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School labeled ‘dangerous’ by state works to improve — but still waits for DOE’s help

by Jim Callaghan

May 8, 2008 1:15 PM

The staff and the principal at Staten Island’s PS 14 — which landed on the State Education Department’s “persistently dangerous schools” list last August — are working together to make it a safer school.

But every day, in the words of guidance counselor Pat Torricelli, is like “triage” as they cope, with little support from the Department of Education, with a small group of troublemakers.

The safety issues do not involve guns or knives — yet.

Chapter Leader Donna Coppola said the school was placed on the list because she and the staff were filing incident reports rather than ignoring the issues.

“Putting us on that list really discourages people from reporting problems,” Coppola said. “But we are still waiting for the help we need to improve our school.”

Coppola said the school’s placement on the list left the wrong impression.

“When you think ‘dangerous,’ it sounds like we are afraid to come into the building. That is not true; we love the school and the kids. I come here with my child,” said Coppola, whose devotion to the staff and students is such that she is at the school every week even though she is on sabbatical.

PS 14, which has 600 students, is located in one of the borough’s poorest neighborhoods and abuts a New York Housing Authority complex described by most as dangerous. On April 22, for example, a man was shot at 4 p.m. outside one of the Housing Authority’s buildings near the school.

Teachers describe the major problem as a small group of students who regularly cause disruptions, but suffer no consequences for their bad behavior. Many are special needs children for whom the DOE has failed to provide appropriate services.

For example, the parent of one student who pushed a teacher refused to accept a five-day in-school suspension. The parent was told that one day would be added for each day the student refused to go to a SAVE room. The student still refused and when it got to 10 days, the matter was dropped.

“This sends the wrong message to kids,” said a teacher. “Now the student thinks she can do whatever she pleases.”

Other students curse at teachers, throw dangerous objects, leave the building to roam the street, hurl things at other students, walk out of class and run up and down the hallways.

One member of the UFT safety team at the school, Harold Williams, said: “This is the most out-of-control group of children I have ever seen.” He said the students “don’t listen to anyone; they know there are no consequences for their actions,” a view shared by other teachers who complained to UFT President Randi Weingarten last November about the same issues.

Despite numerous visits from UFT staff and a good relationship between the principal and staff, every intervention the staff has attempted has hit the proverbial DOE brick wall.

For example, the chapter leader and the principal both agree that the school needs an additional school safety agent, but the DOE has not provided one.

Williams said the lack of another safety agent allows intruders to enter the building after school when there are students and staff still in the building. “How unsafe is that?” he said.

The lack of response from the DOE became evident in early April when a paraprofessional was attacked not far from the school. The beating, which several students witnessed, was so vicious that he landed in a hospital in critical condition. UFT Vice President Michael Mulgrew, Staten Island UFT Borough Representative Emil Pietromonaco, UFT District Representative Sean Rotkowitz, and UFT School Safety representative Joel Shiller were in the building during lunch periods the next day to address staff concerns about the incident.

The DOE Crisis Intervention team did not arrive until 2 p.m. that day to discuss a plan for counseling students who watched the beating. The team from the Staten Island DOE Integrated Service Center never showed up.

“The DOE failed to act in a supportive, nurturing way to students who saw something very alarming and disturbing,” Rotkowitz said. “I ask: where was the DOE? And If not them, then who should be there to help students in a time of need?”

In a press release last August, the SED announced that a school designated as persistently dangerous “receives a $100,000 grant to help improve school safety.”

PS 14 is still waiting for that grant.

Instead, DOE officials offered the principal a generic grant from a not-for-profit organization that gave her three social workers.

“The grant wasn’t specific to our school,” Coppola said.

Pietromonaco said: “The grant is like a marvelous drug that can cure many illnesses; unfortunately, not the one that plagues PS 14.”

The school’s principal, Nancy Hargett, praised the staff and said she was thankful that they had offered to help her.

“We have to work together for peace in his building,” she said. “I am consumed by putting out so many fires every day.”

Under a sign in her office that reads “Believe,” the principal said that kids want to learn and they want structure.

“I try to make the students and my staff understand that I care about them,” she added. “I truly appreciate the relationship I have with the staff.”

But it’s not an easy path for her and the staff. Recently, the principal was asked to take a special education student from another school but that would exceed the 12:1:1 ratio required for her special education class. When she objected, a DOE staffer told her not to worry, “We will get a variance.” She said she implored the staffer not to send the student until it could be determined what his behavioral problems were in the other school. The student was sent anyway.

“The system has failed that school,” said Mulgrew.

During a recent meeting of the UFT team, members presented a wish list of things that the school needs to improve: a full-time dean to handle discipline, a crisis intervention team, more school aides and more secretarial help to clear up the backlog of incident reports.

The UFT safety team at the school includes Williams, Antoinette Montanti, Torricelli, Coppola and the designated chapter leader Barbara Della Salla.

Hargett said she plans to invite Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to visit the school to see the havoc his budget cuts have wreaked.

She was asked if she thought he would show up.

“I hope so,” she said.