School safety, security, and violence prevention resource

New York City means many things to many people but to the residents of this ever popular city, it is simply home. It is where they live and breathe. It is where they work. It is where their children go to school.

And when their needs are not met, they have all the right to voice out their concerns. I read a very interesting and thought-provoking column over at The Village Voice about the state of the schools in New York today. Apparently, Mayor Bloomberg has declared that the city’s public schools are going to be under extended mayoral control. And what do the people have to say about this?

Our mayor, basking in his 70 percent approval rate, declared on September 3 that the state legislature will surely extend mayoral control of the city’s public schools because “the alternative is too devastating to contemplate.” That same day, the Daily News irreverently reported: “Dozens of heartbroken 4- and 5-year-olds were turned away from several jampacked elementary schools in Corona, Queens, and put on lengthy waiting lists or told to try back in a couple of weeks.”

The mayor had nothing to say about the overcrowding or the School Safety Act, which is now before the City Council and aims to make accountable to the Civilian Complaint Review Board those NYPD School Safety Agents treating students as if they were on Rikers Island.

Like his schools chancellor, Joel Klein, Bloomberg is undisturbed by these official bullies in the schools, having assured us and the state legislature, according to The New York Times on September 3: “Accountability has been established at every level in our school system, and everything flows from there.” Heartily agreeing with the mayor’s unitary executive power (made familiar by George W. Bush), Klein says: “In terms of checks and balances, there are plenty of them.”

As you can see from the excerpt above, the residents of New York are not quite impressed with their mayor’s declaration. They can see, feel, and experience the current issues in their schools and they want something to be done about them. The column further illustrates the plight of the children due to the way security is being handled. Apparently, the feel that the officials are being too rough on the kids.

This is one issue that has been raised over and over again. We are placing school safety officers in our campuses but there have been questions as to how they treat the students. Do you have this same problem in your area? What do you think should be done?

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