A joint town hall meeting got heated last week as parents, educators and the District 3 Community Education Council (CEC 3) demanded answers from Chancellor Dennis Walcott and his team regarding a variety of issues facing schools in the district.

Frederick Douglass Academy II Secondary School located at 215 West 114th Street.

The principals of both the Frederick Douglass and Wadleigh schools were present and said their schools have made radical comebacks in recent years. The suspension rate at Wadleigh has dropped by 80 percent and changes have focused on college and career readiness, while Frederick Douglass, which recently faced closure, has seen a turnaround with the support of parents and the CEC.

Walcott said he hoped to continue to emphasize college and career readiness in the district schools and do away with the notion that low income students and those with housing issues present extra difficulties for the schools or “don’t belong” as some believe.

“I do not allow anyone to talk ill of our students,” said Walcott. “They all have the ability to learn at a high level with the proper support.”

In response to the issue of admissions to middle and high schools and the fact that several district 2 schools have district 2 admissions priority while being some of the highest rated and highest applicant rate schools, Walcott said the high school admissions process has improved significantly over the years.

“We have made more options throughout the city with the creation of small schools and new schools,” he said. “There are more schools to choose from, 85 percent of selections are in students’ top five choices.”

Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing & Visual Arts located at 215 West 114th Street.

“We have been able to encourage choices and give more quality choices,” he added.

Still Walcott maintained it’s difficult to go back on outdated processes of grandfathering which tend to give unfair priority.

Carl Pressley, a district 3 parent, asked the chancellor and his team why some of the same successful practices used in charter schools cannot be used in district schools. Walcott assured community members the same practices are being used in district schools, many of which are performing well and are “very creative.”

Walcott also addressed the recent PCB leaks in schools across the City and plans to remediate all schools.

“Two years ago we set aside 800 million dollars to address the PCB issue throughout the City, we are the only city that has done something along that line,” said Walcott. He added the two year plan is no longer viable, however, particularly with the current court case on the issue pending.

“This has been a priority for several years and we are working with the EPA,” said Walcott.

Other issues discussed included student privacy and concerns over data-mining and publicizing students’ information, school redevelopment and demolition, class size and overcrowding, general space concerns, the common core curriculum, standardized testing and gifted and talented programs.

The chancellor’s partners assured parents potential redevelopment and demolition processes are still in their infancy in the district and community members’ concerns will be addressed and input solicited before any plans move forward and before the issuance of an RFP.

Anthony, a teacher at Whadleigh, expressed his frustration with remodeling in district 3 schools and its impact on the students.

“We’re having to do more with less space,” he said.

CEC member Joe Fiordaliso agreed overcrowding is a serious issue in the district in addition to a general loss of space due to construction.

Fiordaliso said 1,300 parents signed a petition to create new middle schools in the district, to which the chancellor replied he has committed to developing more middle schools throughout the entire city.

“I set a goal to create 50 middle schools; we’re at 61,” said Walcott. “We are open to new middle schools in D3 and we are starting our portfolio process. Beacon will become available in 2015.”

With regard to the implementation of common core curriculum, parents expressed concern their children were being penalized emotionally by not understanding the new curriculum. There was also general agreement less emphasis should be placed on high stakes standardized testing.

“How can standardized testing determine a kid’s entire future?” asked Elizabeth Rivera, a parent and teacher in district 3.

Walcott said, “We have a responsibility as a system to make sure [our students] are getting a higher course of learning so while I understand the anxiety and pressure, it’s a pressure as a result of making sure students are getting a higher style of learning in schools and are being prepared to take tests.”

“We have a responsibility to teach them why we use the core curriculum and lower their anxiety,” he added.

With regard to high stakes standardized testing, Walcott described a balancing act.

“Our students will do better and better and better but we have to put [the new test] in place and we’re doing that this year,” he said.

While parents worried also about gifted and talented programs and inadequate space for qualified students at schools for accelerated education, Walcott responded that schools are best served by a blend of students.

“I always struggled with this,” he said. “Quite frankly with seat matching and gifted and talented, we need to look at the possibility of a separate system.”

The Upper West Side community has come down hard on the Department of Education for not communicating to the public about possibly demolishing and rebuilding P.S. 191 on West 61st Street, and P.S. 199 on West 70th Street. At a meeting last week with Community Board 7 and the Community Education Council for District 3, the DOE revealed that it only plans to rebuild one of three schools: P.S. 191, P.S. 199 or The School of Cooperative Technical Education on the Upper East Side, and that the plans are only in the preliminary stages.

“Why are we concerned? The incredible lack of notice,” said Mark Diller, the chair of Community Board 7. “We only found out about the project because a P.S. 199 parent who reads Crain’s noticed an ad announcing expressions of interest for three city owned sites. They gave addresses but never said that they are public schools. But the parent was savvy and recognized the school’s address.”

According to Diller, the whole project has been backed by the Education Construction Fund, a city entity that is used to find and utilize unused air rights of public school buildings – or the number of square feet, both horizontally and vertically that are used on the site. They buy up the air rights, and build a 40-story building in its place. The developer has to in turn agree to use the bottom floors for the school. For this specific project, the DOE has only just sent out a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) to potential developers, said Diller.

In an email, David Pena, a representative from the Department of Education, explained that the DOE will continue to engage with the community on the project. The DOE has also maintained that the project, unless it was designated as a special “As of Right” project, would have to go through the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) just like any other city development, before it came to fruition.

“In the past four years, this construction process has developed four brand-new, state-of-the-art school facilities in Manhattan’s Community School District 2 at no cost to taxpayers,” said Pena. “For this project, there will be a two-year planning and engagement process if any of the responses are found to be worthwhile enough to advance to the project level. There is no reason to suggest that either DOE or ECF will not follow the same levels of engagement as in the past for any future ECF projects.”

But despite their proclamations of good intentions, parents at P.S. 199 and 191 are still not convinced, especially parents like Gigi Galen Grobstein, who moved to the district specifically to have her daughter attend P.S. 199.

“I was horrified; I felt like we were blindsided,” said Grobstein.  “How can this benefit any of us? It will benefit the city because they can sell the rights of the building.”

Grobstein, whose daughter is supposed to attend kindergarten at P.S. 199 in the fall, said that if the DOE does knock down their building, she will move out of the neighborhood, because she does not want her daughter to attend a temporary replacement.

Susan Stein, who lives in Lincoln Towers directly behind P.S. 199, and whose granddaughter attends the school, said that she is not surprised to hear that people will move out of the area if DOE goes through with their reconstruction plan. But, she said, the frustration goes beyond the school community.

“There’s already a high rise being built on Amsterdam, and a nearby synagogue’s building will rise 50 stories,” said Stein. “This neighborhood can’t take that many more people. The subway platform is dangerously overcrowded, and it’s narrow too.”

Stein said that she and the Lincoln Towers community plan on continuing to write letters to the DOE, and organizing petitions to keep P.S. 199 away from the wrecking ball.

But Olaiya Deen, a parent at P.S. 191 and member of Community Education Council 3, does not believe that the P.S. 199 community has anything to worry about.

“I think P.S. 191 is more likely to go, because we are a struggling school and P.S. 199 is a historically upper class school,” said Deen.  “I don’t trust the DOE. They will say the want community input on paper, but they go right along and do what they want anyway.”

Deen said that at the meeting with the DOE, they had already speculated Beacon High School as a temporary location for P.S. 191, if it were to be rebuilt. As a high school, however, Beacon would not have a playground or an auditorium for the students.

Regardless of which school the DOE decides to demolish, they have drawn up a plan in the RFEI that outlines what the new buildings would look like. The project is described as featuring “large residential units” and would require developers to build a 105,000 square foot school on the lower levels. At both the P.S. 191 and P.S. 199 sites, the new school should be capable of housing additional students. According to the speculative blueprints, part of the new school would be below ground on the same level as the building’s parking garages.

“Who wants their children to go to school in a basement where there’s no light?” said Susan Stein.

The next step is for the Department of Education to analyze all of the developers’ bids, and issue a Request for Proposals (RFP). Mark Diller said that the process of developing the new site is excpected to begin by the summer.

Borough President questions how the DOE can move forward without a review process

Many local residents may be  surprised, as was the Manhattan Borough President, to discover that the Department of Education (DOE) is planning to destroy some local school buildings.

The DOE has plans to completely demolish three schools, on the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side: the School of Technical Co-Op Education on East 96th Street between First and Second Avenues, P.S. 191 on Amsterdam and 61st Street, and P.S. 199 on West 70th Street and West End Avenue.

The redevelopment plan, created by the DOE, along with the New York School Construction Authority and the New York City Educational Construction Fund, has left the public in the dark. Parents, teachers and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer have been up in arms because the DOE has not provided the public with any information on the redesign of these schools. According to Stringer, the DOE owns these parcels of land, so they are not subject to the uniform land use review process, or a public review of the land use. These questions might remain unanswered.

“These agencies should contact the schools and parents immediately and answer their questions,” said Stringer, who sent a letter to the DOE about the issue. “What is their timeline for prospective development? What is the neighborhood impact? What are their plans? We need to have a discussion.”

Stringer said that he is just as much in the dark about the proposal as the school districts themselves. “And I’m the borough president!” he said.“We have to be mindful that major development would increase traffic, impact the character of the neighborhood and add a new population to area that already lacks school seats,” said Stringer.

The borough president said that these schools in particular are experiencing major overcrowding, and that school overpopulation is something that both he and the DOE have been trying to curb. This, he said, is probably why they are looking to redesign the schools. However, he emphasized, that until there is some transparency, they will not know for sure.

Another mystery that parents may be wondering about is why demolish these schools in the first place? In total, the city has spent almost $21,000,000 improving and refurbishing these schools, including exterior repairs for P.S. 191 and capital improvements for P.S. 199 and the School for Cooperative Technical Education.

“We have already contributed major capital dollars to these schools, so why are we investing all of this money to completely rebuild the schools?” said Stringer.

The DOE has yet to respond to Stringer’s letter requesting more information, as well as answers for the community.

Parents in Lower Manhattan say that overcrowding at Battery Park City School (P.S. 276) is nearing a breaking point, and they have launched an online petition demanding that Mayor Bloomberg and the city’s Department of Education take decisive action and limit the number of incoming kindergarten classes for next year and beyond.

Started late last month, the petition has already garnered more than 600 signatures in the hopes that city officials will limit to three the number of incoming kindergarten classes at BPC and help preserve the school’s noted science, music, art and pre-K programs.

Parents and teachers at the school say that continued overcrowding will jeopardize specialized programs simply due to the fact that the classrooms may have to be used to accommodate increasing numbers of students at the school.

“Next year marks the first year we won’t have enough classrooms to maintain programs if we continue to admit kindergarten students beyond our capacity,” said Matt Schneider, a PTA co-president at BPC, via email.

“Our pre-K program could be eliminated entirely. Our science, art and music rooms could be converted to regular classrooms,” he added. “The quality of education for our kids diminishes.”

The three-year-old BPC School was designed to handle only three classes per grade, but Schneider said the school has been forced by the DOE to handle four classes in 2010 and five classes in both 2011 and 2012.

Posting comments to the school’s online petition, BPC parent Tracie Basch wrote: “Both my children attend this well-regarded school and love going to school. It would be a disservice to our children to alter our well respected science, art and music programs as well as discontinue our pre-K program.”

She added, “For our children to be able to compete in this new global economy, we need to find ways to improve our science and arts programs—not take away these specialized classrooms and revert to them being on a cart. That is not how you get children excited about learning.”

At a recent Community Board 1 meeting, BPC’s Principal Terri Ruyter said that for the coming school year there may not be enough classrooms for students in pre-K through 8th grade. She also said that the time is at hand to develop both short and long-term solutions to the school’s dire overcrowding problem.

Solutions suggested by Schneider and the school’s overcrowding committee include, in addition to limiting classes and class sizes, find and lease more interim classroom space to address shortages now, and build more schools in Lower Manhattan as a long-term solution.

“I think the persistent school overcrowding in Lower Manhattan points to inadequate planning or worse, a lack of planning post 9/11,” said Shino Tanikawa, president of Community Education Council 2.

“We need population projections at the neighborhood level, which neither the DOE nor the School Construction Authority currently undertakes. And, we need better methodology for projecting school-age populations, as has been advocated by Dr. Eric Greenleaf for the past several years,” Tanikawa said.

Greenleaf is an NYU professor, a downtown parent and a member of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s school overcrowding task force.

As of press time, the DOE did not return calls seeking comment on overcrowding at BPC.
However, most recently the DOE has said it is “on track” to meet growing demand for school seats in Lower Manhattan, and will make 700 seats available with the addition of the Peck Slip School opening in 2015.

In the meantime, the overcrowding at BPC seems to be taking a toll on students and performance. A DOE progress report for 2011-2012 gave the school an overall grade of C. The progress reports measure a variety of factors including student’s performance on standardized tests from year to year.

One parent at the school, who requested their name be withheld, said, “What I would love to read is how this beautiful state-of-the-art school based in upscale Battery Park has so very quickly become an uninspired disappointment.”

Asked about the school’s less-than-stellar DOE progress report, Schneider did not fully concur with the report’s findings. “There are a host of problems related to the way schools are measured by the progress report, and I don’t believe that report accurately reflects teaching and learning in our school,” Schneider said.

“That said,” he added, “it’s hard to argue that large class sizes don’t negatively affect learning for some students.”

Moreover, Schneider said that teachers at BPC work hard to overcome large class sizes, but time is limited, and teachers can only find one-on-one time with a certain number of students. “That,” he said, “has to have an impact.”

McCourt emceed all the Blackboard Award ceremonies until his death in 2009, and I have no doubt his words and wisdom still echo in the minds of many the educators—teachers and principals alike—who were there during those ceremonies. They certainly do in me. McCourt’s message was that only a teacher really knows what it’s like to stand in front of classroom full of kids and get them to learn something. He bristled about how the teaching profession was besieged by so-called experts telling teachers what to do, when many of the experts themselves were never teachers. Mostly, though, he expressed a lot of camaraderie, respect and dark-humored sympathy for his fellow educators.

Only Frank could say it like Frank, but we try to carry his message forth in our own way: hoping to express that you, our dedicated and talented local educators, are deeply appreciated by many around you, your colleagues, students and parents. Chances are it was one of them who put in the nomination for you or your school.

Originally founded by the leaders of Manhattan Media, Tom Allon and Richard Burns, the Blackboard Awards are dedicated to honoring excellence in local education wherever it exists—public, private, charter or parochial school. It humbles us to learn about the good work you do, and that, in turn, impassions us to get out the word.

Speaking for all my colleagues at Manhattan Media, I have two final words for you: Thank you.

—Eric Messinger, Editor, New York Family

2012 Blackboard Award Winners

West Side YMCA, Where Teachers and Parents Work Hand-in-Hand

Students Learn to ‘GELL’ at Village School

Nurturing the Whole Child at St. Stephen of Hungary

PS 199 Creates Lifelong Learners

Horace Mann: A Century of Quality Teaching in the Heart of the City

Character Counts at Harlem Village Academies

The Uncommon Way: Improving the Norm for Inner-City Students

Small Step From High School to College

A Blueprint for the Global School of the Future

The World Awaits at Leman School

Emphasis on Whole Child at Battery Park School

Prepping for a Bright Future at Winston Prep

Math and Sciences Under Microscope at High School

All the World’s a Stage at Performing Arts School

Opening the Doors to the Future for Students

Empowering Students and Teachers to Find their Voice

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

Madison-Jackson, former P.S. 12 before being converted to condos, is now up for sale in its entirety, reports The Lo Down. The building was developed into apartments within the last 30 years, but sales of these apartments have been put on hold, as the current building owner has received many offers from buyers looking to purchase the entire building.

Michael Bolla, who worked with the the building owner to develop and market Madison-Jackson, attributes the high demand to pending plans to redevelop the Lower East Side area. The Madison-Jackson itself, for which sales only recently began and are now on hold, has an indoor swimming pool and apartments currently ranging from $500,000 to $1,000,000. The Lo Down reports “Prospective investors could stay the course, turn the building into a very high end development or convert the Madison-Jackson to rentals.”

Other schools around the City have “graduated” to residences in recent years as well. Former P.S. 90, now P.S. 90 Condos, in Harlem now boasts luxury condominiums, which its website says were “over 98 percent sold” as of last fall. Former P.S. 109 in East Harlem is under renovation to become a living space for artists, which should be ready to lease in 2014.

—Alissa Fleck

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

Is there a better target for robbery than a shady van filled with thousands of cellphones? That’s just one complication that arises when considering the city’s perplexing cell phone storage procedure for high school students.

Cell phones are banned in city schools—probably with good reason—but students who attend schools with metal detectors, and want cellphones for the commute, must store these phones in trucks or nearby bodegas for a $1 fee. The bodegas and trucks store the phones for the day like a coat check service. That adds up to about $22,800 a day for all New York City high school students.

The New York Post reports these companies make up to $4.2 million a year, while the accumulated “phone check” fees can be a financial stretch for some students. As Gothamist points out, schools with permanent metal detectors often have the most financially challenged students (88 of 1,200 schools have detectors). For many students, money now going toward cellphone storage may have been put toward basic sustenance.

WNYC reports Mayor Bloomberg told students to “leave [their] cellphones at home,” but we’ve all seen enough Law and Order to know kids should not be wandering city streets without some means of communication.

—Alissa Fleck

Every summer, a string of events hit the city that provide, depending on your perspective, either a fun-filled, leisurely day of shopping, eating and entertainment or a hellish, traffic-jamming, noise-making, government-sanctioned takeover of public places. To many, they are just street fairs. Some love them, many enjoy them, and some scratch their heads with wonder at how such things are allowed so often.

There are different types of street fairs permitted by the city: multi-block and single-block. (Block parties, which require only the closing of one block and don’t involve the sale of any goods or services, are categorized separately but must get similar city approvals.) The multi-block events are the big ones that take place on the avenues and span anywhere from a couple blocks up to, on the Upper West Side, 15 blocks. They’re all run for the benefit of nonprofit organizations, from churches to schools to charity groups, and they all have to go through an approval process that lets the community board and local residents weigh in first.

“The street fairs on side streets tend to be to benefit an organization, and one of the requirements, not surprisingly, is that the organization is actually on the street,” said Mark Diller, chair of Community Board 7. “You usually hear a bit of grumbling about parking and amplified sound because people’s homes are right there.”

Diller said that overall, the board doesn’t hear too many complaints about street fairs; some people don’t like them when they happen right in front of their building, but the city doesn’t usually allow the same side street to be closed more than once a year.

While the approval process on the Upper West Side is relatively calm and uncontroversial, Upper East Side community board members have recently been grappling with resident complaints about the sheer number of street fairs and whether ones specifically held for private institutions, like a street closure for a private school’s graduation celebration, should be approved at all.

At Community Board 8’s March meeting, several board members spoke out against specific street closures for relatively small events, based on how the sponsoring organization behaved in the community and how it ran its event. Some opposed allowing Marymount Manhattan College to have a four-hour block party, but supported churches and other schools hosting similar events. One church event drew support from some who pointed out that the church is committed to social service in the community and vitriol from others who called their event “horrible” and “outrageous.” The board disapproved a block party hosted by Lenox Hill Hospital because it’s a private event and not open to the public, as well as two applications from the Central Park Precinct Community Council for two separate block parties because they normally have their meetings on the West Side.

“Let them have their street fairs in Board 7 where they chose to have their meetings,” said David Rosenstein, a sentiment echoed by many members. The board is considering amending their criteria for street fair and block party applications to address the differences between public and private events, as well as tightening the requirements for community involvement.

On the West Side, City Council Member Gale Brewer said that she hears from some people who are vehemently opposed to fairs taking over their streets, but that she also has a unique viewpoint gained by attending every major fair in her district and seeing firsthand how residents interact with the events. She brings a table, sets it up with pamphlets on city and local issues, and spends the day chatting with people who come by. “It’s a lot of work, but I’ve never missed one,” Brewer said.

While some residents have complained that the street fairs cater to visitors at their expense, turning their streets into tourist attractions, Brewer said that the proof is in the depleted stacks of flyers at the end of the day.

“Tourists are not interested in tenant information; I can see that it’s local people,” she said.

The biggest complaints tend to be over traffic—streets are rerouted and curbside parking becomes even tighter than usual when several avenue blocks are closed—and the fear that street vendors are siphoning business from the brick-and-mortar stores that sit just behind the temporary booths. Recently, however, some of the major street fair production companies—like Mort and Ray Productions, which puts on many of the Upper West Side’s major festivals—have been making efforts to accommodate merchants by offering them prime spaces outside of their own stores at discounted rates and agreeing not to place a vendor selling dresses outside of a women’s clothing boutique or a cupcake truck outside of a bakery.

“We take great care to make sure that no one is selling a similar product to merchants,” said Andrew Albert, executive director of the West Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, which produces the Amsterdam Avenue and Columbus Avenue festivals. “We’ve got a very sophisticated computer program that we paid a lot of money for that ensures that doesn’t happen. We also walk the avenue and speak to the merchants and tell them about the fairs.”

He said he’s heard from some small business owners who were delighted to find that street fair foot traffic morphed into regular customers.

“There’s Gazala’s at 78th Street, a Middle Eastern place,” Albert said. “After people sampled their food at the fair, people came back for months afterward. It’s a great way to promote the business.”

Albert stressed that the Chamber of Commerce picks up the entire tab, on top of a fee it pays to the city, to keep the streets clean and safe during and after their events, which is a requirement of all street fairs.

“Everyone thinks there’s tremendous money in it, but there’s really a lot of expenses too,” Albert said. “We hire the Doe Fund to help clean the street afterward; we actually leave the street cleaner than when we found it.” They also employ extra security to supplement the police officers the city sends out, and charge each vendor a sanitation deposit that they only get back if they leave their space spotless.

“People really do vote with their feet,” Albert said. “It’s a day when the street is free of traffic and people are just free to walk and schmooze with our neighbors.”

Upper West Side’s 2012 Street Fairs

24th Annual Broadway Spring Festival, May 6, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 93rd and 96th streets

On a Wing: Family Festival, May 19, 12 – 3 p.m., Belvedere Castle, Central Park; Mid-park about 79th Street

Ninth Avenue International Food Festival, May 19-20, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., 9th Avenue between West 42nd and 57th streets

Amsterdam Avenue Festival, May 20, 12 – 5 p.m., Amsterdam Avenue between West 77th and 90th streets

25th Annual Livable West Side Festival, May 27, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 82nd and 86th streets

35th Annual Plantathon and Crafts Fair, June 10, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 73rd and 82nd streets

Summer on the Hudson: 10th Annual West Side County Fair, Sept. 9, 1–6 p.m., West 71st Street Basketball Courts

19th Annual Upper Broadway Autumn Festival, Sept. 15, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 110th and 116th streets

Columbus Avenue Festival, Sept. 23, 12 – 5 p.m., Columbus Avenue between West 66th and 86th streets

24th Annual Upper Broadway Harvest Festival, Sept. 30, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 103rd and 106th streets

20th Annual Upper Broadway Fall Festival, Oct. 6, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 110th and 116th streets

21st Annual Broadway Fall Festival, Oct. 14, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Broadway between West 86th Street and 90th streets

In the past year, bullying has become not only a pervasive danger for students to dodge in the hallways but a hot topic of debate in the media, among parents and around dinner tables nationwide. Tragic stories of bullied kids committing suicide show up alongside activists’ best efforts to combat the problem, but still it persists.

Lee Hirsh’s documentary Bully, which follows a handful of kids and families from around the country who have dealt with severe bullying, caused a stir before it was even widely released when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) refused to grant it the PG-13 rating that would allow it to be shown in schools. Dozens of news stories and a petition half a million signatures strong later, the MPAA relented and will change the rating.

It’s clear that people care about bullying, but the question is, who can stop it?

One former local student and his attorney are asserting that schools are responsible for preventing their students from being subjected to bullying. Eric Giray, a former student of the prestigious Calhoun School on the Upper West Side, recently filed a lawsuit against his alma mater and his alleged former bully, classmate Daniel Dworakowski, centered on an incident that occurred eight years ago. He’s seeking damages of $1.5 million for what his attorney says was a blatant failure on the part of the school to protect Giray as a student there.

“The school was notified over time, several times, that bullying was taking place,” said Ric Cherwin, Giray’s attorney. “The former principal kept on saying, ‘We’ll take care of it, we’ll handle it, don’t take matters into your own hands.’ But the school, in fact, didn’t really do anything.”

According to Cherwin, what began as students taunting Giray with names like “elephant ears” and calling him “gay” escalated to one harrowing incident on which their case rests.

“My client was dramatically singled out by the defendant, who violently pushed him with malice into the bleachers, and he suffered a serious injury: broken nose, 18 stitches and pretty serious psychological trauma,” Cherwin said.

Dworakowski’s mother told the Daily News that the scuffle was just an accident, which is how the school may have characterized it at the time as well. Calhoun could not elaborate on what policies they have in place to prevent and address bullying, either then or now. Several other private schools also declined to comment on their bullying policies.

“We are not able to comment on the matters under litigation, but Calhoun has clear standards regarding bullying and a long record of being sensitive and responsive to the physical, emotional and psychological needs of all of our students,” wrote Calhoun’s head of school, Steve Nelson, in an email.

Giray is now in college and his attorney explained that he and his mother didn’t want to file a lawsuit against the school until he was through the college admissions process—the statute of limitations on this type of personal injury does not begin until the victim turns 18. His case has ignited interest in who’s to blame for bullying, even while schools struggle to keep their classrooms safe and civil places.

For public schools, the city’s Department of Education (DOE) enforces a discipline code that prohibits all forms of bullying and has trained some educators in how to teach respectful interaction to their students.

“We launched Respect for All training programs in 2007, and to date, more than 6,000 teachers, counselors, parent coordinators and other staff members have participated in various components of the Respect for All training program,” said DOE spokesperson Marge Feinberg in an email.

“Each school has a Respect For All liaison that helps ensure schools comply with the regulation and work with the DOE central staff on programs that embrace differences in others.”

According to the DOE, the number of bullying incidents has remained fairly steady over the past 10 years, but experts say many students won’t always report bullying to authority figures and sometimes teachers don’t know the best ways to handle the problem.

“Teachers and school administrations need to be prepared to notice both the child who bullies and the child who is being bullied,” said Nancy Silberkleit, a former educator who has launched her own anti-bullying campaigns. “I have seen, too many times, teachers pushing children away for ‘tattletelling’ instead of encouraging them to come forward and dealing with their concerns.”

Upper West Side Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell has been working for years to pass legislation that would help teachers become better equipped to handle bullying. Last year, after many years of pushing the bill, the Dignity for All Students Act passed the state Legislature and was signed into law. It will take effect July 1.

“It requires training of professionals; there needs to be somebody onsite who understands that bullying is not just kids being kids,” O’Donnell said. The law also requires localities to report bullying to the state Department of Education so effective strategies can be compared and tracked.

O’Donnell, who said he has faced plenty of bullying himself, finds it especially important to protect kids in an age when bullying is ever-present—kids don’t escape harassment when they leave the school building anymore and can be driven to despair by a particularly pointed Facebook post.

“I think the changes in the culture, the changes in the exposure to information and the ability to immediately communicate without thinking, which is what 13- and 14-year-olds do, creates this explosive environment,” O’Donnell said. Since the Dignity Act passed, he has also authored an amendment that addresses cyberbullying.

He also said that kids are exposed to sex, and are thus defining their own sexual and gender identities, at earlier ages, making young children who identify as gay or somehow different potential targets.

“This was the first time in New York State history that gender identity and expression were written into state laws,” O’Donnell said. “I know all too well that those children who violate gender stereotypes are the first targets.”

While the law will expand the requirements for how teachers and administrators address bullying, some say that it will be difficult to implement if parents and communities don’t also get involved.

“Teachers are overwhelmed with outside requirements to get students through tests and standards,” said Silberkleit. “There is very little time and energy left to deal with the social aspects of the students’ lives. Bullying occurs primarily before and after school.”

Kat Eden, communications director for Education.com, which works on anti-bullying issues, said that according to the results of a nationwide survey they conducted of 1,000 principals, many schools don’t have the resources they’d like to have to combat bullying.

“Principals surveyed reported a lack of resources to prevent and manage bullying—only 38 percent of principals report that they have sufficient resources to effectively implement bullying programs, curriculum and policies in their schools,” Eden said.

O’Donnell acknowledged that that is a particular challenge for many cash-strapped school districts, but insists that changing behavior is mostly a matter of awareness and education for current educators.

“We need to get rid of the idea within school environments that kids will be kids with regard to bullying,” O’Donnell said. “That’s just not OK.”

Elected officials and advocates urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Education (DOE) to start investigating the levels of toxic PCBs in hundreds of potentially affected city schools.

The results of a pilot study conducted this year with the federal agency and the city DOE found airborne PCBs that exceeded recommended levels at P.S. 199 on the Upper West Side, P.S. 178 in the Bronx and Brooklyn’s P.S. 309.

From 1950 to 1978, before a Congressional ban went into effect, caulk and lighting ballasts—a fixture that controls electrical flow—used to construct buildings and schools contained PCBs, which studies suggest can cause learning disabilities in children, cancer, and cardiovascular and immune system disease.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, an Upper West Side Democrat, wants Judith Enck, regional administrator for the EPA, to immediately expand its oversight of PCB management in the city’s public schools.

“The problem is much more serious than we originally believed,” Nadler said at a rally at City Hall Oct. 7.

The EPA, in a statement, said the elevated PCB levels found in those schools “do not pose an immediate health risk in the short term.”

“Any needed repairs or renovations to address PCBs problems are conducted in ways that protect everyone who works in NYC school buildings,” siad Bonnie Bellow, an EPA spokesperson, in a statement.

The EPA expressed confidence in the study and said it has been communicating with federal and state officials about the feasibility of funding a broader approach.

The city estimates the price tag to be $1 billion. The EPA wouldn’t foot the entire bill. Already, the city has spent $3 million on remediation efforts. But Nadler said the city would “find the funds if we have to.”

West Side Assembly members Linda Rosenthal and Daniel O’Donnell signed a letter with 15 of their colleagues to Enck asking the federal agency to inspect roughly 700 schools that may have PCB-laden caulk and light fixtures. Rosenthal plans to reintroduce her 2008 legislation that would require citywide testing of schools.

“Are we content to let New York City schoolchildren in untested school buildings serve as the proverbial canaries for future generations?” she asked.

Miranda Massie, litigation and training director with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, expressed concern that the agency’s study downplays the risks of PCBs, she wrote in a letter to the EPA.

“It is important to note that independent experts regard the EPA guidances as inadequately health-protective, in part because they are based exclusively on cancer risks” and overlook “the many other substantial, negative health impacts of PCBs,” she wrote in a letter to the EPA.

The EPA, in its statement, said, “We will continue to work closely with New York City on the pilot program, which we believe is providing valuable information about the extent of the PCB problem and measures we can take to address it.”

That continuation will begin this weekend with an additional round of testing at P.S. 199.