Abigail Kramer
Families say publicly funded, privately run charter schools in New York are allowed to punish and discriminate against students by calling in emergency services.
Despite a pledge to stop relying on police to deal with students who have mental health episodes, New York City schools have continued to call 911 on kids in distress thousands of times a year, an investigation by THE CITY and ProPublica found.
Journalists are often expected to identify their sources, but reporting on children presents a number of dilemmas, particularly when issues of mental health are involved.
Most kids labeled as having an “emotional disability” and shunted into public special education schools are Black or Latino, and low income — while wealthier families more often access a taxpayer-funded free private education.
After THE CITY and ProPublica exposed a dramatic drop in beds at state psychiatric hospitals, New York’s top law enforcer takes agonized testimony from patients and providers — and the parent who’d told us of her son’s monthslong wait for care.
Many residential treatment facilities for children in New York are shutting down, leaving families frustrated and scrambling to find mental health services. Some kids age out of care as they wait.
The additional millions are intended to help pay for a wide range of programs, including residential treatment. Gov. Kathy Hochul claims it addresses the bed shortage that has left young people in mental health crisis waiting months for admission.
Plaintiffs allege the state’s Medicaid program has caused young people with serious mental health conditions to suffer unnecessarily, ending up in hospitals and residential treatment programs because they can’t access vital services.
New York cut nearly a third of state-run psychiatric hospital beds for children, pledging to reinvest the funds in outpatient measures. There’s no evidence it worked.