Name: Lyle Quarfordt

Social Justice Group: Funding Inequality in NYC Public Education (A)

Date of Fieldwork: January 14, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Ms. Swann-P the English teacher and Julie Longmuir the business manager

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:

On January 14th our group traveled to NEST+m High School to find out the differences between NEST and LREI. We interviewed an English teacher named Ms. Swann-Pye and the business manager Julie Longmuir. Over both interviews we learned about a variety of things. For example we learned about where their funds come from and how they are able to make education free since they are a public school.

While interviewing the English teacher, Ms. Swann-Pye we learned about the good and bad of public schooling. For example she told us about how quality differs between different public schools. Public schools in more wealthy zones get more taxes and intern more funding than public schools in less wealthy zones. She also told us about how necessary meal plans are because 30% of Nest students qualify which means that 30% of students are not financially stable.
After that we interviewed NEST’s business manager Julie Longmuir. She gave us some great information about the school and its funding. She told us that the PTA at NEST is very important because most of the families are financially set. 97% of their funding goes to staff salaries. In short, PTA funding is really important to NEST.