EDUCATION

Equal access to a strong education is the foundation of a prosperous society. South Brooklyn students are already among the highest achievers in the city — our community deserves a school system that meets them where they live and gives every child a real shot.

What We Will Do

Bring a specialized high school campus to South Brooklyn.

Students from Districts 20, 21, and 22, which cover our community, account for approximately 25% of all NYC public school specialized high school admits and over 72% of all Brooklyn public school SHS admits, and in 2024–25 alone submitted 4,385 applications to Brooklyn Technical High School. Yet there is no specialized school here. Every one of those students commutes out of their neighborhood daily, accumulating over 60 extra hours of travel per school year, hours lost from sleep, family, and mental health. The extra trips add to subway crowding and carbon emissions. Bard High School Early College opened a new Brooklyn campus in 2024 through a simple DOE partnership, proving this is achievable quickly at minimal cost.

Expand access to quality afterschool programs across SD-17.

In New York, for every child enrolled in an afterschool program, four more want to participate but cannot get a spot. More than half of all applications for state and federal afterschool funding in New York were denied in the most recent funding cycle — meaning thousands of children are turned away each year. For SD-17’s 55% foreign-born community, afterschool programs also provide critical language support and family stability.

WHAT WE WILL DO

Fund local organizations to hire neighborhood teens as paid peer tutors during the school year — modeled on SYEP, extended year-round. NYC’s Summer Youth Employment Program served 97,004 young people in its most recent year, paying $139.9 million in wages. But it runs only six weeks in July and August, leaving the school year entirely uncovered. We will secure state grant funding to pay teens in SD-17 the NYC minimum wage ($17/hour) to tutor younger students after school — using the same community partner network that already runs SYEP, so we are building on infrastructure that exists, not starting from scratch.

Match bilingual tutors to families by language, so students get help in the language they understand. Citywide, only 12.5% of current English Language Learners are proficient in ELA — but students who moved past the language barrier later achieved 72% ELA proficiency. The barrier is language, not ability. SD-17 has a large multilingual teen population in Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic. We will actively recruit bilingual tutors and match them to families who need same-language help, rather than assuming the right tutors will appear on their own.