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UFT Testimony

Testimony regarding educational services for incarcerated youth

UFT Testimony

Testimony of UFT Vice President for Career and Technical Education Sterling Roberson before the New York City Council Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice held jointly with the Committee on Education and the Committee on Juvenile Justice

Good morning. My name is Sterling Roberson and I am the Vice President for Career and Technical Education for the United Federation of Teachers. With me are Patricia Crispino, the UFT representative for alternative high schools and programs, and Suzanne Ribeiro, a teacher and UFT chapter leader at Rikers. I would like to acknowledge the three committees before us, the Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice, the Committee on Education, and the Committee on Juvenile Justice, and thank their respective chairs, Chairwoman Elizabeth Crowley, Chairman Fernando Cabrera, and Chairman Daniel Dromm for allowing us to share our testimony regarding educational services for incarcerated youth. Among our 200,000 members are 90 intrepid educators who staff the classrooms on Rikers Island. We’re here today to help you better understand the work they do and the challenges they face. We welcome the Council’s interest in this topic, and we thank you for the support you’ve shown our members.

It’s important to note that we have been engaged in a series of productive meetings with both the Department of Corrections (DOC) and the Department of Education (DOE) to improve the working and learning conditions on the island. Everyone at the table has shown a willingness to collaborate, and positive changes already have been made. We look forward to continuing those conversations in the months ahead. 

I want to begin by giving you some background and context about working at the schools on Rikers Island, which collectively are known as East River Academy. It’s important for you to get a glimpse of how the schools are structured and what a typical day looks like for our members and their students.

First and foremost, the educators on Rikers Island unequivocally love their jobs. They want you to know that. Many have been working there for more than a decade, and they take pride in the family atmosphere they have tried to create with their DOE and DOC colleagues and in their classrooms. When the students are in their classrooms, they know them as students only and are their advocates. After being shuttled in and out of court proceedings to address the criminal charges that brought them to the island, school is a respite for these children. 

You can’t help being touched by the attitude of these dedicated professionals. At times when many of us would despair, these educators remain hopeful, courageous and passionate about their work. They believe they can help the kids who pass through their classrooms, even if it’s only for a few weeks or months. Everyone you speak with is eager to share a success story about a life he or she has helped turn around.

Make no mistake: Working on Rikers is an immense challenge. Crossing the bridge to the prison compound and entering its grim world is an experience that’s hard to forget. Something as innocuous as a lost ID badge sets into play “lockdown” – guards race through the halls while alarms blare overhead. Gangs are prevalent and powerful, and fights are an everyday occurrence. Youth in jails are unfortunately at a much greater risk of physical violence and sexual assault.

What’s more, that violence often spills over into the schools and, despite every precaution, injuries can and do happen. Sadly, the repeated use of concentrated pepper spray in classrooms to break up fights has caused injuries to our members. 

The island is larger than you might imagine; thousands of people work there. Dozens of buildings dot the featureless landscape, and with its labyrinth of winding streets and layer upon layer of security checkpoints, just getting to and from the classrooms is a process.

East River Academy is part of District 79, which is the umbrella for all alternative high schools. The school has been around since 1959. Our members are spread out among several different buildings across the island. Sixteen- and 17-year-old boys are housed in the Robert N. Davoren Center while boys 18-21 are in the George Motchan Detention Center. Girls of all ages live in the Rose M. Singer Center. Classrooms are set up in each of these three main buildings, as well as in several other facilities on the island.

Within each facility, inmates are grouped in small housing units, and they stay together with members of their “house” 24/7 for meals, recreation and school. Inmates are grouped by age as well as gang affiliation and other safety-related criteria. The UFT and its members are working hard to persuade the DOE and the DOC to begin a concerted effort to group the kids by academic levels as well and we have another meeting to discuss this and other issues in December. Grouping by academic levels has worked in the past, when the rules were different. Educators used to be able to focus instruction and pace lessons based on students’ needs, which vary widely. By engaging students at their level of ability, they’re more likely to be interested and focused in school, and more likely to succeed. 

Most inmates rotate on and off Rikers in a matter of weeks, but some are there for months or even years.  DOE chancellor regulation A-210 requires minors up to 17 years old to attend school on a full-time basis. School is voluntary for those 18-21 and, sadly, most do not choose to attend. 

The vast majority of students are awaiting trial, though there is also a small number who are serving a year or less after being convicted. Many have been in and out of foster care, detention centers, drug abuse programs and group homes. The racial composition of the student inmates on the island is overwhelmingly black and Latino. They wear brown prison uniforms everywhere they go. Sometimes, they are brought to and from their classrooms in shackles, and there are reports that circumstances have led to students being shackled to their desks.

The classrooms are located within the same jail complex in which students live and are subject to disruptions of all kinds. Fights and lockdowns can effectively halt classes at any time. Our students often miss class to meet with lawyers, or to travel to and from court. 

The school facilities for boys and girls are starkly different, although security in school areas is equally tight. “School” is more or less a dedicated hall. The entrance to the hallway is a barred gate. Each classroom has windows facing the corridor, and a guard is positioned inside each classroom door. Additional guards are stationed in the hallways. Everyone you talk to is polite, courteous and welcoming, but alert at all times. In the boys’ facility, the hallways are dark and the rooms are cramped. They have been stripped of most furniture; desks are bolted to the floor. Until recently, the roof leaked in some of the classrooms. There are a handful of fliers adorning the walls, advertising programs or providing inspirational quotes. Everything is painted varying shades of institutional gray and green. While school may provide some respite from life in prison, it is difficult to forget where you are. 

The girls’ facility is much newer. The hallways and classrooms are bright and large, and the walls are adorned with colorful bulletin boards, inspirational posters and meaningful quotes. Everything about this space is designed to be warm and welcoming.

The day is highly structured for boys. Each morning, guards bring groups of inmates from their cells to school between 7:30 and 8 a.m. Each housing unit group is brought to a specific classroom where the “house” spends the day. Everything — even gym and lunch — takes place in that same classroom. Teachers rotate between classrooms, taking their materials — including laptops and iPads — with them. The students use stubby golf pencils to do their work.

School is eight periods. Each period is 46 minutes and teachers have one minute between classes to rotate. Classes include the core subjects  — math, English language arts, science and social studies — as well as chess, barbery and gym.   

On the girl’s side, the atmosphere is slightly more flexible, with the girls rotating between classes much the way it’s done in a regular high school. In addition to their core classes, the girls attend classes to learn trade skills, including culinary arts. 

The teachers work hard to make a difference and to help their students understand that they matter and they are too young to give up on life. After all, they will have a future once they get out, so getting a student working toward a GED or earning credits toward graduation are big victories. Learning self-respect and confidence is an added bonus.

The schools desperately need additional resources and support, both for the educators and the students they serve. Here are a few suggestions we believe might make these schools more successful:

MOVEMENT: The kids spend up to eight hours, minus a bathroom break in the morning and afternoon, at a desk in one room. Most adults couldn’t sit for that length of time without at least getting up to occasionally take a short walk, to say nothing of teenagers full of energy, frustration and, let’s admit it, anger. We are working with the city and the DOC to allow the kids access to a separate lunchroom.

EXERCISE: The kids also have gym in the same classroom where they are instructed and eat lunch. Desks are bolted to the floor so movement is limited. We think they should be taken to the facility’s gyms to help them let off steam. Besides being a change of pace and a more appropriate setting for exercise, we believe this will encourage them to sit down and focus when they return to the classroom.

FOOD: The kids often are hungry during the course of the school day. They need snacks and drinks during the day. As everyone knows, teenagers can be ravenous. They, like most of us, get testy and ill-tempered when they are hungry.

GROUPING BY ACADEMIC ABILITY: As we previously stated, the inmates are not grouped by academic ability, which leads to huge disparities in the classroom. Students with a second-grade reading ability are in the same class with students who read at a 12th-grade level. It’s impossible to teach phonics to one student and Hamlet to another within a 46-minute period.

GROUPING BY LENGTH OF STAY: The DOE at one point proposed a special program for kids who are on Rikers for a short stay. It makes sense to attempt to group those students together. Teachers could design lesson units appropriate for the length of stay; that also would limit the comings and goings in the other classes, a challenge even in the best of schools.

SPECIAL EDUCATION SERVICES: A significant portion of students who attend East River Academy already have or would qualify for Individualized Education Plans, but the school lacks the funds or staff to provide those services. The staff does its best to create special education plans for students, but those plans are limited in scope.

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES: The most disruptive students are often the ones who need mental health interventions. East River Academy simply doesn’t have enough staff to meet this growing need. We must provide out-of-cell treatment for students  with serious mental illness to reduce violence. We also must provide more training about mental illness for everyone who works on the island and we must teach everyone de-escalation and positive reinforcement techniques as well.

COUNSELING FOR STUDENTS: All the East River Academy students need counseling and therapy. Their lives are unfolding tragedies. The social workers, psychologists and peer counselors who are there now help them through everything from low self-esteem to substance abuse problems. The more services we can give these kids, the more likely it will be that they won’t go back to jail once they’re out. Without help, many of them will be back.

COUNSELING FOR EDUCATORS: Students are not the only ones who need counseling. Working behind bars takes an emotional and physical toll on UFT members. They report times of extreme anxiety, intense stress or bleak depression. Although they love their work and do experience success, they often watch students in a downward spiral from which there’s no return. They witness fights, cruelty and, sometimes, injustice. They don’t want to leave their jobs; they want support while doing them.

CTE PROGRAMS: CTE programs in our public high schools successfully engage students in classwork while teaching them job skills. No group of students needs these programs more than the group on Rikers. Strong options used to exist for the students, including CTE programs such as computer programming, carpentry, plumbing and even a poetry magazine club. Today, while some CTE programs are available to those who are 18 and older, limited choices exist for younger students.

INCENTIVES: Rikers inmates are awarded special privileges for good behavior, including phone calls, visits, recreation time and funding for the commissary. Likewise, inmates lose those privileges for bad behavior. These incentives do not extend to a student’s work in the classroom. We believe they should. It’s an obvious way to incentivize students.

DISCIPLINE: The elimination of solitary confinement remains a controversial move. No one doubts the adverse mental and physical toll solitary confinement can have on a person, but removing it as a consequence of bad behavior without putting other systems in place is not a long-term solution. The DOC needs to come up with alternative consequences of bad behavior, both in the housing units and, with DOE/UFT input, in the school settings. Some experts have suggested inmates be given a cooling-off period, perhaps restricting them to their cells, or moving them to different housing areas or away from the general population without complete isolation. Where behavioral issues are concerned, the UFT urges the agencies working on Rikers Island to emphasize more counseling and mental health support, more training for staff on conflict resolution and better communication and coordination between DOE and DOC staff.

PEPPER SPRAY: We continue to push for a new protocol to govern the use of pepper spray in the school areas, restricting its use to extreme situations in which a corrections officer reasonably believes it is necessary to protect himself or others. There also is an opportunity here to train everyone in therapeutic crisis intervention techniques that could be used to help reduce the number of pepper spray incidents.

COMMUNICATION: Rikers educators, unfortunately, don’t get much information about their students. They have a hard time tracking down academic files and IEPs from a student’s previous school. And they don’t receive any information about how their students are faring behind bars when they are not in class. That’s important because during those off-school hours, a lot can happen in the life of an inmate, and that information could be useful from both practical and safety standpoints. For example, two students involved in a bruising fight inside their housing area may wind up seated next to each other in class. In a traditional high school, no teacher would allow that. So, it’s critical that we find some way to get information from corrections staff to our members on a systemic and daily basis.

PROTECTIVE CUSTODY: We need to provide counseling to teenagers who identify as LGBTQ, and we also need to provide them with protective custody if it’s needed. These teens are incredibly vulnerable in regular schools. The risk to their well-being increases exponentially behind bars.

MODERNIZING THE FACILITIES: We know there’s no money for rebuilding the boys’ facilities. But a little paint would go a long way toward improving the relentlessly grim atmosphere of the boys’ classrooms. Some efforts to humanize them, as was done with the girls’ classrooms, would help, too.

ASKING KIDS WHAT THEY NEED: In an environment as restrictive as jail, it is understandable that student inmates have little control over what their day looks like and what programming they receive. This does not mean they don’t have ideas about what programming they would like to receive. Asking students what interests them — such as art, music or other creative outlets — is a way to give them control over a small part of their world. Additionally, if there are robust enrichment programs, there is the ability to take away these programs as a consequence of bad behavior.

TRANSITIONAL SUPPORT: When students leave Rikers, there is little or no consistent transitional support to ensure community-based services are in place and students can re-enter their home schools. The reports vary widely as to the level of support available to kids leaving the island. If we do not want to set them up for failure, there should be a system in place to ensure their smooth transition back into society through mental health and academic support, case management and family or individual therapy, as needed.

Solutions like these and other positive changes are within our grasp, and it’s important that stakeholders keep talking.

***
On a related subject, we also want to comment on City Council Intro #1148, which proposes to improve transparency and stronger accountability on behalf of schools and communities. We’ve been proponents of both since our union’s inception. While Intro #1148 would require more data collection and reporting out from East River Academy, the legislation is flawed for the following reasons:

VARIABLE POPULATION: The population changes constantly. Some kids are there for a few days, others for a few weeks or months. A quarterly snapshot probably would show a relatively stable population number but the kids counted on a particular day wouldn’t be the same as those counted several weeks later.

OPERATIONAL CONTROL: We can’t emphasize this enough: The Department of Education does not have operational control over the schools on Rikers. The island is under the control of the Department of Corrections. The DOC’s first priority, and rightly so, is maintaining a safe and secure facility.

TRACKING: This legislation calls for reporting that could violate the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In addition, it’s a logistical nightmare. Students are out of class all the time, meeting with their lawyers and families and making court appearances. Who’s going to keep track of that? As for the average and median number of accumulated credits, it’s not realistic that students staying for short periods will earn credits. We can engage students, make sure their education continues and advocate for them in any appropriate way. But the fact remains that educational progress can’t be statistically captured by data drawn from such short periods of time.

A few important things to note:

  • The proposals on corporal punishment and feminine hygiene products duplicate the city’s administrative codes.
  • Any reference to “vocational training” should be updated to read “career and technical education, or CTE."
  • Students do not graduate from East River Academy, and the city does not have a system in place to track student outcomes after they leave.

In closing, when we talk about making changes to improve the school, we are obviously not suggesting the city or the Department of Corrections do anything to jeopardize anyone’s safety on Rikers Island. We know most students at East River Academy are in serious trouble. UFT members and their DOC colleagues are doing their very best to make it a more livable and viable facility. 

Our educators speak of providing students with some respite in their jailhouse classrooms: a place where, for a little while, they can be teenagers again, doing ordinary activities; a place to discuss a book or play a game of chess. Our members work on the island because they refuse to abandon these children as someone else’s problem. A vast majority of these students will be rejoining their communities after a short stay. There is an opportunity for their time in jail to encourage positive social interactions and provide hope that they can live as contributing members of society. We, as educators, are asking for policies and program supports that allow us to provide such an environment. 

Many of these young people did not attend school regularly before their stay on Rikers. We can work together in making school a pleasant experience, one they might continue upon their release, which can make all the difference in their lives. We believe our recommendations will help turn around lives. We could calculate the dollars saved on future incarceration, but one of our core values at the UFT is that you can’t put a value on saving a life.

Thank you.