Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Recent trends of student violence have raised concerns among the teachers and staff of Buffalo Public Schools.
Marc Bruno, a social studies teacher and also the Buffalo Teachers Federation delegate chairperson for Riverside Academy, says that there has always been a culture of sweeping these events under the rug and the schools need to take more accountability.
"If you look at their statements, it's the same thing, you know, 'We take this seriously. We're following the BPS code of conduct.'"
Recent student violence has hospitalized two teachers from Riverside Academy and another substitute administrator at Southside Elementary. Bruno adds that a new facility is greatly needed to provide all students with proper care to prevent incidents like these from happening.
"So if we could create either one or two schools, and I don't want to call it alternative anymore, I want to call it, you know, for example, the Buffalo Public Schools, school of student support or something like that. So it's a positive kind of place. And make it a beautiful building, don't make it some old and run down building. Which is usually what the alternative school is placed in and that no one wants to go to make the building visually appealing. It creates a positive energy as soon as you step foot into the school."
Bruno adds that a fix could be a full time police presence like the school used to have.
"You know, I firmly believe, because we used to have one that we need a full time police officer in schools in crisis, in schools like mine. And again, the school is a good school. The school's got great kids. We have students from all over the world here. From Burma, Thailand, Yemen, I could go on and on. Many of them have been in refugee camps, wars, genocide. The last thing they want to do is come to school and see people beating the heck out of each other."
Bruno has filed a grievance to incite a change which has taken over a calendar year to be addressed by the school.
"I filed that grievance here, 1,148 days ago, which talked about weapons coming in, the building, doors not working, violent students being transferred here. What kind of dysfunctional system takes 19 months to address serious safety issues? It should have been addressed in 19 minutes, not 19 months. We're 1000 days plus in, and I have to go to an arbitrator to get them to write a report that says, 'yes, there's safety issues at Riverside, and they've been neglected for far too long.'"
