• Update March 14: Readmitted students alleged to be planning more trouble. Buffalo News.
  
• Update March 9: BTF files lawsuit over re-instatement of violent students. WIVB News.

Making their way through a sudden snow flurry, fully aware that they were missing a hotly anticipated Sabres game, Buffalo teachers turned out in force for an evening union meeting to act on matters of principle.

The lengthy agenda included two resolutions on bedrock priorities: safety and respect.

Phil Rumore, president of the Buffalo Teachers Federation, summarized the evening's critical order of business: "What will it take, short of a violent death in a school, before the superintendent and board stop condoning violence in our schools?"

NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi was at the delegates meeting, too. He had earlier met with Ellis Woods, president of the Buffalo Education Support Team, and his executive committee. His message for both locals was the same: to personally welcome them after their September affiliation with NYSUT and underscore the statewide union's solidarity with their members. "I know that closing the student achievement gap is important to the BTF," Iannuzzi told delegates, "and I know this: We must have zero tolerance for violence in our schools."

Iannuzzi and Rumore were referring to a horrific attack that took place Nov. 17 at Buffalo's well-regarded Academy of Visual and Performing Arts. That Friday, as a few students allegedly staged a fight to lure school security guards to the cafeteria, six others rushed to a classroom, attacking a student and severely injuring the teacher who came to the student's aid.

The teacher was taken out on a stretcher and might never return to teaching as a result of the trauma. The student suffered pain, swelling and bruises on his head, where he was repeatedly punched.

But as bad as that was, what happened three months later added insult to injury: Superintendent James Williams gave the students a free pass to return to their stomping grounds.

For Buffalo teachers and Rumore, it's been a challenging year. The everyday responsibilities of teaching and learning have been overshadowed by bellicose pronouncements by Superintendent Williams, whose latest salvo at Rumore (Williams likened him to Idi Amin) was described by a Buffalo News reporter as a "new low" in the district's stormy labor relations. (See the BTF Web site, www.btfny.org.) Rank-and-file teachers reacted with outrage at Williams' assertion that "tenure is now accomplished in New York state by sitting in a seat for three years."

Yet the superintendent seemed shocked in January when teachers voted against altering a one-week early start to the school year to begin two weeks early. They had typically approved a one-week early start in the past as an accommodation to parents and students. Teachers' frustration boiled over with a resounding "no" to changing the contractually negotiated calendar, reflecting three years without a raise, stalled contract talks and a superintendent whose public comments seemed designed to disparage teachers and their union.

What happened in February was worse. Over the objection of teachers and worried parents, Williams issued a ruling that the six students suspended from the Performing Arts Academy could return to the school where they had beaten their classmate and injured his teacher-defender.

It was "totally my decision," Williams told the News, justifying it because their parents were involved in disciplinary hearings, they had good grades and hadn't been in trouble before.

Not true, said Rumore.

Four of the students had been previously caught with knives at school and all had been suspended previously, Rumore said.

The day after the superintendent's decision, when the suspended students re-entered the Performing Arts Academy, they were greeted by some classmates as conquering heroes, with cheers and "high fives."

So BTF members came to the Feb. 22 union meeting ready to act. First, at the urging of their president, they voted to authorize him to negotiate the calendar change with a one-week early start -- "keeping on the high ground," Rumore noted, despite their justifiable outrage over too many instances of disrespect.

The next order of business was a resolution on the school violence that said: "Condoning of violence by the superintendent and school board undermines not only the safety of parents, students and staff of (the Performing Arts Academy) but all Buffalo public schools." It called on the superintendent and school board to immediately reassign the students to alternative placements designed for such purposes and stop the practice of returning students to schools where they have committed violence.

"What is the message that goes out to all students?" Rumore asked. "As educators, we need to be compassionate; however, part of what prevents acts of violence is knowledge of the consequences."

The resolution passed unanimously.

A few days later, Buffalo News columnist Donn Esmonde weighed in: "By standing logic on its head, Williams gives a bad rap to a good school." He added: "Plan a vicious assault and take out a teacher - accidentally or otherwise - and the disciplinary hammer should come down ... Williams sent a different sort of message. I don't know which was worse, the attack in the classroom or the assault on common sense." Radio talk shows and the News editorial board also voiced support for the union's stance.

As New York Teacher went to press, neither the superintendent nor the board had responded to the teachers' resolution.

But several other things had happened.

Two weeks after Rumore wrote the superintendent and board about the return to Burgard Comprehensive High of students involved in a fight there, fights among rival gangs at the school resulted in injuries to two students and criminal charges against six others. Buffalo police ended up being assigned to Burgard.

And Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark told the News that the Performing Arts case, where the suspended students had now been readmitted, will go to a grand jury.

"It's time for a grand jury to look at it," he said, "and find out what happened."

- Deborah Hormell Ward