Why did our students have to wait four years?

The Mayor and Chancellor made a big announcement yesterday about how they are implementing anti-bias and anti- harassment procedures in our schools, and requiring that these incidents be reported.

This announcement came primarily in response to several years of repeated and well-publicized incidents in which Sikh students have had their hair cut off in school -- and subsequent protests, including an rare oped on local educational issues that made it into the NY Times and a more recent column in the Daily News.

David Seifman of the NY Post was one of the few reporters yesterday to note that many of the procedures that Bloomberg and Klein announced were first proposed in 2004 in a law passed by the City Council called DASA -- the Dignity for All Students Act. But at that point, the Mayor and the Chancellor rejected them.

In a September 2004 interview on WRKS radio, the mayor was quoted as saying the council's bill was "silly." "You cannot [expect] the teachers or the principals to follow some script," he said back then. "They are professionals, and you have to leave it up to them to do it."

Even after the City council passed the law over the Mayor's veto, the Department of Education refused to comply with it -- arguing that their policies are not subject to city law.

"That's the job of the chancellor," Bloomberg said yesterday. "We never disagreed with them on the intent."

So why did it take them four years? Four years of unchecked bias and harassment in our schools? And why should it be considered okay for the Mayor and the Chancellor to consider themselves immune from obeying city law?

This is a perfect example of why we need more checks and balances. Not only is it more democratic, but it makes for better policies.

For more on the Mayor's previous position on bias-related violence and harassment in our schools, see our blog posting here.

Randi comes out

In what was an open secret but never publicly disclosed before, Randi Weingarten, the President of the United Federation of Teachers, talks about being gay in this week’s issue of Gay City News. Congrats to Randi for doing this.

She also mentions the UFT's support for the City Council's passage of anti-bullying legislation that Mayor Bloomberg has refused to implement.

See: “Randi Weingarten Discusses Her Life as a Lesbian Labor Leader”.

Update: more on this disclosure, from the Daily News and NY Post.

Mayor: anti-harassment measure "illegal" and "silly"

On Monday, City Council members and advocates blamed the Department of Education of "turning a blind eye" to discrimination and bullying in our schools.

On May 25, a 15 year old Sikh student was attacked in the bathroom of Newtown High School in Queens by another student, and had his hair cut off. Apparently, he had complained to staff of similar harassment five times before but nothing had been done. A DOE spokeswoman said no record of the student's complaints could be found.

Councilmembers John Liu, Robert Jackson, and David Weprin held a press conference to protest the fact that the anti-harassment legislation passed by the City Council in 2004 known as the Dignity for all Schools Act, or DASA, has never been enforced . The legislation not only prohibits bullying, but also requires DOE to follow certain procedures to track and report all such incidents.

When the City Council first passed the law, Mayor Bloomberg called it "silly" and vetoed it. He said that it was up to teachers and principals to judge "when the horseplay gets out of hand."

"Having a law to do it doesn't make any sense. You cannot force the teachers or the principals to follow some script. They are professionals, and you have to leave it up to them to do it."

After the Council overrode his veto, Tweed officials refused to attend hearings on the issue, insisted that they would not comply with the law and declared the measure “illegal,” claiming that their authority over our schools can only be overridden by the state.

Meanwhile, according to a recent report, more than three-quarters of male Sikh students in Queens say they have been teased or harassed in city schools. "The Department of Education is as guilty as these boys in that bathroom for what happened," said Councilman Liu at the press conference.

For more on this latest incident, see NY1 clip and the AM NY article here.