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Good morning, this is Mike with Chalkbeat New York.

Today’s top story focuses on Kai, a first-grader with autism whose Brooklyn elementary school struggled to handle his behavior — a struggle that eventually led to police showing up to school to address the situation. Reporter Abigail Kramer explores the years of efforts and initiatives to reduce schools’ reliance on 911 calls to handle challenging student behavior, and why the progress has stalled. It’s a bracing and important read that comes on the heels of another recent story on some promising early results from a pilot program to better support students with emotional disabilities — often the most likely to face punitive consequences and end up in segregated schools — in their neighborhood schools. Stay tuned for the final installment of the series.

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Local News

Cops for a first grader?: Why NYC schools are still calling 911 on 6-year-olds

Despite new city regulations, NYC schools call the police on hundreds of young children in emotional distress each year, disproportionately affecting students with disabilities.