Get police out of schools
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Thoughts on our new majority leader
COURIER LIFE, FEBRUARY 5-11, 2021 27
OP-ED
BY MATTHEW LIPSCHIK
Now that Senator Schumer
is the majority leader, I hope
he becomes a true leader in
the fight to save the planet
from climate catastrophe.
We need someone to champion
a national ban on fracking.
We need to prohibit increased
investment in fossil
fuel and nuclear investment.
And we need policies to hasten
the transition to sustainable
energy.
When the Senate Democrats’
Climate Committee
report was released last August,
Senator Schumer said,
“The climate crisis is not
some distant threat. It is
here now, and it will be catastrophic
if we don’t strike
back immediately.”
As a member of Food
& Water Watch, Senator
Schumer, I urge you to live
up to your words. Lead the
war against climate catastrophe.
Strike back immediately.
BY DENNIS MIDDLEBROOKS
As the owner of a three family
home in Bensonhurst, I just
received my notice of Property
Tax Value for 2021. My estimated
quarterly property tax
will increase from $2,749 in the
last quarter of 2020 to $2,890
this year, an increase of $141
per quarter, or $564 for the entire
year. The city claims the
value of my property has increased
during this pandemic,
raising my assessment. I doubt
that this is the case, as newspaper
articles indicate real estate
values have been adversely impacted
by the pandemic. Moreover,
this increase comes at
a time when many small homeowners
are facing delinquencies
in rent from tenants
who know that they cannot be
evicted thanks to the city ruling
on evictions during the pandemic,
or the homeowners may
be themselves out of work.
I suspect that Mayor de Blasio’s
property taxes on his two
Park Slope properties will not
be increasing. He only pays a
little over $7,000 per year combined
on those as it is, while I
will be paying $11,562. I will
be checking to see whether the
property taxes will be increasing
in Gentrifi ed Brooklyn
and other upscale areas of the
city. If past is prologue, property
taxes will be declining
or remaining stable in these
areas. Yet another example of
the class warfare being waged
against the middle class in
NYC.
On NYC property taxes
BY ALEX VALERA
As a junior at a community
school in Brooklyn, I know all
too well the backwards budget
decisions that politicians
make for our public schools.
And never has it been clearer
than during this pandemic
that the well-being of students
like me is totally lost
in the shuffl e of politicians’
decision-making. Somehow,
our city seems to always have
enough money to pay police to
criminalize Black and Brown
students, but comes up short
for guidance counselors, programming,
and classroom
supplies that actually help us
thrive. Now that COVID-19
has tightened the DOE budget
even more than usual, we
need politicians to fi nally listen
to us youth. It’s time to get
police out of schools, and fund
our futures instead.
In my 10 years as a public
school student, I have been
lucky to learn from and lean
on some amazing teachers,
counselors, and the other students
I organize with across
New York City. Right now,
I’m a student at a community
school, which provides holistic
support not only to us students,
but to our families, too.
But while I love my school,
the constant presence of NYPD
School Safety Agents threatens
the feelings of safety and
security I otherwise feel at
school. From mental health
crises to fi ghts between students,
SSAs are always sent to
respond — but instead of deescalating
the situation, they
often make it worse.
I know I’m far from alone
in feeling this way. From
Brooklyn to the Bronx, SSAs
patrol school hallways at all
times. And while there always
seems to be an SSA in sight,
it’s nearly impossible to get an
appointment with a guidance
counselor or nurse. That’s because
the average school in
New York City has just 1 guidance
counselor for every 333
students, and an average of 25
public school buildings every
single day don’t have a school
nurse in the building at all. In
contrast, at over 5,090 SSAs,
the NYPD’s school safety division
is larger than most American
cities’ entire police divisions.
As a member of the Urban
Youth Collaborative, I’ve
spent the past several years
learning how over-policing is
the result of budget decisions
by the city government. For
years now, the SSA budget
has continued growing, while
teachers literally use money
from their own pockets to
buy classroom supplies. You’d
think that ten months into remote
learning, and facing a
huge economic crisis, city offi
cials would fi nally realize
that spending so many precious
dollars on policing is a
waste of precious funds.
Unfortunately, that’s not
the case. The most recent New
York City proposed budget
sets aside over $445 million
to fund policing in schools —
a huge number any year, and
even more so this year. To put
it into perspective: the same
budget proposal puts aside
about $100 million for school
nurses, $180 million for social
workers in schools, and
$59 million for community
schools like mine. You don’t
need to be a math genius to do
the analysis here: New York
City is spending less money
on supportive programming
to help students than on police
to criminalize us. Meanwhile,
as NYC middle and
high schoolers continue to
struggle with 100% remote
learning, SSAs are getting
paid to patrol our empty
school buildings.
I want to live in a city that
cares more about my learning
than punishing me. That’s
why my peers and I have
asked all candidates running
for City Council this year to
sign on to our Vision for Police
Free Schools — and why
I’m fi lled with hope to see 73
of them signed on. Our elected
offi cials have the power to allocate
the limited DOE budget
to restorative justice
programs, counselors, and
teachers, not SSAs. It’s time
to elect a new generation of
leadership that will get cops
out of schools, once and for
all. And I can guarantee that
as soon as my peers and I are
eligible to go to the ballot box,
those are the leaders we’ll be
casting our votes for.
It’s time to elect a new generation
of leadership that will
get cops out of schools, once
and for all. And I can guarantee
that as soon as my peers and
I are eligible to go to the ballot
box, those are the leaders we’ll
be casting our votes for.
Alex Valera is a high school
junior at a community school
in Brooklyn and a youth leader
with the Urban Youth Collaborative
and Make the Road
New York.