Ursila Jung hates asking people for money. But as a PTA member at her child’s school, Jung used to be the one who approached other parents, asking for donations to fund teaching assistants, arts programs, and other supplemental programs.

At District 6’s A. Philip Randolph Campus High School, Giselle Salas is known as the “Cup-a-Soup Lady.” While she is officially a social worker and the liaison for students in temporary housing, her honorary title reflects some of the work she does: support the school’s population of housing-insecure students, whether by slyly handing out the Cup-a-Soups she stores in her office or offering counseling and other services.

Earlier this month, Eric Adams became New York City’s mayor-elect, beating his Republican opponent Curtis Sliwa by a wide margin and setting himself up to become the city’s second Black mayor. A former police captain and current Brooklyn borough president, Adams will take office in January amid a precarious economic and political climate as the city continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Luchiano Lewis was sentenced to nine years to life in prison on Thursday afternoon for his role in the December 2019 killing of Barnard first-year Tess Majors. Though Lewis was only 14 at the time of the incident and 16 at the time of conviction, he was charged as an adult.

On the eve of the first day of classes, Rachel Pinsen, a reading teacher at M.S. 54, could not wait to get back to school. She looked toward the full reopening of New York City public schools, eager to see her students’ faces in 3D without any pixelated glitches. Pinsen’s excitement however, is not shared by all who are re-entering school buildings.

Though many New Yorkers’ political attention has been primarily focused on the June 22 Democratic mayoral primary, a chance at the city’s highest office is not the only seat up for grabs that day. With 35 out of 51 seats open this election cycle, hundreds of political hopefuls are vying for the chance to sit on City Council next fall, with 14 candidates running in District 7— an expansive district that stretches from 96th Street to 165th Street and home to 179,682 people.

Imagine a typical New York City elementary school classroom: littered with half-chewed pencils, decorated with neon alphabet posters, filled with students’ voices as they work through books, with the ease of their reading serving as an unwitting indicator of their educational future. While not a complete determinant, a child’s reading ability can predict much of their scholastic trajectory—for example, a student who does not reach a third-grade reading level by the third grade is four times less likely to graduate high school by 19.