The Bobster
Senior News Editor since 2004
NYC teacher describes school violence amid push for ‘restorative justice’
I’ve taught phys ed and health at a small high school in the Bronx for 15 years. We’ve always had problem kids, but recently it’s really gotten out of control.
nypost.com
NYC teacher describes school violence amid push for ‘restorative justice’
By
New York Post
June 11, 2022 7:43am
Updated
Suspensions in New York City public schools are plummeting as the Department of Education pursues a woke push to soften school discipline under the banner of “restorative justice.” In reality, measures like mediation are not happening at all in many schools – and kids have learned that rule-breaking carries no consequences, with disastrous results. Here, a veteran teacher at a troubled Bronx high school tells The Post in harrowing detail about the ultra-violence that hands-off policies have wrought.
I’ve taught phys ed and health at a small high school in the Bronx for 15 years. We’ve always had problem kids, but recently it’s really gotten out of control.
One incident this year could have been a bloodbath: a gang altercation in the middle of the hallway, in the middle of the school day. One kid pulled a boxcutter and just started slashing. The only thing that stopped it from being more savage is that they were wearing such baggy clothes and so many layers. The kid ended up cutting everyone’s clothes to shreds.
Teachers are constantly getting verbal threats from students when we just ask them to follow basic school rules. A few weeks ago a female colleague asked a student to put his phone away during class. He told her, “I know where you live. I’m coming after you.” The woman was so frightened she had to call a family member to come and escort her home.
None of those kids were suspended. Our principals’ hands are tied. The pressure they are receiving from above not to suspend students, or to take any punitive measures at all, means there’s no accountability for any bad behavior. It’s this culture of sweeping things under the rug.
And the kids know it. “I can say whatever I want, I can do whatever I want, and there really are no consequences.”
All we can do is hope these kids will get transferred out and we can regain a sense of calm. A “safety transfer” just means the kid gets assigned to a different school – any school that has an empty seat. And when they say “safety transfer,” we don’t know if the kid coming to us is a perpetrator or a victim. So the troublemakers just become the next school’s problem. It’s a revolving door.
The message we get from higher-ups is that it’s the teachers who are in the wrong – like, “What could you have done to trigger this?” Or, “You can’t relate to them.” It’s never, “maybe this student can’t be here.” It’s never “this behavior should not be allowed.”
What kills me is that the majority of our kids are good kids, great kids. All they want is to come to school and not be bothered. In my school – we have less than 400 students — it’s maybe 8 to 10 kids, tops, causing all the chaos. But those kids can really do true damage. And it’s the majority, the good kids, getting robbed of any sense of safety.
I work with good teachers. Our administrators, they care. But when you have this cloud of violence hanging over you, and your hands seem to be tied, what can you do but feel like it’s hopeless.