WHEREAS, young people have endured mental health challenges throughout this pandemic including but not limited to depression, suicide ideation, grief, and trauma; and

WHEREAS, young people have lost family members to COVID-19 and will need to be supported through the grieving process in order to learn, and

WHEREAS, “The ACLU’s report found over 71% of students in New York attend public schools that fail to meet the nationally recommended ratios for the number of counselors to students 1” schools will need to have a greater capacity for supporting students transitioning back to school; and

WHEREAS, DOE cut $700 million from this year’s education budget, but is planning to spend $20 million to hire 475 new school safety agents; and

WHEREAS in NYC schools there are 5,200 school safety agents, but 3,000 counselors, 1,800 social workers and 1,400 school nurses; be it

RESOLVED, the UFT urges City Council Committee on Education to amend Intro 2211 to not transfer authority over school safety agents to DOE authority; be it

RESOLVED, the UFT supports the reforms of the roles of SSAs in Intro 2211; be it

RESOLVED, the UFT supports hiring more teachers, social workers, counselors, nurses, librarians before any more safety agents; and be it

RESOLVED, the UFT supports long term, holistic recovery for school communities from pre-pandemic criminalizing practices and pandemic exacerbated inequities with investments including but not limited to the arts, extra-curricular programming, counselors, social workers, restorative justice coordinators, nurses, librarians, to ultimately to facilitate opportunities for youth to discover gifts, talents, and positive contributions to school communities.