Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza softened his tone and apologized Wednesday to parents upset about his response to violent incidents at a Queens middle school. He also offered to meet with families affected, but said he would resist any effort to make the meeting a “public spectacle.”
His comments came two weeks after he attended a contentious town hall with parents and more than two months after the first incident made news.
“I apologize because as a parent myself I can only imagine the pain that parents are feeling when their children have been hurt,” he said. “I would be happy to meet with those parents who want to express that concern.”
The apology is the latest in a bitter back-and-forth between Carranza and a group of critics who take issue with the chancellor’s views and rhetoric, particularly on school integration. A few policy proposals have galvanized opponents: most prominently, the changes to admissions to the specialized high schools and support for local school districts to tinker with admissions rules to better integrate schools. Some parents say they’re also concerned about changes in school discipline, including a move away from suspensions.
The most recent clash in the broader fight between Carranza and detractors involved alleged bullying and assault at M.S. 158 Marie Curie Middle School in Bayside, Queens. One father claimed his daughter was harassed by a boy for months and then groped in class. A mother said her daughter was sexually harassed by a boy and bullied by a girl, also over the course of months. She noted that the alleged bully instigated a lunchroom brawl that was caught on video.
That mother, Katty Sterling, said the school failed to intervene as harassment of her daughter escalated. She explained her daughter had complained about bullying since a girl attacked her in the locker room in April. When a fight with the same girl broke out in the lunchroom this month, she said, there were three adults present.
“No one was able to help my daughter,” she said. Now, Sterling said, her daughter has been home for three weeks, waiting for home instruction (the Department of Education says the request for home instruction was made on January 24th and can take two weeks to fulfill).
“This happened to my daughter. How many others?” she asked. “I want the whole system to change.”
Carranza defended the DOE’s reponse: he said he dispatched top officials, social workers, and crisis counselors to the school, in addition to getting daily updates on the situation.
But a robust response didn’t did not come quickly enough for many attending a January 16th town hall, where parents of the alleged victims raised their concerns, and some of Carranza’s regular detractors joined in. The town hall was shut down abruptly and he left. But who exactly ended the meeting is in dispute: the schools chancellor said the head of the local Community Education Council made the call; she said he wanted to pull the plug.
Carranza, at a press conference with Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday, said vans full of “outside agitators” caused the town hall to spin out of control. He said some of those agitators are racist.
“Just look at the abject racist things that are said about me: ‘go back where I come from,’ ‘taco eating Carranza,’ ‘fire Carranza ay ay ay ay ay,’” he said. “Absolutely, they’re racist—some of them are.”
That language, Carranza insisted, only makes him more motivated to do his job. “Bring it on. Because I’m fighting for kids,” he said. “I’m an educator, I’ve been a teacher, I’ve been a principal, I’ve been a superintendent. And every city I have ever I have ever worked in and lived, there’s a Mexican restaurant. I have a Mariachi traje and a guitar. I will not starve. So bring it on.”
The argument over his responsiveness spilled out between lawmakers on social media on Tuesday night and into the next morning. Brooklyn City Council Member Brad Lander Tweeted his support of Carranza, then Representative Grace Meng, who represents Queens, disagreed—and then the chancellor and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson joined in.
At the Tuesday press conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he strongly supported the chancellor and he believes “the vast majority” of parents do, too.
However, parents who follow Carranza to events to air their concerns insisted they’re not racist. Instead, they claimed, he was the one pitting people against each other. Several parents who attended the Panel for Educational Policy meeting on Wednesday accused Carranza of being anti-Asian.
“Asian parents here are fighting for their kids, but they’re fighting for all kids,” said parent Karlin Chan. Chan said he was galvanized by plans to scrap the SHSAT, the specialized high school entrance exam, but has become concerned about school safety.
“I saw discipline cases are down,” he said. “They’re down because they’re not disciplining.”
The Department of Education has made some changes to disciplinary policy over the past year. A new agreement with the NYPD calls for fewer arrests and suspensions and more emphasis on conflict resolution. Education officials point to the reduced suspensions as signs that the new policies are working. But the principals’ union recently sent a letter to the chancellor saying many administrators feel their schools have become less safe.
