"NYSUT members want schools that work for them and their students," said NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi. "The state and school districts have an obligation to produce environments in which students can learn, teachers can teach and all our members can do their jobs. For students and teachers to be successful, they must feel safe and be safe."
"We are glad that more resources and training will be devoted to those schools on SED's "persistently dangerous" list. As educators, we welcome the more rigorous focus on incidents that disrupt the learning environment.
"The reality is that having even one school on that list is one school too many. Educators, students, parents and the community need and deserve great, safe public schools," Iannuzzi said.
NYSUT Vice President Maria Neira said, "We need to have safe schools to have successful learning environments. This list creates attention — now we need to push the action steps to address it.
"We know that SED is establishing a watch list for schools that may be labeled as "persistently dangerous" in the future. It will be imperative that SED and the school districts immediately address the causes of the problems and institute programs and services to ensure no new schools are labeled persistently dangerous.
"NYSUT supports SED's actions that result in making the reporting of violent and disruptive incidents more accurate," concluded Neira.