Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer is demanding Mayor de Blasio use money from his wife’s pet mental health initiative or the Department of Education to put a full-time social worker in every public school in the city.
Brewer’s push comes days after the city’s Independent Budget Office finalized an estimate of what it would cost to place more social workers in schools. Its estimate, which Brewer requested earlier this spring, found it would cost $94.4 million to put a full-time social worker in the 716 public schools that don’t have one this school year.
“I don’t care where the money comes from. I want social workers in every school,” said Brewer, who has cared for more than two dozen foster children over the years.
“I am extremely knowledgeable,” she added. “I spent a lot of time in the schools. Some of [my kids] had a lot of issues. Sometimes, the schools understandably don’t know how to deal with them. That’s why they need social workers.”
Brewer has been pushing for blanket social worker coverage throughout the school system since 2002, when she served on the City Council’s Mental Health Committee.
Some of the money, Brewer contends, could come from Thrive NYC, the mental health program spearheaded by First Lady Chirlane McCray and roundly criticized for its big price tag and lack of discernible results.
Since launching in 2016, Thrive’s budget is projected to balloon to roughly $1 billion before de Blasio closes out his final term.
When questioned about it during a City Council hearing in March, McCray struggled to answer the most basic questions, at one point arguing all of the money was going to help the most serious mental health cases because it’s reaching people before their illness becomes more serious.
“If you didn’t take your anti-depressant every day and you were the victim of violence or something, you could be in that category tomorrow, very easily, or certainly in a few months,” she said at the time. “It is important to us to prevent these diseases from progressing into a crisis.”
That same month, the Daily News revealed de Blasio cut $13.9 million from the city’s $92 billion spending plan for 69 social workers tasked with helping homeless students.
As it now stands, 100 city schools that serve 50 or more students who live in homeless shelters do not have a social worker specifically tasked to addressing their needs, according to Randi Levine, policy director for Advocates for Children of New York.
“We get calls from families of students who need behavioral and emotional support and are not receiving it in schools,” she said.
De Blasio spokesman Will Baskin-Gerwitz said it’s “crucial that NYC students can work with staff who can provide necessary social and emotional support.”
“The city hired hundreds of social workers and guidance counselors to work on campuses last school year and continues its efforts to increase the staff available in schools to support students,” he added.
