Brizard vows to make all students safe
By: Meghan Backus
Updated: February 7, 2008
Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard wants to make every school in the
“Safety is not a sentry’s job, it's everybody's job,” he said. “It's not a principal’s job, it's a teacher's job."
Brizard says it takes an entire community to ensure each and every student feels safe at school, so starting in early March, a team of sentry and police officers, community members and teachers will go into city schools and conduct a safety audit.
“What that audit looks at is everything from teaching and learning and what happens in the classroom to what happens in the bathroom to graffiti on the walls to the number of suspensions, to the entry procedures, to the exit procedures.”
Last year, Roberto Clemente School Number 8 was the only upstate elementary school to be put on the state's persistently dangerous schools list. During the previous two academic years, the school reported 317 incidents of violence.
Brizard says his first plan of action is to find out where those incidents are taking place.
"For example, if you're pulling data from one particular school, you see the majority of fights are in the cafeteria, you begin to find out why,” he said.
And when he finds out why, he vows to make changes to keep students from getting into trouble.
“We can bring in games like checkers or television, cable television,” Brizard said. “You make that time much more productive in other words."
Brizard will have some help from the newly appointed director of security. He says James Sheppard, a Rochester Police Department veteran, will help to train and professionalize sentries and weed out the officers who aren't doing the job well.
Brizard also plans to work with captains of the police department and community leaders in ensuring kids are safe before they even get to school.
“(It’s about) making sure our kids our safe from the moment they walk out the door into our school door."
