The New York City Parents Union is an independent, grassroots, policy making, parent-led organization in New York. We focus on legislation and litigation. We are unbought and unbossed by entrenched special interests.
We believe every child must have equal access to a high-quality education.
We are strong supporters of Parent Empowerment, Parental Rights, and School Choice.
We support a parent’s right to choose the school that best fits their child’s needs — district, charter, magnet, specialized, gifted & talented, community, private, parochial, yeshiva, madressa or home school.
NYC LEGISLATIVE SUCCESS
1. Protecting our students with special needs and passing Avonte’s Law, named after Avonte Oquendo, which requires alarms on all school doors.
TIMELINE
In December 2010, Mona joined other public school parents in suing the New York State Education Commissioner and the City of New York for granting Cathie Black a waiver that enabled her to become Chancellor of the New York City Public School System. Mona joined public school school parents in founding the Deny Waiver Coalition that launched a campaign against the absurd appointment of Cathie Black.
In May 2011, Mona founded the New York City Parents Union to fight for the rights of all parents in the public school system. The New York City Parents Union announced it’s birth by filing a lawsuit against the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) to halt botched Community Education Council elections. Parents and elected officials pleaded for weeks with the NYCDOE to redo the elections – to no avail. Upon receiving court papers from the New York City Parents Union, the DOE immediately halted the elections and negotiated with Mona to restart the elections and properly notify parents there was an election occurring and how they may vote for their parent leaders.
In June 2011, the New York City Parents Union and Class Size Matters filed a lawsuit against Mayor Michael Bloomberg for violating the Charter Schools Act and Education Law for not charging charter schools rent “at cost” per the law. In March 2014, three (3) years later, while our case was still active, Governor Andrew Cuomo changed the law, allowing charter schools to have free space and requiring the NYC Department of Education to pay the rent for charter school private space.
In February 2013, Mona and New York City Parents Union members filed a lawsuit seeking to stop Governor Andrew Cuomo from punishing our children by recouping $250 million in funding as a penalty because the United Federation of Teachers and Mayor Bloomberg failed to come to a teacher evaluation agreement. In May 2014, it was revealed via secret recording that the president of the teachers union purposely sabotaged negotiations knowing that our schools and children will lose $290 million in funding. We successfully secured an injunction stopping Governor Cuomo.
In November 2013, Public Advocate Tish James, the New York City Parents Union and their members as plaintiffs, including vice president Sam Pirozzolo, filed a lawsuit to halt Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s last minute co-locations for district AND charter schools. NYPCU believed the co-locations for both district and charters were rushed without proper review. Majority of co-locations in New York City are for district schools, not charter schools. NYCPU believes all co-locations must be fair and equitable.
In December 2013, Mona as lead plaintiff joined parents in a lawsuit, against the NY State Department of Education seeking to halt the disclosure of student and parent data to inBloom, a private corporation. NYSED and Commissioner John King contracted with inBloom to collect private, personal information without the consent of the parents. The outcry and outrage of disclosing sensitive student and parent data resulted in the NY State Legislature passing a law banning the NYSED from contracting with inBloom and disclosing student and parent personal information without parent consent.
In February 2014, Mona, the New York City Parents Union and its members as plaintiffs, joined parents from throughout New York State in a lawsuit demanding Governor Cuomo and the State of New York comply with the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit ruling that stipulated our children were being shortchanged funding in the billions. Our lawsuit seeks $1.4 billion dollars immediately out of the $4 billion currently owed to our children.
In March 2018, the NYS Appellate Court dealt the teachers union and state government a huge blow by ruling Davids v. New York may go to trial. The teachers union unsuccessfully filed two motions to dismiss which were denied and then appealed to the Appellate Court in their efforts to quash our lawsuit. Parents and students were victorious and our lawsuit to hold teachers, the Department of Education and state government accountable for educating our students will move forward.
NYS LEGISLATIVE SUCCESS
1. Requiring charter schools to serve their fair share of Students with Special Needs and English Language Learners.
2. Requiring every charter school in New York City to establish a Parent Association or Parent-Teacher Association.
3. Requiring the New York City Department of Education to provide matching renovation funds to district schools that are co-located with a charter school to address the damaging separate and unequal facilities between district schools and the charter schools they are co-located with.
4. Requiring every district an charter school co-located in a public school building have a shared-space committee consisting of a parent and teacher from the charter school and other schools in the building. This committee must meet at least four times per year. No changes to the building space may occur without the approval of the committee.
5. Prohibiting charter leaders and staff from serving on the board of their charters.
6. Requiring charter school board members comply with the Public Officers Law and sign such disclosure and conflict of interest statements.
7. Requiring all charter board meetings be posted and parents be notified of the time and place a minimum of 72 hours in advance. Charter board meetings are subject to Open Meetings Law and can be videotaped and recorded.
8. Stripping the New York City Department of Education of the authority to authorize new charter schools because of their lax oversight of their charter schools.
9. In 2013, outlawing the sharing the of private student and teacher information with in Bloom.
10. Successfully advocating against Mayor de Blasio’s attempts at gaining permanent Mayoral Control of New York City Schools.