| Releases
& Statements
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 28, 2007
Contact: Sarah Krauss
(212) 669-4193; (917) 541-0936
Release #: 049-2007
New Gotbaum Survey: Community School Districts Unresponsive to Calls for Support
- Public Advocate Launches Citywide Education Hotline to Help Parents with School Problems-
MANHATTAN - Community School Districts offices (CSDs), one of the entities responsible for answering basic questions from parents about the start of school, have been unresponsive to calls for help, according to a new survey by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum released today. Investigators at the Office of the Public Advocate made approximately 100 calls to CSDs just two weeks before the start of school at various times, and found that more than 2/3 of the time they could not reach staff during office hours.
Today, Public Advocate Gotbaum also launched a citywide education hotline - 212.669-7250 - to help parents with school children receive the answers and support they need. The hotline will address issues such as registration, transportation, academic enrichment, English language learners, after-school programs, school safety transfers and special education needs.
Public Advocate Gotbaum said, "The start of the school year can be a stressful time for parents and students. The DOE makes matters worse by providing very little information and support. My hotline will help fill the void by providing parents with assistance in resolving education-related problems."
In an effort to assess if and how the DOE was supporting parents, the Office of the Public Advocate made phone calls to all 32 CSD offices last week. The results include:
- Less than one-third of calls were answered (20 of 64 during office hours) by a person;
- In 44 of the 64 (close to 70%) daytime calls, a caller was not able to connect with staff;
- For messages left at 20 of the 32 districts, only 2 of 20 (10%) voice mail messages were returned;
- Of the 32 calls placed in Spanish, only 8 were answered. In three of these cases, translation services were not available.
Gotbaum released the survey results and announced the hotline while visiting CSD 14 in Brooklyn. She later visited CSD 13 in Brooklyn. The visit was part of her tour of CSDs started yesterday with a stop at district 4 in Manhattan. "They don't seem prepared for the start of school," said Gotbaum of her visit to district 4
Gotbaum raised private funds to create a citywide advertising campaign for the hotline. The promotional campaign will include ads on bus shelters and in local and daily newspapers. The Public Advocate launched a similar hotline in 2003 to provide a resource for parents who were confused by the DOE's first re-organization.
Last March, Public Advocate Gotbaum found that the DOE was failing to provide basic information to parents of special education students - and ignoring phone calls asking for help. The new survey highlights a pattern of unresponsiveness by the DOE. The report, Waiting for Help, showed that the Committees on Special Education, the DOE entities responsible for processing and maintaining special education cases, and parent coordinators failed to respond to more than half of nearly 400 requests for assistance.
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