We were finally able to get a student removal policy at my high school in place, but we wouldn’t have been able to do it without the UFT’s help.
In January of 2017, I worked with my chapter committee to survey our members about where our committee should focus. School safety was the No. 1 issue. We decided the best way to move our school forward safety-wise was to implement a policy regarding the process of removing students from the classroom. I’ve been working at the school for 24 years, and we didn’t have a student removal policy even though it’s part of the Chancellor’s Regulations.
The whole idea of a student removal policy is to protect the sanctity of what goes on in the classroom so individual students don’t disrupt what other students are in school to do. Without the ability to mitigate small behavior issues, they can escalate to major disruptions of teaching and learning or fights between students.
We started pushing for the policy at the school level in consultation committee meetings with the principal, in safety committee meetings and in meetings of our School Leadership Team. We even came up with a draft plan. But at the school level, we were locked in a stalemate because having a student removal protocol takes authority away from the principal and gives it to teachers, so our principal wasn’t responding to our concerns.
In the fall of 2017, I turned to my UFT district representative, who got in touch with the union’s health and safety team. The union was able to push the superintendent’s office to mediate the situation.
This May, our new policy came out. If a teacher wants to remove a student, the teacher informs the student that she is going to seek a removal and the student is given a chance to respond. The teacher fills out a student removal form and confers with the administration to determine the number of days for the removal. We have a SAVE location in the dean’s office where students are sent and teachers provide work for students to do.
Teachers and other members can rely on the policy as a tool to mitigate any issues that prevent learning in the classroom. We have a ladder of referral in place so that student removal isn’t the first step. We want it to be fair; it’s just as much about protecting students’ rights so they can come back to class ready to be part of the culture of the classroom.
As a chapter leader, I needed the support of the members who elected me at the school level and also the support of the union to get things moving on this critical issue. We can’t do anything on our own; we’re all in it together.
Jonathan Nuwesra is a teacher and the chapter leader at Bayside HS in Queens.
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)