| Releases
& Statements
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 21, 2007
Contact: John Collins, Press Secretary
(212) 669-4193
Release #: 005-2007
Gotbaum:
DOE Must Work with ACS and NYPD on School Bus Abuse Investigations
Public Advocate slams DOE for repeated failures
to protect children, calls for new safety reforms
MANHATTAN
– With new reports of improper conduct by school safety
officers and failures to protect kids from abuse on school buses
and at schools, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum today called for
a series of reforms to the Department of Education’s (DOE)
school safety policy, including new coordination with the Administration
for Children’s Services (ACS) and the New York City Police
Department (NYPD) in cases of abuse by bus drivers and monitors.
She also urged the DOE to hire more investigators to respond to
school bus abuse allegations.
Public
Advocate Gotbaum said that the DOE’s current system is simply
failing to ensure the safety and well-being of the children in
its care.
The
DOE currently faces a series of disturbing reports: the Office
of Pupil Transportation has only seven investigators to handle
complaints against school bus drivers and monitors, which have
risen 79 percent between 2002 and 2006; school security officers
beat a young man with clubs during the melee at Madison Square
Garden; and a school janitor is charged with raping an 8-year-old
girl over the past month.
Public
Advocate Gotbaum said, “Abuse is abuse – and any time
adults are abusing or neglecting children, the City needs to take
every possible step to protect children. Yet right now, the DOE
does not have the staff or the policy to respond adequately to
cases of abuse on school buses, and it is failing to protect kids
from adults who want to harm them. The DOE needs to reform their
system to create a safe environment where students can thrive.”
To
crack down on child abuse while students are under DOE supervision,
Public Advocate Gotbaum is also calling for increasing the training
and supervision of school security officers and establishing centralized
accountability for safety conditions at city schools. Gotbaum
is also exploring legislation, first proposed by the New York
Civil Liberties Union, that would allow the Civilian Complaint
Review Board to accept complaints regarding school safety agents.
Last
month, Public Advocate Gotbaum released a survey of school administrators
that showed under-reporting of safety incidents by the DOE. Also,
the Mayor’s Preliminary Management Report showed a major
rise of school safety incidents from July to October of this school
year over last year.
Public
Advocate Gotbaum yesterday sent a letter to Chancellor Klein stating
that the failure of the DOE stems from its philosophy of policing
students rather than protecting them, treating them as potential
criminals rather than potential victims of crime.
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