Since the settlement of a 2007 lawsuit in favor of two Bronx teachers roughed up on school grounds by NYPD, the New York Civil Liberties Union has been pushing for the Student Safety Act.
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In 2005, police officers from the 41st Precinct mistreated and arrested two teachers at New School for Arts and Sciences in Hunts Point, the Bronx, for no legitimate reason, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
According to the NYCLU complaint, Kronen v. NYC, teachers Quinn Kronen and Cara Wolfson-Kronen had stopped a student fight on March 8, 2005. The police arrived after the fight was settled and when the teachers explained what had happened and requested that the students not be arrested publicly in front of their classmates who weren’t involved, the officers verbally assaulted the teachers and arrested them.
In the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York NYCLU attorneys argued that the teachers were unjustly abused and that their rights were violated by the police officers.
NYCLU won the lawsuit in the spring, 2007, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union report, headlined, “New York City to pay $60,000 to Settle Lawsuit by Bronx Teachers Arrested for Questioning Police Treatment of Students.” That is, Kronen was awarded the $60,000 in a lawsuit for damages and violation of rights pertaining to the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, according to the Kronen vs. NYC complaint file.
Since the settlement of the lawsuit, NYCLU has been pushing for the Student Safety Act. According to the NYCLU, if the City Council makes it law, the legislation would help end the criminalization of students in city schools; it would require that the Department of Education and the New York Police Department make reports on any school safety issues resulting in the arrest or suspension of students. This way some kind of oversight can be provided and the number of student arrests could be monitored. The act will “provide much-needed transparency and accountability to school security practices and their impact on the educational environment,” according to NYCLU.
In New York City high schools, metal detectors and policing are used to help provide security, a problem when there is too much of it and students and even staff are treated as criminals like the teachers in the Kronen v. NYC case. Students’ privacy and other rights may be violated by the police and often students don’t even realize it. This is one reason why NYCLU setup a “Week of Action” last September at high schools in the Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens to provide students with information about their rights.
Jennifer Carnig, NYCLU director of communications, was asked by this reporter by email about the Week of Action, and she responded: “We distributed more than 10,000 of our Know Your Rights with Police in Schools cards to youth at 20 New York City schools. The organizations involved in the outreach, in addition to the New York Civil Liberties Union, were: Advocates for Children of New York, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, UAW 2325, Children’s Defense Fund – New York, Class Size Matters, Correctional Association of New York, CUNY Graduate Center Participatory Action Research Collective, Make the Road New York, NAACP-Legal Defense and Education Fund, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, National Lawyers Guild – New York City Chapter, NYCLU, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Suspension Representation Project, Teachers Unite, and Urban Youth Collaborative.”
According to the NYCLU’s report, headlined, “NYCLU to Teach Youth About Their Rights with Police in Schools During Week of Action,” the number of police personnel in schools increased 62 percent since 1998. This was probably done to keep schools safe but it turns out that sometimes police abuse their power. Police brutality and racial profiling are widely known problems but the growing issue of police criminalizing and mistreating students in schools is also a growing problem.
Nevertheless, David Ciraco, 21, who is an undergraduate member of Hunter’s Faculty Student Disciplinary Committee, supports police in schools. “Policing in schools is a good thing, in my experience; my brother has been assaulted in high school twice, and security did nothing about it,” said Ciraco, who was wearing a Navy Hollister hooded sweater while sitting by a window on the third floor bridge that connects Hunter North and Hunter West.
Asked about police wrongly using their power in New York public schools, he said, “I think problems with the police is more of a racial issue, not so much with students in public schools.”
The increase in policing in schools may be the main reason why the rate of felony crimes fell nine percent this year, according to a press release published on the nyc.gov website. Comments supporting that position were attributed to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, and Criminal Justice Coordinator John Feinblatt. Their comments indicate that policing may be effective in lowering crimes in school but officers have to be able to deal with situations in the right way, that is, not abuse the civil liberties of school staff and students.
According to the Kronen v. NYC complaint file, “the NYPD and specifically the 41st precinct have failed to train adequately its officers and develop and implement procedures to ensure that, when responding to an incident at a school, the responding officers are provided with and are following procedures to insure that constitutional rights are protected.” Officers should be trained and it’s the NYPD responsibility to ensure that officials are properly trained and doing their job well while working in school environments.
Joshua Blume, 21, a member of Hunter Undergraduate Student Government, said, “I think the Student Safety Act is a good idea but policing is also important because some schools really need it. Today, I had an observation in a high school and a fight broke out.” Blume, working on a degree in chemistry education, is a student teacher and does student observations at schools in the city.
“The school does feel like a prison but security helps, it’s kind of like a toss up,” said Blume who was sitting in front of the computer in Hunter North Room 121 and wearing a navy and grey baseball cap and a matching grey hooded sweater.