New York CIty Council Member Ben Kallos

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TAPinto Roosevelt Island Parents Rally Virtually for Remote Learning Center by Marc Bussanich

Roosevelt Island Parents Rally Virtually for Remote Learning Center

New York, NY—Families of students who attend P.S./I.S. 217 on Roosevelt Island have no option on the island to send their children to a remote learning center because a long-standing childcare provider that applied to provide 45 seats was denied by the city. That’s why they joined a virtual rally earlier today with elected officials to ask the city to reconsider.

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Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan) hosted the rally, as he has been a leading advocate for expanding the number Learning Bridges seats. In fact, he wrote a letter to the Mayor first proposing the idea of remote learning centers for families who needed child care while students were learning remotely.

TAPinto New Bill Would Raise Wages of Human Services Workers by Marc Bussanich

New Bill Would Raise Wages of Human Services Workers

New York, NY—Human service providers would be able to pay their workers more money based on a new bill introduced today in the City Council by Councilman Ben Kallos.

Earlier today he was distributing face masks and hand sanitizer in Yorkville outside the Isaacs Center, a 50-year human services provider whose mission is to ensure that children are prepared to thrive in high school, young adults boost their earnings, and that seniors thrive as they age.

But the human services sector, which employs approximately 200,000 New Yorkers, pays low wages. According to a report published by a coalition of human services providers, the average pay is less than $30,000 annually.

 

TAPinto City Trying to Ramp Up More Child Care Options On Remote Learning Days by Marc Bussanich

City Trying to Ramp Up More Child Care Options On Remote Learning Days

New York, NY—New York City schoolchildren are now back in school, alternating between in-person and remote learning during the school week. On the days there is remote learning, parents have had to scramble to figure out child care options for their young children. A new program by the NYC Department of Education provides free childcare options, but a limited number of seats are currently available in Community Board 8’s district.

Last week, CB 8 hosted a webinar on the urgent need for child care that featured numerous officials, including speakers from NYCDOE, NYC Department of Youth and Community Development and the Office of Management and Budget, as well as Council Members Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan) and Keith Powers (D-Manhattan).

Learning Bridges, the new NYC Department of Education program, provides free child care options for children from 3-K through 8th grade on days when they are scheduled for remote learning.

TAPinto 40 Pre-K Seats Now Available for French Dual Language Program by Marc Bussanich

40 Pre-K Seats Now Available for French Dual Language Program

New York, NY—Council Member Ben Kallos led a ribbon cutting to announce the availability of 40 Pre-K Seats for a French dual language program that will serve members of the Francophone community on the East Side.

According to Council Member Kallos, the New York City Department of Education will operate the classes using a side-by-side instructional model where it will have one Early Childhood-certified teacher who is fluent in French and who has or will work towards a bilingual extension, alongside a second Early Childhood-certified teacher.

Classes started at the Pre-K Center at 355 East 76th Street on September 21.

Kallos was joined at the ribbon cutting by parents, teachers, school administrators and the French Consulate General to New York, each of whom had an opportunity to say a few words during the press conference about how grateful they are that the DOE recognized the need and agreed to make the seats available.

The ribbon cutting preceded a multi-year effort of activism by numerous parents in the neighborhood, which Kallos recounted in his opening remarks. He talked particularly about one parent, Stephane Lautner, who first reached out to the president of the Community Education Council District 2, Maud Maron, to discuss the possibility of making seats available for a French dual language program.

TAPinto Elected Officials Vow to Restore Funding for Non-Profits by Marc Bussanich

Elected Officials Vow to Restore Funding for Non-Profits

New York, NY—The need for social services has increased exponentially during the COVID-19 pandemic but providers face the possibility of cutting back their services because the money that the city first promised late last year to pay for overhead costs is now being rescinded because the virus has pinched the city’s coffers.

The overhead costs, for items such as rent, water bills and staff wages, are known as indirect costs, which Mayor Bill de Blasio and Council Speaker Corey Johnson promised $54 million in December 2019 to fund. But then last month, because of the ongoing economic fallout due to COVID-19, the Mayor notified nonprofit leaders that funding for indirect costs would be cut by $20 million, down to $34 million.

Councilman Ben Kallos and the Human Services Council co-sponsored a virtual rally earlier today to start building momentum to reverse the cuts when modifications to the Fiscal Year 2021 budget happen in November.

 

TAPinto Department of Education Mitigates Parent Concerns During Town Hall by Marc Bussanich

Department of Education Mitigates Parent Concerns During Town Hall

New York, NY—Councilman Ben Kallos and U.S. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney held a joint Town Hall this evening with the NYC Department of Education so that parents and family members could ask questions about school safety before students physically return on September 21.

TAPinto Crime Takes Top Spot in Neighborhood Public Safety Survey by Marc Bussanich

Crime Takes Top Spot in Neighborhood Public Safety Survey

Meanwhile, Councilman Ben Kallos, who voted against the budget because the $1 billion NYPD spending cut doesn’t amount to defunding the police, doesn’t believe that there is correlation between the cut and an increase in crime because there are more active police officers today than previous mayoral administrations.

“In 2020, we have more police officers than [Michael] Bloomberg had and more police officers than [Rudy] Giuliani had. And we still remain one of the biggest police forces in the country, spending over six billion dollars a year,” said Kallos.