New York Post

A BUNCH OF FIST-GRADERS

Qns. school district No. 1 – in fights

- By KEVIN SHEEHAN and SELIM ALGAR salgar@nypost.com

It’s the city’s most brawl-ridden school district.

District 29 in Queens — which includes Cambria Heights, Hollis and Springfiel­d Gardens — had the highest rates of student-reported fighting of all 32 districts last year, according to Department of Education data.

Five schools in District 29 — all of them middle schools — had more than 80 percent of students complain of frequent brawling, according to the numbers.

At PS/IS 138, a staggering 90 percent of survey respondent­s said they were forced to endure fights in their midst.

Of those, 45 percent said there were brawls “most of the time” at the Rosedale school.

At Queens United Middle School in Springfiel­d Gardens, where 96 percent of the student body completed a survey, 51 percent complained of combat “most of the time.”

A total of 61 percent of 8,990 dis- trict kids said they had to learn amid violence “some” or “most” of the time — the highest overall rate in the city, according to an annual DOE school climate survey.

The Bronx’s District 8 had the second steepest rate of student-reported fisticuffs, at 53 percent.

District 29 was also the only one in the city where at least a quarter of students said they saw brawling “most of the time,” according to the figures.

A student at Humanities & The Arts HS, where 74 percent of kids reported frequent fights last year, said violence was commonplac­e.

“The other day a guy accidental­ly knocked over a lunch tray and it broke out into a huge fight in the cafeteria,” said junior Mitchell Cameron.

The chaotic district has been roiled by administra­tive upheaval.

Former superinten­dent Lenon Murray was ousted in May after getting arrested for allegedly groping a colleague. He denied the charges. A total of five school districts — two in Brooklyn, two in The Bronx and the Queens district — had overall student-reported fighting rates of 50 percent or higher, according to the DOE surveys.

That list includes District 12 in The Bronx, where a student at Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservati­on was stabbed to death in class in September.

The other day a guy accidental­ly knocked over a lunch tray and it broke out into a huge fight in the cafeteria. — Mitchell Cameron, junior at Humanities & The Arts HS (above)

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