New York Daily News
Bus-crush kid suspension probed

School investigators are probing whether a Brooklyn principal gave an illegal in-home suspension to an 8-year-old boy - setting off a chain reaction that led to the death of little Amber Sadiq.

Officials are also investigating whether Principal Deborah Barrett failed to report discipline matters to make Public School 161 in Crown Heights seem safer than it was, said Department of Education spokesman David Cantor.

The investigation comes after Albert James, the father of the first-grade boy, told the Daily News his son was repeatedly suspended and sent home from school.

Principal under fire

New York Daily News

Bus-crush kid suspension probed

School investigators are probing whether a Brooklyn principal gave an illegal in-home suspension to an 8-year-old boy – setting off a chain reaction that led to the death of little Amber Sadiq.

Officials are also investigating whether Principal Deborah Barrett failed to report discipline matters to make Public School 161 in Crown Heights seem safer than it was, said Department of Education spokesman David Cantor.

The investigation comes after Albert James, the father of the first-grade boy, told the Daily News his son was repeatedly suspended and sent home from school.

In-home suspensions are banned by both federal and state law, said Michele Cahill, a top policy official for Chancellor Joel Klein. Suspensions are supposed to be served in a classroom and run by a certified teacher.

“We are required to give children and adolescents access to education – and to a quality education – whether or not they’re behaving,” she said. “It is not permitted under any circumstances for a principal or anyone else to send a child home.”

Instead of serving his suspension in school, the boy, whose name is being withheld by The News, was free to climb into a bus and release the emergency brake – a prank that killed Amber.

Barrett did not return calls seeking comment. Other school officials either declined to comment or did not return calls.

But the school – once considered among the best in the city – has recently confronted safety issues so alarming that parents staged a rally in February to air their concerns.

At the time, parents charged that incidents were mishandled and educrats responded with administrative training and increased oversight, Cantor said.

The second part of the probe stems from questions about the school’s reporting of earlier mischief by James’ son, including a number of times when the boy ran away from school during class hours, Cantor said.

But allegations of bungled school discipline are not limited to the boy at the center of the high-profile tragedy. In interviews with The News, other PS 161 parents detailed what they considered violations of school rules.

In one incident, parent Suzane Thomas said she was told to keep her fourth-grade son home for a day last year when he misbehaved at school. “I didn’t get a letter or anything from the school,” Thomas said. “I was just told by [the assistant principal] that he was suspended for one day and I was told to take him home.”

Several parents used the phrase “out of control” to describe the school, mentioning alleged incidents such as a child who set a desk on fire, one who brought a knife to school and a day when an auditorium full of kids was left unsupervised.

7 Comments

  • not from around here.....

    I always thought when one was suspended
    FROM SCHOOL you stayed at home they did not want you on school grounds. There is alot of finger pointing going on here. The parents complain the school is out of control, but it sounds like the students, their kids are the ones out of control. Not enough parenting if you ask me. They expect the school to teach,disipline and take care of their kids needs. Where is the parental responsibility here ?? The school I am sure has it’s part also, public school is a mess and it will never be fixed until parents start teaching these kids right from wrong. It starts in the home….

  • jaki

    Do the yeshivos have to obey the law about keeping the students supervised in school and being prohibited from sending them home?

  • Concerned Parent

    "In-home suspensions are banned by both federal and state law, said Michele Cahill, a top policy official for Chancellor Joel Klein. Suspensions are supposed to be served in a classroom and run by a certified teacher."

    Our schools, especially Oholei Torah, should take note of this law. They frequently send kids home too easily instead of properly dealing with the matter at hand. It’s the ‘easy way out’.

  • Itzik_s

    Just pointing fingers after a tragedy – normal human reaction to want to blame someone but ruining the principal’s career will not bring the girl back.

  • BC

    Concerned Parent, i understand what your trying to say but maybe YOU are just looking for the easy way out.

    It’s the parents who in the end have to really bring up their children, as the school is limited in what they can do. The parents should discipline their children enough to know that whatever they did was wrong and not to do it again.

  • Concerned Parent

    BC, I am not saying that a child should not be disciplined. However, sending a child home is not discipline. Keeping them in yeshiva and giving them an assignment in derech eretz or middos (whatever it is) will have more of a disciplinary effect. The school is only limited according to their own self-imposed limitations. Futhermore, yeshivas are not public schools and they should care and help our students, whether problematic or not, to grow with proper middos and hanhagah. Afterall, the rebbe and the parent are supposed to be a shituf, are they not? Unfortunately, many of our rebbeim have lost site of this and are only there to collect a paycheck! It’s very sad.

  • Education issues need calm participants

    There is never a reason to send a child home in middle of the day.
    I don’t think it’s fair or productive to impune the motives of Rabbeim. Their motives are completely irrelevant to establishing procedures and standards to the neighborhood yeshivas.
    Yeshivas may want to consider have a detention center – a holding area – so they can remove disruptive tzaddikim from classroom and still not have them roam the streets and\or get into worse trouble.