Giving Compass' Take:

· Mayor Bill de Blasio has reached a budget deal with NYC's City Council to boost funding for public schools. In this deal, funding will go towards making the schools more easily accessible for students with physical disabilities and also increase the number of available social workers for homeless students.

· What other opportunities can schools provide for students with physical disabilities? What services can schools offer for homeless students?

· Read about the increasing number of homeless students in New York City.

After months of negotiations, Mayor Bill de Blasio reached a handshake budget deal with City Council that includes a funding boost to make schools more accessible to students with physical disabilities and a modest increase in the number of social workers who serve the city’s growing population of homeless students.

Some of the biggest education items in the mayor’s $89 billion deal had been announced months earlier or were long-anticipated, including a $125 million increase in school budgets, and funding for the mayor’s expansion of pre-K for three-year-olds.

But this week’s agreement includes more funding for some of the city’s most vulnerable students — though not necessarily as much as advocates hoped.

The exact budget figures have not been made publicly available, and a City Hall spokesman said they would not be until City Council votes to approve them in the coming weeks.

Here are some of the deal’s biggest education highlights, according to advocates and city council members:

  1. $150 million to make schools more accessible to students with disabilities
  2. More social workers dedicated to homeless students
  3. Additional counselors in schools that don’t have any

Read the full article about the changes in NYC's school funding by Alex Zimmerman at Chalkbeat.