In has now been more than a year since the stabbing incident at New Rochelle High School and the school district has still not answered questions about the incident in which a student was stabbed twice and ended up in the hospital. The attacker was arrested by New Rochelle Police.
In a call to parents the day of the stabbing, New Rochelle High School principal Don Conetta send out a reverse voicemail to parents in which he sought to downplay the incident, failing to mention the exact nature of the attack (a stabbing) or that a student was under arrest.
Don Conetta phone call to parents on November 24, 2008
In the call to parents, Conetta encouraged parents to call with any questions but Conetta has pointedly refused to answer questions from this parent about the incident. My son was a student at the high school at the time of the incident.
Asked about this a week after the incident, Conetta stated that he would not answer any questions until after he had completed his investigation, a direct contradiction of this offer to parents on the day of the incident. In either case, after more than a year, it would appear likely that any “investigation” was now complete but neither Conetta, Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak or members of the Board of Education will answer any questions.
The Journal News reported Conetta claimed “the high school ‘hasn’t had a serious incident in a long while.
At the time Talk of the Sound wrote:
Perhaps Don Conetta has a different conception of “serious incident” and “long while” than most people but on his watch there have been fights, assaults, a stabbing, gang-related incidents, weapons violations, bomb threats, and two fires. Just last week, there was a fight among several students in the school cafeteria. In that incident a guard in the cafeteria tackled one of the students involved and kept them pinned down on the floor until five other guards arrived to restore order.
A teacher responded:
As a teacher at NRHS, we see so much fighting, theft and unruly behavior that I can’t imagine it’s not being reported. We have no faith in the security. We have complained to the union and they refused to do anything about it since Marty Daily is literally in bed with everyone at the Board office.
In fact, there are hundreds of violent and disruptive incidents at New Rochelle High School including assaults, robberies, fights and weapons violations. New York State law requires all such incidents to be reported as part of the school report card required under No Child Left Behind. Schools that exceed a certain number of incidents per year as a percentage of the school population over a two year period are classified as “persistently dangerous” schools.
The VADIR reports filed by New Rochelle are routinely manipulated to dramatically understate the level of qualifying incidents. Records obtained by Talk of the Sound indicate that if New Rochelle reported all qualifying incidents to the State (as they are required by law to do) New Rochelle High School would well exceed the threshold for being classified as a persistently dangerous school. Likewise, Isaac E. Young Middle School.
VADIR Report Forms from NYSED website
Few of these incidents are reported because if New Rochelle High School was classified as persistently dangerous few people would want to purchase a home in New Rochelle. Real estate interest and home owners have a strong vested interest in continuing the charade that the New Rochelle High School is safe. It is not safe, by any measure.
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