May 9, 2015
80 Pine Street, 32nd Floor
New York, NY 10005
Dear Paul Applebaum, Chair of Families for Excellent Schools Board
CC: Bryan R. Lawrence, Vice Chair
Jonathan Lewinsohn, Treasurer
Frances Messano, Secretary
Jeremiah Kittredge CEO
The undersigned organizations are concerned about the harmful impact Families for
Excellent Schools “Safe Schools Now” campaign is going to have on Black and Latinx
schoolchildren, families and communities. Many of us have been working to transform
school discipline and safety in New York City for over 10 years. Traditional approaches
to school discipline and safety in our schools have relied on harsh, exclusionary and
punitive approaches that criminalize and push Black, Latinx, LGBTQ, and students with
disabilities into the criminal justice system and that fail to resolve underlying issues that
often lead to repeat suspensions. New approaches to school discipline that have been
implemented by some schools and are being considered as part of a comprehensive
citywide strategy for transforming school discipline are the result of youth, parent, and
educator organizers from Black and Latina/o communities fighting for approaches to
school discipline and safety that are grounded in effective restorative and healing
practices.
We are deeply saddened by the events parents describe in your lawsuit against the city, as
well as the stories you’ve highlighted on your website. However, the approach you have
chosen to take will not effectively address these issues and will only further perpetuate
narratives that dehumanize Black and Latinx schoolchildren and move us back towards
harsh, ineffective zero tolerance policies that disproportionately harm the same Black and
Latinx schoolchildren at the center of your school discipline campaign.
There is over three decades of research that shows suspensions, expulsions, criminal
summons, and arrests are ineffective strategies for improving school climate and
improving academic outcomes. Students that attend schools with high rates of
suspensions, criminal summons, and arrests are not thriving academically and are more
likely to become disengaged from school and be unjustly pushed into an unforgiving
criminal justice system. Our efforts to expand the use of restorative justice, peer
mediation, trauma informed and healing practices is about moving towards evidence
based practices that will help this city end the very real school-to-prison pipeline and the
systemic racism that upholds it.
The over representation of Black students in suspension figures shows that suspension,
and the resulting education consequences, are experienced mostly be Black students, thus
widening the existing achievement gap. In New York City, Black students are 7 times

 more likely to receive a long-term suspension than their white peers. Black girls in grades
6-8 are almost 9 times more likely than white girls in the same grades to be suspended 2
or more times and students classified as learning disabled and other health impaired are
suspended almost 3 times as much as students without disabilities.
For these reasons, in 2014, the Department of Education released Guiding Principles, A
Resource Guide for Improving School Climate and Discipline that recommended school
districts explicitly reserve the use of out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and
alternative placements only for the most egregious disciplinary infractions and For
similar reasons, the U.S. Department of Mental Health and Services and the American
Psychological Association have also called for school districts to explore alternative
discipline methods to address conflicts and bullying instead of suspensions, expulsions,
and criminal responses. As Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for the U.S.
Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights stated, “Racial discrimination in school
discipline is real and it’s a real problem.” Your organization’s mission is steeped in the
language of civil rights and equality, but your campaign is steeped in messaging and
rhetoric that feels intended to undermine a struggle for racial justice in schools not only
in New York City, but in Black, Latinx and indigenous communities across the country.
The campaign’s commercials and Mr. Kittredge’s increasingly alarmist rhetoric of
violent and dangerous youth and an epidemic of violence among our youth in schools,
comes at a time when Black youth continue to face excessive over policing, brutality and
mass incarceration that is the result of exaggerated and dehumanizing narratives that
describe them as “super predators.” Since, FES launched its campaign using an unreliable
state data system, Violent and Disruptive Incident Reporting, that the New York State
Education Department concedes is “not monitored adequately and that there can be no
certainty of its accuracy” we have seen media outlets refer to Black and Latinx students
as “thugs,” and “perps,” and unfounded and irresponsible warnings of “crime waves” in
our schools and comparing our classrooms to “war zones.” Your campaign is feeding
overtly racist narratives that continue to tell us Black Lives don’t Matter.
In contrast to the FES campaign that is seemingly calling for maintaining harsh and
punitive discipline policies, parents in the South Bronx have advocated for improved
safety in their schools by helping to shape policy changes that have significantly
decreased the use of criminal summons in their children’s schools. High School students
in Bushwick and East New York are helping to expand the use of Restorative Justice in
their schools. Educators in transfer schools are shifting the discipline paradigm in their
schools. Your efforts undermine the ongoing efforts of Black and Latinx youth, parents,
and educators throughout not only our city, but the whole country. We wished you had
engaged with our communities and the organizations that have been doing this work
during two Mayoral administrations and will continue to do this work until our city fully
embraces approaches to school discipline that value all Black and Latinx children while
keeping them in school and safe. Safety is about ensuring our schools are equitably
funded and well-resourced, and co-constructing approaches to school discipline with
youth, parents, educators, and community members. Safety is not achieved by launching
a campaign that creates a climate that leads to our children being labeled as “violent,”

 “dangerous,” “perps,” and “thugs.” If your true intentions are about “protecting the
rights” of Black and Latinx schoolchildren, we ask FES leadership and Mr. Kittredge to
immediately stop making inflammatory and dubious comments about a crisis of violent
and dangerous children, disavow the hurtful and harmful comments from media outlets
regarding Black and Latinx schoolchildren, in New York City, and end this school
discipline campaign.
*The use of the term “Latinx” throughout this letter is to remain inclusive of all gender
and sexuality identities
Signed,
A.C.T.I.O.N. – The Point
Alliance for Quality Education
Black Youth Project 100 New York City
Brooklyn Movement Center
The Brotherhood/SisterSol
Citizen Action of NY
Coalition for Educational Justice
ColorOfChange.org
Desis Rising Up and Moving
Justice League NYC
New Settlement Parent Action Committee
New York Communities for Change
Momsrising.org
Teachers Unite
The Urban Youth Collaborative – Future of Tomorrow, Make The Road, Sistas and
Brothas United, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice