Council Bill to Monitor School Safety Agents; Union: Scrutiny Unwarranted
By DAVID SIMS
A coalition of City Council Members activists, and students demonstrated on the steps of City Hall Aug. 14 in support of a newly-introduced bill that seeks increased oversight of School Safety Agents and the release of statistics on arrests and suspensions in schools.

The Chief-Leader/Alana Marcu 'GETTING IN TROUBLE PART OF GROWING UP': City Council Member John C. Liu contends that School Safety Agents sometimes respond too harshly to student misbehavior. Looking on are Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito and Jaritz Geigel, a high school student who alleged that students are sometimes 'treated like criminals.'

Councilman Robert Jackson, the Chairman of the Education Committee, introduced the Student Safety Act while saying that the bill was "a common-sense solution that is long overdue" and that "all we want is honesty, we want transparency, we want accountability." He added that 24 members of the City Council had already expressed support for the bill, but that "we need 51 out of 51 signed on."

Meant to Curb Abuses

GREGORY FLOYD: Members rate thanks, not criticism.

The Student Safety Act, if passed, would require quarterly reports from the Department of Education and the Police Department on disciplinary issues in schools, especially focusing on arrests and suspensions, providing raw data for analysis of trends involving race and gender, as well as making the process for reporting alleged School Safety Agent misconduct easier.

The Student Safety Coalition, a collection of organizations and students that pushed for the creation of the bill, noted that the NYPD had received 2,670 complaints against School Safety Agents between 2002 and June 2007, which it called "particularly troubling since few parents and educators are aware of a process to file complaints against abusive School Safety Agents."

But Gregory Floyd, who as president of Teamsters Local 237 represents the School Safety Agents, issued a statement denouncing the bill. He called it an "unfair and unwarranted attack on thousands of the city's most valuable and underappreciated public servants," going on to point out that "allowing the Civilian Complaint Review Board to probe School Safety Agents, when they already report to both the NYPD and the Department of Education, places the agents in double jeopardy without any defense."

'They Deserve Congratulations'

In his defense of School Safety Agents, Mr. Floyd cited the recent figures showing a decline in school crime, saying that "instead of being congratulated for reducing crime and keeping children safer then they have been in years, the Council chose to demoralize safety agents for doing a good job."

He also invoked the demographics of the employees involved, saying that "70 percent of safety agents are women. Eighty percent are minorities ... subjecting safety officers to the increased scrutiny of police officers but refusing to pay them as police officers is a clear discrimination."

Udi Ofer, advocacy director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, the principal organization behind the coalition, condemned "overly aggressive police tactics" that he said were taking children "away from educators and [giving them] over to our Police Department."

Council Member John C. Liu of Queens added that students getting in trouble "is part of what growing up is all about ... but handcuffs ... should not be the norm."

Damon Hewitt, of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, reinforced this point by saying that School Safety Agents were "criminalizing students for what is essentially age-appropriate conduct," referring to students fighting in the playground, arriving late to class, or writing on their desks, all actions for which students have been arrested by School Safety Agents.

'Arrested for Minor Infractions'

"Too often minor disciplinary infractions that once resulted in a trip to the Principal's Office now result in a trip to the precinct," said Mr. Ofer. "Being late to class or writing on your desk should not be treated like a criminal act. Yet our kids are getting arrested for it."

Jaritz Geigel, a student at the Bushwick School for Social Justice as well as a youth leader in the social justice group Make the Road New York, also spoke in favor of the bill.

She said that some students, particularly those in schools with permanent metal detectors, have to "deal with harassment from School Safety Agents every day" and that students "are not criminals, and having to be treated as one makes me think about the role that the city has planned for us." She added, "Is it really about getting an education, or is it about preparing students for a jail cell?"

The Department of Education declined to comment on the pending legislation.