NYC NOW - May 23, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

A new investigation finds New York City public schools are still relying on the police to respond to students having a mental health crisis, despite a nearly decades-old policy mandating otherwise. WNYC’s Michael Hill talked with Jacqueline De Jesus, the mother of a public school student and Abigail Kramer, reporter with the news site, The City.

Good evening and welcome to NYC Now. I'm Jene Pierre for WNYC. My son was surrounded in the dark room by himself with four cops. At that time, my son was only six. A new investigation finds New York City Public Schools are still relying on the police to respond to students having a mental health crisis, despite a nearly decades-old policy mandating otherwise. Abigail Kramer is a reporter with the

news site The City, which co-published the story with ProPublica. Jacqueline DeHasus is the mother of a public school student. The two talked with WNYC's Michael Hill. That conversation after the break. Abigail, you report that in 2014 a settlement changed regulations about how schools may rely on NYPD to deal with students in crisis. What led to that settlement and what changed as a result of it? So in 2013, there was a group of parents who sued the city and the Department of Education to say that their kids' schools had called 911 to have police officers and emergency medical services respond to kids who were in emotional distress. What the parents were saying is that these kids were held by police and then they were forcibly placed in ambulances and taken to hospital emergency rooms for psychiatric evaluations when they were not, in fact, experiencing medical. These were kids who were typically having behavioral episodes. A lot of the kids, the behaviors that led to these incidents were a direct result of disabilities. And in many cases, the schools weren't providing the services that they were supposed to provide because of those kids' disabilities. So the kids were having behavioral episodes. Many of these kids were really young. They were six, seven years old. They were terrified. They thought they were being arrested. And they were sent to emergency rooms that really couldn't help. them. They sat there for hours. They got interviewed and evaluated, and they got sent home.

So the parents sued the Department of Education, the city and the DOE, settled with the parents, and they created rules that really explicitly limit the circumstances under which schools are supposed to make these calls. Schools are supposed to do all kinds of things to manage a behavioral crisis or a child in emotional distress without involving police, without sending them to emergency rooms. And what we've found is that the numbers of calls that the schools make hasn't gone down since the settlement, right? Schools are calling the same number of times on average per year as they were before the lawsuit. So what that says to us is that the city and the Department of Education is not doing the oversight that they need to do to make sure that schools are actually

following the rules that they set up. What are the schools saying about this? I talked to a number of teachers. I talk to social workers. I talk to people who work with and train those social workers. And what they are saying is that they do not have the resources that they need. They don't have the support that they need to respond to children who are in emotional distress or children who have significant behavioral challenges. There are mechanisms. There are services that kids are entitled to when they have disabilities that result in behavioral challenges. But schools just don't have what they need to provide the support. You report that black and Latino children are handcuffed at a higher rate in schools. Would you explain why that is? Absolutely. So black students in particular

are really disproportionately impacted by this whole issue. Black students make up about a quarter of the student body in New York City, and yet the account for nearly half of incidents in which schools call police and EMS to respond to children in emotional distress and nearly six. And nearly 60% of students who are handcuffed. I think it's hard to say why that is, but it's very hard to imagine that there's not a significant amount of bias that's happening, right? Like, we know that black adults with mental health challenges are much more likely to encounter police or are much more likely to end up in the criminal justice system than other people with mental health issues. Jacqueline, when your son Ethan was in second grade, he was in a public school,

now he's in a charter school. Before his autism diagnosis, you went to a school to ask for help with some of his behavioral issues. You wanted him evaluate. How did the school respond? So Ethan always had a high IQ. So they always would say, oh, it's behavioral. His education was fine. He doesn't need any support. I always kept turned away because he would always excel in his schoolwork. Regardless of what was going on whenever they give him a work, he was able to do it.

Whenever they gave him a quiz, a test, he was able to pass it. So because of that, there was nothing they could do. They just felt whenever it was in a situation they couldn't handle, we'll just call EMS and let them deal with it. Jacqueline, would you tell us about the incident with your son, Ethan, that happened in 2019? Sure. So, Ethan was having a hard day at school. He doesn't like change. When something is not part of his routine, it gives him a mouth down.

So apparently that day, something had happened that he, it just ticked them off. I get a phone call from the school telling me, EMS is here to pick up your son. No one never notified me to tell me he wasn't having a hard day. no one never notified me to even tell me like what was going on. All I knew was EMS was there. My son was going to the hospital. I worked in Manhattan at that time 40 minutes, 45 minutes away from his school. So I called Crystal Baker Burr, part of the Bronx Defenders. And she was able to get to the school before me. When she got to the school, my son was surrounded in the dark room by himself with four cops. At that time, my son was only six, tiny. He was.

was always small for his age. He was just crying. They interrogating him, asking him all these questions. Oh, when you get older, we could invest you for things like this. No adult, no staff, no one around. EMS came. They took him to the hospital, the psychiatrist, everyone evaluated him. Nothing was done. The next day, he was clear to go back to school. And then a couple of days later, the same situation. How would you have wanted the school to handle that situation, Jacqueline? I felt the minute of the signs they felt that he was having a meltdown. or he wasn't responded, someone should have called the school counselor to get help from someone, not automatically call EMS or contact me a lot of times when my son, I can talk to him.

He's having a rough day. He's a mama's boy completely. And I'll talk him through like, hey, he thing was wrong, what's going on, do you need a minute? Do you need me to pick you up? And it works, but they weren't doing that. This practice of calling the police on students who are emotionally distressed, How can that impact a child's future, Abigail? You go first place. When kids keep going down this road, what we found in previous reporting, is that there really is a path for kids who are not getting the supports that they are legally entitled to in schools, who are not getting the mental health services that they need, where you continually start encountering police and where eventually you end up on a path that can take you directly to the juvenile justice system. Jacqueline, how does it impact Ethan's future? Now Ethan's 11 years old and it still affects him. He is terrified of EMS.

He's terrified of the cops. He always has this thing. He's going to get kidnapped. Somebody's going to come get him. It took a while. Okay, this happened in 2019. It took for the first time this year for him to trust teachers again. Abigail Kramer reported this story for the news site, The City.

And Jacqueline DeHesus is the mother of a child in New York City public schools. The two talked with WNYC's Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. We'll be back tomorrow.