Requires the commissioner of education, in conjunction with the commissioner of health and the commissioner of mental health, to develop model mental health screenings for students and associated guidelines to assist school mental health screeners to perform mental health screening services to identify concerns in students' mental health.
Establishes the student loan borrower bill of rights to protect borrowers and ensure that student loan servicers act more as loan counselors than debt collectors.
This bill removes the State University of New York (SUNY) board of trustees from the list of entities authorized to approve charter school applications in New York. It specifically deletes SUNY's role as a "charter entity" in education law, leaving only local school district boards (with geographic limits) and the Board of Regents as approval authorities. The change streamlines the charter school approval process by eliminating SUNY as a potential reviewer, affecting how new charter schools and school conversions are evaluated.
This bill establishes the Beacon School Pilot Program for New York City public elementary and secondary schools. It transforms schools into community hubs offering after-school activities, academic support, violence prevention programs, and services for families and adults. Key provisions require each school to create a community advisory council with neighborhood input, address youth development and neighborhood safety, and leverage public/private funding to expand existing partnerships. The program aims to reduce gang and gun violence by providing structured opportunities for youth engagement and community cohesion, with the city providing annual funding matched by state appropriations.
Authorizes a weighted selection process prioritizing children who would be eligible to receive free or reduced price lunch and/or who are emergent multilingual learners for the allocation of certain prekindergarten seats in school districts where there are more eligible children than can be served in a given school year.
Promotes the inclusion of children living in temporary housing in prekindergarten programs; requires school districts to prioritize homeless children on any pre-K waitlists and provides for the reimbursement to school districts of hiring additional staff to accommodate the enrollment of a homeless child.
This bill, the "Protecting Libraries' Independence Act," directly affects public libraries, their librarians, and patrons. It requires public libraries to make reasonable efforts to provide requested library materials (like books, databases, or media) to residents served by the library, within professional standards. Crucially, it shields librarians and library staff from civil or criminal lawsuits for good-faith decisions about selecting, curating, or removing materials under this law. The measure aims to protect library independence by reducing legal risks for staff handling material choices.
Establishes open enrollment schools; provides that nonresidents of a district, if otherwise eligible to enroll into a public school of this state are entitled to enroll into the school or schools of another district or city if the nonresident district's board of education has adopted an open enrollment policy and enrolling the nonresident pupil is consistent with such policy.
Establishes interregional enrollment of students taking classes in multiple school districts (Part A); allows students who are enrolled in and taking classes in multiple school districts to receive cooperative and individualized educational services (Part B).
Provides for inclusion of the school district's regional cost index in calculating the supplemental education improvement plan grant amount for Yonkers city school district.
