Weingarten on state school violence report

Jun 13, 2006 2:20 PM

A new state report on school crime data for the 2003-04 and 2004-05 school years indicates that New York City may have underreported incidents in schools. This has been a continuing complaint of the UFT School Safety Department. At the same time, school violence has been a continuing concern of city educators. Here is UFT President Randi Weingarten’s statement about the state report:“In virtually every school visit we made in the last six months we heard over and over that many violent incidents are not being reported. Teachers tell us they are afraid to report incidents because they are told they are not managing their classrooms properly. The mayor has put an emphasis on reducing violent incidents, but the bureaucracy is telling teachers they’re to blame. That atmosphere certainly has a chilling effect on the willingness of educators to report these incidents.”