Violence gripping the city’s schools today is epidemic, with teachers and students being routinely attacked in the classroom and halls, and parents being left worried sick about the phone call they might get, telling them their child has been injured. The Post is shining a light on this problem all this week.
Violent kids will be kicked out of regular schools and placed in newly created reform schools and suspension centers under a safety plan crafted by Mayor Bloomberg, sources said yesterday.
The mayor, in a proposal to be unveiled today, also is expected to fund more violence-prevention programs in schools.
Bloomberg’s safety plans were drafted in response to a spate of crimes committed against students and teachers, and a Post campaign that focused on the victims of school violence.
The expansion of “New Beginning Schools” – the politically correct term for reform schools – might carry a hefty price tag.
But leaving bad kids in schools to terrorize good kids who want to learn and teachers who want to teach is more costly and damaging, an official said.
“It doesn’t get any more essential than providing a safe environment,” the source said. “We need more suspension centers.”
The Bloomberg administration wants to create more after-school centers – which could be located in the schools – to temporarily educate kids suspended for committing serious offenses.
That way, the troublemakers could continue to be taught without creating more problems during the regular school day.
A furor erupted amid complaints that violent students who’ve committed serious crimes against other kids and staffers were put back in the same building as they awaited disciplinary hearings.
After hearing the horror stories, Bloomberg admitted he goofed and vowed to fix the problem.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said additional hearing officers will be put in place to reduce any backlog in suspension cases.
Meanwhile, violence-plagued Washington Irving HS in Manhattan is torn by infighting among staffers and school safety officers, an explosive memo obtained by The Post reveals.
“Both the AP security [Assistant Principal of Security Ernie Oliveri] and principal [Denise DiCarlo] described their dean’s staff as: new, young, inexperienced and not aggressive,” Regional 9 safety administrator Glen Rasmussen said in a memo to Department of Education safety director Ben Tucker.
Rasmussen said he received complaints that top supervisors at the Gramercy Park high school – the site of 160 reported incidents since September that included numerous assaults and cases of weapons possession – don’t talk to each other about safety.
“It is clear that there is a total lack of communication between [two assistant principals],” Rasmussen said. He also reported that “frustrated” school safety agents and supervisors and staff blamed each other for the violence and disorder.
“The administration feels they do not have enough safety agents and cannot cover the building properly,” Rasmussen said.
Safety officers are upset because they apprehend students in the halls for cutting classes, but there are “no follow-up penalties for the students.”
The Dec. 10 memo also described the detention center for rowdy students as “out of control.” And many bad students who should be suspended aren’t because there’s nowhere to put them.