Testimony of Frank Volpicella before the City Council Education Committee

Aug 23, 2005 12:49 PM

My name is Frank Volpicella. I am vice president for academic high schools of the United Federation of Teachers. On behalf of UFT President Randi Weingarten, I want to thank Chairwoman Eva Moskowitz and the City Council’s Education Committee members for the opportunity to testify on school safety matters.

As a union of some 80,000 working educators, UFT has long made school safety a priority. We know children cannot learn and teachers cannot teach when schools are unsafe, and we have decades-long experience in identifying problems and in helping make the schools places where parents feel comfortable bringing their children. Last year, growing student discipline problems that put school safety at risk forced the DOE —in the wake of widespread media attention—to take our concerns seriously, at least verbally and publicly.

As much as we admired the mayor for finally admitting the administration was wrong and for starting the Impact program, the bottom line is that the DOE didn’t implement a disciplinary infrastructure before the start of the school year. It dragged its feet on setting up alternative educational sites off-campus for suspended students. It refused to move when we urged movement on these issues, and then it addressed the problem only after receiving bad press. Tweed effectively dropped the school-safety ball last year.

Jump ahead one year and school safety remains unsettled and unsettling.

Two serious school safety and student discipline issues persisted throughout most of the 2003-2004 school year.

The first—resulting from DOE’s own administrative reorganization—was the consequent failure to put an operating disciplinary infrastructure in place at the start of the school year. That means DOE did not set up adequate:

· intake procedures and personnel

· suspension hearing offices and personnel

· alternative instruction sites for suspended students.

As late as December 2003, the DOE was admitting that more than 1,000 students who committed offenses requiring superintendent level suspensions had not been processed by the system. Most of these students remained in their home schools for months and frequently continued to demonstrate “acting-out” behavior. DOE’s attempts to resolve the problem spanned most of the winter and spring.

The second problem was that DOE was slow in responding to a rash of incidents in schools across the city that happened at the beginning of the school year. Despite the UFT alerting DOE and the city in September and October 2003 about the marked increase in incidents against UFT members, DOE initially told the public that the UFT was “crying wolf.”

By December, DOE did finally own up to the problem, announcing its special “impact school” initiative. By January, the “impact school” initiative was launched, and 150 uniformed police and additional school safety agents were assigned—along with other safety and disciplinary support — to 14 to 16 specifically designated schools. This regrettably late-starting initiative was in fact successful over the remainder of the 2003-2004 school year, and DOE wisely expanded the program this year, adding a number of schools to its “watch list”

In addition, DOE made a serious effort to ensure that written disciplinary policy/ procedures, supporting disciplinary infrastructure, alternate instruction sites for suspended students and extensive professional development for all school staff on this initiative were in place for the start of the 2004-05 school year. We hoped and expected that DOE would successfully implement and monitor disciplinary procedures throughout the rest of the current school year.

But some problems remain. Chief among these is overcrowding, a prime motivator of school violence. Everyone knows the connection between oversized classes, overcrowded schools and violence. Parents, teachers, students and even the press are aware that overcrowding is the spark that sets schools aflame. That spark will continue to burn as long as overcrowding continues.

Did I say everyone gets the connection? Not everyone. The chancellor doesn’t get it. Here’s one example of his missing the obvious. In an interview with Gabe Pressman on Channel 4 News Jan. 9 of this year, Chancellor Klein brushed off a question on overcrowding and school violence, asserting instead that the DOE found no relationship between crowding and crime.

“There is no evidence that schools that have higher numbers are committing crimes in greater numbers,” the chancellor averred. “This is a product, quite frankly in my view, of the fact that for generations we have socially promoted children through the system so they get to high school and they are thoroughly unprepared.”

It’s the chancellor who is unprepared, blaming the bugbear “social promotion” and scapegoating ill-served students when the facts speak convincingly that violence and overcrowding are joined at the hip.

The UFT looked at the DOE’s own figures for large high schools around the city for the 2002-03 and 2003-04 school years.. We found that in the majority of schools where enrollment grew, the frequency of crimes and police incidents also increased —in several cases more than doubling. For example:

• Walton High School in the Bronx, which got an additional 439 students last year (a 13 percent enrollment increase), saw crimes and police incidents jump 125 percent, from 123 to 277 separate incidents. Walton was at 168 percent of capacity last year
• Midwood High School in Brooklyn, which got another 260 students (a 7 percent enrollment increase) saw incidents surge 123%, from 31 to 69. Midwood was at 171 percent of capacity.
• Forest Hills High School in Queens, at 139 percent of capacity, saw incidents rise 38 percent after a 7 percent increase in enrollment.

Yes, the correlations aren’t always uniform. Sheepshead Bay HS had only a 3 percent enrollment increase and a 139 percent increase in crime. Tottenville and Flushing HSs—both less crowded than the previous examples—had small enrollment increases but thankfully saw incidents go down. But the general trend is clear. Rising enrollments, especially in already-packed school buildings, is associated with increased violence and crime, despite the chancellor’s claims.

[Note: These numbers were derived by using the DOE figures for enrollment for the respective years, and School Safety Division reports of incidents in each school. “Incidents” are a total of major crimes, such as felony assault or rape; “other crimes” such as misdemeanor assault and petty larceny; and non-criminal incidents involving school police, such as harassment and disorderly conduct.]

Again, using DOE data, the UFT recently compared the number of superintendent-level suspensions for the use of force against school staff to UFT-reported incidents of assault and physical harassment. We found that, over the five school years from September 1999 through June 2004, significantly fewer students were suspended at the superintendent’s level than the number of incidents reported to the UFT and to the DOE by UFT members. Despite some improvement in the suspension rate during the 2003-2004 school year only slightly more than six out of 10 reports resulted in the sanctions required by the DOE’s own student code of conduct.

Failure to consistently enforce these sections of the student code of conduct raises the question of what other sections of the student code of conduct may similarly be unenforced or underenforeced.

Another problem. Over the last four school years, the Board of Education and now the DOE first restricted and subsequently stopped its sharing of incident data with the UFT. DOE has not yet provided us with the requested incident data for the 2003-04 school year, but they recently indicated a willingness to resume providing incident data involving UFT members with us and we are currently discussing a format for this exchange of data. We are hopeful that we will actually get the data this time around. We’ve had similar agreements in previous years and did not get the data.

The city and the DOE have also stopped the public reporting of non-criminal incidents, and would have the public look only at the criminal incident reports collected by NYPD’s Division of School Safety. In prior school years, the DOE routinely reported non-criminal incidents, which it labeled “school misconduct.” Eliminating this category of incidents from the DOE’s public disclosure makes it mistakenly appear that overall incident levels in schools are substantially lower than before. The failure to include non-criminal incidences makes any year-to-year comparisons impossible, or no better than comparing apples and oranges. It is our view that without full disclosure of all incidents in our schools, it is impossible to know what are the real incident levels. Absent honest and full information it is impossible to make informed policy decisions on matters pertaining to school safety and the maintenance of orderly school environments—things that are conducive and central to teaching and learning.

In many places around the city, such as in District 5 in Manhattan, where there was a recent rally on safety on this issue, our members no longer even bother to fill out safety incident reports because nothing happens—except that they get into trouble for being whistleblowers

Still another problem: There are not enough school safety agents to satisfy schools’ needs. The NYPD’s Division of School Safety has struggled for the last four years to maintain a high-enough number of school safety agents, but poor pay, consequent low morale, tough working conditions and the opportunity for better jobs and economic advancement outside the system make attrition rates high and recruitment rates low. To address attrition and maintain safety in schools, the chancellor promised, at a much heralded safety initiative in November 2002, to hire 135 SSAs immediately and to add another class of more than 300 SSAs in the spring of 2003. At a joint hearing of the City Council’s Committees on Education and Public Safety during the 2003-04 school year, the city admitted that as schools opened in September 2003 the SSA staffing roster was about 4,000, not the more than 4,200 it had previously reported.

Even that 4,000 figure is dubious. After accounting for further staff reductions due to long-term absence for military leave, on-the-job injury and other medical leave, disciplinary removals and other factors, the actual SSA staffing level in schools was more likely between 3,300 and 3,500 during the last school year.

Another part of the staffing problem results from the DOE’s increasing the number of school sites (new schools) and school programs (Second Opportunity Schools, New Beginnings Programs and other alternative instruction programs for students officially suspended from school). There are as many as 300 of these newly created schools and programs since September 2002, but no corresponding increase in the total number of School Safety Agents. These additional schools and programs are covered by reducing the number of Safety Agents assigned to other schools.

We conclude that the city is either unable or unwilling to keep up with staff shortages that arose as a result of attrition and the increased number of schools sites requiring coverage. The 2004 summer class of SSAs was about 115. About 100 agents were assigned to schools in the fall and a second class is expected for assignment in January. The city also received federal funding that allowed hiring an additional 50 police officers for school assignment. This increased the police school task force from 150 officers to 200 officers. These staff additions won’t get the schools back to an SSA staffing level of 4,200.

The impact of this ongoing staffing shortage results in a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul approach to personnel assignment. Elementary schools, historically assigned a minimum of two school safety agents, have been reduced to one agent. So-called “low incident” schools have also seen their school safety agent assignments reduced. Some high schools report that although their student bodies have increased by 500, 600 or more, their number of school safety agents has fallen.

It is common wisdom among educators that the more adult supervision you have and the more proactive the leadership of a school administration, the better the discipline that is so essential to creating an atmosphere conducive to more effective teaching and learning. That’s why it’s time for the city and the DOE to listen to what school-based educators have been telling their superiors for years.

The Board of Education originally pegged the costs of creating, in their words, a “minimally adequate” alternative instruction program at $60 million. The current DOE is to be congratulated for upping its contribution from $8.1 million to $12.1 million, but we’re still short of the goal by some $48 million.

So where are we now, given that the city is not resolute enough to ensure that every school has a safe and secure environment.

· It’s more complicated and burdensome than ever to remove a student;

· The paperwork burden alone is massive;

· It takes as much as a week to remove a disruptive student; it should not take longer than 48 hours, as it did before re-organization.

· Students suspended by principals at the elementary and middle-school level are maintained in alternative instruction in their home schools for a full school day. Because students are not “removed” from school during the period of their suspension, school administrators often decline to do a formal suspension. Too often, alternative instruction for a principal-suspended student consists of nothing more than moving the student to another teacher’s class on the same grade.

SAVE rooms, principal’s suspensions and regional suspension centers do seem to be working in some school districts (like district 18) and in the high schools, where suspended students attend special afternoon classes. While these may be in the student’s home high school, they are held separate and apart from their classmates and their regular schedules, and is something the UFT has long advocated. Shortened instructional days for all suspended students is something permitted by state law Unfortunately, the DOE says it will not implement afternoon programs for suspended elementary and middle school students.

Where alternative, off-campus suspension centers have been implemented, they have come at the cost of taking school safety agents out of existing schools. Meanwhile, the number of safety agents has not keep pace with the growth of new schools and sites.

The mayor asked for and assumed responsibility for New York City’s schools. Whereas he gets credit for stepping in to solve the safety crisis –which Tweed created at the beginning of 2003—the real issue is whether the system is safer than it was three years ago. Student discipline and school-safety-related events over the last two years have shown us that the DOE/city have been responding to crisis situations, not focusing on a comprehensive discipline/safety plan, which would require the resources to implement it, and reinforce the message with school staff, students, parents and the public.

Given the logic of this analysis, the UFT recommends:

· Seeing that the Code of Conduct is enforced fairly and effectively

· Adequately funding alternative instruction for suspended students at off-campus sites, so they are not allowed to fall through the safety net

· Scheduling classes for suspended students–where off-campus sites cannot be found— at a different time from the suspended students regular classes and away from their classmates, so they understand there are consequences for inappropriate behavior and so the student is separated from and prevented from disrupting the instructional program for kids who want to do a good job..

· Streamlining paperwork, so that when an offense takes place, the student justice system operates with all deliberate speed.

· Ensuring that funding exists for sufficient support staff so that those who do the initial intake when a problem is reported are not overwhelmed and can do their jobs expeditiously.

· Increasing the number of school safety agents to account for the growth in school sites and alternative instruction programs over the past two years and to mitigate staff attrition levels

· Recognizing and maintaining due process procedures for students while at the same time creating whistleblower protections for staff and for kids, allowing them to blow the whistle on disruptive students.

That’s what we need to make schools safe learning environments.