New York lawmakers are considering weakening the state Education Department’s recent guidelines on yeshivas and other nonpublic schools, New York Focus has learned.

These schools face a looming deadline – June 30 – to prove they offer a “substantially equivalent” education as the state’s public schools, under regulations issued in 2022. A draft bill circulating the legislature would loosen those rules and potentially delay the deadline for some schools.

Advocates are urging the governor and legislature to take immediate action during the final weeks of the state’s annual budget negotiations.

Layoffs, program reductions, and closures are on the table for New York’s mental health providers after millions in federal funds were unexpectedly cut last week, jeopardizing an array of services for residents battling addiction and mental illness. The cancellations are part of drastic federal cuts by the Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, whose headline-making tactics are being challenged in several pending lawsuits.