GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Hundreds of students at Murry Bergtraum High School rioted through the hallways today after the school’s principal told teachers not to give out bathroom passes.

Teachers at the lower Manhattan school said that the day began with a fight between two students on the building’s third floor. After the fight, Bergtraum principal Andrea Lewis reportedly announced over the school’s loud speaker that in the future, students who fought would be arrested. Lewis reportedly told students and staff that for the rest of the day, the school’s bathrooms would be closed and teachers should not issue bathroom passes.

In a school of over 2,600 students, this news did not sit well.

“She also said that in the case of emergency, kids could use the bathrooms in the nurse’s office, but by then, given the nature of adolescents, the message had been delivered that the bathrooms would be shut,” a teacher said. (more…)

When the city proposed changes to its discipline rules, its new policy towards “cyber-bullying” and “sexting” caught the public eye.

But the central changes have nothing to do with text messages. They represent a win by civil rights groups who have been calling on the city to make sure that schools use more counseling and less punishment and suspension to resolve problems.

At a hearing on the proposed changes Wednesday, one middle school principal described a program that she piloted and is now part of the new code. In some schools the program, which is known as PBIS and is designed to encourage good behavior in all students at a school, can include a reward system in which students collect points toward a prize for demonstrating things like good study skills.

Denise Jamison, principal of Williamsburg’s M.S. 50, said that the program has helped improve the behavior of even some of her most struggling students. The “hottest ticket” for rewards, she said, is a “No Uniform Today” pass, or “NUT card.” One day, she recalled, she pulled over a student well-known by school staff for his temper and asked why he wasn’t in uniform.

“He pulls out [his NUT card], and we all started congratulating him,” she said. “Because we knew how much he would have had to improved in order to earn that.” (more…)

For its size, which is colossal, Herbert Lehman High School has been one of the Bronx’s safest high schools for years. But recent changes and a spate of fights have put the school on track to get permanent metal detectors next year.

If Lehman does get scanners, it means there will be no large, comprehensive high schools in the Bronx without them.

Department of Education spokesman Marge Feinberg said the city’s police department has yet to decide whether to install permanent scanners next year, but students and teachers at the school said they’ve been told to expect scanners in September.

Metal detectors in airports and government buildings are standard fare, but in the city’s public schools, they’re still a source of controversy. While some parents don’t feel comfortable sending their children off to school every day without the scanners, others believe the devices cause minority students to be treated like criminals.

Every morning, about 4,500 students walk through the doors of Lehman’s campus — a school building so large, it looks like a beige space station has landed on East Tremont Avenue. Roughly 4,000 students attend Lehman High School itself, while 500 go to the other school in the building, Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and Technology — a combination that has put the total enrollment well over the building’s capacity of 3,500. (more…)

Principal William Jusino of Progress High School at the NYCLU press conference. (GothamSchools)

Many city schools rely on metal detectors, security guards, and zero-tolerance policies to keep discipline under control. They don’t have to, according to a new report about alternate strategies to keep schools safe.

The report, produced by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, highlights six city high schools that stop problems before they start, help students resolve their own disputes, and keep police out of all but the most serious incidents. The schools range in size and how students are admitted, but they all post higher-than-average graduation rates, the report says.

“There is no cookie-cutter solution” to replicating the gentler approach to discipline, said NYCLU policy director Udi Ofer at a press conference today. But he said getting rid of metal detectors, currently in place at about 130 city schools, is a good place to start. (more…)

It’s not just the city schools that are closed to new hires now. Because of the State Senate’s failure to approve a city tax hike, Mayor Bloomberg has frozen hiring for the entire city starting today. 

Among the people who are not being added to the city’s payroll are 150 school crossing guards and 175 school safety agents who were set to start walking the halls this fall. (There are more than 5,000 safety agents in the school system, and some advocates have said that’s too many.)

A 1998 agreement that gives the city’s police department control over school safety is still in effect, despite city officials’ insistence that it had expired more than six years ago.

The revelation has advocates and elected officials lambasting the city for not disclosing the agreement’s extension.

The original agreement, between Mayor Rudy Giuliani and then-Board of Education President William Thompson, was set to expire in 2002 and was widely assumed to have done so. But in fact, Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein quietly renewed the agreement in January 2003.

The renewal came to light for the first time this month, after Assemblyman Karim Camara urged his colleagues to consider school safety issues when deciding how to vote on mayoral control, according to Udi Ofer, director of advocacy for the New York Civil Liberties Union. The NYCLU was working with legislators to raise the profile of school safety in the mayoral control fight.

When Camara met with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Silver showed him a copy of the memorandum’s renewal, Ofer said. The paragraph-long agreement was signed by Bloomberg and Klein on Jan. 22, 2003, and does not include an expiration date.

The renewal contradicts information the City Council received during a 2007 hearing on school safety, where council members repeatedly asked whether any formal document existed to define the relationship between the city schools and the police department. (more…)

A year ago, the human rights-oriented nonprofit National Economic and Social Rights Initiative released a report accusing the city’s Department of Education of “degrading treatment and abusive policing” in its schools.

Now, NESRI has teamed up with Teachers Unite, a New York City group that emphasizes social justice in education, to showcase the teachers’ perspective on school discipline. The report, titled, “Teachers Talk: School Culture, Safety, and Human Rights,” draws on focus groups, individual interviews, and an online survey of more than 300 teachers in 136 schools.

The bottom line, teachers say, is punitive discipline doesn’t actually help make schools safer.

From the report:

What happens when you ask teachers in New York City public schools how to make schools safe? Not surprisingly, they talk about creating positive school cultures built on caring relationships, a commitment to learning, and the teaching of skills to prevent and resolve conflict.

Teachers also reflect a keen understanding that all members of the school community need to come together to develop a comprehensive plan for discipline with clear rules and consequences that are implemented consistently and fairly.

This holistic approach to school discipline and safety is supported by research which shows that positive environments and constructive interventions with participation from all stakeholders are the most effective means for improving safety and reducing disciplinary incidents. This also reflects a human rights-based approach to discipline which requires that school environments protect the inherent dignity of the child, and that education be aimed at the full academic, social, and emotional development of children.

The report concludes with “action steps” for the mayor and DOE to take, including supporting the Student Safety Act, currently before the City Council; clarifying the division of authority between DOE and NYPD in maintaining discipline; and introducing peer mediation, counseling, and conflict resolution programs in schools.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and local youth organizations regularly condemn metal detectors and policing of schools, saying they make students feel like criminals. So I was surprised when I was in the Bronx last week and heard students saying something different.

I was at a workshop at a conference on youth violence prevention, and participants were asked to cross the room if they agreed with statements by the facilitator, move to the middle if they weren’t sure or partly agreed, and stay on the other side if they disagreed.

Nearly all the students crossed the room, indicating they agreed, in response to two questions related to NYCLU’s campaign: Should the city have a curfew for teenagers, and should the city schools have metal detectors?

Although students in the workshop crossed the room in favor of them, other students I spoke to later expressed concerns about whether metal detectors really keep schools safe. Their views are after the jump. (more…)

With the start of the school year fast approaching, and the list of “persistently dangerous” schools released yesterday by the state, student behavior is on the mind of many educators and parents. New and returning teachers alike plan procedures and systems to help their students focus on learning, and many wonder how they will be supported as they try to create a positive classroom environment.

Class rules, by LindaH

In response to last week’s post about restorative justice, a reader sent me a link to the Dignity In Schools website, which includes an annotated list of resources for schools that want to implement strong, positive behavior management systems, improve family involvement, and make schools safer.  Worth a look; I could imagine whole schools or grade teams coming together to study and implement some of these ideas.

(more…)

City council member Robert Jackson spoke at a rally for the School Safety Act last week.

Nineteen schools in New York state – including 16 from the city – were deemed “persistently dangerous,” down from 27 last year, the state department of education announced today. Eight schools are new to the list, while sixteen were removed as a result of reporting fewer incidents. The list is based on the number of serious incidents relative to the number of students, and the seriousness of those incidents.

Under the No Child Left Behind act, students have the right to transfer out of persistently dangerous schools, although the late-summer release of this list would seem to make transfer difficult for many families. NCLB requires that the list be released no more than two weeks before the start of the school year.

(more…)