BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo Board of Education made an attempt to acknowledge the recent string of violence in the district, calling a special meeting on student safety Wednesday night.
It happened just hours after a shelter-in-place was enacted at Riverside High School. A teacher inside the building told 2 On Your Side that a student punched a hole in the school’s front office and needed to be detained by two security guards.
Wednesday’s incident followed another one last week, where a student was stabbed during dismissal at Riverside High’s campus.
Buffalo Public Schools superintendent Tonja Williams said at Wednesday’s board meeting that the only way the district can achieve its safety goals is by making sure all of its students feel safe.
She told the board that they would do so by introducing prevention techniques and de-escalation training with an emphasis on restorative practices.
2 On Your Side: “Do you think restorative practices are the best approach when there are situations like stabbings taking place?”
Williams: “I do think that restorative justice works. At the same time, when we have very serious situations like what happened, at that point in time, we let the process be the process, and restorative justice is something that will come later.”
In Williams’ 90-minute presentation, she did not mention Riverside High or the two incidents that took place.
Riverside social studies teacher Marc Bruno told 2 On Your Side he doesn’t think the current approaches are working.
He said students in his building are now coming to him saying they are scared and that in the past week, he’s seen nothing change, despite his efforts in filing grievance reports and even emailing the board directly.
“I want the people up here to leave their ivory tower and come into our school, which I've been begging for for years, and ask the staff three simple questions: What's working? What's not working? What can we do to help you?” Bruno said.