State Education Department Awards INCLUDEnyc $3M to Improve Outcomes for Students with Disabilities
The money will help the organization connect more families to resources through INCLUDEnyc’s Family and Community Engagement Center.
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Lori Podvesker, INCLUDEnyc’s director of disability and education policy, says that the $3 million will also help INCLUDEnyc expand its efforts to inform families of the escalation process when there are issues in a child’s education.
“That can look like creating effective communication skills and understanding the hierarchy at the school level, and then seeing what other remedies can be explored outside of the school level–whether it is due process, which focuses on the individual student, and or bringing their concern to a regional superintendent, or DOE policies,” Podvesker says. “Such as: a related service can’t be taken away [from a child] unless there’s a new evaluation. And most parents don’t know that. So by sharing that information and bringing that up, formally or informally…that can help secure services in the interim.”
Glassman emphasizes that by serving as the city’s Family and Community Engagement Center, INCLUDEnyc hopes to create an environment of inclusivity where “parents and professionals and community members are all going to be receiving the same information and working towards a common goal. That’s what we hope for.”
For more information on INCLUDEnyc and its services, including FACE, workshops, the Help Line with interpretation in more than 200 languages, digital resources, and more, visit the INCLUDEnyc website.
