There was a piece today in the New York Post on declining suspensions that has quotes from United For Change candidate Kathy Perez and two Unity chapter leaders along with other teachers, a union head for the Safety Agents and parents.
First some facts on the decreasing number of suspensions in NYC schools:
BAD APPLES
Fall reports (September-December) for students suspended by principals and district superintendents have plummeted:
2017: 14,502
2018: 12,461
2019: 9,997
2020: N/A (remote learning)
2021: 8,369
United for Change executive board candidate Kathy Perez is quoted:
“Right now, with the way the discipline code is, it’s basically, ‘Stop doing that or else we’ll ask you again,” said Queens teacher Kathy Perez. “The kids know that there are no consequences.”
Kids who want to learn, the vast majority, get cheated.
Now the Unity chapter leaders:
Adam Bergstein, a United Federation of Teachers chapter leader at Forest Hills High School, who started a petition two months ago to push for more discipline in city schools signed by more than 560 people, says administrators’ hands are tied.
“If you start suspending more kids, you’re going to be called on the carpet,” he said. “Schools that should be suspending children are leery because they don’t want to then have to defend their suspension to the DOE.”
Further down:
Restorative justice is “well intentioned,” said Cardozo High School teacher Dino Sferrazza, a UFT chapter leader, “but they’re aren’t enough restorative justice teams — social workers, guidance counselors — and then you have kids who repeatedly get into trouble and nothing gets done.”
Restorative justice doesn’t work with “the persistent offender, with the violent offender, with the kid that you’ve tried other things,” Sferrazza said. “But everyone’s afraid of suspending kids because you’re back to, ‘Your numbers are up, your numbers for particular kids are up, for Hispanic, black and brown kids, are up.’ They don’t want that heat.
“The argument was made that that’s what it was — suspending kids based on what they look like. I will tell you my experience, that was never the case,” he added.
In the end, students who follow the rules often lose out on instructional time — or lose their way altogether, worried teachers said.
“They don’t see the benefits of following the rules and being decent,” the Brooklyn educator bemoaned, recalling a kid who told her, ‘I’m really just done with school.'”
We have a bipartisan agreement on the need to improve school safety. The safety agents union leader is quoted in the piece but not Michael Mulgrew or anyone from the UFT's top leadership.
22 comments:
There will be no change. If a discipline code was enforced, they would say it is unfair to blacks and hispanics. They've already said it.
There was a fight at Lehman HS in the Bronx where a student assaulted the principal and threw him up against the wall, sucker punched a twin and then got a beat down from the twins with a full stomping. All this was broken up by paras and school aides. The entirety of this incident was never reported, no video was found, and no arrests. Minor suspensions were doled out, but get this. When the initiating student of the brawl asks for a safety transfer, they won’t give him one. It’s too late in the semester they say. 😂 They can’t give him a safety transfer because there is nothing in the system that warrants it. A complete white wash.
Don’t worry. I called the legal guardian who is the older brother of the student requesting the safety transfer and told him the truth, and that he needs to hire a lawyer.
This is a clear case of educational neglect. His guidance counselor abandoned him because he belongs to the Black Israelites and repeats some of their infamous sexist, homophobic, and racist teachings, all of which are repulsive, but that’s a sign that he needs you and you need to do your job and find help for this human that you are charged with providing counseling for.
This system is disgusting. The faster I can get out the better. I have teachers in my school spying on me and my social media accounts, reporting any comment, sarcastic and truthful to the principal. I’d say 50% or more of the teachers could care less about the quality of the education we’re providing. All they care about is parking spaces and being left alone by the principal.
Educational Genocide. That’s what I call it and this is just one small example of it’s insidiousness.
“They don’t want that heat” The heat from whom? Not conservatives that’s for damn sure. Progressives caused all of it. Now live in your own shit. If you suspend black and brown kids you’re a racist. Own it, libs. You said it. You enacted policies around it. Teachers and good students suffered the consequences of it. And now you whine about it? Horse is out of the barn. Enjoy spending time with the criminal kids you created by making excuses for them and emboldening them to attack teachers and peers. You did this progressive liberals. It’s all on you.
The NYC DOE should be sued for allowing educational theft. I think everyone knows that a major reason the NYC DOE schools are a disastrous failure is because of the lack of enforcement of any kind of discipline code. All around the US, I think we are all seeing and suffering the consequences of the lack of discipline enforcement in the schools.
If people constantly displayed these same behaviors, threats, rudeness, violence, etc. in a movie theater, they would be kicked out and/or arrested and most probably, the theater goers would go to other theaters to view movies uninterrupted. Perhaps movie theaters should reserve the last row of seats as the SAVE row? Or stop the movie to run a restorative justice circle? Do you hear how insane this sounds? But somehow the politicians and the DOE believe this window dressing nonsense is an effective solution in our schools.
Sady, nothing will change for the better. It is not in the best interests of politicians and the DOE to recognize and tell the truth. This used to be called corruption. It is now called common place.
Here’s the real issue and it’s societal and not just the doe and that is that we are not ready to have real conversations.
Look at attendance and tardiness. Awful this year! When I bring this up to a boss, I’m told a song and dance about ‘issues at home the child is having’ and how I need to be patient. So, you say something and you’re the bad guy with the bad attitude.
It all starts at the top aka the mayor. Make attendance policies real. Encourage suspensions and don’t punish principals who suspend. But, this creates a bad narrative for politicians who want to run for a higher office.
There is educational theft. Adams knows it. Banks knows it. Mulgrew knows it. Principals know it and teachers know it.
But, do you want to be the one to make yourself crazy to fight it? The job is hard enough just with the early wake ups and commutes to and from work that I want to live my life when I’m not there.
I say all of this and say that the doe will have an issue in the not too distant future. So many teachers are telling their kids not to go into the field and younger teachers(especially women) are leaving once they have a kid of their own.
Then again, maybe the doe wants this scenario. Get new crops each year of young, naive teachers and burn them out. They won’t get pensions and long term the city saves money.
To me, it’s more proof that every politician in NYC just does not care or want to care.
RJ can work but few schools implement it correctly. We have it in our school, but kids still cut class, come late to school, use cell phones in class and break other rules. I agree that disciplining doesn't work. I remember in my old school, a kid would get suspended, go back to class, do the same thing and get suspended again. There does have to be more though than just restorative circles. I am also tired of other people saying if they misbehave or are late to your class or cutting then they don't respect you. I'm sorry, but you should be on time for school, be in school every day and behave yourself and do your work regardless of how you feel about the teacher. Then the students must not respect all their teachers if they are cutting school, coming in late, misbehaving and not doing their homework. The cutting and lateness are city wide issues, so obviously these kids have no respect for any teachers or administrators. Just saying how illogical that lack of respect argument is.
Not only that but when we all went remote no one in TWEED including the school chancellor made any changes to the discipline codes. It’s a joke. We in NEW JACK VITY but we have SWAGGER
I agree with you 11:31. It’s not that they don’t have respect for their individual teachers per se, they don’t have respect for the system in general. And for many of the reasons stated above about discipline, I don’t blame them. I don’t respect the system either. Schools are not run in other parts of nys like this. And you see very different results.
My school routinely passes studnets who have below 40% attendance. Almost the entire student body has below 50% attendance...But, good enough.
They wonder why there is such a racial disparity in income and net worth.
This is a growing problem in my district of residence, a relatively good one where these issues were minor in most buildings. Now we are a temporary stop for families focused on exiting out of the city...so sad...but families who value education have been slapped down too many times.
The attendance issue and lateness issue and student apathy has been a problem for decades now but the city never did anything about it. It was always a school problem that became a teacher problem. Our only solution was have them sign in when they are late and call the homes when they are late or they cut. I was told this 25 years ago when I started and am still told this now. Notice how it has gotten worse. Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Maybe we should go back to what they did several years ago and have celebrity recordings waking the students up for school. Thank you Whoopi, Michael J. and R. Kelly. It really helped. LOL.
Thanks for great quality comments so far (6:36) imo.
Effects meet their causes:
years of "soft," condensing discrimination of lowering or eliminated standards across the board, in many walks of life besides education; dominant Narrative of "smashing the system"; a victim culture that has "don't even try" as a major theme; a destructive and divisive (woke) ideology prevalent throughout our culture; etc; etc...
Yet our students are still insightful enough to know that the system that they're told is oppressing them will, ironically and not coincidentally, support them for the rest of their lives. My students get that.
I used to believe, naively, that the policies that caused our present dystopia just had predictable, but unintentional, consequences mentioned here.
Now I think I was wrong. This is intentional; and if I'm believing a conspiracy theory...maybe it like so many others recently will be shown to be true too...if people care to look.
I call my school the “Apathy Grinder.” Let’s just start renaming them what they are.
All the stupid dem policies James and Camille stand for. Defund the police, now we are almost chicago as a very unsafe city. You can point a gun and come out on bail back in the streets. Like same policies of open borders no vaccine no checking.
Let's close all the PAL and other suspension sites because when kids throw chairs at teachers, or assaults someone or brings a weapon there should be no discipline or consequences. We all have to eat the shit you morons wanted and voted for. Just as we have to go through 20% inflation , highest gas prices , food shortages and baby formula shortages, wars, because voted for a weak dementia skeleton.
We never were for defending the police. Get your facts straight Anon 2323. Not for gutting the discipline code either.
@6:46 are you trying to rewrite history? Also, reread the post and you will see a "slip." Lol ;)
@6:46 dis/misinformation has been flagged and reported to the Ministry of Truth. You may need a circle.
Agent Orwell on zher way to have a chat...
That will never happen with the current woke crowd in power... Enjoy the restorative circles and all the justice it brings.
I worked in a private school once before moving to the DOE. During the Regents exam students regularly did not wear the proper uniform. One teacher even wrote it up and when the test ended the teacher found the write-up ripped up on the desk. At the time, I brought it up to the Assistant Principal and asked "why don't we just send the student home and make them return with the correct uniform?" His response was that they had to consider if the student missed the regents and so on.
That was my point. Let them miss the regents. Let them explain to their parent that now they need to prepare for a test in August. Make the life of the parent inconvenienced and I assure you they will be in uniform the next time. Let word spread that a student missed the test and others will face the same consequence. Will it work for everyone? No. but others will fall in line.
Kids no what they can get away with like criminals do which is why people shoplift without a worry in the world. Start, calling parents to get their children. Pull them out of work. Make the parents' life inconvenient and follow through on suspensions. make them miss work, hire baby sitters. Things will change but it has to be enforced.
Yes, I was in a building where kids had to wear the same shirt. That didn't last long because they couldn't send the student home because they may not come back and they wouldn't be getting their education. In an ideal world, we would have rules like that, but it's never going to happen.
James you vote for democrats who enact the policies you say you disagree with. So in effect you’re supporting the bullshit like defunding the police. Where I live we hired more officers while DeBlasio was railing against the police. No crime in my hometown where cops are allowed to do their job and many homes belong to legal gun owners. No one’s been shot here ever except for a suicide years ago. NYC is a wasteland. Look at San Francisco. It’s NYC’s future until you start ousting the loony left from office. It’s your backyard, not mine so if you want to live in filth and crime it’s your business.
My troubles began when I refused to recreate a grade book to pass selected students who I failed. Thankfully I survived another 2 years. 55/30
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