Plan for school security rapped as 'same old'

Responding to a proposal from the school district's new security chief to increase safety, discipline and instructional practices at 46 troubled schools, critics said yesterday that the plan may not be effective in a system long plagued by violence and other crime.

Glenn McCurdy, a former community builder who once monitored school-community relations for the district, contended that the plan would barely scratch the surface of a systemic problem of truancy and violent behavior in the schools, and would continue to criminalize students.

"That's the same old thing we've done in the past," he said. "It seems so insulated and locked in with the same things that didn't work in the past."

He said school officials should instead dig deeper and interview truants, the troubled students and their families to find what makes them tick.

He added that a school district in California saw a 60 percent decrease in truancy and reported incidents over three years after they employed that method.

The district's plan, revealed Wednesday to the School Reform Commission by security chief Myron Patterson, a 25-year Police Department veteran, includes daily deployment of school police to school "hot spots," and the use of Compstat, a system used by many police departments to map crime and identify problems.

Additional surveillance cameras will be installed at schools where most of the district's chronically truant and reported violent offenders are enrolled and staff will be trained to better track student attendance.

Under the directive, each of the 46 schools has until Nov. 1 to create a plan to address issues from bullying to truancy.

Central-office staff will provide support to individual schools to help them develop safety plans that cater to their specific needs, said a district spokesman.

"There is going to be focus on trying to understand the root causes of unsafe schools," said spokesman Fernando Gallard, referring to the plan's focus on strengthening academic and instructional support.

"They're going to look at the whole aspect of the school, not just the policing aspect."

The plan, he said, also calls for ongoing professional development for staff, districtwide standards for reporting incidents and taking attendance, formation of an appeals board, institution of a delinquency log and policy changes on how properly to record dangerous incidents.

Within two years, district officials aim to reduce the number of persistently dangerous schools to zero.

A School Climate Action Team, chaired by Deputy Superintendent Leroy Nunery and comprising principals, teachers and other staffers, will monitor the schools' progress.

But a math teacher at a high school in Frankford, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the system is flawed because some administrators couldn't be trusted to report dangerous incidents honestly at their schools.

"You can't have principals on that board because he or she doesn't want people to know what goes on in their schools," the teacher said.

Under the plan, dubbed "Project Safe Schools," the district intends to target so-called Focus 46 Schools, where most of the district's reported violent incidents occur, officials said.

To be designated a Focus 46 School, a campus must have an average daily attendance of under 90 percent, more than 40 percent of the school's population must be chronically truant with 10 or more unexcused absences, or the school must have five or more violent incidents per 100 students, as well as other criteria.