State faults O’side school crime reports

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office audits school districts in order to gauge compliance with the Safe Schools Against Violence in Education Act, and to determine if they are accurately reporting statistics on crime and other incidents to the State Education Department. According to a report issued Jan. 13, Castleton Academy High School of Oceanside neglected to note seven incidents. The audit covered July 2011 through June 2014.

According to Superintendent Phyllis Harrington, after the school shooting in Columbine, Colo., schools were required to submit data to New York state’s Violent and Disruptive Incident Report. While the state offers guidelines on student behavior, however, Harrington explained, they are open to interpretation. Thus, while the report is correct, she added, she sees it as a problem of calibration, of matching a teacher’s interpretation of an incident with the state guidelines.

“Because the [education] department relies on this information to identify persistently dangerous schools and to help them improve school safety,” DiNapoli noted, “inaccurate data compromises the effectiveness of these efforts.”

His audit concluded that the district failed to report minor altercations; incidents of intimidation, harassment, threatening or bullying; as well as one incident of burglary and one of criminal mischief among the 55 students at Castleton.

The district is required to determine which schools are “persistently dangerous” and notify local educational agencies. Those agencies, in turn, must notify parents that they have the option of sending their child to another school in the district, if one has an opening. The Education Department requires persistently dangerous schools to take steps to reduce the occurrence of violent incidents and improve school safety.

Harrington maintained that the incidents at Castleton were minor ones. She said that the district wants to be sure the schools are safe “not only for the students, but also for the adults that work [in the school] and frequent our buildings.”

To that end, since the audit, the District has installed additional cameras and changed access points into and through the schools.

The State Education Department has added cyberbullying to the Violent and Disruptive Report.