EDUCATION

In leading the city’s 2020 Census campaign, Julie ensured that over $10.5 billion in federal funds will be allocated to New York City public schools over the next decade. Under her leadership, New York City achieved a historic self-response rate in the 2020 Census, a figure that outpaced most major cities in the United States such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Dallas, Baltimore, and Houston, and the US Census Bureau's pre-COVID-19 estimate of 58% for the Tri-state area. Julie’s leadership as the 2020 NYC Census Director, managing this initiative in a city as diverse as ours, and during a global pandemic and extraordinarily challenging political environment, received universal recognition and will help New York City’s public school students well into the future.

During Julie’s tenure as a seven-year Community Board Chair, she led the charge to build three new public schools, including the City’s first green school. And as Commissioner of Consumer Affairs, she chaired New York City Kids Rise, a not-for-profit organization she helped create to oversee her landmark program to provide more than 10,000 kindergartners with college savings accounts; because research shows that children with college savings accounts are three times more likely to attend college than those without.

Also as Commissioner of Consumer Affairs, she spearheaded a groundbreaking investigation into for-profit colleges who were scamming low-income New Yorkers.

Julie believes we should expand the number of Gifted and Talented programs so more families and communities can have access to these programs. 

As a City Council Member, Julie will continue her fight for public school funding and she’ll make sure that no student needs to learn in an overcrowded and technologically outdated classroom. And she will advocate to expand the universal college savings program she created for kindergarteners with NYC Kids Rise to City Council District 5.