NYC Council Joint Committees on Higher Education and Education Hearing on the Seal of Civic Readiness — October 20, 2026

The New York City Council's Committees on Higher Education (Chair Rita C. Joseph) and Education (Chair Eric Dinowitz) held a joint hearing on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, at 1:00 PM at 250 Broadway, Hearing Room 2, to review the New York State Seal of Civic Readiness in DOE high schools and at CUNY, and to hear five legislative items: oversight T2026-2538, Intro 0259-2026 (dental care information), Res 0418-2026 (CUNY credit for the Seal), Res 0451-2026 (Next-Gen Civics Act), and Proposed Res 0620-A (universal Seal availability). In attendance were committee members Joseph, Ariola, Dinowitz, Epstein, Maloney, Restler, and Wilson, with other Council members Brewer, De La Rosa, Farías, Gutiérrez, Krishnan, Lee, Narcisse, Schulman, Zhuang, and Wong. All items were heard; the oversight item was filed, and the four legislative items were laid over.

Discussion Items

Oversight T2026-2538: Seal of Civic Readiness in DOE High Schools and at CUNY

• Chair Joseph explained that the Seal, implemented statewide in 2022, requires students to earn six points from a menu of civic knowledge and participation benchmarks, including advanced social studies coursework, passing the social studies Regents exam, a research project, at least 25 hours of service learning, at least 40 hours of extracurricular or work-based learning, and a middle school or high school civic capstone project addressing a real-world issue.
• Chair Dinowitz reported that 8,000 students from 166 DOE high schools earned the Seal in the 2024-2025 school year, a 72% increase from the prior year, and that 643 graduating seniors from 31 high schools earned it in the June 2022 pilot year. He noted that the State Board of Regents last month authorized ending the Regents exam graduation requirement beginning with the class of 2028, meaning the Seal would no longer count toward a diploma. He also noted that more than 60% of DOE graduates who go on to college enroll at CUNY, and that 10 CUNY colleges currently award between three and eight credits for the Seal of Biliteracy.
• Alyssa Vine, CUNY University Director of Credit for Prior Learning, testified that CUNY does not currently track students entering with the Seal of Civic Readiness, that no CUNY college has yet evaluated the Seal for credit, and that the Seal's intentionally varied pathways make credit evaluation different from the Seal of Biliteracy. She identified the high school capstone project as a promising starting point for faculty review and expressed CUNY's interest in continuing exploration with NYC Public Schools.
• Cordelia Vive, NYCPS Chief of Curriculum and Instruction, described the Civics for All initiative launched in 2018 and reported Seal growth from 31 schools in the pilot year to 60 (2022-23), 118 (2023-24), 166 (2024-25), 230 (2025-26), and 271 (2026-27). She reported that 12,019 students graduated with the Seal at the end of the 2025-26 school year, a 1,600% increase in five years from 682 in the 2021-22 pilot year. (Note: Chair Dinowitz cited 643 graduates in the June 2022 pilot year, while the DOE witness cited 682 in the 2021-22 pilot year; the source materials do not reconcile this difference.) She said 35 of 45 districts participate in the Civics for All Partner District program.
• Superintendent Marcel Deans (Bronx Districts 8, 10, 11) reported growth from 9 students earning the Seal in 2022 to 780 in June 2026 in his districts, which are over 78% Title I. Superintendent Anthony Enzarello (District 26) said 96% of the district's high schools now offer the Seal and described middle school capstone and soapbox speech work.
• Councilmember Dinowitz raised concerns about potential undercounting because ATS allows only one Seal to be listed per student transcript; DOE said schools report all Seal earners and are building a Seal tracker in STARS ahead of the OASIS transition.
• Councilmember Wilson asked how the curriculum addresses the harder parts of history, including racism, homophobia, sexism, and violence; DOE cited its multi-perspective curriculum and hard history professional learning series, and described drawing on immigrant students' lived experiences as assets.
• Councilmember Brewer pressed for stronger public messaging about civics education, saying constituents repeatedly tell her schools do not teach civics; DOE acknowledged the need and described external partner accreditation, newsletters, and school-based outreach.
• Councilmember Dinowitz requested data on Seal earners by race, ethnicity, income, multilingual-learner status, disability, borough, school type, District 75, and transfer schools; DOE agreed to provide it.
• DOE reported a total civics budget of $3,001,659, including $1.6 million for participatory budgeting and $861,770 for professional learning. Dinowitz urged DOE to keep professional learning and curriculum development in-house rather than hiring outside contractors.
• Dinowitz asked why families cannot search for Seal-offering schools on the MySchools website; DOE committed to working with the relevant division to add the Seal of Civic Readiness and the Seal of Biliteracy to the school-search portal.
• Dinowitz and Vine agreed to schedule a joint CUNY-DOE meeting for CUNY faculty to review student capstone projects and work products toward establishing a credit pathway.

Intro 0259-2026: Dental care information

• Sponsor Councilmember Krishnan said the bill would require DOE to inform parents about the importance of fluoride and dental health, in response to misinformation at the federal level about vaccines and fluoride. NYCPS witness Cordelia Vive expressed support for the collaboration with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to develop and distribute materials on the importance of dental care and fluoride.

Res 0418-2026: CUNY college credit for the Seal of Civic Readiness

• Sponsor Dinowitz called on CUNY to ensure all campuses award an appropriate number of college credits to students who earn the Seal. CUNY testified that no college has yet evaluated the Seal, but expressed openness to faculty review and noted that any credit would likely align with general education rather than a specific course. The CUNY University Student Senate supported the resolution and asked that any credit award be one clear standard across all campuses, published where students can find it before they apply.

Res 0451-2026: Next-Gen Civics Act

• Sponsor Councilmember Zhuang said young New Yorkers remain among the least civically engaged voters in the city and urged passage of A.9298 and its Senate companion, which would enact the Next-Gen Civics Act, providing hands-on, project-based civic education in grades 9 through 12, including mock elections, community projects, and policy simulations.

Proposed Res 0620-A: Universal Seal availability

• Sponsor Dinowitz called on DOE to ensure the Seal is awarded in all NYC public high schools to eligible students. DOE said it is actively pursuing 100% participation and is currently in 56.2% of diploma-granting schools, accepts all schools that apply, and works with schools to meet accreditation requirements.

Public Comments & Testimony

• Hanata Caldera, a parent from Forest Hills and constituent of Councilmember Schulman, expressed concern about hands-on civics without guardrails, describing an elementary school vote on a fundraiser that occurred while a complaint was under investigation by the DOE Office of Special Investigations. She asked the committees to require DOE guidance that student civic votes and projects never involve fundraisers or matters under investigation, that parents be notified before votes, and that DOE release the OSI findings.
• Elizabeth Shattock, New Visions for Public Schools, expressed strong support for expanding Seal access and the Next-Gen Civics Act, and called for more pre-approved project structures and rubrics and high-quality professional learning grounded in specific instructional materials.
• Victor Medina, Futures Ignite, expressed support for including the Seal in all NYC public schools and for college credit, citing a student-led permanent open street campaign on 182nd Street in Washington Heights as an example of student civic impact.
• Jeffrey Reim, Runway Green, expressed strong support for the resolutions and described plans for an education campus at Floyd Bennett Field that could serve up to 50,000 students per year.
• Susie Gomes, League of Women Voters of NYC, expressed support for civics for all in every grade K-12 and for the Seal, and suggested an empirical study of whether Seal participants become more civically knowledgeable and more likely to vote than their peers.
• Davia Willis (Chairperson-elect), Hazel Prez Aqua (Lehman College graduate), and Jared Fajardo (Lehman College undergraduate), representing the CUNY University Student Senate, expressed support for Res 418, Res 451, and Res 620, citing the Senate's $700,000 OmniCard campaign win as evidence of student power, and asked for one clear credit standard across all CUNY campuses and public reporting of participating schools and campuses.
• Alan Sherman, an NYC resident since 1961, urged civic education that teaches independent thinking, respectful debate, and compromise rather than indoctrination, and encouraged students to evaluate candidates across party lines.
• Dr. Andrew Wilkes, Generation Citizen (remote), strongly endorsed Proposed Res 620-A and Res 418 and 451, urging universal implementation to combat systemic youth disconnection and civic education inequities, and cited Generation Citizen's advocacy with state legislators on the Next-Gen Civics Act.

Key Outcomes

• Oversight T2026-2538 was heard and filed by the committee.
• Intro 0259-2026, Res 0418-2026, Res 0451-2026, and Proposed Res 0620-A were all heard and laid over by the committee.
• CUNY and NYCPS agreed to schedule a follow-up meeting on faculty review of Seal capstone projects and work products toward a possible credit-for-prior-learning pathway.
• DOE agreed to provide the committees with demographic data on Seal earners and participating schools, and to work with CUNY on data sharing so CUNY can track Seal earners.
• DOE committed to adding the Seal of Civic Readiness and the Seal of Biliteracy to the MySchools school-search portal so families can identify participating schools.
• DOE said it is building a Seal of Civic Readiness tracker in STARS to improve data accuracy ahead of the OASIS transition.