Legal Battle: Will NYC Public Schools Get the Funding they Need?

Published: Aug. 11, 2022, 2:12 a.m.

There are ~1,800 public schools in NYC serving 1 million students. But even though school will start in a month, most schools don't know what their annual budget will be and whether they will have to lay off staff. The matter appeared to be settled on June 13 when Mayor Eric Adams pushed the City\u2019s annual budget through City Council with hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to school funding. But on Friday New York Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank ruled that the process upon which the Department of Education's budget was established violated state law and allowed City Hall a new vote. Earlier today, the Mayor appealed the decision to a higher court.\n\nWe speak with Paul Trust, a father and teacher at P.S. 39 and one of the four plaintiffs in the lawsuit. We were also joined by Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, another NYC public school parent and the Manhattan representative on the Panel for Education Policy, the New York City school board.