Editorial

State must revamp school violence reporting

Posted

Nearly half a million students, ages 12 to 18, fell victim to violence at schools across the U.S. in 2014, the last year for which statistics are available, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Twenty percent of students — 1 in 5 — reported that they had been bullied at school. Twelve percent — 1 in 8 — reported that there were gangs at their schools. Eight percent — 1 in 12 — said they had been in physical fights in school.

Nine percent of teachers, meanwhile, said they had been physically threatened by students, and another 5 percent said they had actually been attacked.

We should all be alarmed by these numbers. Schools are supposed to be safe havens where young people can learn and grow, without fear of intimidation and physical harm. Yet, too often, they aren’t.

Ending violence in our schools should be one of our highest priorities. We can only get there, however, if schools partner with parents, community organizations and law enforcement officials in a team approach that sends a clear message to young people: Violence, in any form, will not be tolerated.

To create such partnerships at the local level requires transparency. Parents, in particular, need better information about the level of violence that students are experiencing in school. Too many mothers and fathers, however, are in the dark.

Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas is calling on the State Board of Regents to revamp New York’s school violence tracking system so gang attacks, discrimination and bullying are reported faster. According to Singas, it can take up to two years for incidents to appear on New York’s Violent and Disruptive Incident Reporting System. The state recently reworked the system, but Singas said the changes didn’t go far enough, failing “to provide a framework that will facilitate timely, consistent and comprehensive reporting of school violence.”

We agree with Singas that the process of reporting violent incidents must be reworked and expedited. Two-year-old information does no one any good. Parents –– and all of us, for that matter –– need current data that tells us what’s happening in our schools with greater depth.

Most school districts have websites these days. So often they are celebrations of all that is going right in the schools –– and we firmly believe that the good stuff should be part and parcel of every district’s site.

Those websites, however, could –– and should –– be so much more. They should be used to convey accurate, and complete, pictures of what’s currently happening in the schools. State reports, good and bad, should be posted on districts’ sites for all to see –– as Singas has said, in real time. That is key to transparency.

Each district is responsible for compiling its own database of violent incidents in school and on its buses. That information is then sent to the State Education Department, which incorporates it into massive spreadsheets that are published on its website two years later.

The spreadsheets do not give parents a clear picture of the level of violence in their local schools –– and they certainly aren’t current. That’s unacceptable.

Each district’s violence reports should be published on its own website, so parents and other residents can understand exactly what is happening at the local level. Under the current system, anyone can file a Freedom of Information request seeking a district’s violence reports, but that process is time-consuming and troublesome. Districts should make this whole process simpler by publishing the reports themselves, so members of the public don’t have to ask for them.

We understand why many districts would be reluctant to do that. That is why the state must step in and require reporting at the local level.

Administrators might worry that the reports could be used against them. That fear is not entirely without merit. But we would argue, first, that the purpose of publishing such data would not necessarily be to condemn, but to inform parents, community leaders and residents about what, precisely, is happening in the schools, empowering them to seek change where and when needed. And second, administrators should be held accountable for extreme levels of violence, or spikes of violence, in their schools.

“In 2016, we should not settle for a system that provides parents and policymakers with sparse, inconsistent, two-year-old data,” Singas said. We agree.