By Katie Vasquez
Students at Dominican Academy are raising awareness about disparities in special education services across New York City through a student-led advocacy project focused on educational equity.
Each year, the school’s junior class completes an advocacy project. This year, a group of four students began researching special education inequalities in March, gathering data that highlights challenges facing students with disabilities throughout the city’s public school system.
According to the students’ research, one in five New York City public school students has an Individualized Education Program, or IEP.
“We all just felt very passionate about it,” said junior, Anne Bogdan.
The group created pamphlets and a website featuring an interactive map that allows users to explore special education disparities by borough.
“We included a QR code to our website, which actually has an interactive map that puts the inequalities in a percentage format,” said junior Juliette Gorczyca. “So you can click on the map on your borough and see how many children are not receiving the education that they deserve.”
Their research found that 11 percent of students in Brooklyn and 9.4 percent of students in Queens require special education services.
Students said the project was also required to be viewed through a Catholic lens.
“We stand off the concept of Imago Dei, which is basically everybody is created in the image of God,” Bogdan said. “And because of that, everybody has dignity. They’re sacred and they’re worthy.”
For juniors Vincenza Castellano and Mara Levcovici, the issue is personal.
Castellano said she had to compromise on speech education resources and move between schools based on the services available.
“I had to ping pong from school to school depending on what services they provided,” Castellano said. “That was really stressful for my parents.”
She said those experiences affected how she viewed herself.
“I felt like my worth was kind of overlooked,” she said.
Levcovici said her brother’s struggles with dyslexia and dyscalculia helped shape her understanding of the issue.
“My brother has dyslexia and dyscalculia, so he struggled with finding special education in New York City for such a long time,” Levcovici said. “It was really interesting to learn more about statistics and how that’s not a rare thing. That’s such a normal occurrence.”
Teacher Michael Cagney said the project teaches students that service can extend beyond direct volunteer work.
“It’s really giving the students another sense of the way that they can perform service,” Cagney said. “They become advocates and try to address the causes, the root conditions that are causing suffering, in the same way that they can go help out and serve local members of their community.”
The students hope their work encourages others to become more aware of the challenges facing children who need special education services.
“I think this will help others because the issue is not talked about enough at all,” Levcovici said. “Even before this, I had no clue this was such a big thing that was happening.”
Gorczyca said the research changed her own perspective.
“I think doing this research definitely opened my eyes and helped me see a lot more clearly about this issue,” she said.
To check out their website, click here.