Misreporting violence data doesn’t make schools any safer

After months of ignoring the epidemic of violence in New York City’s public schools, the de Blasio administration has brandished a pea shooter to slay an elephant, announcing a new “school climate initiative” as the proposed answer to the daily torrent of violence faced by many kids. The administration’s response is ridiculously inadequate in the face of a crisis. Worse still, the administration’s continued and concerted effort to mislead the public into believing that “schools are getting safer” is simply wrong.

It took half a year of dedicated activism and legal action for the city to even acknowledge the school violence crisis, and it still refuses to recognize its full scope. Until Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña can talk honestly about school violence, parents have no reason to believe that the administration’s proposals will keep their children safe.

The call for change is nothing new. Since the #SafeSchoolsNow movement took root in February, thousands of parents have embraced the opportunity to speak out for their children, sharing heartbreaking stories of violence on school grounds and demanding the city fix its broken school system.

These families created a petition with almost 29,000 signatures and made their voices heard, but the de Blasio administration continually refused to acknowledge them – even when they stood on the steps of City Hall. Each time a new episode of violence occurred, the city simply issued another boilerplate statement, keeping thousands of children in danger.

In April, some parents went a step further, holding the city legally accountable for their children’s safety. Together with Families for Excellent Schools, the guardians of 11 student plaintiffs filed a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Education in federal court, New York state’s first-ever class action on school safety. By May, the plaintiff class size had grown to 24, and these families had filed an amended complaint highlighting the toll that school violence takes on children of color.

Now, after five months of advocacy, the de Blasio administration has heard what the #SafeSchoolsNow movement has to say. Unfortunately, even as the city proposes marginal steps to curb violence, it’s still pushing the false narrative that schools have gotten safer. In reality, violent incidents are up 23 percent, and weapon recoveries have spiked by 26 percent. These statistics mean that, during the school year, a weapon is recovered once every half-hour, and a student falls victim to violence once every five minutes. It is a sad reality that very young students are most often affected, particularly by persistent bullying, which the Department of Education has largely ignored.

As the plaintiffs’ attorney in the school safety class action, I’ve seen the devastating implications of these statistics firsthand. I’ve sat with parents and heard the pain in their voices when they tell the stories of their children’s abuse, and I am angered too upon seeing the administration’s abdication of the important responsibility to protect our city’s children.

These families deserve more. The so-called school climate initiative has, at its core, a laudable objective of substituting suspensions with other forms of discipline. Among the many things it lacks are clear standards for identifying and remediating persistent bullies and violent students, and giving victimized students the right to stay in their own school and require the bullies to be transferred. Until that happens, bullied students will be twice victimized: once by the bully, and again by the administration – when their only recourse is to transfer schools themselves. The scars left by these twin injuries often cannot heal.

The de Blasio administration’s deception doesn’t just hurt families – it perpetuates a harmful myth about school safety. The wide-reaching impact of these lies became especially clear on Tuesday, when the state Education Department announced that the number of “persistently dangerous” schools in New York City had dropped from 27 to four for the upcoming school year.

City Hall immediately took credit for this development, citing their school climate initiatives as the reason for the decrease in persistently dangerous schools. Yet there is no evidence to suggest that over the course of one year and under the supervision of an inactive mayor, 23 schools grew safe enough to be removed from the persistently dangerous list. Rather than implementing real reforms at dangerous schools, the city took the easy route and made these schools look safe by misrepresenting the situation and misreporting school violence data to the state.

The students at these 23 schools will still face the same realities of violence, harassment and abuse when they return to class in the fall. What’s worse, by removing the persistently dangerous designation, the administration won’t give the schools the attention they need.

Addressing school violence won’t happen overnight, but it’s obvious where the de Blasio administration should start. City leaders must listen to the families who have lived through school violence, and approach the problem honestly. Only then can real amends be made, and only then can the mayor and the Department of Education actually protect our children.

Jim Walden is a partner in the firm of Walden Macht & Haran LLP, and is the attorney for the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit.