The Mayor says his administration
"screwed up" in getting students who have shown violent behavior in school removed to another setting:

BLOOMBERG TAPS FIRMS TO SET PROBLEM KIDS STRAIGHT
By CARL CAMPANILE

May 24, 2004 -- Mayor Bloomberg is hiring a network of privately run firms to help turn around the city's most violent and disruptive students in 48 "second-chance" schools - including recently released jailbirds, The Post has learned.
These "community-based" organizations will provide the troubled youths with tutors, guidance counselors, psychologists and social workers to engage their parents.

Phase 1 of Bloomberg's "zero tolerance" crackdown this year focused mostly on flooding dangerous schools with more cops and tossing troublemakers out of the general school population.

Phase 2, beginning in the fall, will focus more aggressively on improving the educational environment and outcomes for struggling students at these reform sites.

The proposal comes as parents and staffers have leveled criticisms about the conditions at some of the suspension centers, including assertions that they serve more as "warehouses" than education programs, and that they're located in shoddy facilities with inadequate security.

The teachers union has called for meetings with Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's office to address some of the shortcomings.

"These students have a right to a quality education," said Bernard Gassaway, the Department of Education's superintendent of alternative schools.

That includes a new program for teenagers who've served time in Rikers Island and other youth detention centers.

Teachers in the New York City public school system are furious with the Bloomberg/Klein "safety plan" which, several have told The E-Accountability Foundation, in their opinion does not exist either for them or the students. Every day there are incidents in which teachers and students are hurt, and nothing is done by administrators to stop it.
One example is:at Beach Channel HS in the Rockaways, where a student was arrested for ramming his ex-girlfriend's head through a trophy case, local instructional Superintendent Joan Gordon wrote a memo telling the staff that their performance review would be based on 'cheerful' bulletin boards: according to a December 22, 2003 article by Carl Campanile. "Bulletin boards and displays in classrooms and hallways are a clear reflection of instruction and the quality of student achievement. Student work must predominate all displays and bulletin boards," Joan Gordon, the local instructional supervisor for the Rockaways' schools, said in the memo to principals.
"While Rome burns, the Department of Education fiddles with bulletin boards," charged teachers' union representative David
Pecoraro.

"Bulletin boards and displays in classrooms and hallways are a clear reflection of instruction and the quality of student achievement. Student work must predominate all displays and bulletin boards," Joan Gordon, the local instructional supervisor for the Rockaways' schools, said in the memo to principals.

The program involves 6 Community Groups and $6 million in taxpayer money.

And the police presence is growing. Where is the anger management, counseling, or mediation? How long before we have a situation similar to the shooting of Timothy Stansbury, Jr?

Many people are questioning his leadership.