-: I was lucky enough to grow up in a neighborhood
that had great schools.
It is nothing I ever had to worry about.
Nothing my parents had to worry about.
And my generation of my family is the first ones
to grow up in areas
where we didn't have to worry about the quality of schools.
And so I can't really imagine,
I'm a new parent myself, I had a baby in July,
and I couldn't imagine having to like
to panic over where I'm going to send my child to school
because the neighborhood school is not what I think
my child deserves.
And so that's probably,
and I don't see it all that often
but you know, when we hear about our students
getting accepted to amazing schools
that's really like the most rewarding part of my job.
I think the way that our education system is funded
in the United States
does not lend itself towards equity
and as long as it's based in property taxes
there are going to be school districts
that just flat out suffer.
So New York City's a prime example
where like most of the companies
or individuals that own property
are wealthy enough to escape a lot of taxes.
And so it's a city of renters, most people rent here,
and so that's the funding stream for our education system.
The DOE has a very large budget.
It's the second-largest in the city government,
but when you think about the number of kids
that it's required to educate
and provide a free and appropriate public education to,
that's not nearly enough.
And so when you're talking about the supports
that children with disabilities need
and you're hitting roadblocks
where the district is acknowledging
that it's something that they need, that the student needs,
but they're not paying for it,
and that's the only reason
why they're not putting it in an IEP,
it's incredibly frustrating
because we're the ones that have to go back to the parent
and tell the parent yeah, your kid needs a paraprofessional
but it's not happening.