NYC Mayor Adams unveils $9 million program for students and schools with higher suspensions, absences
Mayor Adams and top city officials rolled out a new $9 million initiative Thursday to support students in public schools trying to rein in higher-than-average absentee rates and suspensions.
The program, dubbed Project Pivot, will operate in 138 schools throughout the five boroughs and aims to provide services through several already-operating community-based organizations.
With dozens of students and community groups as their backdrop, Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks unveiled the new initiative outside the Education Department’s Tweed Courthouse downtown, with Adams invoking his common refrain that the city should address critical issues “upstream” so they don’t metastasize into bigger problems “downstream.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams (left) and New York City Department of Education Chancellor David Banks (right) announce Project Pivot outside the Tweed Courthouse in Manhattan, New York on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. (ED REED/)
“There is no greater abandonment and betrayal than the $38 billion we spend every year. And people are eating off the dysfunctionality and they have normalized that our children can’t learn, and we say no to that,” Adams said, referring to the Education Department budget. “This project will bring community-based organizations into our schools to connect with young people at a pivotal moment.”
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The project will operate in 51 Bronx schools, 37 schools in Brooklyn, 28 in Manhattan, 13 in Queens and nine on Staten Island. It will offer services after-school, during school hours and on weekends, depending on the needs of students, according to Aaron Barnette, the Department of Education’s deputy executive director of the Office of Safety and Project Pivot honcho.
“They are working in conjunction with the school administration to find out what best fits with the young people,” he said. “Fulfilling potentials is really the focus of the initiative.”
Students are pictured outside the Tweed Courthouse in Manhattan, New York on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. (ED REED/)
Among the community groups that will provide services are Black Girls Rock, Elite Learners and the Bronx Youth Empowerment Program. About 140 groups in all are participating, according to Barnette.
He added that the city intends to measure success in several ways: attendance, tardiness and the frequency of negative behavioral issues.
Different programs have different areas of focus. One service provided by Elite Learners is what’s known as “safe passage,” which involves posting members of the group near school and along routes to school to help ensure there are adults present in case students are accosted on their way to class.
“It allows for a safe transition for young people to get into the building and out of the building,” said Camara Jackson, Elite’s founder and a former public school teacher. “We want to be preventative.”
New York Mayor Eric Adams (right) and New York City Department of Education Chancellor David Banks (left) announce Project Pivot outside the Tweed Courthouse in Manhattan, New York on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. (ED REED/)
One Project Pivot group that’s almost certain to raise eyebrows is the Bronx Youth Empowerment Program. Its executive director is former Councilman Andy King, who was expelled from the Council over charges that he discriminated against a female employee, took a kickback from a staffer and failed to pay a fine.
When asked about his group’s role in the program within the context of that controversy, King brushed it off, saying that the issue didn’t come up in any conversations with Banks.
“If it’s about the children, then the adults have to be the adults in the room,” he said. “I’m trying to save lives and save souls, you know? Whatever happened then was adults doing their politics, you know? And that’s what it all boiled down to.”
