Your independent guide to NYC public schools

Dear Judy

My 16 year old 10^th grade daughter received a safety transfer from her very dangerous high school. How do I go about finding a new high school for her?

Confused and anxious

Dear Confused and Anxious.

Transfers are hard to get so your daughter’s experience in an unsafe school must have been harsh. Take the time to find a school that is known for a warm and nurturing atmosphere and which puts emphasis on respectful interactions among student and faculty.

In an effort to prevent the sexual abuse of children, my daughter’s elementary school now requires parents to wear little white nametags when we visit classrooms. I’m pleased to report that Operation Nametag has been a success: No charges of child abuse have been filed since it went into effect.

Well, no new charges. The school is still reeling from the arrest in February of a paraprofessional who has been charged with attempting to molest an 8-year-old boy. As the criminal case creeps through the legal system, parents at my daughter’s school are sad, fearful, confused and, above all, angry that the school can’t guarantee their children’s safety.

I personally don’t expect such a guarantee. I agree with Helen Keller, who wrote, “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.” But Helen and I hold the minority view. Other parents are proposing a number of reforms that they insist will make my daughter’s school a safer place.

Sadly, many of the ideas are terrible.

Dear Judy,

My son has been physically attacked several times in elementary school – I call it bullying—but the classroom teacher is no help when it happens and the rest of the staff has not been helpful either. What can I do to help my son?

Frantic mother in Queens

Dear Frantic Mother in Queens,

Considering all the attention to combating bullying these days, it is really disheartening to hear that your school still has no clue about how to handle it. The week before schools closed for the winter break was Respect for All week  – to highlight activities associated with the Department of Education program to combat bullying.

The goal is to make the schools safe and supportive for all students. Under the Respect for All (RFA) program, schools are to create a school wide atmosphere of respect for all kids regardless of their race, gender, sexual preference, ethnicity, religion, weight or disability. The program calls for training at least one staff member to be the RFA – the one person in school that kids can tell about bullying without fear of reprisals, and who knows how to help. That person's name and where to reach him or her should be posted all over the school. Under city regulations both victims and bystanders are encouraged to bring their story to the designated RFA but they, and their parents, can also report online at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

I attended two presentations last week at my daughter’s Upper West Side elementary school. The first featured the chancellor in charge of New York City schools, who was on hand to absorb parents’ rage after a paraprofessional at the school was arrested on suspicion of sexual misconduct with a young boy.

Talking to an overflow crowd, Chancellor Dennis Walcott said what you’d expect him to say: The safety of children is his top priority, and steps will be taken to make sure incidents like this never happen again. But less than a week later, a teacher at an elementary school in Queens was arrested on suspicion he inappropriately touched young boys.

Both incidents occurred just weeks after the arrest of a teacher’s aide at an elementary school in Brooklyn. Investigators say the aide possessed child pornography and may have created a sexually explicit video at the school.

At Insideschools, we aim to provide up-to-date data on New York City public schools. This data includes official statistics from New York City and New York State and is available on the Department of Education website as well as the New York State Report Card site. Charter school data not included in city statistics was provided by The Charter School Center. Below is a list of the main sources for data along with what we post on our site from each source:

Name, address, telephone number and principal name from the Department of Education LCGMS database 

Progress Report - Attendance, graduation rate, college ready, college enrollment, high school ready

NYC School Survey - percentage of student who feel safe, percentage of teachers who trust principal

School Demographics and Accountability Snapshot - Enrollment, free and reduced lunch, percent of English language learners, percent of students receiving special education services, ethnicity

Achievement Results - ELA and math scores for grades 3-8

Period Attendance Reporting - Attendance, enrollment for new schools

Class Size Report schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/data/classsize/classsize.htm Average class sizes (updated twice a year. If link is broken try schools.nyc.gov and search "class size")

Elementary school directory gifted and talented, dual language, and magnet programs.

Elementary and middle school zone maps:

http://nycopendata.socrata.com/Education/School-Zones-2011-2012/dqkt-8x6u

School overcrowding: School Construction Authority utilization reports

http://www.nycsca.org/Community/CapitalPlanManagementReportsData/Pages/EnrollmentCapacityUtilization.aspx

All other data was provided by the Department of Education by special request.

When I was a kid in elementary school, I dreaded lunchtime when a nasty girl in my class would relentlessly make fun of my hand-me-down clothes, tell your-mom’s-so-ugly jokes, and threaten bodily harm. I looked forward to middle school to escape, but my tormentor followed me there. What was worse, my middle school was overrun with even bigger bullies and administration had their hands full. So I did what most smart geeks did, hang out with my teacher during lunch—and try to be the first one out the door when the bell rang.

Dear Judy,

My middle school son tapped on the shoulder of a girl sitting in front of him, but she thought it was someone else and pushed that kid. The teacher sentenced all of them to detention. I think my son was unfairly punished, but what bothers me most is that the detention is on Saturday. Is it legal to hold Saturday detention? And if so, will there be lunch?

Upset

Dear Upset,

Your question convinces me that the school is failing in its obligation to communicate with parents.

If you look at the Department of Education’s Discipline Code, you will find that in school detention is listed as one of the possible disciplinary responses allowed, depending on the grade and infraction. In middle school, it is definitely sanctioned for disturbing the classroom peace and according to Marge Feinberg, spokesperson for the Department of Education, "Arranging detentions is up to principals."

City schools suspended their students more than 73,000 times during the 2010-2011 school year, according to new data from the city's Department of Education (DOE).

More than half of those suspensions were given to African American students, who make up 33 percent of the total student body. Close to a third were given to students with special education plans, who comprise 17 percent of students. Suspension numbers are up over 2009-2010 when there were 71,721 suspensions.

Can a high school student ask to be removed from the military recruitment database? How much school can a pregnant teen miss for prenatal care? As part of The New York Civil Liberties Union annual "Week of Action," the organization is visit public high schools this week to inform students of their basic rights.

The group is providing information about military recruitment in schools, LGBTQ rights, police in schools, sexual health and reproductive rights. The information is also posted online and, in some cases, in other languages. NYCLU announced their "Week of Action" schedule last Friday and is visiting schools which are most affected by the issues (schedule is posted below).

Schools and parents from 59th Street to the top of Manhattan Island have banded together in SUN, Schools Unite Network, to promote school safety and to reduce and prevent crime among kids.  SUN uses the internet as an interactive  tool to gather information about crime and other safety issues and alert schools, parents and other community members in real time.

The system allows people who might be reluctant to report incidents to the police, to communicate suspicious activity and youth-related crime through the internet. SUN provides information to the appropriate New York Police Department personnel and reports back to schools  and community stakeholders, detailing actions taken in response to the problem.  In addition, SUN provides safety tips and resources  in its SUN alerts and on its website

SUN is the brain child of Jill Greenbaum who founded  the Police Liaison Group, Inc (PLG),  a nonprofit organization to promote community collaboration in crime prevention.  A project of  PLG in collaboration with NYC Police Department Division of School Safety in Manhattan North, Sun’s overall goals are to promote school safety, reduce and prevent crime, and help kids who have been engaged in crime to turn their lives around.

Recently SUN expanded its reach through a partnership with the NYC  Department of Parks, and is offering information about graffiti reporting and removal, and the consequences for youths who deface public property.

A list of member schools is on the PLG website. Let us know how this is working in your school or neighborhood.