson

http://www.ourtownny.com/local-news/20160712/ues-gets-60-pre-k-seats-added

Combined with the 90 seats added by fellow Councilman Ben Kallos — whose district borders Garodnick’s on the Upper East Side — back in May, there has certainly been an improvement, but a 2014 WNYC report estimated that there are 2,118 four-year-olds in Kallos’ district, the majority of whom will have to go far outside their neighborhoods for pre-k.

Issue: 
Education

Gillen Brewer School What's Brewing? The Gillen Brewer School Summer Newsletter by The Gillen Brewer School

http://www.gillenbrewer.com/whats_brewing.html

 

Community Involvement in Action 

GBS students are taught about the importance of community involvement and being informed about current events. When Joey and Eli shared their concern about the increasing number of track fires in the subway system, they decided to take action in the local community. Working together, they hand wrote a letter, which we shared with our local City Council member, Ben Kallos. Councilman Kallos invited Joey and Eli to come and pick him up in his office, where they got to take a tour. Then, Councilman Kallos came with us back to Gillen Brewer, where Joey and Eli gave him a tour of the school. After the tour, Councilman Kallos visited the Puffins classroom to discuss this civic issu`e and to answer questions from the students.

Issue: 
Education

Gothamist New Proposal Would Require DOE To Share Extensive Data On Public School Enrollment by RAPHAEL POPE-SUSSMAN

http://gothamist.com/2017/02/28/school_enrollment_data_bill.php

City Council Member Ben Kallos, who represents a broad swath of Midtown East and the Upper East Side, on Wednesday introduced a bill requiring expanded disclosure on school enrollment, part of an effort to address a space crunch that has half of the city's public school students attending overcrowded schools.

Under the terms of the proposed bill, the Department of Education would make publicly available aggregated and disaggregated data on the number of applications and admissions granted for each school in the city, as well as enrollment numbers and expected open seats for the next school year. This data would be further broken down by grade level and the community school and council districts of residence for students, as well as their zip codes.

"We need to better track what schools people are applying to, how many folks are being turned away from schools, and have a better sense of where they're ending up so we can re-adjust programming," Kallos told Gothamist.

Issue: 
Education