Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Holds Press Conference on After-School Programs at Bronx School of Young Leaders

January 9, 2014

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good afternoon everyone. Well, I want to thank – thank you for whoever said good afternoon, that was very polite.

[Laughter]

I want to thank – wonderful principal of this school, Serafa Cruz, for her extraordinary work. 19 years in the school system?

Sefara Cruz: Yes.

Mayor: 10 years here?

Mayor: 6 years as principal?

Sefara Cruz: Yes.

Mayor: I got my facts right. Okay, Serafa has been 19 years in New York City public schools, 10 years here at this school, six years as principal and she's doing great work.

I am honored to be here with Chancellor Carmen Fariña. I like saying that, that makes me happy, who has truly hit the ground running. It helps that she has had – what are your statistics?

How many years in the system?

Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina: Several.

Mayor: Several.

[Laughter]

And is doing a great job already implementing our vision. I want to thank Councilmember Fernando Cabrera who has joined us. We're in your district and we're honored to be. And thank you for joining us. And our incoming Department of Youth and Community Development Commissioner, Bill Chong, is with us and we welcome him as well.

So, the – I want to just thank everyone here at the Bronx School of Young Leaders. I could not help but notice the enthusiastic reception outside and even more enthusiastic reception inside. The extraordinary after school program here, you can see immediately what's being achieved.

And I was lucky enough to get to hear some of the young people talk in their own unscripted – very unscripted words about what they felt about this program. But the good part was I had to first interrupt them from what they were doing and they were so into what they were doing it was hard to get them to stop to spend a few minutes talking to me. When I did, the incredible enthusiasm they feel about being able to be with their friends, to keep learning, to keep doing things that really enrich their lives, new experiences like dance that we saw.

And obviously, you can see immediately what it does for their self-confidence; what it does for their ability to work together; the enthusiasm it gives them in terms of their education. You know, so much of what's powerful about after school.

And I'm here with a true education expert so I'll give my layman's rendition. But to me one of the things that's truly powerful is that after school taps into that which children love about their education. It helps them find that one thing or sometimes several things, maybe it's dance, maybe it's theater, maybe it's sports. But whatever it is that really energizes them and bonds them to their school and their education. And then it has a positive multiplier effect in everything else they're doing during their school day.

And so, it's a powerful, powerful tool and you can see here – for kids here in Morris Heights, this is a game-changer. This after school program really helps them improve their studies and focus and be truly devoted. And you can hear in the kids that I met, they were immediately talking about what they wanted up ahead. They were talking about where they wanted to go to high school; what their visions were for themselves. They had a lot of energy, a lot of hope because they're in a setting that every single day is communicating to them how much potential they have. And to that, the principal and all the teachers involved deserve a lot of credit.

Now, I say all that against a backdrop of a neighborhood with more than its share of challenges as the council member knows. In this neighborhood, obviously, a very high rate of poverty – 100 percent of the student body in this school qualifies for free lunch. 100 percent. Many children come from immigrant households and are learning English as a second language.

You know, it was important today to be in a middle school setting because I understand that middle school is a particular challenge in the educational system in general. It's not just about what we hope to do in terms of after school to support our kids and deepen their education, deepen their connection to their future, it's also that middle school in of itself is a particular challenging time in a child's education. And it comes with challenges that we're still working very hard to address.

And this is ironically how I met Carmen Fariña originally. When I was on the school board in District 15 in Brooklyn, and we brought Carmen in as our superintendent. I had run for school board on a platform of more focus on middle school. Carmen had already been known as someone who was proponent – a proponent, a very passionate proponent, of more focus and more reform in the area of middle school. And when we got together and started working together we obviously saw eye to eye. And I knew that she as chancellor would bring special focus to all that we have to do to improve middle school and give it the attention that it deserves as a crucial link in the educational process.

Now, I'll say something as a parent and I often make this joke, I like to say that I am a recovering middle school parent.

[Laughter]

And that is because for anyone who's had middle school kids, it is a challenging time. It’s a very transitional time in a child's life. And a lot is going on for them, socially, emotionally, physically. And so, on top of the other challenges of educating our kids up to the high standards of our ever changing society, middle school is a time when a lot of kids for the first time go out of their immediate neighborhood or the immediate area where their home is. They're now in a bigger setting. They're going through a lot of changes.

It's a truly challenging transitional moment and therefore that much more difficult to address in the educational process. And that's another reason why the after school program is so important. You can see it with the young people I saw today because the after school grounds them. While they're going through everything that they're going through in their lives, the after school is a great outlet.

And one of the kids said that she was all hyper all the time, but when she was in the dance program it helped her to focus and get her energy out and really, you know, participate very productively. And

I think that's one of the great things about after school, particularly at the middle school level, is it helps kids to get their energy out in a productive way and get focused on what matters.

So, we're going to be from day one focused on improving middle school all over the city. And we know that when you have the after school programs, you're talking about a lot of great opportunities for kids. For example, in this school I mentioned dance; there's sports programs; there's clubs like guitar, and stepping, and hip hop. There's something that connects to each child's interests and gives them that sense that their own personal interests matter and they can put their own stamp on what they want to do.

By the way, none of this is isolated in the sense that the after school program isn't just a thing unto itself. It's deeply connected to what happens in the school day. So, kids come right out of school, immediately do some tutoring, some homework, remedial help, whatever it is, and then go on to other activities; it’s a perfect continuum with the school days.

And at this school over 100 kids are participating in after school. That's more than 1 in 4 of every kid in this building. So, there's a high level of interest in participation. We could reach a lot more kids here and we could reach a lot more kids all over the city if we had the funding to do it.

So, our message today is very simple, we want every middle school to be great and to make every middle school great we need after school to be a part of every middle school, and we need after school programs to be available literally for every student who wants to take advantage of it, for every family who wants to take advantage of it. We know that it will greatly improve kid's academic performance.

We know it will help them socially and help them navigate the challenges that come with this time in their lives. You know, New York City kids in particular, they grow up fast and they need positive outlets. And there's plenty of temptation of the wrong kind around, there's plenty of problems around. We're all aware of that fact. You know, we have to be clear as the adults in the equation that if we don't want kids going down the wrong path, we have to give them positive options. And this is exactly the age when a lot of kids are trying to sort out which path to take. It's our responsibility to give them those good options.

There's also a crucial, crucial piece in terms of our parents. Parents have to think all day long –  and I do it all day long and Chirlane does it all day long – how are our kids? What are they doing? Are they okay? Well, for parents who work long hours, a lot of them in the city today have to wonder what's going on with their kids as soon as the school bell rings and schools out. If they don't have an after school option, we've got middle school kids, for example, high school kids, that don't have that option after the bell rings.

There's tremendous anxiety for parents who have to work many more hours before they get home to see their kids. They want their kids to be safe and sound. They want them to have good and healthy options. And one of the things we want to do is support hard working parents – who by the way, I think a lot of people in this room can attest to it, we're all working longer hours than ever before. You know, a lot of families that the parents would love to be home, but just to make ends meet they have to work more hours than ever before. After school programs give them some piece of mind and some clarity that their kids are safe, and sound, and learning.

And study after study shows when kids get that kind of support, particularly kids at risk, it helps get them away from some of the negative things that surround them. It helps reduce juvenile arrests and juvenile crime by very, very substantial numbers. And this is the kind of effort we need, particularly in a community like Morris Heights that has these challenges. This is where we owe it to our children to make sure that every child has access to after school.

Now, the picture in our city is not pretty. We've not been – only not been moving forward – so it would be one thing if we said, well, we've been kind of, you know, treading water on after school and staying still, well, that's not the case. We've actually been going backwards on after school. We've lost 30,000 after school seats in the last seven years in this city, I'm sorry, six years in this city; 30,000 seats in the last six years. And the after school alliance estimates that nearly one in four students in our city is left entirely unsupervised after school. So, those are very, very serious challenges and we know we have to do better. And we know we can do better.

And I always talk about the fact that our mission is to fight inequality. Our mission is not to allow the tale of two cities that we're experiencing to get worse  – and in fact, to start to bring us together. One of the most fundamental ways to do that is to improve our schools and to get kids options like middle school and we've talked about how to do it. If we can simply ask those who have done very well in our society to pay a little more we can have after school programs literally for every middle school student who needs them. We can have, on top of that, full day pre-k for every child at pre-k age, which is the most fundamental step we can take to prepare kids for the education ahead.

And by the way, if we do it the way I've proposed, five-year plan, taxing those who make over a half million dollars, five years of stable funding going only to after school and to pre-k, nothing else, and money that we know we can depend on. So, schools like this can build out their programs and know that they can rely on the funding and keep those programs stable. If our funding is at the mercy of the annual budget fights at City Hall and at Albany, people who run our schools aren't going to be able to plan and they're not going to be able to accommodate enough kids.

This is why we want a program that's truly stable and long term and becomes a part of our school system on a constant basis. And listen, a lot of people said to me, will folks who are wealthy want to contribute a little more? Well, I've talked to a lot of people who are wealthy, who understand that we have to do a lot more to prepare our kids for the future. You don't find a lot of people saying everything's fine with our schools right now or all our kids are prepared.

People know, including a lot of wealthy people, know that we have to do better. I know a lot of kids are not getting the right start. And they can get the right start with early childhood education. They can get the kind of amplification of their education and grounding of their education that comes with after school. And if they get that, they can have a better shot for their future economic success, they can be healthier, they can break the cycle of poverty. I know a lot of people are wealthy in this town who want to see that happen for our children, who realize that we have to do something different if we want to make these kind of changes in our society.

So, the bottom line is this, we know what works. We know after school works. We know early childhood education works. If you want to see a great example you don't have to travel to another state or another country, you can come right here to the Bronx, to Morris Heights and you can see after school working beautifully. You can clap for that.

[Applause]

And that's the message we delivered yesterday in Albany. The models here, the children need it, the parents need it. All we need is the will to get it done so we can start providing this help to our children. Let me say something quick in Spanish and then I'm going to call up our Chancellor.

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]

With that, I would like to introduce someone who speaks Spanish substantially better than me, the Chancellor of the New York City Public Schools, Carmen Fariña.

[Applause]

Hold on, we're going to see if this works here. Look at that. Look at that.
Wasn’t that great.

Mayor: All right. And let’s first do some questions on topic and then we’ll take anything off-topic.
On-topic, Grace?

Question: You’ve mentioned that over the last six years, the city’s lost 30,000 seats. I’m wondering if we can get sort of an overview of how many after-school seats there are and – and is there – how does it work? Who decides who gets them? Are there lotteries at school? Do all schools have them but not enough seats? How does the program work right now?

Mayor: I always like to know when I don’t have every fact at my disposal, so I will make sure our team gets you that whole break out. I think the bottom line, though, is that we know a lot of our after-schools are working well. We also know that there’s a lot more demand than has been accommodated. Obviously, for one thing, there’s 30,000 fewer seats that used to be filled and no longer are. So when they were funded, they were taken up and kids had a very productive experience. We’ve gone backwards on after-school. We have to regain the high ground. We know the models we have work. We know that we have space. Obviously by definition, after school, space frees up. We also have lots of opportunity for after-school programming in community based organizations and the libraries. So, the pathway is clear but what is obviously the case now is that many, many kids cannot be accommodated. That’s why we’re so focused on the funding. Jen?

Question: Mayor de Blasio, the pre-k sort of gets a lot of the press of your tax hike. Is that more expensive? Like, I don’t know if you know the breakdown. Like, is it most of the money from the tax hike would go to the pre-k? Or is sort of like fifty-fifty?

Mayor: No, it’s – I’m going to get Ursulina since she helped to write the plan. Ursulina, can you hear me? Or is she off doing some other work? Do you have the numbers at your fingertips? On the 530, the break out between the pre-k and the after-school?

Unknown: [inaudible]

You want to check? All right, you’ll check. Just because you wrote it doesn’t mean you could remember it. So, it is more the pre-k than the after-school, but we’ll get you the break out. Sally?

Question: Do you expect after-school seats to be on the chopping block again this year when you do the budget? As you mentioned, if it cut, you know, year after year –

Mayor: Right. We want to, obviously, protect what we have and build upon it. And, you know, we think this funding – that the ideal way to do this is to get this tax plan passed and make sure –

Question: [inaudible] budget –probably before that happens to contend to it.

Mayor: Well, no. I mean the – we expect the decision in Albany to be by April 1ST and our budget gets passed in June. So, you know, our hope is to have some clarity from the Albany situation and then make our other decisions accordingly. Yes?

Question: [Question asked in Spanish]

Unknown: [Speaks in Spanish]

Question: So how would you – do you have an idea of how the program will be structured so that it isn’t just, like, babysitting time when the kids are here afterschool, but that it will be high quality and valuable?

Mayor: Well, I – I appreciate the question, because I think there’s a stereotype out there from folks who haven’t had an opportunity to experience our after-school programs, or our pre-k programs for that matter, where that kind of characterization is made. And nothing could be further from the truth. If you look at the structure – I’ve been to a lot of after-school programs in my day. My kids participate in after-school programs. There’s always a educational component. Could be homework help or tutoring, could be remediation, but there’s a big emphasis put on making sure kids get right to work on their homework. Now, I talked to some kids in Red Hook, Brooklyn a couple months back and they were part of a after-school program that Red Hook Initiative runs. And it’s interesting because a lot of them were new to after-school and, you know, the year before, for example, had not had it so I asked them what was the difference; and one after another, just totally spontaneous, the kids said, well I didn’t do my homework a lot of the time, or I did it late or, I did less of it. And when they got into an after-school setting, they very consistently did their homework. When they came upon a question they didn’t understand, there was a teacher to help them work it through. So the educational element of after-school alone is crucial. But another piece of the equation is that all of the enrichment activities helped to develop kids on many, many other levels. It developed their leadership skill, as in this school. It developed teamwork. You know, it developed their social skills. And that sense of belonging and that sense of being in a secure, positive environment, as opposed to being susceptible to negative influences, equally one could say about pre-k. Obviously, you build an academic intellectual foundation at pre-k, that the absence of which really holds back a kid’s educational trajectory. So, there’s no babysitting to this. This is all – please, please – this is all very systematic and makes a very profound impact on our kids. Please, here we go, the stepstool is back out. We’ve got the new – new-age stepstool.

Chancellor Fariña: One of the things you also need to know, that for most after-school programs, principals have a lot of latitude in which ones they pick and which ones they leave their building. So, it’s an assessment of what’s happening and any principal who’s going to be sitting here until 7 o’clock at night is going to want to make very sure, I know I did it in my school, that what’s in her building and that she’s going to be accountable for ultimately is of the highest quality. And one of the concerns as a superintendent, principals will say to me, or used to say to me, you know, Carmen, this may be okay but it’s not good enough for my kids. And I think we have seen over the last few years, CBO’s up their game a little bit. Because in many cases it might have been a babysitting. We don’t have that anymore because we have the power to say, what you’ve done isn’t good enough. We need better.

Mayor: Excellent, Chancellor.  Thank you.

Question: Just to follow up on that, so for you, what is the metric system that to know whether this is working? Is it just going to be improved test scores, is it going to be high graduation rates, like when do we know when this is something that is successful?

Chancellor Fariña: Well, I think – the first thing, the kids can’t learn if they’re not in school. So if you have a very good after-school program, you’re going to get a very high attendance rate. We discovered – and it goes back to the days when Bill and I worked together, I had one particular middle school where the attendance rate was very low. So, one of the things we do, we put gym first thing in the morning. And our attendance rate went sky-high. So, it’s also – middle school kids have a very different body rhythm. We know they don’t really wake up until 10 in the morning. Their bodies may be there, but their minds aren’t really. So I think, you know, certainly if your attendance is higher, they’re going to learn more. Because if you have a 70 percent attendance, they’re not sitting there learning. So that’s one way we’re going to judge. I think the other way we should judge is that the teachers who are working with them, that are not their academic teachers are doing a much doing better job of mentoring and modeling for them. So that when the kids have issues, it’s not going to go end up in the neighborhood, but it’s going to end up one person talking to another. There are many ways to assess success in an after-school programs. In this particular school, the shows we saw today, are all going to have an end-of-the-year performance. When those kids get on the stage to put on their play or do their dance, they’re going to be expected to perform at a very high level, and they’re going to be assessed on that correctly. And the – the audience will assess them. So there’s many ways to assess kids that’s not just test-driven.

Mayor: There’s the point about homework, too. You know, kids that are giving in their homework on time and completed, you can measure that very easily. Teachers do that every single day, and that’s one of the great values of after-school. It’s going to greatly increase the amount of homework that gets done on time, gets done well, and is completed. So there’s lots of different measures. But I want to make – amplify this point about the end-of-year performance.That – I know people think in terms of the educational system, a lot of prisms, a lot of assumptions. But one thing that we have to do is really think of this from a human perspective. And what we’re trying to breed in our children is support in our children is self-confidence. We’re trying to give them hope for their future. We’re trying to give them belief in themselves, self-respect. And when you get up there in front of an audience and you perform at that high level as Carmen and I indicated, and you hear people of your neighborhood applauding you, it makes a big, big impact. A lot of kids don’t get that opportunity for affirmation unless it’s – they have an opportunity like an after-school program provided. When you have highly motivated kids who believe that they are on their way somewhere, just like the kids we gather with after the dance performance, literally every single one was talking about what they saw their future as with real energy. Those are kids that are going to keep devoting themselves to their schoolwork and do better all the time.

Yes?

Question: We’ve seen a lot of press conferences lately devoted to your tax plan, pre-k and now middle school, after-school programs, so can you tell us – you’ve got less than three months before the Albany budget has to be approved. What is going on behind the scenes? Who are you meeting with? The governor was in town today. Did you talk? Did you meet?

Mayor: You want me to tell you all my behind-the-scenes special meetings?

Question: [inaudible] the strategy?

Mayor: No, okay it’s very straight forward and I think yesterday in Albany was a great indicator that the message is getting through. You know, I met with literally every element of the state government yesterday and both sides of the aisle – both the houses of the legislature, obviously, the governor as well, and the message is getting through. And part of what I think leadership is, is setting a goal, you know, and saying, this is something our people need and our children need. So, all over Albany yesterday, people were responding to that proposal in a good way, in a positive way. I think now begins the real work. Three months is an eternity in the budget process, as you know. But I think we start with real support in the Assembly, and in the Senate, very vocal support that we have to keep building upon. And you’ve seen the poll numbers so the people already have spoken. This is about doing the mechanics now, so it’ll be incessant discussions among the elected officials, obviously the staff, and we have great confidence in the chancellor and her team, and our Budget Director Dean Fuleihan, who is an Albany veteran. He’ll be deeply involved and we think at the end of the day, people are going to agree that this is the right way to do things. Yes?

Question: Mr. Mayor, if you get the full 530, how many – how many people – how many seats will there be? How many kids might be affected by that?

Mayor: So what we need to do – I’m sorry we’ve been at this so long that some of the stuff we passed out in the beginning of this process – it’s now been my sixteenth month on this issue so we’ve been at it a while now. We want – let’s make sure I’m looking to Phil and Ursulina that we get the whole rundown out to everyone so you can see. Literally, on the pre-k side, we’ve been very specific because it’s a little easier to get the very exact numbers. We know right now there’s 40,000 kids that get only half-day of pre-k. We know there’s 10,000 who get nothing even though their pre-k age. So, we’ve got a universe of about 50,000 that we want to upgrade to – from half-day to full-day or from zero to full-day. On the after-school side, it is going to be much more about the choices that parents make and kids make. We want to make sure it is universally available. We know there’s high levels of demand going on that we know we’ve lost the 30,000 seats over the last five, six years. But again, in part, it’s a little bit chicken and egg, the better the programs are, the more people see the success, the more kids are going to join and the more parents are going to push their kids to choose after school instead of going home after school. So, that’s something that will play out over time, but we’ll get you the full breakout so you have it. Yes?

Question: Sorry if I got this number wrong. I believe, Chancellor, you said the number of kids involved – enrolled in after-school programs  at this school is about one and four?

Mayor: I said one in four.

Question: Can you talk a little bit about why at this particular school more kids aren’t enrolled? Is it a lack of options? Teachers don’t want to stay late. What is it?

Mayor: I don’t want to speak beyond the details I know if – the principal is more than welcome to. I’ll just start by saying in every school I’ve been in one of the issues is resources. You know, it takes resources to cover all of the elements of providing them the after-school programming. So, you know, I think, again, we have a lot of models of after-school working, we have a lot of kids who are participating and having a great experience, but we don’t have enough resources to get to every kid who needs it.

Chancellor Fariña: The other thing I wanted to say is –

Mayor: Do you want to come up?

Chancellor Fariña: You also have older kids taking care of younger kids, and that’s a really big issue. So, eventually when we start looking at after-school, it would also be intergenerational. And I don’t mean 70-year-olds to 40-year-olds; I mean 12-year-olds with 8-year-olds, because in many neighborhoods they have to go home and take care of the kids while the parents work. So, there’s a lot of configurations that we have to look at to make sure the kids can enjoy their teenage years while still making sure families are provided for in the ways they need.

Mayor: Yes?

Question: I was asking a question about charter schools –

Mayor: Just – let’s finish on this and then we’ll go – you’ll be – you’ll be first on off-topic. So, staying on after-school and the tax plan. Go ahead.

Question: You said, yourself being a parent, now, I was the co-president – I was the president of this district – this school district President’s Council and its representative on the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council. Now, as parents, we know that parent involvement is important.

Mayor: Yes.

Question: What do you – under Mayor Bloomberg, parent involvement has plummeted to almost zero. Chancellor Fariña, what are you going to do to increase parent involvement?

Mayor: Well, again, I find that a little off-topic. So let me do this, I’m going to hold you and put you in cue – and definitely a crucial question, but you’ll go first, you’ll go second when we finish on this plan. So let’s just stay – anything else on after school and the tax plan. Last call. Yes?

Question: So, just to understand, in terms of the middle-school after-school programs, you’re not going to restrict it to any certain type of after-school program, or it won’t be any parameters like you have to do a certain amount of homework. You’re going to let the principals and the market kind of decide?

Mayor: I – a little bit different. I’ll start and Carmen may want to add – the question as to whether, you know, what the standards will be for it. When we announced this – again, this seems like a century ago back in October 2012, the model that we were working on was the After School Corporation model. So it’s an existing approach, works here in New York City, very respected, that combines a certain amount of tutoring and homework help with a certain amount of arts, culture, recreation. If I could just say as a layman, almost every after-school program I’ve seen does some variation on that. I think, you know, the broad approach is pretty consistent. But I think Carmen’s point is well taken. This is a constant effort to upgrade and upgrade and upgrade again. So, it means that as we start down this road, we want to borrow from the best models available, both with after school and with pre-k, and then continue to prefect them every year. It’s a constant effort to make it better. But I think the point Carmen made that each principal, according to their own strategic approach, will favor certain pieces within after-school and might adjust their own programs or look for a provider that particularly fits their philosophy; maybe, for example, as we talked about, the dual-language element being crucial in a lot of programs. I think a lot of people in this room know it, but I think that in terms of what we can do to help kids who are English language learners both with pre-k and after-school, it’s a huge potential addition to our capacity to reach kids for whom language is still a challenge. So, it will be adjusted within the school, but I think the broad model is pretty consistent – that mix of academic and other types of activities that inspire and energize kids. Do you want to add?

Chancellor Fariña: There are – there’s one big program now – the extended time, which actually has a formula for what programs should be and the percentage of time should be spent on academic versus something else. And some of these programs actually even have Saturday programs so that they have an extension into the weekend, which is crucial I think for kids. So, I think we’re going to look at the best of those programs. To me, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel; you have to replicate what works. And that’s one of the reasons I’m visiting so many middle schools – this my second one today – I just – can I answer his question? Or do I have to [inaudible]

Mayor: [inaudible] 

Chancellor Fariña: Okay.

Mayor: But let’s just finish this to stay consistent.

Chancellor Fariña: Okay. Let’s do it.

Mayor: Is there anything else on after-school and the tax plan. Yes?

Question: As far as location and where it’s going to happen – is every school going to be expected, if they don’t already, to have after-school programs, or will some kids go to other buildings.

Mayor Well, so, again, this is for all – the goal here is that every single middle school child who – and their family that want to take part in it get an opportunity. Now, Carmen made a very crucial point. There’s a lot of kids in this town who have not had the experience of after-school, maybe it’s because they have to take a sibling home, or you know, maybe it’s because they – and that school might be, you know, a mile away and they have to go get their sibling. There’s lots of different reasons why parents that don’t understand that after-school is available to them aren’t comfortable with it. We have work to do first to let people know it will be universally available. When we achieve this, the first message will be this is available to all. The second will be go out there and show a lot of parents who maybe haven’t experienced it before what good it can do for their kids and how it can be a game-changer for their kids. So, in many, many schools, you’ll have the option right there in the school to use available school space. Where needed, we have two other go-to options that are fantastic. Our libraries and the heads of our library systems have been very enthusiastic about opening up library space for after-school and our community-based organizations. And a lot of them already sponsor – and Bill Chong is an expert on this – a lot of them already sponsor after-school. So whereas with pre-k, I’m the first to say in Year one we’re going to get our hands on all the space we can and then keep building out, including in some cases creating new space, creating pre-k centers, etcetera. With after-school, we already have a very, very substantial space dynamic in our favor. It’s really about the funding and it’s about letting people know it’s universal. Remember, when something is not universal – I think this is a very strategic point that I probably haven’t said frequently enough – when something is universally available, people respond to it differently than when it’s not universally available. People know broadly in our society that kindergarten is available, first grade is available, second grade is available. You know, there’s a lot of things in society that are well known to be universally available. You can walk into a library. But until now in this town, pre-k has not been – has explicitly not been – universally available, particularly on a full-day basis. After-school has exclusively not been universally available. So, we are trying to change the culture, change the assumptions. When every parent in this town knows that when your child gets to pre-k age they are guaranteed  a pre-k seat in your immediate area, when your child gets to sixth, seventh and eighth grade in middle school, they are guaranteed an after-school seat, typically for example from 3 pm to  6pm. And you can – you can count on it, you can build your schedule around it, you can build your life around it, you’re going to know your kids are safe and sound – that will change behavior intensely and for the better. So, this is a process of construction, but we’re convinced people will really respond to it. Someone was over here. Yes, no? Okay.

Question: Can you talk a little bit about the staffing of the after-school programs and [inaudible]

Mayor: Well, we’re – I’ll start and Carmen can feel free to add. We think that both models are good. You know, you have teachers who add to their work day with this and you have people at community-based organizations. You know, you have a lot of different options for how to get it done – library staff. So, there’s a tremendous body of talented people available to be plugged in. Do you have anything to add? Okay.

Chancellor Fariña: I think that’s exactly right.

Mayor: Okay. Still on this before and then when we switch, you’re first, you’re second. Anything else on after-school tax plan? No? You’re up.

Question: I just wanted to ask about charter schools. Critics of charter schools often say that they push out struggling students, but there’s an IBO report today that says generally they do push out struggling students any more than traditional schools. Does this change your view of charter schools at all? And do you still plan to charge rent? And if so, when?

Mayor: I like your 12-part question. First, I have not seen the report, I look forward to seeing it. I think everyone in this room would agree no one report answers all questions, but I’m glad they did the study and I look forward to learning from it. I think we can safely say that there are charter schools in this town that cover at least as many English language learners as their district, at least as many special-needs kids as their district, and I think we can safely say there are some that noticeably do not. And that has been our central concern, that we want to see consistency and representation. So, I think it’s easy to answer the IBO report and say this; I’m happy to hear there’s some progress; I do know for a fact there’s some that are not meeting that standard, and we have to address that. On the question of rent, I believe fundamentally what I’ve said. Again, there’s a norm around much of the country to charge appropriate rent. I’ve gone a step further and said a sliding scale approach, which I think is a fair approach, depending on the resources the charter has will handle it differently. Some will not have to pay anything. But I think it’s fair and I think it brings in resources we need to do a lot of other important work for our kids. So, I’m very comfortable with our approach, we’re going to work with the charter schools, but we’re going to hold them accountable like traditional public schools. That’s really the essence of what I’ve been trying to say. Charters were favored in the Bloomberg years, period. It’s not a mystery. Everyone knows that certain charter organizations, like Eva Moskowitz’s organization was particularly favored. We’re not doing that anymore. We’re going to focus on all of our traditional public schools. I think we have 1,700 or so now. We’re going to focus on charter schools too. And those that are performing well, we’re going to work with those. Those that are inclusive, we’re going to work with. Those that have problems, be they traditional or charter, we’re going to push to do better.

Question: When the rent will begin?

Mayor: We have to – you know, as with everything, we’ve got our goals in place. We now have to work out the details of the policy. It’s going to take us a certain number of months, and when we have a better sense of that, we can give you an update. But obviously, the chancellor just got here, I just got here, so it’s going to take a while for us to get that together. On parent involvement, hold on, you had number two. Parent involvement – you take – you start, Carmen, I can tell you’re raring to go.

Chancellor Fariña: One of the things that I said when I came on board that the only department in the DOE that’s going to report directly to me is the Parent Engagement Department. So starting today – and actually we’ve been meeting with parent groups, and actually one here from District 9 on a regular basis – but one of the things I just did starting today was I met with the CPAC group, and some of you might have been there this morning. So, one of the things I asked that group to do is to put on a green card – I have – I’m color coding, I’m very big on color coding. And I asked that the head of every district, including the high school districts, to write down the biggest problem that they have in their particular district with their phone number so that I can actually go back and give them a call and see what the issues are and which issues are consistent across the board that we can deal with. I’m meeting with the CEC president, I believe next week, and they’re going to get an orange card, so that we are going to listen. Are we always going to agree? No. But we’re going to listen, we’re going to react. One of – the only thing I really learned in going to principal school is that there’s one word you need to know, and it’s called ‘air.’ A-I-R. You acknowledge the problem, you investigate it, and you respond. And that’s probably one of the things that we’re going to do with parents. So I – today, you know, there were almost parents there from the entire city; and the CEC presidents, I invited them all to come; and then I’m going to go out to the individual districts and see what we can do.

Mayor: Let me add to that, when I was on a school board, when I was in the City Council and as Public Advocate, I focused a lot on the question of parent involvement. I think it is a huge X-factor in our school system. And I want to thank – in my time as Public Advocate I had two great, great allies in this work who were in the Public Advocate’s Office – you know Ursulina Ramirez, who did an incredible job, particularly on the issue of parent involvement, parent organizing and parent involvement in general, Sadye Campoamor, who is standing over there. I’m talking about you Sadye, you can’t whisper with Phil while I’m talking to you. Sadye Campoamor did an incredible job in the Public Advocate’s Office encouraging parents to get more deeply involved. Now I’ve gone over to the join Carmen and her team. So we always put a focus on this issue, and the reason I do is as a parent I, first of all, understand parents are stakeholders in this equation, and they were not over the last 12 years treated that way. I always like to say parents are the first and last teachers of our children, and if you truly engage parents in the process you’re going to get a much better outcome. If parents are right there with the teachers every step of the way, making sure kids do their reading, making sure they do their homework. You know, if parents can stay in constant touch with teachers. One of the things I want to see us do better in this town is make parent-teacher conferences more accessible and more parent-friendly. I want to help build PTA involvement, because that’s a great tool, but in many schools it’s not where it needs to be. So, there’s a lot that we have not done on a systematic basis to truly involve parents. When you do, you have a huge amount of new energy helping kids to get their schoolwork done, creating accountability towards the kids, but also creating accountability back at the principal and the teachers in a very healthy way. And parents have every right to demand the best from all of us. So, this is a major evolution that has to happen in our school system. I think before the Bloomberg years – and I want to give a little – just quick second of history, before the Bloomberg years, the approach to parent involvement was wildly insufficient. During the Bloomberg years, the approach to parent involvement was wildly insufficient. This is something that unites both eras; there was not a strategic understanding of the role of parents, and in fact, in many cases parents were held at arm’s length, which makes no sense. It’s like having someone be one of your top investors and then not allowing them to come to the meetings to decide how you’re going to invest. So, we have to see parents as a huge positive force in the educational equation. And when parents actually know that they are being involved and they’re being listened to – and that’s part of why we’re going to have this moratorium on co-locations and closures, because the stakeholders were left out of the discussion, and we cannot ask them to be deeply involved in their children’s education if they’re being left out of the decisions about their children’s education. We have to right that ship, and when we do it’s going to make a huge impact.

Question: Bill Bratton said in a interview that he wouldn’t have wanted to take a job of Police Commissioner if John Miller didn’t come. I just wanted to see, like, you know, what you thought of that.

Mayor: I think – I will say what I interpret that to mean, I think what he was saying is that he considers John Miller a crucial partner in the work, and I think the world of John Miller and I’m thrilled that he joined us. And I think it was simply a matter of the commissioner saying how much he believes in his deputy. Yes?

Question: Mayor, I wanted to know what you think about this whole George Washington Bridge scandal. What did you think when you first heard the details? How do you make sure that things like that don’t happen again in your administration?

Mayor: Look, it’s really troubling. What happened was absolutely inappropriate. I was pleased to hear some of the changes that Governor Christie talked about today, but this was a big problem and this is not how we’re supposed to treat the people we represent. And I can simply say as someone who’s concerned about all 8.4 million New Yorkers, a lot of New Yorkers got caught up in those traffic jams, and so our people were treated wrong by those bureaucrats, and we’re not going to allow that to happen, obviously. So I – I hope that’s the last we’ll see of anything like that.

Question: What do you think of the way Christie reacted to it, today at the press conference?

Mayor: All I can say is I’m glad he came clean and said that he would take resolute action, but I think – you know, it obviously raises bigger questions of how something like that ever happened to begin with, and it’s unacceptable, and it’s not tolerable for anyone in government to play with the people’s needs that way. It’s just – it’s not professional, it’s not mature, it’s absolutely immoral. Yes?

Question: Earlier today, you swore in a new class of recruits, NYPD recruits, and I’m wondering if you can speak at all about your relationship with the department. You had a lot of praise for the police during your remarks. During your campaign, you were a fierce critic of many police department practices, and Bratton today in his speech, the Police Commissioner, told the recruits, you know, this Mayor is behind you, he will support you, he will support your families – almost as if sort of trying to reassure them that you have their back. Do you feel like you need to work to sort of smooth things over with the police department after the campaign?

Mayor: I think the fact that I have intense respect for the men and women of service is self-evident. It has been for a long, long time. I’ve been in public life for a long time. And I referenced today the experiences I had that were incredibly gratifying when I was a City Council member. I live in the 78 Precinct and I also represented the 76, the 72 and the 66, and I had a very close working relationship not just with the precinct commanders but with a lot of the beat cops and a lot of the community affairs cops. And we worked seamlessly together. I mean every single day. And so I – my sense of the NYPD is from the grassroots up. I have immense respect for how hard our officers work, how dangerous the work is, how complex it is, and I tried to communicate that today. You know, we’re going to have over the course of time when it comes to any given mayor, any given commissioner, there’s going to be policy issues that come up. And I happen to disagree with what Mayor Bloomberg did, I happen to disagree with what Commissioner Kelly did on issues like stop-and-frisk. But I never thought that reflected on the quality of our men and women in uniform. In fact, I knew even better than that because I heard from so many beat cops, you know, on the condition of anonymity, that they didn’t like the quota system that came with stop-and-frisk. They thought it was stopping them from doing their job and hurting their relationship with the people they were trying to serve, so I’m very comfortable with the very positive relationship I’ve had with the men and women of the NYPD. I think some policies stood in the way of them being able to do what they came here to do, and I’m glad we’re changing those policies. Sally?

Phil: One or two more, please.

Question: Mayor, when you were a councilman, you were on the leadership team and you had the General Welfare Committee after, you know, you bumped the Speaker. And a lot of Dan Garodnick supporters are saying they’re worried that they’re not going to get good committee assignments, they’re not going to get on leadership, that sort of thing. Have you discussed this with the new speaker? Have you encouraged her to be, you know, judicious? Do you expect her to be?

Mayor: I’ve congratulated her and as I said yesterday, I think she’s going to be an extraordinary speaker. I think she’s a very, very talented and committed person. I have not gotten into the details of how she’s going to choose her leadership. That’s her job, obviously. I think – the only thing I’d caution is I think each year is different. You know, I participated in the speaker races in 2001 and 2005 – those two were different. This one is different. The conditions are always different. I am certain she wants to work with everyone, and I think in the final analysis everyone in that council, all 51 members, came to the conclusion that they needed to work together, and that’s why you saw the unanimous vote. I also want to say I think it’s evident today all over the city that there is tremendous pride in the historical moment that’s been achieved by Melissa Mark- Viverito. For too long, there was not Latino representation at the highest levels in this city. Many, many people tried, and I know there was intense frustration in Latino communities that there wasn’t that kind of representation, and for the first time in the history of the City, this very day we woke up in the morning with a Latino citywide official. And it’s a great, great achievement. And I think people are very proud of Melissa, and I think she will continue to make them proud. Yes?

Question: Yesterday, the Obama administration offered some guidelines for school districts, how to reduce the disparity of  among students who are expelled or suspended or arrested. And that disparity is also in New York school system.

Mayor: Yes.

Question: Do you have a specific plan for how you’re going to attack that here?

Mayor: I know in principle what we want to do. We don’t have a specific plan yet, but I know that we believe there have been mistakes made, and there has been a clear disparity, and that we want our approach to discipline to be just as fair and evenhanded and colorblind as everything else we do. And too many children of color were disciplined in a way that was exclusionary, and we can’t have that continue. So, I think that was an important report and it’s certainly going to be helpful to us in guiding our approach.

Phil: Last question, guys.

Mayor: Yeah? Two, so, one and two.

Question: As was mentioned, you were the chair of the Welfare Committee when you were in the Council. I’m sure you’re aware of the Myles boy who was found dead this in Midtown. Do you know if the ACS had been tracking his family at all? There were reports that there had been other issues, that maybe his sister had been taken away. Are you aware of ACS knowing about him and if they had done anything in the past and been, you know, had a file open on him?

Mayor: Look, I’ll speak broadly. These cases are very sensitive. This is a very painful situation. And I was the Chairman of the General Welfare Committee for eight years and then for four years as Public Advocate remained involved and I’m going to be deeply involved in these issues. And I’ve got two people who will be working to make ACS stronger all the time – our Deputy Mayor Lilliam Barrios-Paoli and our Commissioner Gladys Carrión. Every one of these tragedies, I can speak for them as well. We feel every one of these. We can’t rest until we make this system better. I think there are a lot of complexities in this case, but I think it is a reminder to us that we’ve got to find ways to reach children, even sometimes when it’s hard to see where the problem might be. We’ve got to keep looking for more ways to identify where a child might be in danger and to get to them in time, and it’s a very, very painful situation. The one thing I can say is I know a lot of the people who do this work, and they put their whole heart into it, our child welfare workers. And I know they feel as I do every time we don’t get there in time, it tears at our heart, and we’ve got to do better.

Question: Could this be another Nixzmary Brown situation?

Mayor: You know, the – it’s very hard to compare these tragedies. I think the Nixzmary Brown tragedy was one that taught us so much because there were so many warning signs that so many people saw, including everyday New Yorkers. The interviews – if you haven’t seen them and if you are focused on this issue go back and look at the newspaper clippings of people who said, you know, ‘I heard her screams and I didn’t know if I should call someone and now I wish I had.’ I don’t know if there was anything like that in this case. That one was so tragic because so many opportunities were lost to save her. And I do want to say in fairness – and this is something I worked with the Bloomberg administration on – after that tragedy, profound changes were made, very important changes that last ’til this day. After Marchella Pierce was killed, major, major changes were made. But it is never ending work. We’re here celebrating children who are alive and well and vital and we know what every child is supposed to get to experience, and every time we lose a child it is another call to arms.

Phil: Last question.

Question: I read in the Daily News about an initiative that you put in when it was super cold outside so that homeless families could come and seek shelter.

Mayor: Yes.

Question: What other initiatives have you implemented in the past week that we might not know about?

Mayor: Well, as we implement them we’re going to make it a point to announce them. I mean, obviously a lot is being done when you’re responding to an emergency. We try to follow the practices that we know work and then wherever we see an opportunity to do better, to act immediately. And the Code Blue situation was one where we knew – and certainly our Deputy Mayor Lilliam Barrios-Paoli knew immediately as – and she felt as I did – that we had something we could do better right now and make sure that families knew they could come in for shelter. But we’ll be doing a lot of changes. You’ll just have to refer to my platform if you want to get a look at what they’re going to be, and then we’ll be announcing them as we do them. Thank you everyone.