Committee on Higher Education

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We apologize for the delay. We've been playing musical rooms this morning, so we appreciate your cooperation. Good afternoon. cooperation today. We're getting ready to start. At no time is anybody allowed to approach the dais. If you have any questions that you need answered, just get the attention of one of us sergeant-at-arms and we'll be more than happy to assist you.

Chairs, we're ready to begin.

Good afternoon. I'm Councilmember Rita Joseph, chair of the Committee on Higher Education. Welcome to our joint hearing with Committee on Education, chaired by Councilmember Eric Dinowitz. Today's hearing is on the use of New York State's Seal of Civic Readiness in DOE's high school and at CUNY. Additionally, our committees will hear the following legislation: Intro 259, sponsored by Councilmember Shekhar Krishnan, amending the Administrative Code of the City of New York in relation to requiring the Department of Education to distribute information about the importance of dental care.

Sponsored by Councilmember Dinowitz, calling on the City of University to ensure all campuses award an appropriate number of college credits to students who earn New York State Seal of Civic Readiness in high school. Sponsored by Councilmember Suzanne Juang, calling on the New York State Legislature to pass and the governor to sign A9298 and a companion bill in the Senate which enact Next Gen Civics Act, providing hands-on projects based on civic education to students in grades 9 through 12.

And proposed Reso 620A, also sponsored by Councilmember Dinowitz, calling on the New York State— New York City Department of Education to ensure that the New York State Seal of Civic Readiness is awarded in all New York City public high schools to eligible students.

First, let me ask Councilmember Juang to deliver her remarks on her bill. Thank you so much for 2 cheers. As a mother of 2, I deeply care about education of our city's children and knowing how important it is they be taught how to engage with government. Right now, our young people are not, not engaging in politics. Young New Yorkers remain among the least civically engaged voters in the city.

Participating among schools in civic education remains voluntary and uneven, but young people who receive high-quality civic education are significantly more likely to vote, volunteer, and engage in their community as a result. That's why I'm asking you to support Resolution 451, calling on New York State Legislature to pass And the governor to sign A9298 and the companion bill in Senate, which would enact the Next Gen Civic Act, providing hands-on project-based civic education to students in grades 9 through 12.

This instruction will include hands-on projects where students apply what they learn through activities like mock election, community projects, and policy simulations. I encourage my colleagues to support this resolution and help our children learn about how our government works in a way that will engage and excite them. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember. Now calling on Councilmember Krishna. Thank you so much, Chairs Joseph and Dinowitz. At a time when in our country right now there is so much wrong information, disinformation, false information about our public health, which is impeding access to resources, critical life-saving resources for our children, for our seniors, when the Secretary of Health in our country is deliberately trying to spread wrong information about vaccines and reduce Americans' access to vaccines, it is more critical than ever that we in New York City step up to make sure that our children especially get the information and vaccines and medical resources that they need.

That's why I'm proud to We'll be hearing today my legislation to make sure that our Department of Education is informing parents about the importance of fluoride when it comes to our children's dental health. We've heard so much wrong information and questions at the federal level about the importance of fluoride, but we know more than ever it is crucial for our children's dental health.

And I want to thank the DOE for being a partner to make sure that our students and our parents get the information they need to take care of their children's health. Thank you to our chairs, and looking forward to today's hearing. Thank you, Councilmember Krishnan.

Now for a little background on today's hearing topic. The Seal of Civic Readiness, which was implemented statewide in 2022, recognizes high school students who have attained a high level of proficiency in civic knowledge, skills, and actions. It also shows higher education institutions and employers that students have completed an action project in civics or social justice. To earn the Seal of Civic Readiness, a student must earn points from a menu of various civic knowledge and participation benchmarks, which they can select from, which in completing required advanced selective social studies high school courses, passing the social studies Regents exam, carrying out a research project, completing a service learning project of at least 25 hours, participating in extracurricular activity or work-based learning experiences of at least 40 hours. and conducting a middle school or high school civic capstone project that addresses a real-world issue.

Some New York City public high schools have graduating coming to CUNY with an earned Seal of Civic Readiness in their hands for several years now. At this hearing, the committees are interested in exploring how Seal of Civic Readiness is being promoted and awarded across New York City public school high schools. But the committee is also interested in encouraging CUNY to accept the seal for college credit or in fulfillment of a Common Core or elective requirement.

I believe that that would help smooth the transition from high school to college for the DOE high school graduates who made the effort to earn the seal. The committee further interested in whether awarding college credit for the Seal of Civic Readiness would eventually improve students' chances of successfully graduating from CUNY. Our committees are also extremely interested in making sure CUNY students graduate in a timely manner so they can move on to pursue their careers as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Now let me turn it over to Chair Dinowitz for his opening remark on the hearing topic on his resolutions.

Thank you, Chair Joseph. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, Chair of the Committee on Education, but I think more importantly, New York City Public Schools alum and CUNY alum. You know, we are in a time of deepening polarization, as was mentioned in Councilmember Krishnan's bill, misinformation or lies, and people just becoming so detached from civics that it becomes critical that we do what we can in New York City to reengage our youth, our kids, in civic education and ensure those incentives are there for our schools to engage in that kind of education.

In the 2024-2025 school year, 8,000 students graduated graduating from 166 DOE high schools earned the New York State Seal of Civic Readiness. That was an impressive 72% increase from the previous year. In June 2022, at the end of the state's pilot year, 643 graduating seniors from 31 high schools earned it. The numbers are climbing fast. There's another reason this conversation matters now.

Last month, the State Board of Regents authorized the State Ed Department to move forward with ending the requirement for students to pass specific set of Regents exams to graduate, beginning with the class of 2028. Today, a student can use the Seal of Civic Readiness in place of the 2nd Regents social studies exam. Under the state's plan, the seal would no longer count towards a diploma.

It would still be a recognition, but what it's worth to students will depend on what colleges do with it. More than 60% of DOE graduates who go on to college enroll at CUNY. So a substantial growing number of incoming CUNY students have likely earned the seal. If CUNY colleges awarded flexible Common Core or elective credits for it, those students could meet CUNY's general election requirements sooner.

And earning a seal takes more than the basics. I, I, we, our last hearing was about Portrait of a Graduate, and there are some out there who are concerned about the rigor of our Regents exams. But earning a seal takes more than the basics. To earn a Regents, or Advanced Regents Diploma, every student must complete 8 semester credits in social studies, 4 in global, 2 in US history, 1 in econ, and 1 in participation in government.

The seal additionally requires at least 2 points in civic participation from things like service learning, civics projects, civic engagement electives, extracurricular activities, or work-based learning. And according to the New York City Campaign Finance Board, The number and diversity of civic engagement courses beyond the minimum requirement can vary greatly across schools depending on the school's funding and location.

And only schools that apply to the DOE can award the seal at all. That means a student's chances of earning it can depend on which high school they attend, an issue I look forward to discussing today.

But 3 years ago this month, when I chaired the Higher Education Committee, We held a joint hearing like this with the Education Committee on the New York State Seal of Biliteracy, another seal awarded for work, including testing, including service learning. Students earn it by accumulating points through coursework, exams, and projects. And at that hearing, CUNY told us that of the colleges it had researched across the state, Marist was the only one automatically awarding credit for that seal.

But today, 10 CUNY colleges, along with the School of Labor and Urban Studies and the School of Professional Studies, award between 3 and 8 credits for this seal. I mean, that is what's possible when we work together, when we elevate these issues and elevate the, the really rigorous work that our students do in the classroom and incentivize our schools to do it through college credits from CUNY.

I said at that hearing, it's not often in education that we find a program with no downside, no trade-off, no drawback. And I'll say it again today. For students, the Seal of Civic Readiness has no downside. Recognizing and rewarding students' participation and success in civic projects and courses, both by DOE and CUNY, is a— I'm going to count them— win, win, win, win, win.

Okay, you got all 5? Win, win, win, win, win. It's for students, families, DOE schools, CUNY campuses, and taxpayers of New York City. And I'm looking forward to hearing the details from our witnesses, and of course, everyone who's here today to testify. Today, we'll also hear my 2 resolutions on the use and recognition of the Seal of Civic Readiness.

Resolution 418 calls on CUNY to ensure that all campuses award an appropriate number of college credits to students who earn the seal, And Resolution Proposed Resolution 620A calls on the DOE to ensure that the seal is awarded in all New York City public high schools to eligible students. And I'm proud to say not only are these resolutions fantastic resolutions, but the early work on these resolutions was done with students I mentored at Hunter College, which is a CUNY school.

They run a wonderful program, the Grove Leadership Fellowship. and civic leaders work with 2 to 4 undergraduate students on civic projects. And our civic project was elevating civic education in our schools. And the path they took was drafting these resolutions. So I want to commend those students and the work that was done by CUNY students. So now those resolutions are being heard by these 2 committees today.

And I think, I think that's a powerful civics lesson for all the students who are here today. And are watching at home. I would also like to thank Theo Solter, my legislative director, Jenna Klaus, my chief of staff, Alejandro Carvajal, the committee's senior counsel, Chloe Rivera, the committee's senior policy analyst, Katie Salina, the committee's policy analyst, Angeline Lawless, the committee's principal financial analyst, and Grace Amato, the committee's senior financial analyst.

And I will now turn it back to Chair Joseph.

Now I would like to acknowledge our colleagues on both committees who are present. Councilmember Dinowitz, Councilmember Wong, Councilmember Narcisse, Councilmember Brewer, Councilmember Schulman, Councilmember Lewis, Councilmember Zhuang, Councilmember Krishnan, Councilmember Joseph for Education Committee, Councilmember De La Rosa, Councilmember Wilson. Councilmember And Councilmember Lee. Chair Lee, I got you. Thank you. I would like to thank Juvani Pequod, my Chief of Staff, Ben Atkinson, my Director of Policy and Budget, Amita Kelawan, the committee's Senior Legislative Counsel, Regina Paul, the committee's Senior Legislative Policy Analyst, and Ali Stouffer, the committee's Financial Analyst.

I would like to remind everyone who wishes to testify in person today, but you must fill out a witness slip, which is located on the desk of the sergeant-at-arms near the entrance of this room. Please fill out the slip even if you already registered in advance that you'll be testifying in person today. To allow as many people as possible to testify, we will limit to 2 minutes per person, whether you're testifying in person or on Zoom.

I'm also going to ask my colleagues to limit their questions and comments to 5 minutes. Thank you. Please note that witnesses who are here in person will testify before those who are signed in the Zoom webinar. Now, in accordance with the rules of the council, I'm going to ask the Committee on Education Council to administer the affirmation to the witnesses.

Good afternoon. Could you please raise your right hands? And could you also please raise your hands if you're going to be answering questions, even if you're not giving affirmative testimony, please? Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in your testimony before these committees and to respond honestly to council member questions?

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder to all of our witnesses, please state your name prior to your testimony for the record. We will begin with the witnesses from CUNY and then go on to the witnesses for New York City Public School.

Thank you. Thank you very much. State my name, Alyssa Vine, University— oh, did we not put it on? A little closer. Sorry about that. Is it okay now? No? Is this better? Okay. Oh, sure, yeah. Good idea, thank you. Okay.

Good afternoon, Chair Joseph Dinowitz and members of the Committee on Higher Education and Education. My name is Alyssa Vine, and I am the University Director of Credit for Prior Learning in CUNY's Office of Academic Affairs. Credit for Prior Learning, or CPL, is an academic process by which CUNY's colleges can award academic credit for college-level learning acquired outside the traditional classroom.

CPL is a nationally recognized strategy for recruitment and student success because it saves students time and money on their path to earning a degree. It also recognizes and validates their learning, whether it was gained on the job, through industry training, or through personal lived experience. CPL cultivates a sense of individual achievement and readiness for higher education, sending a message to its recipients that they are college material.

Since CUNY's CPL policy was passed by the Board of Trustees in 2020, implementation work has been ongoing, including and especially work to identify opportunities with system-wide potential to recruit and support populations of New Yorkers with high-demand skills and knowledge. My testimony addresses how CUNY could respond to the call in proposed Resolution 418 for college credit to be awarded to New York City public school students who earn the New York State Seal of Civic Readiness when there is alignment with college-level learning.

CUNY sees potential in particular routes to the seal, especially the high school capstone project. Determining whether the seal is eligible for college credit will require further faculty review and collaboration with New York City Public Schools. Before I expand on that, I will first provide context on existing CPL opportunities for students entering CUNY from the city's high schools.

While CPL is often relevant for working adults who may be returning to college or enrolling for the first time, it is also a common and meaningful tool for students entering college from high school. There are numerous examples of CPL opportunities that are specifically targeted toward high school students, including several that are named in CUNY's CPL policy, such as all CUNY colleges award CPL credit for qualifying scores on Advanced Placement exams, International Baccalaureate exams, and Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of Education exams.

Many CUNY colleges offer or are developing CPL pathways for key industry certifications including credentials in IT, data analytics, and health and human services. High school students who earn these credentials through career and technical education programs in the city's high schools can receive the same CPL credit as working adults who earn these certifications for employment or career advancement.

Additionally, over the last several years, CUNY has been working to establish CPL opportunities for high school students who earn the New York State Seal of Biliteracy. Currently, there are 12 colleges with CPL pathways in place for Seal of Biliteracy recipients, and work is ongoing to expand this to more colleges. These opportunities validate biliteracy with college credit and bolster pipelines for related high-need sectors.

For example, teaching and nursing and healthcare shortages. This is the result of close partnership between CUNY's Office of Credit for Prior Learning and New York City Public Schools Office of Multilingual Learners. The Seal of Biliteracy offers a useful point of comparison because both seals recognize the significant learning completed in high school. For CPL purposes, however, the 2 seals prevent— excuse me, present different assessment questions.

Biliteracy can be demonstrated against established language proficiency standards, while civic readiness encompasses a broader range of knowledge, skills, experiences, and forms of participation. From CUNY's perspective, the Seal of Biliteracy reflects a model of CPL assessment that is somewhat different from the topic of today's hearing, the New York State Seal of Civic Readiness. First, the Seal of Civic Readiness recognizes valuable learning and engagement across several pathways.

Because those pathways are intentionally varied, the learning demonstrated by seal recipients may not be uniform in content, depth, or alignment with a particular college course. The CPL question is therefore not whether civic readiness has value, but how CUNY can identify the routes and evidence that demonstrates college-level learning. The New York State Seal of Biliteracy provides a comparatively direct basis for CPL review because every recipient demonstrates language proficiency aligned with nationally recognized standards. of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language.

Civic readiness is broader by design and may be demonstrated through different combinations of coursework, projects, service, and other learning experiences. That breadth is a strength of the STEAL, but it also means that CUNY must examine the evidence associated with particular pathways before determining the appropriate award of college credit. One promising starting point is the rigorous high school capstone project with which New York City Public Schools has identified to us as an evidence of advanced and potentially college-level learning.

For CUNY CPL purposes, this route presents an opportunity with potential that's worth exploring. Foundational knowledge of civics has broad value for college students. It connects multiple areas of the liberal arts and humanities while fostering social responsibility and civic engagement. that are relevant across disciplines and career paths. For that reason, a CPL pathway tied to in-depth civic learning may align most appropriately with CUNY's general education curriculum rather than with a specific course or major.

To determine whether the capstone project could support a CPL pathway, CUNY faculty would first need to review its requirements and implementation across participating high schools. They would need to confirm that the work is consistently demonstrating college-level learning, and if it does, they would need to identify identify appropriate CUNY courses or Pathways general education areas where that credit could be applicable.

Faculty could develop a rubric informed by the Seal of Civic Readiness model to assess students' capstone projects. Students meeting standard— the established threshold would be eligible for CPL credit. Another approach would be for CUNY faculty and New York City public schools to collaborate on a CUNY-specific Seal of Civic Readiness pathway aligned with CUNY's pathway general education outcomes.

Students who complete a faculty-assessed civic readiness portfolio could be eligible for CPL credit. CUNY is interested in continuing this exploration with New York City public schools, beginning with faculty review of the capstone project and other potential college-level routes to the seal. That process can advance the goal reflected in proposed Resolution 418 of recognizing civic readiness. By cultivating a carefully designed pathway that could recognize meaningful student learning while preserving the academic standards required for awarding college credit.

For students arriving at CUNY, that recognition could do more than shorten the path to a degree. It can welcome them to the university by affirming that the knowledge, initiative, and civic commitments they developed in high school already have value in a college setting. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Good afternoon. All right, I'm going to take your lead and not lean over. Good afternoon, Chair Denowitz, Chair Joseph, members of the Committees of Education and Higher Education. and distinguished members of the City Council. My name is Cordelia Vevey, and I am the Chief of Curriculum and Instruction for New York City Public Schools. I'm joined by my colleagues Jenna Reil, Director of Civics, and Chris Kermey-Hall, Senior Curriculum Specialist, as well as Superintendents Hua Tu, Marcel Deans, and Anthony Inzerello.

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the implementation of the New York State Education Department Seal of Civic Readiness. Which is part of the NYSED Civic Readiness Initiatives and the proposed legislation. In New York City Public Schools, we believe that teaching the foundations of American government and the democratic process is vital to nurturing more engaged, active community members and informed potential voters.

Civics education should be an essential part of every student's core academic program. We are on our way to ensuring that every student in our schools has access to high-quality civics education, and the Seal of Civic Readiness has been an important component of that growth. In order to place the seal in the appropriate context, it's helpful to know that New York City Public Schools first designed and implemented Civics for All, our civics learning initiative, beginning in the spring of 2018 when it was announced as part of Mayor de Blasio's Democracy NYC plan.

With the support of K-12 educators and New York City cultural institutions, the Department of Social Studies and Civics built a multifaceted initiative including a K-12 curriculum, school-based partnerships, a participatory budgeting program, student-facing programming, and teacher professional learning. Beginning in 2020, an extensive collection of social studies and civic comic books supplemented these efforts. Some people love them. These resources have been available to all schools in New York City Public Schools since their creation, with our team now supporting Civics for All implementation in 35 partner districts.

Our ultimate goal is to ensure that every single New York City Public School student has access to high-quality civics education from kindergarten through 12th grade. We measure our impact by accounting for students' access to opportunities to build civic knowledge through our Civics for All curriculum materials, demonstrating civic skills by researching, writing, and delivering a speech each year on a community issue that matters most to them, practicing real-life democracy by engaging in participatory budgeting, and engaging in civic action projects at least once per grade band.

While the Seal of Civic Readiness is an exciting and worthwhile way to honor our students' civic readiness upon their graduation, It is not the sole marker of civic learning. Many more of our public school students are receiving comprehensive civics education across grades K through 12 than have already received the seal. The seal is a high priority, and we seek to offer all students the opportunity to earn it.

Our involvement with the statewide Civic Readiness Initiative began in the fall of 2018 when members of the New York City Public Schools Department of Social Studies and Civics were invited to join the task force that NYSED assembled to work on developing a statewide definition of civic readiness, the Seal of Civic Readiness, and the capstone component of the seal.

The finalized statewide definition of civic readiness includes 4 domains of civic readiness intended to be developed across grades K through 12: civic knowledge, civic skills in action, civic mindsets, and civic experiences. These domains undergird our K-12 continuum of civic learning and inform the elements of the Seal of Civic Readiness as it was being designed. Once established, the Seal of Civic Readiness was approved by the Board of Regents in 2021 and piloted across the state, including in New York City public schools.

The launch of the NYSED Seal of Civic Readiness complemented our citywide civics education initiative by offering a formal recognition that a student has demonstrated proficiency in the domains of civic readiness. In order to earn the Seal of Civic Readiness, a student must earn 6 points from a list of criteria that demonstrate a student's proficiency in civic knowledge and civic participation. 2 of a student's points must be from the civic knowledge criteria 2 must be from the civic participation criteria, and the remaining 2 can be from either one.

There are 11 possible criteria, each earning a student between 0.5 and 4 points. The intent behind this structure is to maximize the way a student's strengths and school experience can earn them points towards the seal. It allows schools to develop their own routes to the seal using those criteria, building on their school's distinctive context and existing programming, while also supporting students' needs aligned to their school. school's culture.

For example, a school with a law program in which students take civics-related electives has the option to accredit these electives and ensure students can earn points by taking them. A School Without Walls, one of our New York City Outward Bound schools that uses student-led individualized learning plans and integrates fieldwork and internships, designed a multi-year civic readiness capstone project that incorporated portfolio-based assessments used for exit requirements.

The large number of participating high schools have developed a wide range of ways that students can earn the Seal of Civic Readiness, each grounded in the domains of civic readiness and supported by the foundations of civic learning built through Civics for All programming starting in the elementary grades. While this potential for customization is an asset, ensuring that as many students as possible have the opportunity to earn the seal, we also need to adhere to appropriate standards of rigor.

So we require schools offering the civics projects, civic electives, or the capstone project to do so using a pre-accredited product or to submit a school-created version for accreditation prior to implementation. This process has ensured that our team can vet and accredit SEAL-related projects and programming that external organizations may have created to meet NYSED's SEAL requirements. From the initial rollout of the Seal of Civic Readiness, our Department of Social Studies and Civics created a system of support and guidance to successfully implement the seal while allowing for the flexibility schools need to align their school's context.

With the permission of NYSED, we created a local version of the Seal of Civic Readiness Handbook providing clear and detailed guidance for schools on each criterion of the seal. Our goal is to ensure that every New York City public school receives the resources and support needed to implement the seal internally. While some schools do take advantage of external resources, including a subset of the resources that might cost something, all schools receive professional learning, curriculum resources, guidance documents, and support to implement the seal.

The support that schools receive for the Seal of Civic Readiness is incorporated into the overall Civics for All program.

Earlier, I mentioned the school-based partnerships that were part of the initial design of Civics for All in 2018. While all civics curricular resources created at that time were sent to every New York City public school, we knew that providing those resources without support for their implementation, particularly outside of a mandated content area, would not result in their widespread use.

So we designed a 2-tier system of professional learning. One was available citywide for all schools to participate in, while the other was a more intensive, school-based partnership model in which opting-in schools were provided with direct support from the members of the newly created Civics for All team. They did this to integrate into their teaching and learning they were already doing.

Once the seal became part of New York City Public Schools' civic education offerings, both tiers were updated to include support for its implementation. At its start, the long-term plan was to build those school-based partnerships until we had enough participation to shift to a district-based model. In our first full year, 2019-2020, we had 103 partner schools. That number saw a small dip to 96 in 2020-2021 while schools faced the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic before rebounding to 196 partner schools in 2021-2022.

That was also the year when the superintendents of District 25, and 26 decided that they wanted all of their schools to be partner schools after experiencing the positive impact of Civics for All during the pandemic. From 2022 to 2023, we continued to support individual partner schools while bringing on additional districts before shifting to a full partner district model in 2024-2025.

Currently, 35 of New York City Public Schools' 45 districts are part of the Civics for All partner district program, with many of the remaining 10 districts in an active building year preparing to join the program. Each partner district identifies a point person in their district office who is paired with a Civics for All team member, and together they provide direct support toward implementing civics education to the schools in their district.

While this model ensures the capacity needed to provide this direct support, the majority of the 10 non-partner districts have designated district points who work with the Department of Social Studies and Civics more broadly while helping to support social studies and civics work in their district. We are very proud of how the number of schools offering the Seal of Civic Readiness has grown from 31 in our pilot year to 60 And 22-23, 118 in 23-24, 166 in 24-25, 230 in 25-26, and to our largest number yet, 271 in 26-27.

At the end of the 25-26 school year, 12,019 students graduated with the Seal of Civic Readiness, a 1,600% increase in 5 years from this 682 graduates who received the seal in '21-'22 pilot year. This increase has been possible due to the New York City Public Schools' focus on a well-paced, strategic, and robustly supported effort to expand the number of students who have the opportunity to learn the Seal of Civic Readiness.

We fully expect to continue this deliberate rollout and expansion seeking to significantly expand the number of schools offering the seal each school year. We would like to thank the City Council for your continuous partnership in supporting civics education. Whether you participated in school visits for Civics Week or joined our post-soapbox issue roundtables, we are grateful for your participation and advocacy in supporting students as they engage in civics and gain the skills needed to fully engage in a democratic society.

Finally, I will turn to the proposed legislation, Intro 259, which would require New York City public schools to collaborate with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to develop materials relating to the importance of dental care and fluoride and distribute those materials. We support the collaboration, allowing all students and families to receive oral health education, ensuring consistent and efficient use of the public health expertise.

We look forward to working with the council on how we identify the best methods for distributing important information to families to best support their health. Thank you to the council for the opportunity to speak today.

We look forward to your questions. Thank you. I'd like to recognize Councilmember Epstein, Ressler, and Maloney. Thank you for your testimony. I'm gonna head over to CUNY. Do you know how many students have come to CUNY with New York State Seal of Civic Readiness since the first seal was awarded in June of 2022? Do you have any data on students' demographic characteristics, including race, ethnicity, and income level?

Currently, CUNY does not receive information from New York City Public Schools on students who graduate with the Seal of Civic Readiness. However, we are in conversations Thank you. New York City Public School, when is the handover going to happen? We are in conversation with CUNY, but we also, and we have the mastermind behind it, have worked very much on being able to track the civics points that students are earning for the Seal of Civic Readiness and STARS so that that now shows up on student transcripts, which we believe will help to accelerate this data sharing.

So the conversation is happening right this minute. I think that's something I've always complained about as the council member, not enough conversation and interagency and collaboration since New York City Public School hands over their students to CUNY. So I think that should be much better in conversation as we move forward, 'cause data's gonna drive your work. So therefore, CUNY, and I hope you get together, let me know as soon as possible, as soon as that'll happen.

Recognize Council Member Areola. Yes. So that's something to work on for the data point. The state education treats the seal as a distinction on a high school transcript and diploma. And districts report it to the state under program service code 8313. Does CUNY admission process capture that code or notation? According to CUNY's Office of Enrollment Management, the Seal of Civic Readiness is not currently considered as part of central admissions, and they're not aware of it being used at college-level admissions.

However, this is the purview of enrollment management, so I'm not aware of how or if it could be recognized, but we can look further into this and get back to you. So 2 assignments already, and we just 10 minutes into this hearing. All right. In 2023, CUNY testified that prior— credit for prior learning policy is university-wide, but that faculty at each CUNY college are responsible for determining CPL equivalencies and credit awards Has the faculty at any college CUNY evaluated the Seal of Civic Readiness for credit?

Which college, and what did they decide? No CUNY colleges have evaluated the Seal of Civic Readiness at this time. However, we look forward to engaging faculty in the process of evaluating it and supporting their work to do so in the near future. Does that mean putting a working group together to make it happen? Is that a task force within your colleagues?

How does that— what does that look like? Yeah, so we have an existing model for coordinating collaborative evaluation of multiple CUNY colleges. We generally bring together faculty from around 8 colleges to— and we support them by gathering all related materials, putting them in touch with experts on learning experience— the learning experience that they're evaluating, helping them in this case connect also with students who have earned the Seal of Civic Readiness, sample projects, all the material to really help them understand the relevance of the Seal of Civic Readiness to college curriculum so that they can come up with a recommendation that then will be shared across all CUNY colleges for consideration and implementation.

Is that also publicized to prospective students coming into the CUNY system? Well, when we, when we have coordinated system-wide evaluation of different learning experiences, once colleges are— have decided to award credit and those credit awards are in place, for example, in the case of the Seal of Biliteracy, we have a website that lists all of the CUNY colleges that award credit and what those credit awards are.

Also, the information is entered into CUNY's student information system, so it is searchable in CUNY's public-facing searchable database, CUNY's Transfer Explorer tool. So that is available as well. Is that also for civic readiness or just for biliteracy? Well, at this time, since there aren't any colleges that are awarding credit for civic readiness, there aren't examples of that. in place, but we definitely have a model for making sure that that information is publicized as soon as there are colleges that are awarding credit for it.

And how do you plan on— will that also be added to the website as you've done for the biliteracy? Yes, we would absolutely create a visible website where students, college— or excuse me, Where students and high school counselors and teachers and families can find the information about where credit is available across the system. The next question is going to be tricky.

We're going to work together to create this cohort and getting this out the door. We're going to publicize it, we're going to get the work done, and when you do, Do all of this, you're going to publicize the benefits of earning a New York State Seal of Civic Readiness? Is that something CUNY plans to do once everything is in motion?

Yes. I would say that, that we are really proud of the opportunities that we create for New York City high school students and for New York City working adults. to earn credit on their way into CUNY. It saves them time and money on their path to a degree. And we are always eager to make sure that people who are eligible are aware of it, that, and able to take advantage of it and use it to benefit their education.

Thank you.

New York City Public Schools, how many students in the class of 2026 earned New York State Seal of Civic Readiness and how many high schools? How many students in total were in the class of 2026? In the '25-'26 school year, we had 12,019 students earn the Seal of Civic Readiness, and that was across 230 high schools. Is the plan to offer that in every high school?

Yes. What— is there a timeline? We are actively pursuing 100% participation. Right now we're in 56.2% of our diploma-granting Okay. And the DOE application process for schools that want to offer the seal end in August. How many schools have applied in the 2026 school year, and how many will offer the seal this year? Do you know? We accept all schools that apply.

So if a school applies and has not been able to answer the questions comprehensively, we work with them to do so so that they can offer the seal. Thank you. I'm going to pass it over to Councilmember Dinowitz. And I will come back with other questions.

Thank you. So I have like a— it's a technical question. So 12,019 students received the seal. 271 schools participated. How are you tracking the number of students who earned the seal? I can take that. This feels like karaoke. So as part— We'll adjourn and then you can sing to your heart's content. I mean, I take requests. So as part of— You can use your 2 minutes to make a request, Lincoln.

It's going to be terrible and off-key. But so as part of graduate data reporting each year, all SEAL schools, and this is spelled out in the handbook, submit to us any students who have earned the Seal of Civic Readiness. And then that number is meant to match their sort of discharge records. So what's reflected in ATS. I'm glad you said ATS because it was reported to us that ATS only allows you to list one seal.

I guess biliteracy is worth more to a school score than civic readiness. If there is a student who earns 2 seals, they're only going to put biliteracy. 2 questions. One is, are these numbers accurate or are they undercounted because there may be students Who aren't able to be put into ATS? And second, you're switching to OASIS. Once that transition is complete, will that allow for multiple seals to be included in the data that's reported out by the schools?

So, to answer the first part of your question, we ask schools to report all students that earn the seal to us. Currently, there are no combination codes. for a student's transcript. However, schools are meant to produce a letter that goes in a student's cumulative record folder that includes all of the distinctions and endorsements that were placed on their diploma.

So for example, if a student got the CDOS, the Seal of Biliteracy, and the Seal of Civic Readiness, even though the order of precedence, which is the document that tells the school how to discharge a student, might tell them to give the student the CDOS on their transcript, on that document in their cumulative record folder, it should include all 3 of those endorsements.

But in terms of the coding, it's not there. So on the other part of your question, we are working with DIIT to build a Seal of Civic Readiness tracker in STARS Classroom, which will eventually evolve into OASIS. I don't know what the plan is right now with combination codes, but I imagine with the Portrait of a Graduate?

What's to imagine? Or I imagine there will be updates to the way that things go because we'll get new guidance from the state. Well, I hope so. I wouldn't imagine— you have the whole DOE here. I hope it's not imagining things. I mean, there's still a lot of unknowns in this Portrait of a Graduate. And I just want to get— just stick with ATS for a second.

You are transitioning from ATS to OASIS. You're not going to be using ATS anymore. So that would be the Office of Policy and Evaluation. I don't actually know the timeline for the transition. I do know that they're developing OASIS. But there is a transition. ATS, by the way, looks like it's MS-DOS. And if you don't know what MS-DOS is, then that tells you everything you need to know about schools using ATS.

Okay, so we'll follow up with that other department about switching to Oasis.

To earn the seal, students need at least 2 points in civic participation, which come from civics projects, service learning, civic engagement, electives, extracurriculars, and work-based learning. Does the DOE track which high school offers the individual opportunities, and do those offerings differ by the school's poverty level? I don't believe we have the data right now to know whether the offerings for the specific opportunities differ by the school makeup.

But I think Chris can speak to the way that we are tracking what are the projects that each school is offering, because either they are taking from a vetted list of accredited projects, or they are submitting a project for accreditation as part of their process for becoming a high school that offers the Seal of Civic Readiness. Yeah, so another part of our handbook for the Seal for New York City Public Schools is our academic integrity procedure section.

And so that outlines the sort of accreditation policies that I'll be talking about. But to what Delia was just mentioning, So we work with internal DOE offices and external organizations to accredit projects or electives for citywide use. And those are available for any school to add to their school's programming. But schools also can develop 2A civics projects or 2C civics electives that they submit instructional materials to us for review for.

And we match those against the specifications in the handbook to accredit them or not. or the 2F capstone, which is more of a sort of planning document. Okay, um, I, I want to talk— stay with that and talk about the projects. First of all, when we met with principals and teachers, uh, they were very pleased with the way that the office runs and that you have— that you have these sample— it's not just you guys— that you have these sample, uh, the projects, things that are vetted and accredited.

I— Ms. Fine, in your testimony, you had said that these pathways are varied, and learning demonstrated by SEAL recipients may not be uniform in content, depth, or alignment with a particular college course. But I— and that touches on some of the concerns we have about the portrait. Not its alignment to a specific course, but its content depth and alignment with a curriculum.

Can you speak to the content and depth, and I'll use the word rigor as well, of these projects? Are they all of the same rigor? The handbook lays out the commencement-level standards that every project is supposed to align to. And then the accreditation process and the rubric that goes for each project demonstrates how that project would align to those commencement-level standards.

And so I think connecting it back to what you were talking about in terms of a portrait of a graduate, that maybe the pathway to the standard can vary, but the actual demonstration and application of standards, knowledge, and attributes is going to be the same level based on that project. But those projects might look slightly different given the context of a school.

We've been joined by Councilmember Maloney. Hello. So if it is adhering to a standard, does the DOE view the Seal of Civic Readiness as more rigorous than the current standard coursework that a high school student takes? I don't know that we would say more rigorous. I think that we're saying, and the state would say, right, as well, because it can be a 4+1, that it can substitute for graduation requirements similarly to the Regents exams.

What it does offer is multiple ways to demonstrate that learning and show that application. I think we could, you know, refer to one of our superintendents to talk about the ways that that looks different across different schools, but keeps the same level of rigor. OK. But— and it's a multi-year project, right? These are over the course of multiple years, students are engaging in this.

Yeah. So the seal is really a portfolio, right? It's like not one single thing. It's a combination of students' experiences starting even in 8th grade when they can have their middle school capstone and then going through 9th, all the way through 12th grade, where they may be earning those points through different experiences, different coursework, and different projects that they're doing.

Okay, I want to come back to this, you know, the, the work, the, the rigor, um, and really getting it to a place where it'll get the college credit that our students deserve. For now, I'm going to turn it back to the chair to call on council member for council member questions.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Wilson. Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for your testimony. So the Seal of Civic Readiness requires 2 points in civic knowledge. What steps can we take to ensure that the civic knowledge includes an acknowledgment of the harder parts of our history, you know, racism, homophobia, sexism, violence, and that students are not excluded from understanding the full scope of the nation's civic history.

I'm just going to hold the whole thing here. Forgive me. So for the students to demonstrate civic knowledge, some of the options are just social studies courses, the Regents Exam, a civic knowledge project. Through our office, which is the Department of Social Studies and Civics, we produce a social studies curriculum that the majority of the schools use.

That curriculum is focused on multiple perspectives and ensuring that students are getting that 360-degree view of history. I think our comic books that we share with you also support that effort. We also provide professional learning to our teachers. We have a Hard History series, recognizing that for teachers, particularly social studies teachers, dealing with some of those harder aspects of history may feel easier to ignore. than to address head-on.

And so it's our effort to ensure that teachers feel supported in that work, that they have a framework and tools for doing so, and that the curriculum provides them the resources necessary to deal with all aspects of history. Thank you. And, and some pathways to the Seal of Civic Readiness will inherently be more accessible to students from certain backgrounds.

So what can the What can you do to ensure that the opportunity for civic engagement is equally accessible to everybody? So one of the things that was a priority for us in building the Seal of Civic Readiness and how that would be applied in New York City was recognizing that there are lots of opportunities external to New York City public schools that students could take advantage of to gain civic experience, and that due to the civic empowerment gap, Those are going to apply more to our students who are better resourced.

And so what we wanted to do was build a program that ensured that schools had everything they needed for the Seal of Civic Readiness in-house through New York City Public Schools. And then we also engage with external partners, but when we do that, we ensure that that is something that is available publicly to all schools citywide. And then my last question is, Many of our schools have large immigrant populations, immigrant student populations that are in many cases coming from countries with different civic traditions and forms of government.

So how do you work to engage them in the political process? So I'll first say, in terms of our civics curriculum, it really draws on students' lived experiences, and that's messaging that we provide to schools and professional learning as well, that our students have diverse backgrounds, they have different lived experiences, and that those are assets, and they should be treated as such when we're talking about civics and civics education.

In terms of how we're engaging families, I'd love to speak— have one of our superintendents, Superintendent Deans, speak to what that looks like.

While you exchange, I want to recognize Councilmember Farias. Good afternoon. Got to turn the power on. Thank you, Chair Dinowitz, for mentioning that to me. Marcel Deans. I'm the Bronx High School Superintendent. for Districts 8, 10, and 11. I want to talk a little bit about parent outreach. At the school level, participating schools develop a SEAL program plan that includes how they will communicate with students and with families about eligible courses, projects, experiences, and the benefits of the SEAL.

That's an important starting point. But in our district, we want to go beyond simply telling families the opportunity exists. We want them to see the learning and, and understand why it matters. One way we do that is through our annual Bronx Museum Civics Fair. Students bring their civic projects into a public space, present their thinking, and engage with families, community members, and cultural partners.

Through relationships with institutions such as the Museum of the City of New York and the Intrepid, we are helping students see that learning extends beyond the classroom. And families get to see their children as researchers, as problem solvers, and young people with something meaningful to contribute. The growth has been encouraging over the years. We went from 9 students earning the seal in 2022 to 780 young people in June of 2026.

And getting back to Chair Denowitt's question earlier, we're, we're a district with over 78% Title I. And so our economically challenged families and young people are benefiting greatly and deeply from this work. But I do want to use— excuse me, I do not want us to confuse growth in numbers with full measures of success. The real question is whether more students, including multilingual learners and students with disabilities, are consistently experiencing this level of rigor, rigorous and relevant learning.

Thank you. For us, outreach is also about making those opportunities visible, making those opportunities valued, and increasing accessibility for the families that we serve in Bronx North— well, I won't call it Bronx North because it's Northeast, but Bronx High School Districts 8, 10, and 11. Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Wong. Thank you, Chair. I'm reading this right now, and it says, in order to earn the Seal of Civic Readiness, a student must earn 6 points from a list of criteria that demonstrates the student's proficiency in civic knowledge. So what does that translate to in terms of college credits, and how do you inform that to the student?

Because not all schools offer these civic— Seal of Civic Readiness. Please answer that. So at this time, there aren't any CUNY colleges that are awarding credit for the Seal of Civic Readiness. However, once we have faculty evaluate the seal and determine its alignment with curriculum or general education and implement a specific CPL credit award, that CPL credit award will be established in the student information system so that any student who presents appropriate documentation, or once we have data sharing in place, students will be able to receive those credits.

My second question is, not every school is offering this State Seal of Civic Readiness. So how are you going to— how does DOE plan to do outreach and let other schools know, or let the students know, here are the schools that have it? And then, you know, work on the other schools that don't have it? I think you just told us our strategy.

So we have grown year over year with schools that are offering the Seal of Civic Readiness. Superintendent Deans just spoke to the great growth that he saw in his district, and that is our intention, to keep engaging superintendents and principals to see where they see the value and work with them in order to design the learning for students in their schools.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Brewer? Thank you very much. I have been to, I think, all of the Civics for All programs in my district, and phenomenal. I mean, memorizing Abraham Lincoln's inauguration speech. So it's pretty phenomenal, and I can't say how great it is. My question is, having done Teens Take the City for 100 years and been working with Generation Citizen and done voter registration and PB and every other thing I can think of in the schools and put young people on community boards, to put young people on the CECs— right now I've put max on all of them— my question is, When I look at the Youth Civic Hub, which has, I don't know, it looks like about 100 different groups on it.

So how do they play a role in all of this? That's number one. And then the second thing is, if I have one more freaking person come up to me at Fairway and say, the schools don't do civics. So my question to you— no, really, I'm serious. I'm so sick of it. And then I have to spend 20 minutes at the coffee place right there while I'm trying to get my damn coffee explaining to them what you do.

So you really, really, really, because don't forget, not everybody's a public school parent, not everybody knows the schools like we do. And the private schools do civics. I have Spence kids, I have Dalton kids, I have every intern known to humankind, I have. And so my question is, you have got to tell people what you're doing. Really, it's to the point that nobody knows.

They literally believe that not one minute of civics is taught in the public schools. So I would like to see what publicity you're doing on this topic. Kamar needs to talk about it more, fine, but you need to do more. He set it up in our area, I want to be clear. So go ahead. Why— what are we going to do with this 100 groups?

How do you get them— not all of them, I just looked at the list, not all of them do civics. So you have to— I would like some kind of metrics, how they can help, because they all think they're helping, but I don't know if they really are. Rita Joseph and I love Brotherhood Soul. That's our number one youth program in the United States of America, if not in the world.

So they do the best. With all due respect to everybody else, they do the best. But you can work with others. So I want to know, how are you working with all those 100 groups and how can they help? Because they're out there, they're doing the same thing, or they're trying. I think you and I both are at the same level of exhaustion of regularly telling people we do in fact teach civics in New York City public schools.

And so I think, well, first off, you mentioned the Youth Civics Hub, so I do want to address that. If I'm correct, that is the website that was done in collaboration across a few youth civics ed organizations. Yes. And so that's something we've met with those organizations to support them in that work. We share it out to our schools so that the students know and have access to that Youth Civics Hub.

When it was first being built, I'm trying to recall. It was quite some time ago. It was. I had met with the students who were building it to talk through what we thought would be most accessible to students in schools. So we're grateful to them for kind of taking that extracurricular piece so that students are aware of opportunities that they have available to them in their communities.

In terms of messaging, I think number one, our superintendents and their awareness. For us too, when we first started implementing— I love the superintendents, but they don't go outside public schools. They stay right in them. I'm just saying. Sure, thank you. I love you guys, but you don't do the outreach. Go ahead. I think there was first some misunderstandings at the school level, at the superintendency, as to how civics would fit into the teaching and learning that was already happening.

And so we engaged in an internal New York City Public Schools-focused awareness-building campaign in those early years. As far as externally, I am often on panels that I am invited to. The Bar Association is one that I am on every year. New York Law School had a Constitution Day, just trying to get the word out. Anytime someone says to me, we do not teach civics in New York City public schools, I give them my email address and tell them invite me.

I'm happy to do that. Yeah, but you can't do it for 8.4 million people. I do my best. I know, but we have to do more. I'm just saying. I don't know if the mayor wants to really do his thing, but everybody, you know, Kamar could do the same thing. Somebody has to really tell people on a constant basis because it would help schools, Yes.

Our administration are caring about the issue, etc. I would suggest if you can do something in the next few weeks, just so people know that it's a current topic, needless to say, in the United States right now. I appreciate that. I appreciate your passion for it. Also, thank you to both chairs for having this hearing in the first place.

I think this is doing a lot to build awareness. How do groups like Teens Take the City, Generations, how do they fit into Civics for All? How does it work in terms of a more cohesive So people aren't off doing the same thing and duplicating. Yeah. So external partners have a number of opportunities and ways that they can engage with schools.

First off, while we provide everything that a school could need to build the Seal of Civic Readiness through New York City Public Schools, we do encourage them to collaborate with civics education organizations that may be local to them. In terms of citywide, we have a newsletter that we send out to all of our schools with those opportunities.

And then also external organizations can accredit projects that they do with students for the Seal of Civic Readiness. So an example would be Why Vote right now. I just had a conversation with their executive director a few weeks ago, and they are planning to submit the project that they do with students in their extracurricular program for accreditation.

I don't want to keep more time, but could you send us a newsletter to see if I like it? Sure. Thank you. Happy to do that. Thank you, Councilmember Brewer.

And Councilmember Brewer and I, as she mentioned, that's something we talk about all the time. How do you get the messaging out to families that this is happening? We don't know it's happening. I know it's happening. I also know that New York City Public Schools is one of the agencies that print the most comic books in the country.

But guess what? The families don't know that. The students don't know that. My colleagues don't know that. I do, because I make it my business to know. But we need to do a better job in promoting what New York City Public Schools is doing best. We always see the worst of New York City Public Schools. How about we start highlighting the best of New York City Public Schools?

Councilmember Farias. Thank you, chairs, and apologies if this was discussed earlier in, in this way. We've had several hearings today that I've had to pop in and out of. I just want to get a better idea of how, um, even if adjacently, we're, we're teaching electoral and governmental civics to students through this programming. I hear, and I want to reiterate what all of my colleagues are saying, when we go in community people are coming to us and their initial thought of hearing civic engagement always directly aligns to voting power and electoral power and how they don't think young people are engaged in that way or being auto-enrolled or understanding our, you know, two-party system in New York State and how there's, you know, influxes across the tri-state and the nation.

And so can you help me better understand how we're encouraging that since this is K through 12 and we are, we know folks can, young people can enroll early into their voter registration status and then, you know, be ready to vote when they're 18. Absolutely. First, our education efforts. So there's both the social studies curriculum and the civics curriculum.

I think recognizing that the social studies curriculum really covers, due to state standards, a lot of the foundational understanding of American government, and then civics is supporting students in understanding how does that system impact them and how do they impact it. So we start— 2nd grade is the first time that students are given explicit instruction on elections.

The books. Oh, yeah. So 2nd grade is the first time that they're given explicit instruction on elections and how those work. And then as we move through the grades, there is very specific instruction on the levels of government, the branches of government, When we're talking about electoral power, our 9th through 12th grade Civics for All curriculum has 5 sections.

The 5th section is called Vote: An Instructional Guide to Elections. And it has 18, I believe, suggested activities and lessons for teachers to engage students in that speak not only to the power of being a voter, but the ways you can have an impact on elections without being a voter as well, since that's what's relevant to the majority of our students.

And then we have Civics Week every year. It's the 2nd week of March. And that's when we register our students. We have a citywide student voter registration drive. There are lots of schools that register students at different times of the year, but that's our citywide push. So when the age to preregister was lowered to 16, we really pushed that citywide effort, and we ensure that that is getting into all of our schools by paying teachers to coordinate that at the school level so that they are spending some additional time on that to make sure that all of the eligible students are registered, but also more importantly, that all of our students are being informed.

That's really great to hear. I've participated with schools in my district for Civics Week, but I don't think I've comprehensively received an understanding on what the city is doing. And I think that goes to this beat that we keep drumming of it's not getting into community how active or proactive we're being on civic education in our school system particularly.

But I mean, this is also more comprehensive involving community members, like our teachers are community members that are staying after school. Right. They're heading our music program and after-school program and dance club and all of those sorts of things that they're touching base with students in different capacities during this time frame as well. So I'd love to stay engaged on that.

I'd love to get whatever comic book is for specifically for the electoral— Yeah, there's quite a few on voting. —side. This feels— there's education pieces here too, but I'd love to see some of the electoral stuff. And be able to participate and march with you folks more broadly in my district if we can. Excellent. Thank you. We'll definitely get you our registered comics, and thank you for joining our schools during Civics Week.

Well, thank you for that. Just a quick follow-up on that. How many parents know that their 16-year-olds can preregister? That's also something I've talked about. How do we make partners with families? They are also part of this educational journey, and I think we don't engage families enough. So I think that should be something. And you know where folks are also?

In hair salons, in churches. I think we have to meet communities where they are.

Councilmember Narcisse? Yes, thank you, Chair. And I apologize— oh. Thank you, Chair. I apologize that I have to move back and forth. So I don't know if that was asked before. Who decides what counts as civic action? So we have in our curriculum guides, when we are encouraging schools to engage in civic action, it is process-based. And so supporting teachers in understanding what are the steps they need to take to engage students in civic action projects, but what the students want to take civic action on comes from the students Okay.

Can working as a poll worker or running a voter preregistration drive at a school count towards SEAL? Students who engage in extracurricular activities for a total of 40 hours and then write an application of knowledge product can count that extracurricular work towards the Seal of Civic Readiness. Does a summer youth employment program placement? Oh, I already see yes, yes.

Because my, I mean, I love young people, so they're giving their time. I want to make sure that we can make sure that they know. So within this structure, I'm sure probably Chair asked that question too. The educational part within our school structure, when the parents. Like when they're doing parents engagement in the school, I think it will be a good way to give it to the parents.

Sometimes, you know, our kids can be a little— I don't want to call them lazy, but they can be like a laissez-faire attitude. So parents have to motivate them. So I think it would be a good idea to make sure that parents night and whatever, where the parents are to be engaged and knows what the extra things the kids can do.

Since I'm late, I don't want my time to be like bing bing. So I just like for the credit and— I still have time? Oh, that's good. High five. First, I want to say thank you for this young lady over here. I'm not going to call names. Don't get jealous because she's always with me whenever I have a question.

Civic engagement is so important. What I find that in the— for the young folks, if we're creating incentive, Like, what they can get, a little prompt, a little acknowledgment, and SEAL is the best way to do it, say that this is the way you can go and get, you know, acknowledgment for when you get to college, you're not going to be a stranger.

There's courses that you already take. I had some other question, but it's not coming. I was trying to get to the point, but I probably would come back for that because I had some other question that was very important in my head. escape. So thank you for your time. I don't want to waste the time of the chair.

Chair probably have more question. Thank you, Council Member. Also want to acknowledge Council Member Gutierrez.

Thank you for joining us. I have 2 quick questions, and I'm also going to share it out with, um, Chair Dinowitz. Um, how will Civic for All, um, play a role with Portrait of a Graduate? And how does the Black Studies curriculum also ties into Civic for All? So for that first question, with Portrait of a Graduate, the Portrait of a Graduate is this— the holistic explanation of what a graduate should have experienced by the time they graduate high school.

What both civic readiness and specifically the Seal of Civic Readiness does is allow for the vehicle for the student to demonstrate those things. So we see the closest connection to global citizen, critical thinker, and effective communicator. Obviously, there's connections to the others as well, but this is really an opportunity that our students are already engaged in to demonstrate that commencement-level competency through project-based assessments.

That was your first question. Your second question, um, Mm-hmm. So, the Black Studies is a study of the world curriculum. We have a crosswalk, so we have designed our Passport to Social Studies curriculum and the Civics for All curriculum in-house. What we've created for schools to be able to implement all of those things, because we recognize that's a lot of material to be giving to a teacher.

So first, we have a crosswalk that details the social studies units that schools are beholden to under the state social studies framework. And then for each of those units, it includes the lessons from Civics for All that are most relevant there, and then where the lessons from the Black Studies as the Study of the World curriculum makes sense in terms of the units of study.

We also, through our work with our district points, have been supporting them in thinking about that work as well. Yeah, because that was very important, and we wanted to make sure that the curriculum was also reflected. How many, off the top of your head, you may not know, but you can come back with us, how many of the schools are incorporating the Black Studies curriculum in the Civic for All?

I want to be mindful of not saying that they are incorporating it within Civics for All because it's really within their social studies instruction. I do not have that number, but I can look into it. Yeah, that would be great because we spent a lot of money on that curriculum and you have the Latina Dad curriculum coming up as well.

We want to make sure that you're incorporating those cultural competence, right? When we talk about curriculums and students seeing themselves in those curriculums that we teach across the city. So that would be great. pre-register at the age of 16. Yes. I, I really would love to see that across the city. Right now is the moment. Students are seeing exactly what's happening in our country and how, how can they have a voice in that process.

So they should be engaged in that process. One of the things that I see, Chair, Black Institute— have we collaborated with them? Because they're actually pushing a lot for our youth in the city of New York. I do not like to push for one particular area, but I think We at a challenging time where our kids, just like any other group in America right now, and I don't know if you know about the Haitians being attacked specifically, we're not going in the right direction when it comes to that.

And our children need to feel, and especially for us, like, we old people, we all right. But the younger one in the high school, in the middle school. need to know that they are important and then what does Black history mean, what does a Black person mean. And I think that would be a good thing to— because we all part— we know we're going through different challenges.

Sometimes it can be Chinese, it can be Japan, it can be— but right now it happened to be Haitian and other Black folks. So I think we have to be mindful and try to encourage that. That would be very appreciated. Thank you. to me on my part. Thank you, Chair. And I'm not taking the old one with you.

You can have that one by your lonesome self.

Thank you. Uh, Councilmember Farias asked about the, um, the voter registration. I just want to confirm that you're in compliance. It was with a law, I think, that we, we passed, Local Law 189 of 2025, uh, that requires the DOE to provide coded voter registration forms to all Yes, ahead of Civics Week, we send every school that has students of voter registration age a box with materials for information and education, and then also with those registration forms.

Last year was the first time they were coded. Okay, and back in my day— I'm old enough, I'm at that age where I say back in my day. Back in my day— Rita is much younger than me, so she doesn't, she doesn't have a back in my day, but I do. And back in my day, when I was a young whippersnapper and other things old people say, I had to go with the voter registration forms to the social studies class and do that.

So that's Councilmember Stevens' bill, that, that's, that's a reality because of her. So I want to thank her. You know, Councilmember Wilson touched on this, but can the DOE provide the committees with data on seal earners in our participating schools broken down by race, ethnicity, Income, EL status, students with disabilities, borough, school type, including District 75 and transfer schools.

It's data that we have that we can share. Yeah, okay, so you'll share that, okay.

I want to ask more about the CUNY-DOE relationship, because what I've heard again from principals and teachers, and that you've testified to, is you have sort of a bank of projects that students can work or schools can engage with and students can work on. And you've started auditing some of those projects. Is that right? Like looking at some of the graded material?

So there's the 2 different processes. There's the accreditation process to ensure that the project that the school is using is approved by us and meets a standard of rigor. And then there is an auditing process. To ensure that the output Is of quality. And so what precludes CUNY from looking at those projects and working more closely to say, yeah, these are actually very rigorous projects, and conducting audits with them to say, you know what, this is college-level work, and so we should be accrediting our CUNY students with appropriate amount of college credits?

I think, I think that is exactly what we need to do next. Is we need to see those product— the projects from the students. We need to have our faculty really closely— That's for someone else. Oh, okay. You still have time. I think that seeing the actual work products— Now someone's just trolling you. I don't know. Someone's having fun.

I think that seeing the actual work products of students and seeing how they reflect the components of the Seal of Civic Readiness and having CUNY faculty take a close look at that and understand the learning that it, that it represents is the work. That is what we need to do in order to establish credit pathways for students who earn the Seal of Civic Readiness.

I mean, it is a real symbiotic relationship. The DOE saying, here's what we're doing, and CUNY should be saying, hey, here's Additionally, what we need, not just for college credit, by the way, but what we need our high school students to be the skills we need them to graduate with. And those are conversations I think you have, and the Seal of Civic Readiness should absolutely be part of it because the ultimate goal is to make sure students who are doing this rigorous work with vetted projects, with audited outputs from the DOE, the ultimate goal is for them to get the credit for the work that they're already.

Can we, can we get a meeting on the calendar? Can, can we do— you have your peoples here. Yes, we, we can, we can absolutely, um, have a meeting. Okay, because I mean, that was one of the, uh, the hurdles that you mentioned in your testimony. And so obviously to me it seems that meeting about the projects and the work the students is doing is the, to me, the obvious next step.

Happy to participate in that meeting, but we do have a lot of CUNY and DOE people here as well.

It was you mentioned training a lot. Can you can you please share how much DOE spends annually to support implementation of the seal? The cost per participating school and per seal recipient, and the breakdown of the budget for the seal, including professional development. So we don't break down our budget by the seal, as it's part of our larger effort around Civics for All.

So we can tell you that the overall civics budget is $3,001,659. $3,001,659. Of that— No, I'm laughing because that's very specific. It's very specific. Okay. Of that, and I think this might give you a more clear sense of how that goes directly towards the seal, is that $1.6 million $6 million of that is SAM'd out to schools for participatory budgeting.

And that is one of the projects that can be used, one, for Civics for All experiences for students, but also to be counted towards SEAL. How much of— I didn't mean to interrupt. Go ahead. No, you can do— and then professional learning. That was— yeah, yeah. So the professional learning Isn't necessarily— we don't break it out specifically to, like, these are SEAL professional learning versus our overall professional learning for civics, which is inclusive of professional learning for districts and schools that are implementing the SEAL.

And for that, we spend $861,770. Specific again. I like it. A nice round number. How many cents? No cents. Okay. How much of that, let's say just the professional learning, for example, how much of that goes to private for-profit contractors or contracts versus in-house? So, that professional learning budget is for professional learning and curriculum and resource development.

So the majority of it would go to partners like Mikvah Challenge, who supports our Project Soapbox work. You may be familiar with that. And then also our professional learning sessions, we often do in collaboration with cultural institutions around the city. And so funding for those, for where those sessions are being held, and for space for that, and then for curriculum and resource development.

So I can't break down for you right now, like, how much is spent on each of those things, but all of that funding is for the professional learning. There's separate funding for the creation of like our materials that get used in professional learning, if that makes sense. So to ask in a different way, how much money goes to, like, are you spending money on private companies to come into schools and train teachers?

$0.00? MICFA Challenge is the, to the best of my knowledge, and I will double-check this in my budget, the organization that we pay to provide professional learning because Project Soapbox is their product. The rest of our professional learning is provided by our 9-person Civics for All team. Okay, and I'll share, speaking with some of the teachers, they were very grateful that their work, they would get processioned for their work, whether it was like the working on the weekends or turnkeying the learning that they did.

And, you know, it's less expensive to hire our very own teachers. But when they get that money, that's really recognizing their work. They feel seen and recognized for the work that they do. I worry that as we seek to expand the Seal of Civic Readiness, and as we seek to incorporate civics into the Portrait of a Graduate, It will be very tempting for the DOE to do what they often do, is to hire outside contractors to do the work that our teachers are going to do a better job at.

And you're going to keep the money in-house and keep the money for our teachers. So I would urge you to ensure that as you grow and expand, keeping all of that professional learning, all of that curriculum development as in-house as possible for those reasons, to ensure our teachers are seen, to ensure that they are making the money that they deserve to be making.

On your website, I'm a person, I want to search for a high school for my child. On your website, how do I know whether a school offers the Seal of Civic Readiness? So I would need to double-check. We did share the list. So we share the list of SEAL schools each year with the Office of Policy and Evaluation since they manage the inside— is it called— what is the name of our portal again?

I'm blanking. But I'll follow up with them and get that answer for you. Well, I can, you know, because I can search. Like, I'm on the site right now. You can't see my screen. That's okay. But I could search and I could filter by like interest areas, I could filter by college and career paths. I can search by 10th grade admissions, uniform requirement.

I could search for a school that requires a uniform, that's cool. But it doesn't appear as though I could search for a school that has, I think, either the Seal of Civic Readiness or the Seal of Biliteracy. And so that's a different department? I'm understanding. Well, I think you were mentioning like ATS, OASIS, and then the— we don't manage the webpage for school enrollment.

Right, but you have the data. Will you also commit to working with the website division? Yes, absolutely. What division is that, the website people? I'm not sure. Yeah, so it's not because it's— so we do share the list each year with, um, and I'll follow up to figure out where it's going, but I was under the impression that the list of SEAL schools was in a place that students could see it when they were looking at it.

Oh, I, I mean, I think the point is when you're— unless I'm missing it, I don't see it. I don't think it's on My Schools, right? My Schools. Is that what you're on? Yeah, that's the search. Yeah, that's how a parent looks. What we might do is it might appear on the NYCPS website and it's a list, but not in MySchools.

So I understand the question. So can you commit to working with a different department to ensure that the civics education, the Seal of Civic Readiness, appears on the MySchools website so that when a parent or a student is searching for a school, they know they can search for a civic school? Yes. Okay, that was a good answer.

Yes is a good answer.

I know CUNY does not track this, but does the DOE track students who've earned the New York State Seal of Civic Readiness and track longitudinally how they're doing in college or in career post-graduation? Currently, we do not formally track that, but we are looking forward to doing more of that work. I mean, is that on your agenda to do?

Yes, it is, which is part of the reason why we want to have the data tracking in STARS, which will enable us to better be able to see who are those students, what schools are they coming from. Okay. And how can journalism become a part of the standard list of civics projects approved by the DOE? Sure. We have an accreditation portal, a forum where Anyone can submit instructional materials for review, including external or internal organizations, and then we'll connect those folks to get whatever the materials are accredited.

That's a public website? Yeah, I can— I'll forward you the link. Okay. Yeah, and we have, you know, Councilmember Joseph and I, for the first time, we got significant funding for youth journalism this year. I know Councilmember Joseph was working on that for years. We finally got funding this year, $285,000. Sounds right. Maybe also $744,000 additional. But, you know, this is the type, especially as we move into the portrait, that we want to be encouraging.

And journalism is so deeply tied to civics that we want to make sure that that work is recognized for the Seal of Civic Readiness. I I'm going to turn it back to Chair Joseph now. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Chair Denowitz. Um, just want to do a couple of follow-ups from Chair Denowitz. Um, in terms of language access, how are we accessing parents who— or students that English is not their first language? Sure. Um, so when schools are offering the Seal of Civic Readiness, they have to create a program plan. And one of the steps of that program plan is a universal accessibility plan.

So how are they going to ensure that the Seal of Civic Readiness is available to all students? Secondary to that, and we don't have many schools yet taking advantage of this, but it is something that we regularly meet with the team who runs the Seal of Biliteracy. Students who do their Seal of Biliteracy project on a civics topic, that can be applied We don't, you know, in any language to the Seal of Civic Readiness.

Also, students' soapbox speeches, which is another project that they can do for the seal, those can also be done in home language as well. How many people know that? That's what we're working with the team with the Seal of Biliteracy to match up the schools that are doing both programs. That's where we, Councilmember Brewer and I, were talking, always people pulling— walking up to us and asking us these questions.

'Cause New York City public schools feel like this big black hole. No one knows what's happening, but amazing things are happening, but no one never knows about it unless you come to a hearing or someone else talks about it. Chair Dinwiddie will talk about it. So we gotta do better, and that's something I've been asking for a long time.

I think we gotta do better. How do schools support— do schools support each other? Let's say my school wants to open, How do we support that school that want to have a seal, civic readiness seal? I think Chris wants to take this one. It's actually one of the most awesome parts about supporting districts and schools with seal work is that oftentimes, so we'll assemble whole districts for the start of the year orientation.

And so there's a lot of really wonderful cross-pollination and cross-school support happening. So if my colleague at another school has a project that they've accredited that I'm really interested in using, I'll carry that over, and vice versa. And I actually think Superintendent Tu could comment more on this, if you'd like to. Yeah. Thank you. So, what I would share is, in Queens North, we have 25 high schools.

And I'll answer it in 2 ways. One is setting up the expectation that the civic seal is an obligation of all of our schools to provide students with the opportunity to engage, to learn, not the knowledge, and then also to do the actual civic engagement work. The second to that is once we set that expectation, now school's on the hook to develop their programs and their service learning opportunities beyond the school walls.

I know Jenna talked about we want to bring it into the schools so that all students have access. We actually in Queens North encourage our principal to reach across the their school walls, into their colleagues, and beyond the borough for opportunity. So to date, I would say we have doubled the number of schools offering Civic Seal year over year to now 96% of our schools.

And not, not because they didn't want to, that they said, this is important for us to do, and we are committed to learning from each other. And every month when we have our principal meeting, That is the forum and the venue where our principals openly share. Because the answer is always in the room. We don't need to go look for other people.

I think, Chair DeNovis, to your point, we don't have to pay other people for information when we have it. But what we need to do as a system is to create the space, or the stage, if you will, for us to ask the question and get the answer.

So I'm hearing a lot of turnkey. We learn from each other to make sure that we're keeping a financial— how do you measure success? How do you do— is there surveys at the end of the projects? How do students give feedback if, let's say, the project is not working or they don't like what you're offering? How do they— how is their voice used in shaping this project?

So I think first is we're measuring our success through access, right? We talked about expansion. Are we including all students in this? We're working towards that. And then I think at each school, that is their work to refine the project, because I think, again, just remembering that the seal is flexible in design and in purpose, right? And that just because you did the seal exactly one way last year, the idea is that you could refine that, right, based on whether you hear that from students in your school, or like Superintendent Tuo was talking about, you've learned something from your colleagues in your district, or even you've learned outside of your district.

I think that is one of the other benefits of the seal is while it is flexible in design by individual school and district, the construct of it is the same. And so that I can adapt what's going on in one school to the next, to the next, and then make it better each year and learn from it.

And any of those data are used to drive perfecting the program? I hear expansion, but I also wanna hear outreach. I wanna hear partnership. I wanna hear agencies are talking to each other, Folks don't like to talk to each other. I find that very weird. I'm an educator. Teachers talk all day long to each other. But I'm finding that institutions and agencies in the city are horrible at doing that, and I'm hoping that CUNY and New York City Public Schools reach out and have that conversation around how can we perfect it, and New York City Public School is handing over their students and they're coming prepared to you.

I had another question around, is the civic— can the civic be substituted for a regent? But in lieu of a Regents, you can do the Civic Readiness Seal instead? Yeah. So it's a graduation pathway. So it can substitute for the 5th Regents exam, assuming you have 1 ELA, 1 math, 1 social studies, and 1 science. You hear that?

But Regents are going away soon. Bye-bye, Regents. Good riddance. Oh, no.

The parents are going to come for you. I had— we wanted to talk quickly around middle school. There was something I saw around middle school that I wanted to talk about real quick. You have that question? 15. Yeah, 15. Students in 7th and 8th grade earn 1 point toward the Seal Through Middle School capstone How does DOE inform middle school students about the seal?

How many 7th and 8th graders completed a middle school capstone project last year? We can get that number for you, and I think Superintendent Inzirillo can speak to how students are made aware and about that middle school capstone.

Good afternoon, Chairs Joseph Dinowitz and committee members. Great to be here. Uh, in 6th, 7th, and actually 8th grade— and by the way, my name is Anthony Inzarolo. I'm the superintendent for elementary and middle schools across District 26. I have to tell you, I'm so proud of the work that takes place across all of our middle schools across District 26.

We give every single 6th, 7th, and 8th grader an opportunity to be able to research and develop a soapbox speech where they can research a concern, a passion, something that they see an inequity about. They will then research it. They will develop a soapbox speech and not just share it with their class, but share it with the community.

We have across our middle schools and also elementary schools where we have kindergarten students, middle school students sharing those soapbox speeches, which then leads into some of the other civics work like participatory budgeting and then some of the take-action projects as well. So for middle school, part of them receiving the 1 point toward that credit is we provide the opportunities for all middle school students to be able, you know, to have that opportunity and do that.

So whether that's sharing those opportunities Through parent workshops, principal newsletters, community educational council meetings. We have President's Council meetings where we share that, district leadership team meetings. I send out newsletters to families as well. So we try to publicize it and make everyone aware of that as well. So even when our middle school students go home, we want parents to ask their children, so what are you studying?

What are you passionate about? What are you concerned about? We want those conversations to be taking place at the dinner table. And then it's a great opportunity then for parents to be able to talk about their culture, their history, what they're passionate about, and then extend those conversations, you know, at home as well.

And the schools that, for example, I know it's high school season now at the open house, do schools talk about that civic seal, the seal at the open house? I know they used to give out a big book. Do you guys still give out that big book for kids to look through to pick out a school? I don't think that big book exists anymore.

I think it's all transferred over to MySchools, which I think brings up the point of why that information needs to be available through that digital portal. Chair Joseph, that's a great idea. We have a District 26 High School Fair coming up on November 9th, uh, and not only do we share with families high schools that provide college courses, CTE programs Associate's degree programs.

College Now, Early College. Yes, it's such a great idea. I will make sure that those high schools that do come, that we have some kind of a marker or asterisk or some designation so families are well aware that they have an incredible civics program at those high schools as well. Yeah, correct. So that's one way to get the information out, your text messages, your websites, and talking to your principals, right?

They are the first line of defense. who sees parents and families on it. And engage your parent coordinators as well. They are also one of the folks that talk to parents and families and hold community meetings and get the word in the SLT as well. We do. We get the word out to the community as well. We had an elementary school student that was very concerned about some of the cannabis dispensaries.

There was one that was relatively close within the 500-foot, and the student discovered it depends on how you measure that. those 500 feet. That student not only researched it, but they were so politically astute where they reached out to NYPD, they reached out to some of the local elected, reached out to my office. There were over 200 people that were at that cannabis dispensary just to learn more about like, hey, what's going on over here?

We share that same concern. So it is spreading, it is reaching. We had another student at PS 170 where the water fountains weren't working. So they reached out to the New York City Parks Commissioner, sent them a letter, and the New York City Parks Commissioner contacted me, the principal, and the student to say, not only did we fix it, but I would love for you and your classmates to just check on it and make sure that it is working.

So when we talk about partnerships, we have our students that reach out to the New York City Parks Department, Sanitation Department, the Building Department. all other departments within New York City so that they can learn more about that and continue to create those partnerships, ask those great questions, and hold us all accountable. When I do principal performance observations, the principals will now warn me.

I love it though. They'll say, oh, I want to let you know, Anthony, we have the civics group or the student organization group that are going to— they have some questions for you. So I think that is awesome. Thank you to all of you for supporting that. I know that you visit the schools and you get peppered by questions with students, but you're sharing the democratic process, ways in which students can get engaged.

So thank you so much for that. We greatly appreciate that. I just wanted to make sure I heard you said that at the high schools, putting a little star asterisk at the ones that do the Seal of Civic Readiness. At the District 26 High School Fair, Chair Joseph gave me a great idea that we should have some kind of a marker for that.

So when we do have that high school fair on November 9th, we're going to make sure that we have some kind of a marker so families can see and distinguish, you know, what different high schools can offer, whether it's civics or, you know, associate's program, college credit, CTE, and some of the other awesome and incredible programs that our high schools offer.

Yeah, and I would just add not to digress too much, but add the biliteracy. Yes, yes, add the biliteracy there. And to repeat, get it added to the website because these are things families search for, not just whether it has it but what it is, because there's also an education component that needs to go in, like what is a Seal of Civic Readiness, that I think all the families deserve to know the schools they're going into have these really incredible programs that are rigorous, that are going to be looked at by CUNY for awarding college credit.

And again, I'm looking forward to hearing about that meeting to really get into this so that our high school students who do this work can get the college credit and more and more schools will be incentivized to offer this program.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And young people see career pathways, right? That's also career pathways. So not only are they engaged, but they can see, how can I make a difference in my community? what the message is, and thank you for doing that. They hold us accountable, and I like that. We'd love to visit. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And we're good. Thank you. Any follow-up questions, we will send them over to you for both CUNY and New York City Public Schools. Thank you. I want to hear that you guys are besties. Thank you so much for your time. I want to hear that you guys are besties the next time we meet and we talk about civics.

I want to see the selfies on Instagram. Exactly. Thank you so much. Actually, wait, if we have a little time, you're doing the karaoke? Oh yeah, I'm a little hoarse, but what are we— what are we talking about? You know what, I'll tell you what, right after the meeting you guys have about, you know, about working together, you're going to lead the karaoke, okay?

So your voice will be better by then. It's my go-to.

Now open the hearing for public testimony. I remind members of the public that this is a formal government Proceeding and that decorum shall be observed at all times. As such, members of the public shall remain silent in all— at all times. The witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify. No video recording or photography is allowed from the witness table.

Further, members of the public may not present audio or video recording as testimony, but may submit transcripts of such recordings to the sergeant-at-arms for inclusion in the hearing record. If you wish to speak today, hearing Please fill out an appearance card with the sergeant-at-arms if you have not already done so and wait to be recognized. When recognized, you'll have 2 minutes to speak on today's topic, the Seal of Civic Readiness in DOE high school and at CUNY.

If you have written statement or additional written testimony you wish to submit for the record, please provide a copy of the testimony to sergeant-at-arms. I will now call the first panel. Jeffrey Roheim. If I miss— great. Renata Calderada. Renata, if I say your name wrong, please correct me. Elizabeth Shadock. Come on up. Oh, come on up. Susie Gomez and Victor Medina.

That's right, as you should. Thank you. Okay, sir. Okay. Okay.

First, good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chairs Eric Dinowitz and Miss Rita Joseph. My name is Renata Caldera. I am a parent of a New York Public City school student. I am a resident of Forest Hills, and I'm also constituent of Council Member Woman. Member— sorry, Lynn Schuman. And I am here to show support for the Seal of Civic Readiness and the hands-on civics in today's resolution.

The seal rewards civic participation and youthful voice. And I'm here to show you what happens when hands-on civics has not guardrails. And civic readiness doesn't start in high school. My child is in elementary school. Her civic engagement started back in March of 2026. Despite not leaving— not having the understanding, the impact of her vote, she had a voting happening in her school for a fundraiser to return.

One sec. In November 2025, the principal of our school wrote to me that she did not keep daily tracks of this fundraiser, and that is contest to why I'm saying this in the testimony. She could not say what was the earned income, and our district superintendent was copied in this correspondence. That is going to be in Exhibit A when I submit my written testimony to you guys.

And in January, the complaint was referred to the DOE Office of Special Investigations in March. And during Civics for All Week, students as young as 6 voted on a DOE Google Form to bring the same fundraiser back. That class post said it's time to practice your civic duty, and they got I voted stickers. Parents got no advance notice.

This is Exhibit E. From December to June, adults blamed my family online, even using children's votes against us, but we voted as we see in Exhibit D. Thank you. On April 13th, the superintendent told parents that the results would be published. That's Exhibit C. And in June, the cell came back under a new name. Our children were taught that the vote was real, and a question adults were still investigating.

That's not civic readiness. As you push the DOE to expand hands-on civics, I ask 2 things for your committee. First, Require DOE guidance that student civic votes and projects from kindergarten up never involve fundraisers or matters under investigation, and that parents are notified firsthand before votes. Second, clear guardrails of policies to safeguard children from misguided civic engagement.

And third, please ask the DOE to release the OSI findings as promised. So these students can see that accountability is also part of civics too. Thank you. And my full written testimony and exhibits will be submitted by email.

Thank you. Is that your daughter? Yes. Is she testifying? Do you want to say— Do you want to say anything on the record? Okay. That was the daughter who voted. So the fundraiser— so no, it's okay to say thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. Thank you for coming today. You're welcome.

Good afternoon. My name is Elizabeth Shattuck, and I lead the social studies curriculum and professional learning team at New Visions for Public Schools. New Visions has partnered with the city for 37 years on systems-level change. As an affinity partner, we support the leadership of a 71-school district, 71-school district, and we serve schools citywide. New Visions for Public Schools strongly supports efforts to make the Seal of Civic Readiness accessible and attainable in as many schools as possible.

We have worked with the Seal of Civic Readiness since 2018. After serving on New York State's Civic Education and Equity Task Force, we built tools to help schools implement the seal. And in the '21-'22 school year, we piloted the seal in a small set of schools in partnership with Civics for All and Generation Citizen. We expanded that work in the subsequent 2 years.

We support the effort by Education Chair Dinowitz to expand access to the seal and to hands-on project-based civic education. Further, we stand ready to partner with New York City public schools to develop and provide the high-quality instructional materials and professional learning needed to make meaningful student-led civics education a reality in grades 9 through 12. Many student Many social studies teachers across New York State know New Visions for Public Schools because of our free global history and U.S. history curricula.

They are among the most widely used in the city and the state, and they foreground primary source analysis, instructional routines in disciplinary literacy, and discourse skills. Our experience developing these materials in partnership with teachers and conducting professional learning to support effective materials use has given us insight into what it will take to ensure the Seal of Civic Readiness can reach all high schools in New York City.

First, throughout our work on the seal and civics education, teachers have told us what would help: a project structure and rubrics already approved for seal credit, which they could build a course around. The Civics for All citywide approved list is the right mechanism, and there should be more materials made available through this process. Second, teachers appreciate high-quality, engaging professional learning that supports their ability to implement instructional materials well.

We have found that workshops grounded in specific instructional materials provide the specific support that many teachers need. This is even more important now, as teachers are trying to learn not only about instruction, but evaluating student work in an era where students have access to AI outside school. Finally, as many other civics education organizations have pointed out, the learning that goes into civics projects has to start as early as possible.

In the new Vision Social Studies course sequence, Civic starts in 9th grade. Our materials use ancient history to struggle with the same civic questions as the very first civilizations: who holds power, how do resources get divided, and whose interest does a system serve? Students then apply those questions to their own communities using structured project opportunities. New Visions applauds Councilmember Denowitz and the New York City Council for taking on this important effort, and we look forward to engaging in continued support of civic readiness for all New York City students.

And are we live? Amazing. All right, thank you so much, Councilmember Dinowitz and Joseph, for holding this hearing. My name is Victor Medina, and I am the Civic Science Leadership Program Manager at Futures Ignite. We work— we partner with New York City Public Schools to propel bold college and career futures for every college student so that when each one graduates, they plan to be excited about the work that they're doing and to make it real.

And I think that that's one of the things that I love about the opportunities that the New York Seal of Civic Readiness provides. So my background is in environmental leadership and education for the past 15 years. I've done this both here in New York City as well as in Westchester County, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. And I often feel that my role talking about environmental conservation and climate justice and environmental justice often is delivering the gloom and doom news.

And the question that I get from every age group, from 6th grade through high school, whenever we present the issues of environmental injustice, whether they be caused by redlining practices and environmental racism through our history is what can we do? That's the biggest question. And I think that this is a place that our organization is developing to give students an outlet to make a difference in ultimately the communities that they will inherit.

And what I hope that the— which is part of why I support and we support the inclusion of the Seal of Civic Readiness as part of all New York City public schools as well as for college credit is because it not only gives them incentive to do so, but that there's a reward and recognition, I think, at the end of the day for being engaged and making the communities that they are a part of and that we all are a part of a better place.

A quick shared example of how this has taken place in Futures Ignite. In our founding school at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School, students led a movement with various partner organizations that observed poor air quality, poor sanitation, on 182nd Street, including the folks that have the presence of needles from folks that use opioids throughout the area. And this led to a student-led movement that I do not take any credit for to really create an open— a permanent open street on 182nd Street between Amsterdam and Broadway.

And that is all student idea facilitated with teachers and programs staff that have been in organization longer than I. And we are looking to bring that now to various other schools, namely Intech Academy, in the Bronx, the students of which were here a moment ago and had to go on the rest of their day. Sorry. But they're all engaged in evaluating right now what are the things that their community needs.

And the hope that we have is to empower them to make those changes and make a difference. And I just hope that they can see them receive credit accordingly. So thank you so much for holding this hearing and for advancing this really important work for all of our students here in the city.

Thank you. And yes, of course, the students from INTECH, as everyone here should know, Go to school in my district. Yeah.

Hi, everybody. Uh, thank you, chairs and committee members. Um, I'm Jeffrey Ream, executive director of Runway Green, a Brooklyn nonprofit expanding real-world learning for New York City students. A proud former public school teacher and leader of a couple New York City Outward Bound schools, which have gotten some shoutouts today. At a time of deep division and uncertainty, young people need opportunities to examine evidence, engage across differences, and see that their participation matters.

We strongly support these resolutions, and through New York Inspires and the Portrait of a Graduate, New York is now reconsidering what counts as learning, how students demonstrate it, and what a diploma signifies. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvest in education's purpose, which is to build a better world. When done well, the Seal of Civic Readiness puts this purpose into practice.

Strong implementation, broad access, and college credit could make it a model for the learning that New York inspires is meant to bring to life. Runway Green is working toward that vision with a signed 60-year National Park Service lease. We're developing an education campus at Floyd Bennett Field that could serve up to 50,000 students every single year from New York City Public Schools.

Student pilots are underway with programs in development with New York City Public Schools, with CUNY, and with community partners. I want to paint a picture of what this might look like. Imagine students along the shores of Jamaica Bay, wind pulling at their jackets as they investigate coastal flooding. They collect water level data, hear residents' accounts of storms, weigh policy options, and present recommendations to local decision makers.

This work connects classroom, classroom learning to public problems, shows students their power to influence their communities, and creates opportunities for high school and college credit. We urge the council to adopt all 3 resolutions and support educator preparation and community partnership aligned with New York Inspires so students across the city can participate in rigorous civic learning and receive meaningful recognition for it.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it. I don't want to take long, but before I go, I stay here to listen because this is such a great, awesome plan. We've been going through it, so I want to say publicly I am I'm so thankful for you. And I know why we become besties, because of our children, the future agriculture environment. And it's such a thing that we have to cross that.

We have to walk that line, making sure that our children have a better tomorrow and understand what is environment like and what is agriculture like. And thank you for your leadership. Thank you. I just want to say thank you. Okay.

Last but not least. Good afternoon. Oh, my name is Susie Gomes, and I am chair of the City Affairs Committee at the League of Women Voters of New York City. A brief story. When my children were in preschool, I began teaching them to solve for x. I know. At first they gave me quizzical faces, sort of like many of you might be, asking, what's x, Mommy?

I said, it's whatever you need to figure out. If you have 2 cookies and need 1 more for a friend, how many total will you have? The point, besides me being a math geek, is that math is everywhere in our life, and math is a block of concepts that build on each other. The same applies to civics.

It shows up everywhere in our lives as a daily part of our world. Starting in grade school, the game that's played on the playground is the group's majority decision, and that's democracy. The group that chooses a spokesperson to beg the teacher for no homework over the weekend, that's representative government. And the child and/or their adult who helps their neighbor with their groceries, That's community engagement, tying the child that much closer to the community.

Being exposed to these concepts throughout grade school allows elementary schoolers to know what it is to be a member of their school community, middle schoolers to better understand the significance of their vote when they're asked to elect a school student council government, how they are choosing and what their representatives should do for them. This can be the beginning of elected officials' accountability.

By the time these students enter high school, they're prepared to integrate the concepts they've learned with how all levels of government operate and their role in democracy as voters and community members. But it is important that these subconscious concepts are explicitly taught as well as understood implicitly. The League of Women Voters of New York City supports Civics for All in every grade, K through 12, because starting young and consistently integrates civics into classroom lessons helps create a more socially aware and civically engaged community of New Yorkers.

The League also obviously supports Seal of Civic Readiness across New York and New York City students. It would be curious to see if the students that participate and have participated in this program to date are more civically knowledgeable and expect to participate in civics and voting going forward more than their counterparts who are not in the programs.

This would give you empirical data that would help you as you roll out the program and anticipate rolling it out and help you to create the environment that you need to do as you move forward. And we can hopefully move the needle of voting participation, which I will say the League is really pushing for in this world.

We've talked about today getting people engaged, especially young people, with— it's going to be their world. My— we're going to be okay. Member Dinnerwitz, you're younger than me. You're— Maybe. You're in the back in my day. I can say way back in my day. I'm going to be okay. But it's the future. They need to own it.

And they need to know why they're going to own it. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Shanek, you heard Ms. Gomes just talk about, you know, wouldn't it be nice to know how these students do with the Seal of Civic Readiness? New Visions runs a portal, the New Visions portal. I'm curious to know, one, if this is data you track, or two, if you are in conversation I know that when we were working on the seal in 2018 to 2021, in terms of development, that the portal was working on a way to track and measure that.

But I do not know if that is something that we still do. I can find out and let you know.

Yeah, if you could find it. And then of course, I think Ms. Gomes said, and it's absolutely true, data drives decisions. And so if we can get more data, we can make better decisions. As Rita, Councilwoman Joseph said, it's— so that would be the next step, I think, as it relates to this hearing for the portal to— or New Visions to explore.

And I always say, whenever I hear New Visions, you know, for 7 years I taught at Bronx Theater High School, a New Visions school. So love the support that I got there with data and curriculum. I know that school well. That's great. Great. You talked about lack of young people participating. What do you think that's driving that?

Is it because we're not— what are we not doing right? Take the mics, I can hear you. That is an excellent question. We actually at the League are looking to work with A division of CUNY through Baruch that is— we are hoping to create a study to understand why people don't vote. It would be something I don't think anybody in the country has really undertaken that way.

But I can give you anecdotal information, but it's not empirical. And it's not worthy of the council's time right now. Sorry. We'll have a conversation another time. I think I visited your project at Floyd Bennett Field. You did? Yes, I did. It will be an amazing project. I can't wait to see it. Thank you so much for your support.

Really appreciate it. Yes, Vision High School, let's get this done. It's important. Which everything you— every single one of you, which you mentioned on the panel, is so important. How do we get young people engaged in environment? But there's so many other factors that I see with young people, like how can I think about environment when I don't have housing, when I'm food insecure?

Those things play a factor in determining your priorities. So I think they all tie in together. Thank you so much.

Next panel. Hi. Now that I'm laughing, the world is a better place. There you go. Ashley Pergaro. Davia Willis. If I butcher your name, give me grace. Hazel— I can't read the last name— Aqua. Am I? Mm-hmm. Jared Fajardo. And Alan Sherman. Yes. Yes. It's all different. Yeah, gotcha. You stay with one? Yeah. I'm nervous. Same. First of all, welcome.

Congratulations. Thank you. I was texted and told you are the new leadership. Congratulations and welcome. We look forward to working with you. Likewise. Past administration, we worked hand in hand to deliver some good wins for CUNY. Yes. So I look forward to that. And you are a prime example as to young people that are involved in all things Politics.

We love it. You may begin. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairpersons Joseph and Dinowitz, and members of the New York City Council's Committees on Higher Education and Education. My name is Davia Willis, Chairperson-Elect of the CUNY University Student Senate for the 2026 through 2027 academic year. I am honored to testify today regarding the Seal of Civic Readiness academic credit recognition, and the expansion of civic education opportunities for New York City students.

The CUNY University Student Senate believes there is tremendous value in exposing students to civic education and engagement early in their academic journeys. When students are introduced to how the government works, the legislative process, and the importance of community involvement, they are not simply learning about democracy. They are developing the knowledge and confidence to actively participate in it.

As a graduate student from CUNY John Jay College, I have witnessed firsthand the benefits of civic engagement through my experience with the CUNY University Student Senate. Over the years, our organization has gained significant momentum because of students who have brought their leadership experiences, community involvement, and passion for advocacy to the work— into the work that we do.

A clear example is the CUNY University Student Senate OMNYcard campaign, where student advocacy and engagement with elected officials helped secure $700,000 from the New York City Council toward a student OMNY pilot program. This achievement demonstrated what students can accomplish when they understand the legislative process and recognize that their voices have the power to influence public policy. This is why we also support the NextGen Civics Act.

Which would introduce more hands-on project-based education, civic education in high schools. We believe students have the— should have the opportunities to apply what they learn rather than simply reading about government and civic responsibility in the textbooks. Furthermore, the CUNY University Student Senate agrees that students who have already demonstrated civic competencies and earned the Seal of Civic Readiness should enter college knowing that their work has academic value.

We also recognize that CUNY has established pathways for awarding credit for prior learning and that civic readiness can be demonstrated through different experiences. Therefore, the consideration of what constitutes appropriate college credit must account for these differences while ensuring that students are evaluated fairly and consistently against established academic standards. As CUNY continues to explore these pathways, I would encourage the university to ensure that any credits awarded meaningfully contribute towards students' degree requirements, potentially reducing their financial burden and bringing them closer to graduation.

The CUNY University Student Senate equally supports expanding access to SEAL across New York City, across access to the SEAL across New York City public high schools, because opportunities for civic education and recognition should not be determined by which school, by which school a student attends. Civic education should not simply prepare students to understand democracy, but empower them to participate in it.

As we recognize the work students have already accomplished, we must also continue creating opportunities for them to become the leaders and advocates of tomorrow. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Joseph and Dinowitz and members. Take the mic. Okay. Good afternoon, Chair Joseph and Dinowitz and members of the New York City Council's Committees on Higher Education and Education. My name is Hazel Praise-Aqua. I'm a political science graduate of Lehman College, a student advocate here on behalf of the CUNY University Student Senate, And someone who believes that civic education should be an opportunity available to every student, not just a select few.

When I moved to the United States from Ghana, I realized that understanding government was not something I could take for granted. I had to relearn how the government worked here, how policies were made, how to navigate civic institutions, and how to understand my rights and responsibilities in a new system. That experience taught me something important. We cannot expect young people to participate in a system they have not been given the tools to understand.

My journey studying political science and serving in student government, the CUNY University Student Senate, and other student leadership roles has showed me the power of civic education. When students understand how decisions are made, they begin to recognize that their voices matter and that they have the power to influence change. That is why I support the expansion of the New York State Seal of Civic Readiness across New York City public high schools.

Resolution 0620 is an important step toward ensuring that every eligible student has the opportunity to earn this recognition regardless of which public high school they attend. Access to civic education and recognition of civic achievement should not depend on a student's zip code. or school resources. I also support Resolution 0451 and the Next Gen Civics Act. Students need more than textbooks and lectures.

They need hands-on experiences that teach them how to engage with their communities, understand public policy, advocate for themselves, and turn their ideas into meaningful action. Finally, Resolution 0418 addresses an important next step, ensuring that students who earn the Seal Receive appropriate college credit at CUNY. If we tell students that civic engagement matters, we must recognize the work that they have already done.

Their learning, leadership, and service should have value as they transition into higher education. Civic education should not end at graduation. It should create a pathway from the classroom to college, from college to community leadership, and from community leadership to lasting change. I stand here today as someone who had to learn a new system, find my voice within it, and discover the power of participation.

I want every student, whether they were born here or came from somewhere else, to have that same opportunity without unnecessary barriers. Our young people are not simply future leaders. They are members of our communities right now, and they deserve the knowledge, resources, and recognition to help them shape their future. Thank you for your time and consideration.

There you go. Hi. Good afternoon, Chairs Joseph and Dinowitz and members of the Committees on Education and Higher Education. My name is Jared Fajardo. I live in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and I am an undergraduate student at Lehman College. I serve as a commuter assistant in Lehman's CAMP, the Commuter Assistant Mentorship Program, and as a civic engagement workshop facilitator, working hands-on with both high school and— high school students and incoming CUNY undergraduates.

Thank you for holding this vital hearing. Thank you. I am testifying today in strong support of Resolution 0418, proposed Resolution 0620, and Resolution 0451. Together, these resolutions create a complete pipeline for youth civic leadership across New York City. Through my workshop facilitating high schoolers, I see how transformative hands-on civic engagement civic learning is students aren't just memorizing facts, they're also analyzing municipal budgets, researching neighborhood issues, and executing, executing real community actions.

This is why we must pass Resolution 0451 to enact the Next Gen Civics Act, embedding project-based civics statewide, and propose Resolution 0620 to ensure the Seal of Civic Readiness is offered in every single New York City public high school. Equity starts with access. No student in Flatbush, the Bronx, or anywhere else should miss out on the— on this opportunity simply because of their zip code or high school.

But our commitment cannot end at high school graduation. Through camp, I mentor first-year CUNY commuters navigating long travel times, financial pressures, and academic transitions. The analytical research and writing skills high schoolers develop while earning the seal are the exact same college-level skills I mentor Lehman freshmen on every week. Civic readiness is college readiness. This is why Resolution 0418 is so critical.

Thank you. Standardizing college credit across CUNY for the SEAL rewards hard work, lowers tuition burdens for working-class families, and proves that our city values community leadership as real academic achievement. By expanding SEAL access in DOE high schools, embedding hands-on civics across New York, and granting CUNY college credit, we build a seamless pathway from high school civic action to college success.

So I urge the council to pass all 3 resolutions. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Good afternoon, council. Good afternoon, Chairpersons Joseph and Dinowitz, and members of the New York City Council Committee on Higher Education and Education. Thank you so much for having me here. My name is Ashley Peguero, and I'm a junior at Lehman College. I'm an honor student pursuing a dual degree in data science and AI and Animation with a minor in Urban Community Development.

I serve as vice chair of the Student Legislative Assembly at Lehman and an alternate delegate to the CUNY USS Student Senate, and as of this past Sunday, vice chair-elect for Technology Fee Affairs. I'm a first-generation college student born and raised in the Bronx. I'm here to support resolutions 418, 451, and 620. I left high school at 17, and I earned my GED at 24.

I enrolled at CUNY at 25, And everything I know about government works after I came back to CUNY. I learned it in student government office and committee meetings and on advocacy trips to Albany. And I got that chance at 25. But a student should be able to get that chance at 16. On Resolution 620, the seal works where it's offered, showing that New York City went from 31 schools offering it in 2021 to 166 offering in 2024-2025 academic school year.

That growth shows real real want for it, and it still leaves most of our public schools out of it. Right now, a student's access, it really depends on whether the school has the staff and the time to build a CIL committee and run that program. That is a question about the adult capacity, but the students are the ones that are paying for that answer.

Students in the Bronx should not have fewer civic opportunities than students across the river. The CUNY University Student Senate asks the council to add one more thing. High school achievements such as the Seal of Biliteracy are often worth different amounts of credits. And depending on where a student enrolls and students who transfer, they can lose that value.

And if CUNY awards credit for this year of civic readiness, we ask that it be one clear standard across all campuses, published where students can find it before they apply. And on Resolution 451, this year voluntarily, the Next Gen Civics Act sets the floor. A semester of hands-on civics for every student in grade 9 through 12 means every graduate leaves with something valuable, whether or not their school runs the SEAL program.

So we ask the council to pass all 3 and ask the DOE and CUNY for a public count of which schools and which campuses are participating so that we can see who is being left out. Thank you so much for your time and your consideration.

Thanks. Okay, now it's time for something different. My name is Alan Sherman, and I have been a New York City resident since 1961. I have always had a strong interest in government and politics. When people have asked me to run for office, I respond by always saying I run from office. Over the years, I have witnessed many changes in our society.

One thing I have always valued is respect for people who think differently from us. Unfortunately, that respect seems to be disappearing from our political culture. Recently, I have become involved with various political campaigns, both Democrat and Republican. In my view, it should not matter what— which party you're part of. Too often, both parties have become more concerned with partisan politics than with working together to solve problems.

I encourage people to look beyond party labels and evaluate candidates based on who they are, what they stand for, and whether their proposals reflect their own beliefs and values. I have registered many people to vote over the past few years. I have discovered that many recently do not know how to research candidates or evaluate their positions on important issues.

I try to teach them that their responsibility does not end with registering to vote. They must also take the time to learn about the candidates on both sides of issues and make informed decisions based on their own convictions, not simply their political party affiliation. This is where civic education becomes so important. Our school system must do a better job of teaching students how our government works, how elections function, and what it means to be an informed and responsible citizen.

Students should understand that they do not have to vote for every candidate from the same political party. They can vote for a Democrat in one race and Republican in another race. Neither party has all the answers. Neither party is automatically right or wrong. Our future is at risk if we allow our children to grow up believing that one political side is always good and the other is always bad.

Education should encourage independent thinking, not indoctrination. Students must learn to research issues, examine different perspectives, and ask questions and reach their own conclusions. We are all human beings, and most of us want what is best for our communities. We need to teach young people not only how government operates, but also the role that, that they play in making it work.

Civics education, along with practical knowledge about everyday life, is essential to maintaining a healthy, informed, and vibrant society. Educators have a responsibility to present different viewpoints fairly and encourage students to think critically. Our classrooms should be places where students learn how to think, not what to think. They should be equipped to examine political arguments independently and make up their own minds.

Finally, I believe the simplest and most effective way to improve our political climate is also one that most overlook— sitting down over a cup of coffee with someone you disagree with. I have found that these conversations can lower the temperature, build mutual respect, and open the door to compromise. We do not have to agree on everything to listen to one another or treat each other with dignity.

I urge the council to support a civic education curriculum that teaches independent thinking, political awareness, respectful debate, and the value of compromise. If we want a stronger democracy, we must teach the next generation how to participate in it responsibly. That begins with education, open-mindedness, and willingness to listen, even when we disagree. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Alan, I, I'd love to get a cup of coffee with you to talk about that hat. Hey, you know what? You know, I'm from the Bronx. The only people we're allowed to discriminate against in this world are Yankee fans. You're sitting next to 3 Bronx students there. So for— I know, um, I, I just want to— for the, uh, for the Lehman students, uh, really proud to represent, um, Lehman College.

And, and just if you could talk like really briefly about if you have experience in the Student Senate and if you think having earned a seal would have made that communication better, related to Alan's comments, or if you still find as Senate students, members of the Senate, it's still challenging, like some of your colleagues, it's really hard to talk to.

Can you speak a little bit about those experiences, Ashley? I think I can speak for it because I never had any government knowledge or even knowledge of SGA up until Gleeman College. And I found so that I would be more effective in the work that I do had I had some form of knowledge of what even just saying adjourn or the very simple terms that took me about a whole month to learn, and that by the second meeting we finally are all on board.

However, we could have just got straight to work that first meeting had we known or been educated. And that was one of the things that I was thinking for next year when I get elected into a position, starting that training early. But however, if that training would have began in high school, we would have never had to do catch-up.

I would have known this coming straight through the door and been able to have been more effective. And it does show in my experiences, and it makes me wish that I would have had this training offered to me prior to wanting to be involved. And I also think it would have gave students the ability to want to be involved because a lot of students are not exposed to this.

And if they were, they would have more interest in government, in wanting to vote, in getting out there and wanting to be involved in their community boards. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes those terms, people get really fixated on the words and Robert's Rules of Order. But those are sometimes the structures that allow people to hear one another and allow everyone's voices to be heard.

And so that's a really interesting perspective and something— it would be cool if our high school students spoke— used Robert's Rules of Order for their classes. That would be hilarious and awesome, but hilarious too. Anyone else want to add anything? Well, from my experience facilitating civic engagement workshops right now at Lehman, quite difficult because a lot of students, they don't know what the city council is or what the city council does.

And we had to go over that, uh, so many times because I had to explain to them that you guys have more power in the local communities than the president, you know. Yeah. Because young students, young adults, they just turn out to vote when it comes to presidential elections and not when it comes to City Council or the ones that are going to happen, the midterms in November.

So I had to go over that and, and, you know, spend time in that topic. Yeah, I, I just whispered to Chair Joseph when you said, you know, most students don't know what City Council does, I was like, most adults I think may not know. I mean, you know, considering the voting rates in, in our city and things like that.

But it's— that's why it's so critical we're getting the civic education in. in our schools, not waiting till people graduate to get a magazine in the mail about civic engagement. See, one thing I have noticed, the basics, grade 1, are not being taught how government works. How, oh, I don't agree with you, but let's have our coffee.

I mean, we need to be able to respect each other. I respectfully disagree. First graders should not be drinking coffee. You know, but the thing is, is that other than baseball, we need to be able to compromise on everything, okay? I mean, it's like, I don't care what planet you're from, I don't care what country you're from, we're all human.

And if we don't teach that to our children, there's no way our government will work. Because you hear too many stories on the news about college professors indoctrinating their students one way or the other. Those people should not have those jobs. People need to learn how to work together to keep the peace, to get through life. Um, can I pick up?

Sure, please add on. All right, so with what he said, like people not being educated, I really agree with that because I grew up in Ghana And from grade 1 to grade 9, we have something called civic education where we learn about the history of Ghana, the Big Six, and how they fought for independence against colonial rule and everything.

But then when I came here as a political science student, I tried to have these conversations with other people and they don't even know what America's history is or the whole political context about it. And that really confused me because I'm like, didn't they teach you guys anything at all? But then they are now learning. And it makes things hard for our professors too because they talk about stuff expecting the students that are from here to know and they don't even know that.

And me, I had to do all these research to like be able to talk about it. And I'm the only one that knows everything because they haven't taught the other people because they, they don't even, um, want to encourage them to try to learn, they're just like, take it or leave it. So people here, I feel like their political context is based on their parents or their professors or what social media is telling them is right or wrong.

And just to kind of add off of what both of them are saying, 2 points. The point about having a respectful conversation with your colleague, I think student government at our local level, right? We have a president who is a little apprehended to continue having good relationships with people they may have lost with. And I think like if you were to learn from very early on like that, that's part of life, like you're gonna lose and it's nothing personal.

I think that if you're taught that in civic sense, you're able to actually have a better college experience and are able to— And as a student government, we try to always encourage Even if we don't get along with other people, or if even if in the past they've gotten maybe kicked out of another SGA at a different school, we try to still encourage them to still be included and still include their opinions.

And I think that if we had that in high school, already had experience like that, going into college, we may not have those characteristics anymore, and they would have already been taught by it. Another thing I wanted to add with the whole education sense, I was born and raised in the Bronx. I have Bronx education, and I was not taught most of the things that we need to learn.

And I feel as though I'm in AI, we're doing a lot of AI policy this year. I taught very recently a city camp at Hunter College. And my workshop was based on creating the worst AI policy. And so then we worked backwards and decided on the best AI policy. And the whole thinking of it was, now raise your hand if you're involved in community boards with all your great ideas.

And nobody in the room raised their hand, right? So I think that's the thinking of so many people have so many great ideas. but they're not equipped with the tools they need to figure out where are they going to put those ideas. So if you're teaching the kids this now, they're able to actually know, okay, I have this great idea, I know where to take it, let me take it there.

And we're able to actually get more voices heard in our council. Thank you.

Well, thank you for that. Um, that was one of the questions. I was at Queens College yesterday and they were like, so how do we get involved? And I'm like, high school students, you can start with your SLT, with your school leadership team, you could start on that. I said, there's a stipend. There goes an incentive. There's a program that I used to run when I was teaching.

I taught from K to 5. My student had a student government from kindergarten. Their needs were different. They wanted more playtime versus the 2nd graders versus the kids who wanted to play more gym. Every month they met with the principal and they gave her ideas, and that's how we came about having a salad bar in the cafeteria.

We're having water fountains in the cafeteria. That's because they were engaged. And when I was running for office in real time, I was their current events. Like, councilmember, we saw your poster, we saw you doing this. And then we kept them engaged. So we're start— there's a program in Brooklyn now for that where the kids are actually running for offices in their own school.

They campaign, they look for endorsement. And they have debates and they bring us in as judges. So I think that should spread across New York City. And this is the reason why we did— we had this hearing. It's like, okay, what do we have and how do we perfect it? Thank you so much and welcome. We look forward to working with you.

Thank you. I look forward to working with you too.

Andrew Wilkes. Good afternoon, uh, Chair Taylor. Can you just hold one moment, please? Hold on one second. That concludes the in-person portion of our public testimony. We'll now move to remote testimony. If you're testifying remotely, please listen for your name to be called. Once your name is called, a member of our staff will unmute you. You may then start your testimony once the sergeant-at-arms sets the clock and cue you to begin.

I'm calling the first witness. You, you may begin once you're unmuted.

Good evening. You may begin. Good afternoon, Chair Denowitz, Chair Joseph, and members of the Education and Higher Education Committees. My name is Dr. Andrew Wilkes, and I serve as Generation Citizens Chief Voice and Policy Officer. For over 15 years, Generation Citizens has championed real-world democracy across the 5 boroughs, making sure that young people have the hands-on skills, knowledge, and agency for active civic life.

I stand before you virtually in strong endorsement of proposed Resolution 620 and Resolutions 418 and 451. I just want to speak briefly about why these resolutions matter. Universal implementation under Resolution 620 is vital to combating systemic youth disconnection from politics and to bridging deep-seated inequities in civic education access, which historically leaves students in lower-income communities and communities of color with far fewer opportunities for hands-on civic learning.

When I think about Resolution 418, it's a great opportunity to set in place vital post-secondary value for civic excellence, as we've considered for much of this hearing, by directly bridging high school achievement to college completion. Higher education degree pathways and workforce success that can help ensure that students' civic engagement yields tangible post-secondary return on investment. And then finally, in Resolution 451, Generation Citizen has actually worked pretty closely with some of the folks in Albany, Assemblymember Colton and Senator Claire, to advocate for the passage and statewide implementation of these bills.

And it really points to how experiential civics moves education beyond how a bill becomes a law, beyond passive textbook memorization, into students discovering the value of their voice, the value of community-based problem solving. Having served as appointees on the task force that successfully recommended the Seal of Civic Readiness, Generation Citizen believes that we need an operational engine to make the incredible progress that we've already made move towards further progress so that we can serve all learners, multilingual learners, students experiencing disabilities, and those who are stepping into the fullness of what their voice and their brilliance can mean in their communities.

To that end, we've created a Seal of Civic Readiness toolkit that helps to assist schools and districts in taking part in the seal. And I'm landing the plane here. When young people learn democracy by doing democracy, we believe they build critical skills in advocacy, policy literacy, and collaboration. And so by adopting these resolutions and investing in sustained— Thank you.

Your time has expired. Thank you so much. Deeply appreciated.

Oh, I have to— oh my God. Is there anyone else present in the room who has not had the opportunity to testify but wish to do so? Please raise your hand. Seeing no one else who wish to testify, this hearing is adjourned.

Okay. Make sure I'm invited. Oh, you definitely will be. Cheers. You good? Do what? They gotta be there. Yeah, I know, but we can't do it. We have been talking, but it's— we're not— we're not— They haven't even sent you flowers. No, there's been some conversations. Like, it started maybe 2 years ago. It kind of starts to stop, and then June, when we're going to have that hearing in April, there was another conversation.

But then we realized, like, yeah, there's some alignment that has to happen. Well said. Thank you. Yeah, so true. I mean, it's like, to be all this, all educated, whatever, whatever. Shouldn't have to be so crazy. All the things that you said, it's free guys. But it's not what it is right now. Common sense isn't as common as you think.

Oh, you are? Oh, okay. Because no matter how smart people say, respect someone who you disagree with. And I always use the term Have a couple problems, but whatever. Just chill, make a joke. Like I, I try to keep things light. And you know what? No, they're good. Just be happy. Someone's happy. Yeah, I'm sure if you're sort of naturally predisposed to sort of do that, they're usually better at it than adults are, as long as we're supporting them, right?

Yeah, which we're not. Which we're not. But, but They continue to come out ready to sort of like listen to people, and they want to be friends, and they want to be heard. So yeah, there are opportunities there. Opportunities that were blowing it. I mean, especially, you know, challenges. Did you hear change stories? But there's still not that far.

Yes. Like, that's like you got a lot of grief for it. But you know what? I'm done. And we had a nice conversation. I got such hell from people I told. Oh, you screaming? You did? No, because what was accomplished was that. Exactly. It only makes things worse if you're— it's like, and it doesn't include you. Obviously, they don't have a dream with anyone.

And then I came up with the Yankee-Met joke. That's where your argument falls apart. That's right. Because he's on the wrong team. Of course. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. All jokes. You know why the Yankees will never win the World Series again? You ever hear of the 27 Club? Janis Joplin died at 27. How many World Series have the Yankees won?

How many? 27. 10. Engrave the trophy for next year. We're bringing it home. We have 2, which means we're alive. You're still alive. That's a Met fan argument right there. Issues where you talk like that, for sure. No, yeah, absolutely. I think, and I think it is like, is indeed one of the things that I try to