Today's "Talk out of School" - removing School Safety Agents from police control, saving youth jobs and ending admission screens

Today on "Talk out of School," I spoke to Matt Bromme, former NYC principal and Superintendent of District 27 in Queens and former HS student Cat Oteng of the YA-YA Network about the need to remove School Safety Agents from the NYPD control, and add school counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other ways to defuse tension at schools.

Then we spoke to Alex Rodriguez of Teens Take Charge on the campaigns to restore the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) and end school admission screens.

For more information on ending the school to prison pipeline, check out this letter signed by hundreds of NYC school leaders urging the Mayor to transfer School Safety Agents to the supervision of principals rather than the NYPD, and the websites of the YA-YA Network and Dignity in Schools campaign.  See also Matt Bromme's blog post on this issue, from the perspective of a former principal and Superintendent.

To find out about the campaign of Teens Take Charge to end school admission screens, check out their website; see also their proposals about how the SYEP could be reconfigured to meet the needs of youth and the community at this time.

Why School Safety Agents should return to the supervision of principals for the safety of students and staff by Matt Bromme

Matt Bromme is a former principal and Superintendent of District 27 in Queens.

When I first became a school Principal at  P.S. 88 in District 24 , School Safety Agents were employees of the New York City Board of Education. They reported to the Principal or his designee. The School Safety Agents would meet with the Principal, discuss their assignment, the time they would take lunch and their break.  This was especially true in the elementary schools where there was only one School Safety Agent usually assigned to the building.

Then when I became a Middle School Principal at MS 210 in District 27, I had multiple School Safety Agents assigned to my building because of prior incidents,. They were still employed by the Board of Education and so the rules of engagement were still the same.  We worked out schedules and assignments together.

I was still Principal of MS 210 when Rudy Giuliani was elected Mayor. He pushed for the School Safety Agents to become part of the NYPD. As a union representative of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, I opposed that move. 

Due to political pressure on Chancellor Rudy Crew and Deputy Harry Spence, the Central Board of Education agreed and in late 1998, the School Safety Agents were overnight assigned to the NYPD and became civilian NYPD employees. The New York City Charter was also amended to require reporting of crimes by school employees to the NYPD. The Mayor kept feeding the tabloids with any and all stories of how the NYPD would improve safety in the schools and how weak we Principals were on discipline.  He had already forced Ray Cortines out as Chancellor, and in a short time he would do the same to Rudy Crew.

I had some really great SSA officers.  However, I was also assigned some that I could not trust. To get them moved, I had to deal with the local precinct that had no loyalty to my school.

The transfer of SSA to the NYPD also changed their roles in the school dramatically. They now were reporting to a Precinct Lieutenant or Sergeant. They no longer would leave their post which was assigned by their Sergeant, so there was no crossing of streets to stop incidents from occurring. The patrol, break and lunch schedules were no longer discussed with the Principal. They made the final decision regarding arrests and whether or not an emotionally challenged student would be put into handcuffs, even if the professionals believed he/she should go to the hospital instead. Another issue was that there was no one responsible for their training in developing relationships with students, parents and staff. 

I will give you an example: I had a student try to commit suicide. He was going to jump out of the fourth floor window. We stopped him, but because he was so agitated, he struck one of the officers. I had to argue for sending him to the hospital instead of arresting him for assault.

Second example:  When I supervised my SSA, and there was a fight among students across the street, when I crossed the street, they crossed with me. Once they were placed under NYPD, SSAs could not move from their predetermined post unless this was agreed to by a Lieutenant who never visited the school. So if there was a fight outside the school building or school yard, I and my staff were on our own.  It made the situation far more dangerous. 

Although I believe there are many schools where the School Safety Agents work professionally with the students, parents and staff, I will always insist that the Principal, based on input from everyone, should be the decision maker on how to address student discipline and safety issues in the school. At the end of the day, the Principal is responsible for everyone in the building. Therefore, he or she should have the ability to supervise, train and schedule School Safety Agents, for the safety of students and staff. 

Last In, First Out by Matt Bromme

Matt Bromme is a former NYC teacher, assistant principal, principal, district superintendent and high level official at Tweed. He has seen this issue from many angles, and his words are to be heeded:

Much has been stated and argued over the policy used to lay-off teachers by seniority (Last In First Out). Many new teachers to the school systems across America are enthusiastic and willing to bring new methodologies to the classroom. However, many senior teachers are extremely competent and their body of work makes them deserving of our respect, not deserving of being tainted as incompetent and unsatisfactory.

In 1975 I was terminated as a New York City teacher during that fiscal crisis. I had three years of experience as a teacher, and I was extremely upset about my situation. Were there senior teachers who possibly could have been let go if there was an objective criteria? Someone please define what an objective criteria is? Were some of these teachers not terminated deserving of an unsatisfactory rating? The answer is yes. That was management’s responsibility to rid the system of anyone who was incompetent.

However, I supported then and I support now the concept of a due process procedure to ensure that all staff have their rights protected and that good teachers have their seniority rights protected.

Just like senior staff in the police department, fire department and military, have a strong knowledge base, so do senior teachers and school leaders. There is a need for a professional to develop a reputation in the community that they serve. This takes time. Time is not an idea embraced by the new corporate mentality swarming over our schools.

In 1976-1977 I returned to the classroom. In 1984 I became a middle school assistant principal, in 1988 I became an elementary school principal and in 1991 I became a middle school principal. My last position was at the rank of school district superintendent in New York City, with the last six months of my career assigned to the Tweed Courthouse.

The Tweed Court House environment was fascinating from my point of view as a civil servant. It seemed that everyone hired by the Department of Education came from an Ivy League College, had not yet reached their twenty fifth birthday and looked at all of us “old” educators as failures because we stayed in our position for more than five years. What really disturbed me was that these young perky preppy staff members had no clue as to what needed to be done in the communities we served.

Fast forward to today’s argument that newer teachers are automatically better then senior teachers. This corporate mentality (Bloomberg, Black, Gates, etc.), has taken over from the the philosophy that teaching is an art and not a science. In their desire to use data (which too many times is incorrect), they are missing the point that teachers are like ministers preaching to a very difficult group and trying to convert them to accept a better life. Before the system went data crazy, in many of our most challenging schools, we used music, art, and drama to motivate our students to do better. Today, too many schools have had to give up their assembly programs and art programs because there is not enough time, since a child’s educational experience today is dominated by test prep.

The corporate mentality also does not understand that it takes time for school teachers and school leaders to develop and to gain the respect of the community they serve. In my experience, especially at the middle school and high school level, it takes at least three years for a reputation to develop and ergo for the educator to be respected. It is also my experience that for competent teachers and principals each year they improve in their skills, just as police fire and military personnel do. As educators mature they learn numerous different techniques to enhance their classroom performance.

Tenure has become an obscene word among politicians and the new educational corporate mentality. Tenure at the public school level (as opposed to the world of the university) only guarantees a due process procedure for those accused of egregious behavior. I rated teachers and school leaders unsatisfactory. I had numerous grievances on all levels, including arbitration hearings and court cases.

Where I and my staff did our homework, we won our cases. In some cases, staff was terminated, fined or chose to retire. Where supervisors, either at the school or district level, failed to meet their contractual obligations, we did not win. I would not have it any other way.

Due process protects teachers who speak out for their students. Due process protects school leaders who administer their buildings and often are subject to political pressures. It also protects school leaders who are brave enough to challenge their central district corporate leaders who know nothing about schools and the community the schools serve.

While Mayor Bloomberg and his “people” should have been focused on class size issues to enhance school performance, he caused this issue by creating numerous schools within schools. Many of them will be overcrowded when they reach their full maturity.

Mayor Bloomberg created this issue by allowing principals to automatically refuse to hire teachers of the schools being replaced by the new small schools. Mayor Bloomberg also created these problems by readjusting the budget process, so that “average” salary was replaced at the school level with “exact” salary. Therefore this motivated new principals not to hire from the ranks of teachers that were available, but to go out and hire “inexpensive” teachers.

There is a crisis today regarding LIFO that was not caused by unions and or senior staff members. If you look deep enough into the corporate mentality,you will find that this is more of a budget issue than an educational issue. If the principals had hired the senior staff that was assigned to ATR status, none of their schools would be looking at draconian cuts. However, under a false sense of security the Mayor rolled the dice and decided to ignore these career ATR teachers, many of them competent and capable. Instead they went for the young and the restless, most of whom will leave the system within five years.

-- Matt

The arrogance of Bloomberg and Klein, according to Matt Bromme

At the City Council hearings yesterday, Ernie Logan, head of the principal’s union, said that according to principals, the first time their superintendent had ever visited their schools this year was to tell them that their schools were being closed.

This is despite two lawsuits, two consent decrees, and strengthened language in the new governance law, all supposed to make superintendents the manager and the head support officer for districts once again.

See these observations from Matt Bromme, former superintendent of District 27 in Queens:

In a system of over 1 million children, there will always be dysfunction.

What is the tragedy is that instead of looking into improving school boards the Mayor chose to look at every school board member as a potential criminal and someone whose mental capabilities were below his and the Chancellor's. In their desire to improve education, they took the stand that "we rich and influential people," will take care of education because you the parent are not able to help your school improve.

There were a number of school boards and members who were dedicated to making their district a better school community. There were another group of school board members were interested in only themselves and most of them became members of the City Council or the legislature in Albany.

Superintendents, who had districts that were manageable were removed and replaced by Regional Superintendents who did not have manageable regions. Therefore the Chancellor created a second reorganization, and then a third and now a fourth. Bill Thompson stated that as a City Comptroller, he would never invest city funds in an organization that went through so many reorganizations in such a short period of time.

So now, we have superintendents without staff or power. We have principals who do not look at education as a lifetime position but a stepping stone to another career. We have the Tweedites who stay a year or maybe two and then disappear, none of whom even know the outer boroughs.

We have schools who have abandoned the arts, history and science in order to test drill students until they are bored and turned off to learning. We do not allow trips to museums or the theater until after testing is completed.

We can sell Doritos, but we will not allow parents to sell brownies.

Diane Ravitch is right. We need to educate the "whole" child and not just focus on two subject areas via test prep. Children no longer read for enjoyment. Children no longer study math for long term use. They read and answer math problems solely to pass two exams that make or break their school's future.

-- Matt Bromme