Grant to Help Curb Violence in Peekskill Schools

Peekskill schools have received a state grant of $250,000 annually for three years to improve safety and security in the district’s five schools, the Board of Education learned this week.

The four-part School Violence Prevention Program, which will be implemented through partnerships with agencies dedicated to improving the lives of young people at risk, was described to the board during its meeting Tuesday, June 7.

• Improve the safety and security of the district’s 3,000 students and 400 staffers  through a culture-transforming Sanctuary Model that creates nonviolent,  trauma-sensitive and democratic school cultures. The Andrus Children’s Center will provide training.
• Train 25 students each at Peekskill Middle High School and Peekskill High School each year in peer mediation and train 200 students in an online curriculum  to counter cyber bullying. The Westchester Mediation Center of CLUSTER Inc. will train the students.
• Improve the academic and behavioral performance of 50 to 75 high school girls,  identified by themselves or staff members as in need of academic, emotional and social support, through an Extended Day program and train  100 girls in Internet safety. CAMP Inc. (Comprehensive Action Model for Peekskill), a Peekskill agency founded by National Basketball Association star Elton Brand, will provide the Extended Day program to serve girls who, in addition to academic challenges, are caught up in a culture of fighting. Components will include arts, dance, exercise and etiquette.
• Improve the disciplinary referral rate for younger children by extending mental health screening and counseling to serve second- and third-graders. Westchester Jewish Community Services currently provides these services to  pre-kindergartners, kindergartners and first-graders, who have a disciplinary referral rate of less than 3 percent. WJCS will extend these  services to second- and third-graders, who have a referral rate of 27 percent.

Information about the grant and the programs it will fund was presented to the board by Maxine O’Connor, director of pupil personnel, and Anita Prentice, teaching assistant and communication specialist.

The quest for the grant was driven by a January 2010 districtwide survey in which faculty and students expressed concerns about school safety. Among high school teachers, 50 percent said current discipline programs were not effective in curbing negative student behavior and 25 percent said they did not feel safe at school. Among high school student respondents, 40 percent said they did not feel safe in or out of school, and 60 percent said the atmosphere in the high school was not orderly. Cyber bullying and Internet safety were other concerns.

The Board of Education adopted a revised code of conduct in January 2011.