Brief: Mandated Reporting in Education

These reports were created by the NYC Family Policy Project.

In NYC, although education staff make a large share of hotline calls reporting families for suspected neglect, especially related to chronic absenteeism, most reports are unsubstantiated and almost none lead to foster care. The brief highlights the impact of this over-reporting on families and communities, outlines recent efforts to encourage schools to support rather than report families, and discusses proposed policy changes to reduce reliance on child welfare responses for attendance issues.