WEBVTT

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So I'm Assembly member Joanne Simon,
and welcome to our 11th annual

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Dyslexia Advocacy Day here at the Capitol.

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So thank you all for coming.

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Give yourselves a round of applause.
You made it through.

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You got here

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and it's the start of a big day.

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That will be a very exciting day, I hope.

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Might be a little tired.
You might sleep on the way back.

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That's fine.

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As long as you're not driving.

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Okay.

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So, I want to thank a number of people.

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First of all,
we have legislative co-sponsors.

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Senator Zellner. My re.

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Senator Julia Salazar and Senator
Robert Jackson, who is here with us today,

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and Assembly Member Robert Carroll.

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I also want to thank,

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Marina O'Donnell from, Buffalo,
who all that you Buffalo people know.

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She's been really incredibly helpful
in setting up our lobbying meetings.

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John Hammer from the New York City

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Public Schools is here with us,
the Literacy Academy collective.

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You can you can wave John.

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Bridge prep charter school.

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Let's hear it for bridge
prep the wind for sha sha sha sha. And

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the Stephen Gainer school.

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Educators for Equity and Brick.

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Now, brick
is, the, Brooklyn Cable Access TV's.

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There used to be their name,
which says it better.

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And they're here
and they're filming today.

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And so I'm very excited to have them here
because

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then we can make a video
that we can share,

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right, with so many people
who need to have this information.

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So today is we're on a very brief,
very tight timeline.

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So we have to be very brief.

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So, I,

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okay, so we're moving forward.

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So we're here today to discuss, literacy,

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which, as we all know
and believe is a civil rights issue.

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Because every child needs to learn
to read.

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Every child deserves to learn to read.

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This is what opens up,

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their, their, their

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education, their ability
to earn a living in the future.

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And makes them, just,

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a really a

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have a complete,
you know, a good, approach to life, right?

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If you could read, you could do anything.

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And so we want to make sure that our kids
all are able to read,

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and we're going to have a lot of stories
shared today during our lobby meetings.

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And we're going to do a speak out,
putting on the human face to dyslexia.

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And we're going to be doing that
in the Capitol.

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And, the governor's office has been very,
very helpful

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in setting that up for us.

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You know, we have, unfortunately,
a federal administration that's been,

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spreading disinformation
about dyslexia and, and

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criticizing people about having dyslexia
and calling them names.

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And that is like, not good. Number one.

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So it's

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more important than ever
that New York affirm

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that students are intelligent

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and capable and may have dyslexia.

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Right?

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That's what this is about.

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Every child needs to learn,
needs to have a chance to learn, to read.

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And, you know, it's our job
to deliver on that promise.

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And so we've been working with state
education department,

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and many partners, to try and improve
that picture in a variety of ways.

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Some of the things that we are advocating
for today is early identification.

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We're also advocating

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to pass a bill that we've passed

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in the Assembly for years
and working on the Senate

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that we would screen people who are coming
into correctional facilities wise,

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because too often
when we're not teaching our kids to read,

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they don't have as many options.

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Right?

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And we feel that school to prison pipeline
and we want to stop that.

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We want to address that issue,

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in any way we can.

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And this is one way
that we can make some headway there.

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And we're also going to be talking
about the right to redact, which is,

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Assemblymember Carroll's bill.

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So we're going to be talking
about those three bills,

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but you can talk to your legislator
about anything.

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You don't have to talk about a bill,
but you need to talk about

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your experience, your story,
why this matters to you,

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why it's important that the state moves
forward on this.

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We are working on this at a lot of fronts.

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We're working on the higher education
front.

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We're working on, training our teachers
in, schools and ensuring that people

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have, better access to evidence based
methods of teaching, reading, family.

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So that's all about
what we're doing today.

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You know, one thing I want to say is,

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about a couple of things.

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One is,

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having young people come and talk

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and tell their stories started
when we had passed the first dyslexia law,

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which I passed in
and went into effect in 2017.

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About you using those words

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on an IEP and allowing people
to use those words dyslexia, dysgraphia,

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a dyscalculia,
which hadn't happened in the past.

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And so one of the things we did
was to speak out, because the state

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education department came to hear right.

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And that made a big difference to getting,

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the guidance online about that.

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But we also know when you pass a law,
you really have to

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change hearts and minds
in order to get it into effect.

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Right?

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So just having something on the books
doesn't mean people will follow it

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or that they'll know about it.

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So this is an ongoing effort.

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That's why it's Dyslexia Advocacy Day.

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We need to make sure people know about it,

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that legislators know about it,
that people in our schools

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know about it, people in our communities
know about it.

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And similarly,

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the Dyslexia Task Force bill
and the hearings that were done about that

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is what made the point
that we had been saying for years

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that state Ed needed somebody who actually
had expertise in dyslexia in the state.

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The state education department.

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And really,
what drove that home were those those,

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hearings around the state

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where everybody's experience
around the state, the same experience.

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And that really forced, that
that white paper, and the creation

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of the the, Dyslexia Institute
at the state Education Department.

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So it's all of us

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working together that really moves
the needle and makes this happen.

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So I want to thank you
all, anybody who participated in that,

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or shared information about that,
that all made a big difference.

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So thank you so much.

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And then now we're going to have
a little bit of we're going to,

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hear from Marina O'Donnell who is a mom

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and a professional in the field of,
making laws happen.

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And she's going to give us some training
about this and how to tell your story.

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Thank you.