Education, Not Incarceration. Bronx Parents and Community Members Protest Excessive Number of Student Arrests and Suspensions
On Thursday, May 10th, 2012, the New Settlement Parent Action Committee assembled Bronx parents, students, educators, faith leaders, community organizations, and advocates in a large community march entitled “Education, Not Incarceration!” protesting current New York City Department of Education (DOE) disciplinary polices that have contributed to moving children from school directly into the criminal justice system.
The stops of the community march itself illustrated the trajectory of the school-to-prison pipeline: an early childhood education center; elementary, middle, and high schools; the Bronx Suspensions Hearing Center, and finally Horizon Juvenile Detention Center, all within blocks of each other.
The Bronx-based groups argue that harsh and punitive disciplinary measures that remove children from the classroom for minor incidents. In just three months of the current school year, there were 279 school-based arrests made citywide, with an average of more than five arrests of school children per day. The Bronx tops the list, possessing the highest rate of both school-based arrests and summonses.
The DOE’s subcontracting of school safety under the New York Police Department (NYPD) has drawn serious questions about the relationship between the two city agencies as it relates to matters of student discipline.
The DOE has allotted $300 million annually to the NYPD’s School Safety Division; with over 5,000 agents. The magnitude of the NYPD’s School Safety Division alone is the fifth largest police force in the country.
The most current set of statistics from the Student Safety Act depicts the disproportional impact of school-based arrests upon Bronx. It is clear that not only do Bronx youth have to contend with practices of stop-and-frisk , but also overzealous arrests and the issuance of summonses within schools.
In response, the Bronx parents and community are fighting back. “The DOE needs to get the message that we as parents and community members are responsible for the welfare and the future of our children, and we’re not going to sit back and allow them to be pipelined to prison,” states Joseph Ferdinand, a leader with the New Settlement Parent Action Committee.
The Bronx-based groups are demanding that the DOE take seriously the urgency around disciplinary practices that are leading students towards incarceration instead of graduation. They are calling on the DOE to do the following:
- Give responsibility for behavioral infractions back to the teachers and get NYPD out of the business of disciplining students.
- Reduce the number of suspensions and arrests by 50% by September 2013.
Organizations in “Education, Not Incarceration!” included the New Settlement Parent Action Committee, Bronx Clergy Roundtable, Bronx Defenders, Children’s Defense Fund, Community Connections for Youth, Desis Rising up and Moving, Dignity in Schools Campaign NY, Legal Services NYC-Bronx, Mass Transit Street Theater and Video, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Youth on the Move.
Tags: bronx, education, excessive student arrests, law enforcement, not incarceration, NYC, parent's protest, school to prison pipeline
U.S. Rep. Al Green released a statement Saturday condemning a violent confrontation between two students at Thurgood Marshall High School last week.
Cell phone video of the April 27 incident shows students crowded in a stairwell watching sophomore girls beat each other, one swinging what’s said to be a sock with a metal lock in the toe. One girl’s head was busted open and required staples.
“We cannot continue to react. Many times, reaction means somebody has already been hurt. School safety is everyone’s responsibility,” Green said during a press conference, calling on parents, students teachers and officials to do more to prevent school violence.
Some Comments from Readers.
If teachers had gotten involved, the parents would be complaining about adult use of force and the teacher would be fired.
Teachers cant win, danged if they do, danged if they dont.
Didn’t hear one parent say anything about the responsibility of the students! It’s always “the government” or the “school” or somebody else should do something. Rarely do the parents take responsibility.
If a teacher jumps in to break it up, they get sued….like the teacher at Bush last year.
Pamela Flowers, the mother of one of the students involved in last Friday’s fight, told KHOU she had told the school’s administration before the fight that she believed her daughter was being threatened. The station reported that incident remains under investigation.
Another fight at school
YOUNGSTOWN
Another Sunday afternoon fight sent police scrambling to the area around Taft School this weekend.
Police received a call at 5:45 p.m. in reference to two juvenile females fighting near the school with a large crowd gathered around to watch. By the time police arrived, the fight was over and the crowd had broken up with various groups of juveniles walking away from the area.
Taft School was the site of a large fight last month that was recorded and uploaded to the Internet.
Police have made several arrests for felony rioting and trespassing stemming from that fight.
A bipartisan contingent of legislators from both houses spoke in favor of a bill that equates attacking a social worker or a prison guard with assault on a police officer.
“We need to do what we need to do to protect the workers,” said Assemblywoman Barbara M. Clark, D-Queens.
The bill, S.641-b/A.4672-b, sponsored by Sen. Martin J. Golden, R-Brooklyn, and Assemblyman Peter M. Rivera, D-Bronx, would change the penalty for attacking a social worker or corrections officer to a second-degree assault charge. The bill would also punish anyone for the same assault charge if an animal under their control attacks a social worker or prison guard.
Second-degree assault is a class D felony in New York, punishable by up to seven years in prison. The bill passed the Senate 58-1 and has been referred to the Assembly Codes Committee. Versions of the bill have been introduced since 2007.
Golden said 14 percent of social workers in New York experienced some form of assault in the past year, while 30 percent experienced assault at some point during their career.
“We see not only assaults, but people being killed,” Golden said. “They have to be given safeguards to do [their job] safely.”
Rivera’s office said assaults on social services employees rose 10 percent last year, totaling 61 different employees.
Sen. Diane J. Savino, D-Staten Island, a sponsor of the bill, said when her mother found out she was going to be a caseworker instead of a police officer, she said, “Oh my God, that’s worse.”
Savino said her mother was a 911 operator at the time and was familiar with social work. “She was horrified,” Savino recalls. The senator said the risk social workers face has not changed since she started working in the field 22 years ago. Savino has served as the vice president of political action and legislative affairs at Social Service Employees Union Local 371.
“People should come home in the same condition as they left in the morning,” said Assemblyman Rory I. Lancman, D-Hillcrest, a sponsor of the bill.
Leaders of the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) will speak at public hearings on a new juvenile justice initiative being billed as “reform,” but which, in reality, will put youths and the community at risk.
The new Close to Home initiative focuses on reducing the placement of troubled youths in facilities operated by the state Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) and, instead, concentrates on moving troubled youths to privately run facilties in the very same neighborhoods where they got into trouble in the first place.
PEF leaders and members who work for OCFS will join parents of troubled youths and concerned residents to point out several deficiencies in the plan, including: the high percentage of youths who escape from private facilities, the lack of safety measures at the private facilties and the fact that 38 percent of the youths being moved into these neighborhood communities committed violent crimes.
The hearings are being held Monday, May 7, between 5 pm and 8 pm at Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn and again Tuesday, May 8, between 10 am and 1 pm at the Health Building, 2nd Floor Auditorium, 125 Worth Street, New York.
PEF members who have spent years nurturing, teaching and monitoring troubled youths will go on-the-record about the many success stories of youths who have turned their lives around in state-operated facilities. For many of the youths and their families, the last thing they needed to be was “close to home.”
PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union, representing 54,000 professional, scientific and technical employees.
Tags: awol, gladys carrion, juvenile justice, ocfs commissioner