For decades, the city has struggled to effectively serve some of its most vulnerable students — those with disabilities and those learning English. But Mayor Eric Adams says his administration aims to do better.

“It’s not going to be easy, we know that. Because there are a lot of distrusts, and you roll out programs, and sometimes people feel as though you do it, a big hoopla, and then it’s not self-sustaining. But we’re going to give it our all,” Adams said at a news briefing.

The city is launching a new division within the education department, dubbed the “Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning,” or DIAL. There’s no new money behind the division, and it will oversee two existing departments, special education and multilingual learners, that previously reported to the Division of Teaching and Learning, which the chancellor dissolved earlier this year.

The division will be led by newly promoted Deputy Chancellor Christina Foti, who was previously chief of special education and has proven popular with many parents.

“The reason you’re hearing this energy today is we’ve been waiting for this moment. We’ve been waiting for the moment to elevate our children, to acknowledge our children,” Foti said.

The mayor — who began the announcement with a fifteen minute stump speech on his administration’s education record — was also on hand for the announcement of a new math initiative, being dubbed “NYC Solves.”

“Students develop a fear of math from the earliest grades. And we have kids who will say: ‘I’m not a math person.’ But even worse than that, we have teachers who will say, ‘I’m not a math person,’” Schools Chancellor David Banks said.

This fall, 93 middle schools across eight districts, and another 420 high schools, will be using the same math curriculum, called Illustrative Math, and some of them have already begun. Over the next three years, all middle schools will have to use either that or one of two other approved math curricula options.

The mandate comes after the city previously required schools to use one of three approved reading curricula for their NYC Reads program, which Banks and Adams have touted among their top education accomplishments.

“Sometimes that excitement was also paired with a question, and that question was always, well, what about math?” Banks said.