George Saucier, who lives near Sojourner Truth Academy in the Uptown area, wasn’t at all surprised by the chaotic scene that unfolded outside the school Tuesday.

The school and its administrators, he said, have a serious lack of control over its students.

Witnesses said the fight involved students and parents, and spilled out into the street, sending one child to the hospital.  Officials said Amar intervened in the fight and deliberately tried to hit a male student with his truck, but hit that student’s sister instead.

“Words were exchanged,” said NOPD’s Frank Robertson. “The father, Mr. Amar, jumped into his vehicle in front of a crowded group of witnesses and intentionally struck a 15-year-old student with his car.

One by one, frightened parents showed up to remove their children to a place they feel is safe. 

Amar was arrested and charged with aggravated battery. The 15-year-old victim was listed in stable condition at Children’s Hospital, police said.

Sojourner Truth Academy was set to close for good this month. Friday is the last day of school. The school’s charter has not been renewed.

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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.

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The mother of a fifth-grader at Oak Hammock K-8 School has submitted an amended lawsuit against the St. Lucie County School District.

In the lawsuit the mother alleges that her 11-year-old son’s reading teacher pushed a desk into the boy and taunted him. The complaint admits that the student has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and attaches a letter from the school who  investigated the alleged teacher’s behavior and “concluded that the incident did constitute an act of bullying or harassment.”

Here’s the interesting/ridiculous part of the lawsuit:

  1. Kemp, the student’s teacher, is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
  2. Based on the one founded teacher infraction that did not result in any physical injury to the student, the mother believes  the school should “pay expenses for (the boy’s) care through adolescence, her (the mother’s) pain and suffering and a private school education.”

No one is saying that the teacher’s behavior was appropriate, but based on the facts as being reported by the press, the damages the mother is seeking seems a bit excessive.  Not to mention that the teacher’s whose inappropriate behavior forms the foundation for the complaint is not even named in the lawsuit.

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An honor student says she was attacked in her Bronx high school after sending Chancellor Joel Klein 25 e-mails over three months begging to be transferred away from bullies who were threatening her.

Kimselle Castanos, 14, handed Klein a letter on Dec. 15 at a Brooklyn meeting pleading for a transfer after months of being terrorized by a band of teens at the Foreign Language Academy of Global Studies.

Klein took the letter and asked her to e-mail him. She did.

“Please, chancellor,” she said in a Dec. 22 note. “At least write to me. I am scared about what they are going to do to me.”

Klein replied that he would look into it. But he never wrote the girl again – despite two dozen follow-up e-mails, Kimselle claims.

Kimselle appealed to Klein only after being rejected for a transfer by the Bronx Office of Enrollment. In all, her family visited the office six times, starting in October.

The officials finally listened on Feb. 11 – the day Kimselle was assaulted in the cafeteria.

A girl yanked Kimselle’s ponytail so hard she heard a crack in her neck.

“I turned around to see who it was . . . and there were, like, 16 kids there,” said Kimselle, who has been out of school with “contusions” on her neck and must wear a brace.

The attackers – from a special-education school that shares the building with FLAGS – had been harassing students since October. One of Kimselle’s friends suffered a broken jaw in a clash. Another was beaten up.

The kids started stalking Kimselle after school.

“I was really scared,” she said.

Kimselle’s mother, Kenia, 47, was furious.

“This is exactly what we were trying to stop,” she said. “But no one would help. No one would listen.”

Chancellor’s Regulation A-449 says safety transfers can be granted if “continued presence in the school is unsafe for the student,” but documentation of a threat is required.

Department of Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said the girl was rejected because the family did not provide such documentation.

She added that the Office of Enrollment was “in constant contact” with the family and offered counseling.

Feinberg said all e-mails Klein received were forwarded to the Office of School Enrollment.

Last week – after the family filed a police report and a school incident report as documentation – Kimselle was transferred to the Bronx Leadership Academy.

“I don’t understand why it took me getting hurt,” said Kimselle, whose parents plan to sue the city.

Lawyer Matthew Sakkas said, “The DOE had every opportunity to take a proactive stance so they could have avoided this, and they never did it.”

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/item_aIrfKuwOcl7d6EkAtcg8XL#ixzz1uXE5fsar

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Imagine you are a school vice-principal. One day, a parent complains that the Grade 5 supply teacher made her son take a squishy banana out of the garbage can and eat it. How do you react? Do you (1) ask the parent if the kid might be exaggerating? Or (2) ask the teacher for her side of the story? Or (3) suspend the teacher, send her home, report her to the school board and call child-welfare authorities?

The school decided that the correct response was 3. Even though the teacher in this case, Susan Dowell, has 15 years of experience in the school system and had her own recollection of what happened.

For the record, the teacher’s version of events is that the boy and his friends were acting up in class, so she spoke sternly to them. Later, when she saw the boy throw his uneaten banana into the garbage at lunchtime, she told him to eat it or take it home. “His parents paid good money for fruit like that.”

As a result of that comment, the teacher spent a month at home on partial pay while the Children’s Aid Society investigated her. CAS eventually exonerated her. She wasn’t even told what she was supposed to have done. The union warned her that the police could show up at her door at any time.

After being subject to a month-long investigation, Ms. Dowell had this to say: “Children are getting a lot more savvy these days. It used to be, ‘Make the occasional [substitute] teacher cry.’ Now they know they can have you suspended.”

Ms. Dowell’s story is no longer rare. Across Canada, more and more teachers are being removed from the classroom because of false and unfounded allegations of abuse. Many, if not most, of these cases are dismissed for lack of evidence. Nobody knows for sure, because nobody keeps records. Teachers often spend weeks or months in limbo before they’re cleared. “It’s nuts,” says Jon Bradley, an education professor at McGill University who has written about this subject. “Many [accused] teachers feel embarrassed, and many are in a state of shock.”

In the bad old days, teachers’ abuse of students was often covered up. Now the pendulum has swung so far the other way that common sense has all but disappeared. Joel Westheimer, research chair in education at the University of Ottawa, blames an overall decline of respect for teachers, as well as what he calls the “criminalization” of disciplinary activities in schools. “We have a climate where people are not allowed to exercise the professionalism they are paid for,” he says. “When the kids get in a fight, the school calls the police.” He also blames parents, for automatically taking their kids’ side, and school administrators, who are so spineless that even a piece of fruit can make them run for cover.

What’s worse is that accused teachers like Ms. Dowell are never really cleared. She can expect no apology and no public explanation from the school to her colleagues, the students and their parents. As well as being investigated by child welfare, Ms. Dowell was also investigated by the school board. But when I called the board to ask if she’d officially been cleared of wrongdoing, they refused to tell me.

Ms. Dowell argues that there should be consequences for students who make false allegations. Right now, there are none. The obvious lesson is that they can get away with anything. Meantime, teachers are presumed guilty until proven innocent.

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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.

The guards let it happen and top political appointees let it happen. The Fed’s policies and practices facilitate it and as a result thousands of kids are assaulted, one is dead, and still a vicious teen fight club rules Rikers and at Juvenile prisons across the country. As political appointees, their minions and the Feds threaten line officers with termination if they intervene or maintain order. Ensuring the continuation of a practice where guards will allow prison violence to escalate or face termination for not following policy.

The story as reported by the NY POST

Not long after his arrest on burglary charges, 18-year-old Kadeem John figured out the power structure at his housing unit at Rikers Island’s notorious RNDC youth jail.

At the top was a crew of battle-tested brawlers who controlled everything in “Two Lower” — one of the 50-prisoner housing units. Those who agreed to the hierarchy had to prove themselves by beating up any prisoner the leaders chose. Those who didn’t could expect quick revenge.

John had been in and out of trouble since his first arrest in 2008, when cops busted him. In 2010, when he arrived at Two Lower, he was facing a felony burglary rap. “He was a new inmate and approached by the leaders. They told him, ‘You have to beat someone up,’ and he said no.

As John walked in a single-file line on his way back to his cell one afternoon after lunch, an undersized teen standing in front of him suddenly switched places and got behind John. When the group filed down a flight of stairs, Gayle punched John in the back of the head, the source said, and John tumbled down the stairs, hitting his head and passing out. A group of others pounced on him, beating and kicking him.

“He was in Elmhurst Hospital for three weeks,” the source said. “He had water on the brain, the doctors said, and bruises up and down his rib cage and liver damage.” But when a lawyer hired by his family asked about the incident, officials at the city Department of Correction could offer no explanation, and a videotape of the fight vanished.

As reported by the post, one of the reasons these fight clubs are allowed to exist is because guards cannot intervene to maintain order even when the youth are out of control or act out. The guards know that if they intervene they get called in for abuse investigations most of which are unfounded and run the risk of their employers firing them and having an abuse allegation on their record for 10 years because NYS does not remove unfounded allegations.

NYS knows it has the guards over a barrel. “And the inmates know this” too.

The NYS powers that be would like to have you believe that they did not know the situation that Riker’s youth prison was out of control until the beating to death of 18-year-old Christopher Robinson. Robinson was a youth that fell out of favor with guards. So the guards transferred him to another juvenile unit and mysteriously left his cell open the day Robinson “happened” to be assaulted and beaten to death. A gang of youths went into Robinson’s cell, put Robinson into a wrestling hold — then punched and kicked him to death.

The connection the NY Post does not make is that the youth violence at Rikers prison seems to have started at about the same time as the NYS Juvenile Justice Department (aka OCFS) invited the Feds to investigate its facilities in order to strike a deal that would allow OCFS Commissioner, Gladys Carrion to implement policies the Unions, Staff and facilities directors would never tolerate otherwise. As a result Carrion’s policies and the Feds investigation and settlement demands, youth violence at OCFS facilities escalated. More than 30% of OCFS staff were out on worker compensation claims in 2008.

Unlike the line staff at OCFS who were getting choked out, cut and assaulted trying to work around OCFS’ and the Fed’s policies, the guards at Rikers, according to the NY Post, decided to value their personal safety and instead allowed the youth to work out their own hierarchy.

For stories regarding the violent and dangerous conditions at NYS’ Juvenile Facilities go to:
http://thetruthaboutpronerestraint.com/blog/general/ny-videos-show-detained-juveniles-attacking-staff/
http://thetruthaboutpronerestraint.com/blog/general/ny-ocfs-moving-juvenile-offenders-to-adult-prisons/
http://thetruthaboutpronerestraint.com/blog/general/violence-at-ocfs-juvenile-center-taped/
http://thetruthaboutpronerestraint.com/blog/juvenile-justice/juvenile-workers-in-massachusetts-maryland-and-new-york-say-staff-assaults-go-unchecked/

Below is video of the violence that OCFS allowed to occur at its juvenile facilities.

Rikers insiders state: “There are about 15 to 18 fights a day and more than 4,000 injuries each year.”

Unlike the Post who reports that no one knew the extent of the violence until a youth was beaten to death, we are a bit more skeptical. As for the Fed’s involvement, don’t hold your breath. When the Feds become involved it seems that violence goes up, not down.

http://thetruthaboutpronerestraint.com/blog/juvenile-justice/md-violence-continues-to-increase-at-marylands-youth-facilities/

http://thetruthaboutpronerestraint.com/blog/juvenile-justice/juvenile-workers-in-massachusetts-maryland-and-new-york-say-staff-assaults-go-unchecked/

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TTAPR on May 8th, 2012

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.

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