FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM OCTOBER 26, 2017 • KIDS & EDUCATION • THE QUEENS COURIER 33
Photo by Suzanne Monteverdi/QNS
kids & education
Farina focuses on anti-bullying programs at Little Neck meeting
BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI
smonteverdi@starnetwork.com
@smont76
Th e head of the city’s Department of
Education visited a Little Neck school
on Tuesday, Oct. 17, for an open forum
focused on northeast Queens students
and parents.
Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña
fielded questions on a number of topics
at the event. After selecting from inquiries
submitted by parents on notecards
and via email, District 26’s Community
Education Council members presented
them to the chancellor in M.S. 67’s
auditorium.
“It’s always a pleasure to be in
District 26,” Fariña began. “I know that
M.S. 67 is a school that’s always in the
front, doing innovative things.”
The chancellor was asked what the
city agency was doing to educate students
about bullying, what training
teachers were given to identify it, and
what the agency’s protocol for reporting
suicide threats is.
Fariña said she and her team have
been working to defi ne the diff erent
ways bullying may manifest itself at different
ages in an eff ort to help teachers
and administrators more eff ectively
identify and report it.
The chancellor also said the city
agency is actively looking into making
apps available to students that would
define the different forms of bullying
and allow them to report it to authorities.
When it comes to reporting incidents,
the chancellor continued, the
issue is made complicated by a misalignment
between city and state policy
about what needs to be reported.
Fariña said she and state Education
Commissioner MaryEllen Elia are currently
in talks to better coordinate the
two agencies’ reporting systems.
She also said the city agency is actively
looking into which schools may
need more counselors to address certain
issues.
“I think this is something we’ve done
a lot of work on — obviously we can do
a lot more work,” she said.
The educator was also asked when
the ‘3-K For All’ preschool program
— which was recently announced to
be expanding to southwest Queens
in the next school calendar year —
would be implemented in District 26
schools. The program, modeled after
the Universal Pre-K For All initiative,
offers free, full-day nursery-level education
at public schools and community
based organizations partnering with
the city’s Department of Education.
Fariña told District 26 parents to
“stay tuned.”
The educator also commented on the
Chancellor’s Regulations — a set of
guidelines broaching a series of topics,
including hiring policies, school budgeting
and student-related issues —
which she called “outdated.”
“One of the things I’ve certainly
become much more aware of in the
last month has been that a lot of our
Chancellor’s Regs, in particular, are
very outdated,” she said.
In result, Fariña said she has put
together a committee to examine, clarify
or rework certain regulations that
require an update.
Fariña addresses the crowd in Little Neck on Oct. 17.