Failures of the city’s school system and possible responses to the problems were debated by members of the West Harlem Independent Democratic Club, along with Harlem teachers and parents, at St. Mary’s Church Wednesday evening.
Five panelists, along with an enthusiastic audience, discussed issues ranging from the use of metal detectors in city schools to a lack of communication between parents and administrators.
The panel consisted of Chloe Dugger, field organizer for the New York Civil Liberties Union; Pat Sherwood, a teacher in Harlem; April Humphrey, a parent advocate for the Alliance for Quality Education; Shelby Alvarez, a junior at Bread & Roses Integrated Arts High School; and City Council Education Committee Chair Robert Jackson. State Senator Bill Perkins and State Committeewoman Theresa Freeman were also present.
Youth in Harlem “are being denied the opportunity to explore themselves, and things other than the street corner,” Martin Smith, WHIDC co-district leader, said. “All of you here have to take that responsibility on. We’ve been stripped of a vital piece of the foundation of our lives. It’s time to fight back.”
Sherwood said that Harlem’s P.S. 149, on W. 117th St., was particularly problem-ridden. “There’s a lack of professionalism from the administration,” she said. “It pushes teachers, rushes teachers ... There’s a major investigation going on within the administration. We don’t know the full story. This lack of communication has to stop.”
Additionally, she said, class sizes recently increased at P.S. 149 and elsewhere.
“I’m told the teacher contract says 32,” Ida Watson, a fourth-grade teacher at P.S. 149, said, referring to the maximum legal class size. “But I know these children are suffering. I’m trying to hold down the fort and educate our children, and it’s not fair to them.”
At other schools, such as Bread & Roses Integrated Arts High School, textbooks are in short supply. “There are lots of students, like me, who like to study,” Alvarez, 16, said. “It’s not fair that kids downtown can take their books home, and we can’t.”
To add insult to injury, Avis Sylvester, a teacher at P.S. 149, said that she had “seen books in the garbage” at other schools. “Some schools have too much and don’t know what to do with it, and others don’t have enough,” she said. “I couldn’t stand to look at the garbage—good textbooks were thrown out.”
Another issue discussed was that of school security—namely the presence of metal detectors and NYPD officers at Harlem schools.
“I remember, when I was in public schools, it was only ‘600’ schools with those kinds of arrangements for bad students, students really considered to be on their way to Rikers Island,” Perkins said in reference to disciplinary schools once notorious in the New York City school system. “Now what we see is the same kind of measures being taken at regular schools. They’re one step away from being prisons.”
Additionally, many schools have replaced ordinary security officers with NYPD personnel. These officers handle even minor infractions.
“Common adolescent things that happen—now you can be arrested for them,” Dugger said. The NYCLU recently represented a high school sophomore who faced five criminal charges after a run-in with an NYPD officer in the hallway. He was “shoved against the wall, maced, and handcuffed,” and eventually settled the case on a lowered charge of disorderly conduct.
According to Dugger, there are over 5,000 NYPD officers in New York City schools. “If that were its own police force, it would be the fifth largest in the country,” she said.
Ultimately, “schools are as sacred as this church,” Perkins said. “They should be respected just as much, if not more so.”
Maggie Astor can be reached at news@columbiaspectator.com.