Why We Launched the #SafeSchoolsNow Campaign

News accounts of violence against children at the hands of New York City’s district school teachers are mounting at an astonishing pace, with several disturbing incidents in February alone. A cellphone video taken at P.S. 198 in Harlem showed a 4-year old pre-K student abandoned in an empty stairwell, following earlier incidents in which Fatima Scipio, the child’s mother, said school staff pinned her son against the wall and hurt his arms.

At P.S. 194 in Harlem – dubbed the “School of Horror” for the frequent incidents of shocking violence reported there – Osman Couey was arrested for allegedly throwing a special-needs student across a hallway. Over the course of his long tenure at P.S. 194, Couey was accused of assaulting a number of other children, including the 7-year old son of Erica Medina, whom Couey allegedly threw down a flight of stairs.

And the Riverdale Press reported that teachers and administrators at P.S. 207 in the Bronx were turning a blind eye to violent acts committed against their students, even discouraging a 6-year-old girl from reporting her classmates for sexual harassment. Kristina Martell’s son, Cameron, was repeatedly a victim of school violence and assault for more than a year while Department of Education officials refused to grant him a transfer.

These parents helped launch our #SafeSchoolsNow campaign, demanding that Mayor Bill de Blasio address the crisis of school violence.

The #SafeSchoolsNow website, safeschoolsnow.nyc, serves as a resource to educate and protect New York City district school families from dangerous schools – including abusive teachers still teaching in the classroom.

Families for Excellent Schools will be working with parents of victims of school violence to apply pressure on the Department of Education to let children move to a safe, secure learning environment. And the website will help empower parents across the city with information about violent teachers at schools their children may currently be attending.

This is an urgent crisis of school violence that will define de Blasio’s stewardship of the city’s district schools. By refusing to admit that school violence is rising, and being unwilling to provide families with basic information about abusive teachers, the mayor is failing nearly 1 million families who expect their children to be safe when they step into a Department of Education classroom.

District schools themselves are reporting that schools are getting more dangerous. In a recent report by Families for Excellent Schools, New York state data paints a picture of school safety significantly less rosy than the one touted by the mayor in his recent State of the City address. The state data showed a 23 percent increase in school violence, contradicting de Blasio’s claim that violence is going down in New York City’s district schools. A student falls victim to a violent incident every five minutes in city district schools, and a weapon is recovered every 30 minutes.

This culture of violence pervades district schools in every borough and at every level – a stunning 92 percent of district school students in the city attend a school where a violent incident has occurred over the past year, and in the months since the 2015-2016 school year began, 42 weapons have been confiscated from 36 elementary schools across the city.

Parents sickened by this rampant violence, and by the city’s blatant disregard for their children’s safety, are demanding answers and immediate action from the de Blasio administration. The Department of Education has responded by invoking references to self-evidently ineffective “procedures” to get violent teachers out of the classroom.

Across the city, parents are demanding safe schools and asking a critical question: If the Department of Education allowed Couey to remain at P.S. 194 for over a decade, how many other abusive teachers are currently walking the hallways at district schools, endangering the children they’re supposed to educate?

It’s incumbent on Mayor de Blasio to release the names of teachers who have abused, assaulted or harassed children who are still in district school classrooms or on the city’s payroll. By leaving parents in the dark about the dangers their children face, the mayor is putting children in harm’s way.

How many more tales of tragic abuse on school grounds must parents endure before the de Blasio administration and the Department of Education stop protecting violent teachers?

Jeremiah Kittredge is the CEO of Families for Excellent Schools.