By:Andrew Coen
It was the first time that public schools across the state disclosed rates of student assaults and other offenses.
The report, which covers the 2001-02 and 2002-03 school years, includes statistics for such crimes as weapons possession, bomb threats and drug possession.
However, state officials said many parts of the report were inconsistent, since reporting methods are different from school-to-school.
"An incident in one school might not be an incident in another school," said Dr. Kenneth Forman, principal of the Number Two School in Inwood. The school reported 11 personal-injury or intimidation incidents and was the only Five Towns elementary school included in the report. "I feel it is my job that when an incident occurs in my school, to report it."
According to the state report, some examples of the inconsistencies in reporting occurred because some schools have zero-tolerance policies and thus consider every incident serious while others only reported incidents involving police or when a student was suspended.
A surprising finding in the report showed that Lawrence Middle School had more weapons possession incidents - a total of five - than Lawrence High School, which recorded three. However, those five incidents were the only ones on the report for Lawrence Middle School for the 2001-02 and 2002-03 school years.
Lawrence High School reported a total of 70 incidents, including 55 cases of personal-injury or intimidation. The school also recorded seven incidents of drug or alcohol possession, sales or use. Lawrence High School Principal Geoffrey Touretz said the report makes it hard to compare from school-to-school due to the different methods of reporting in each district.
"It's very hard to interpret," said Touretz, who is in his first year as principal of the school. "It's not really a measure of how much crime or violence exists; it's more a matter of how much punishment exists."
Since the report did not include incidents from the 2003-04 school year, both Lawrence High School and Lawrence Middle School had no reported bomb threats or false alarms. The schools had a combined six bomb threat hoaxes during the 2003-04 school year.
In District 14, Hewlett High School recorded a total of 39 violent or disruptive incidents, including 13 cases of personal-injury or intimidation, 12 incidents of drug or alcohol sales, possession or use and 11 thefts.
According to Principal Joyce Bisso, when a student is caught with alcohol or drugs, school officials take swift action and suspend the student for a number of days. "Whenever there has been occurrences of [drugs or alcohol], we have taken action immediately," said Bisso. "When we come down hard on somebody who has possession of something illegal, we are doing it because it is an issue of protecting the safety and health of the school."
Woodmere Middle School reported a total of four incidents with only one case of personal injury or intimidation.
"I think the comparative data is interesting, but we're more interested in how we're doing with our own expectations," said Hewlett-Woodmere Superintendent Dr. Les Omotani. "Hewlett-Woodmere is committed to having a safe, caring learning environment for all our students."
State Department of Education spokesman Jonathan Burman said when next year's reports are done, to include the 2003-04 school year, the state hopes the statistics will contain fewer flaws. Some of the state's recommendations for improving the report include clarifying the "weapons possession" category to only include illegal weapons and not dangerous instruments and to limit the reporting of disruptive incidents to the most serious cases.
The report was done in response to the "Safe Schools Against Violence in Education Act," which was passed by the State Legislature and signed by Gov. George Pataki on July 24, 2000, to address issues of school safety and violence prevention. As a result of the legislation, each school in the state is required to complete and maintain a record of each reportable violent or disruptive incident.
"The best thing about the report is it focuses on something that is very clear in a student's education," said Touretz. "If students can't feel safe in school, that is going to affect their learning."
For further information on the state report log onto www.nysed.gov.
Comments about this story? Acoen@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 210.
