General News
Getting a voice
Jan 17, 2008 3:32 PM
New student union finds natural ally in UFT
Members of the New York City Student Union (from left) Ben Shanahan, Hunter HS, Hillary Kelley, Lincoln HS, Kathryn Fitzgerald, Brooklyn Tech and Lauren Johnson, Edward R. Murrow HS — attend a recent meeting.
It was the mayor’s ban on cell phones in public schools that caused a group of high schoolers to perk up and question whether anyone was listening to them.
Students are, after all, the ones primarily affected by school policy and these kids wanted to inject their perspective into the debate over a cell phone ban.
So more than a year ago they staged a protest, street theater of sorts, on the steps of Tweed, during which students held cups to their ears with strings attached to intimate being stuck in a time warp under the mayor’s ban.
While the street theater protest involved a small group of students from different high schools, their action formed the genesis of a new student union, which has been meeting and actively advocating on behalf of students citywide ever since.
The New York City Student Union, a core group of about 25 students from high schools in each of the five boroughs, is making the views of students known on matters concerning public education.
They come from schools including Brooklyn Tech, Bedford Academy, Lincoln HS, Franklin D. Roosevelt HS, Hunter College HS, LaGuardia HS, Urban Academy, Staten Island Tech and the HS for Violin and Dance in the Bronx.
“We’re being affected by the policies at DOE,” said Seth Pearce, a senior at LaGuardia HS and the driving force behind creation of the union. “Yet, students haven’t felt that they had a voice in the system.”
The nature of their work has made them natural allies of the UFT, which began providing them with a place to hold their meetings about a year ago.
“The students needed a place to meet and they approached us,” said Amina Rachman, a special assistant to the UFT president. “Parents appreciate the fact that the students are using a space belonging to a known entity such as ours that has been advocating for the rights of children.”
Students have a legal right to carry cell phones to and from school, said Ben Shanahan of Hunter College HS. But the city was preventing them from even carrying one turned off in their backpacks.
“It’s a safety issue,” said Pearce, who commutes to his Manhattan school from Brooklyn. Many students commute, just like everyone else, he said. They could be anywhere in the city and be put in a dangerous situation. “You’d want to have your cell phone so you could call for help,” he said.
Last summer, the City Council overrode the mayor’s veto of legislation to allow children to carry their phones to school, but City Hall officials have maintained that nothing would change and that cell phones would still be banned inside schools.
The student union has been able to give students a voice with its recently launched NYC Students Blog (http://nycstudents.
blogspot.com), the city’s first education blog run by students, who post their views about everything from the controversial school progress reports to sex education to Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to pay low-income students for high scores on standardized tests. They also cross-blog on many city education blogs, such as the UFT’s
edwize.org.
Student union members have also lobbied public officials on key education issues, such as the need to lower class size. “People talk about how difficult it is to teach a large class … it’s also hard to learn,” said Pearce, who said most of his classes at LaGuardia have 30-plus students.
Rachman has helped the student union reach out to Student Government Organizations in the city’s high schools. The union is working to research SGOs to determine how well they are working, and help develop strong models for the future. They have sent letters to teacher Coordinators of Student Activities, inviting their input and cooperation.
The student union has plans to build a database that can be accessed by all student governments citywide,” explained Kathryn Fitzgerald of Brooklyn Tech, “so you can use it to find out what worked at one school or what didn’t work at another.”
While student union members describe themselves as advocates for the interests of students citywide, Pearce said they also work to educate students about issues affecting their education and to provide tools to support collective action. Thus, developing and preserving strong SGOs is a must, he said.
“The most effective change that can come from students would be on the local, individual school level,” Pearce said.
