City Council Passes the Student Safety Act

The City Council this week passed the Student Safety Act, legislation that will provide detailed information regarding student disciplinary measures and actions related to school safety.

Nearly a decade ago, the New York City Police Department took over the management of school safety with zero tolerance policies, and in that time, has reported a 34 percent decrease in crime.

State law prohibits teachers and administrators from improperly handling or using physical force against any public school student. So when a fight breaks out between students in a classroom, the school safety agent is called to break up the fight.

Safety agents also are needed to intercede when there is a physical confrontation involving a student and a teacher. Just earlier this month, a Bronx schoolteacher suffered a miscarriage after attempting to break up a fight between two students.

According to an NBC report, on December 8th, 27-year-old teacher Lissedia Batista, was trying to break up a squabble between a ninth-grader and 10th grader in her classroom who were arguing over a chair. According to the news, Batista was accidentally elbowed in the stomach by one of the students, and fell to the ground crying. She was taken from Explorations Academy in Claremont to the hospital where she had the miscarriage.

Both students were suspended. But now the incident begs to question if the United Federation of Teachers will consider Ms. Batista's miscarriage a murder and if the students should be charged with manslaughter.

But there have been several high profile incidents where students have alleged an abuse of authority by the safety agents toward the student: Earlier this month, the city agreed to pay $55,000 to Stephen Cruz, who was hit in the head last year by a door kicked open by an officer.

"A school safety agent grabbed me by the shoulders, another agent came up and hit me twice over the head with a flashlight," said another city public school student, as reported by ny1.com.

And according to a report by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the zero tolerance polices implemented by NYPD indirectly feed a pipeline that unfairly saddles students with a criminal record they otherwise would not have.

The NYCLU report, released in March 2007, entitled "Criminalizing the Classroom: The Over-policing of New York City Schools," states that schools rely on suspension, expulsion, citations, summonses, and arrests to handle disciplinary problems like bringing cell phones and iPods to school, smoking cigarettes and skipping class.

Students who might easily be disciplined through a visit to the principal's office end up in jail cells. Criminal charges are brought against youth in schools for violations that never would be considered criminal if committed by an adult.

The Student Safety Act, passed on Monday, will require the Department of Education and the NYPD submit reports to the New York City Council detailing school safety matters and disciplinary measures, including suspensions, information on policing in schools and information on the number of arrests and summonses issued by school safety agents or police officers who are members of the school safety division.

"It is important that the 1.1 million public school students not only feel safe in their schools but also are protected from being and feeling criminalized," said City Councilman Al Vann, 36th District. "Schools should be a nurturing environment and a refuge from the outside streets, especially for Black and Latino youth who have increasingly been treated as criminals by an out-of-control NYPD stop and frisk policy."

To provide further transparency, information in the report will be broken down by categories of race/ethnicity, gender, grade level, age and whether the student has special education or English Language Learner status.

Accurate and detailed reporting about policing in schools will be a valuable tool that will be used to monitor activity in schools, as well as identify and address any problems that may occur. The report also encourages students to call 311 to make a complaint against safety agents if they experience abuse.

However, some in the police department see the bill as overreaching its protection of students and compromising the community support needed for them to be effective on their jobs. According to Officer James Secreto of the NYPD School Safety Division, the Act is an invitation to drive a wedge between school safety agents and the rest of the school community.

Still, in the final written testimony submitted to the city council, the NYPD said it shares the goal of keeping students and school personnel safe, and believes the bill a has created a "reasonable mechanism" for providing information.

"This bill will help improve accountability by increasing transparency around school discipline and policing actions, allowing the Council and advocates to discover and further examine troublesome patterns," said Vann.

What do you think? Is the Student Safety Act a necessary measure of protection for students, or is it compromising the ability of NYPD school safety agents to do an effective job?