USE KID GLOVES
DeB orders less school discipline
The de Blasio administration rolled out a new set of relaxed disciplinary reforms for schoolchildren on Thursday that even managed to roil a recent ally, the head of the teachers union.
Along with the Department of Education, Mayor de Blasio announced a total ban on suspensions for students in kindergarten through second grade, claiming current disciplinary tactics disproportionately affect students of color and those with disabilities.
The move brought condemnation from United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew, who said it would lead to more classroom disruption.
“Unfortunately, children who are in crisis and who are disrupt- ing classrooms are not going to be helped by this plan to ban suspensions in grades K-2 — and neither will the thousands of other children who will lose instruction as a result of those disruptions,” he wrote in a letter to Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña.
Mulgrew also accused the DOE of failing to cultivate basic civility in city schools.
“Better management would also result in more schools developing a positive culture of discipline and respect,” he said.
Greg Floyd, president of the school-safety officers union, said that school crime is rampant and that stemming any suspensions, even just for tykes, is misguided.
“This is affecting children of color the most; they are the ones who are going to suffer,” he said. “And these are the kids de Blasio is saying he represents.”
The Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, the union that represents principals, said the city would be “hamstringing” staffers with the ban.
But de Blasio and the DOE maintained that suspending young kids was draconian and that more “positive” and “age-appropriate discipline techniques” were called for. He didn’t specify what they would be.
Simultaneously, the NYPD released comprehensive data on public-school arrests on Thursday — but critics called the figures misleading.
The report says there were 1,208 incidents recorded over the first three months of this year and gives specifics on the inci- dents, including the offense, if it took place in a school with a metal detector and if a student was handcuffed.
A total of 436 students were arrested for offenses ranging from rape to weapons possession to robbery. A total of 340 summonses were handed out.
City Hall officials said the numbers reflect a continuing decline in campus crime. De Blasio and DOE brass noted that school arrests in 2014-15 were down 50 percent compared with 2010-11 and that summonses dipped by 80 percent over that same period.
Critics argued that the administration is pressuring schools to underreport the numbers.