Dear New Yorkers, If she floors it, Marilyn Blanco can drive from her job at the Rikers Island jail complex to her son Ian’s school in Harlem in less than 18 minutes. Nine times since December, Blanco has made the frantic drive because Ian’s school — Success Academy Harlem 2 — called 911 on her 8-year-old. Ian has been diagnosed with ADHD. When he gets frustrated, he sometimes has explosive tantrums, throwing things, running out of class and hitting and kicking anyone who comes near him. Blanco contends that, since Ian started first grade last year, Success Academy officials have been trying to push him out of the school because of his disability — an accusation similar to those made by other Success Academy parents. If Success Academy were run by the city Department of Education, it would be subject to rules that limit the circumstances under which schools may call 911 on students in distress. But the regulation doesn’t apply to the charter school, which is publicly funded but privately run. Like all of the city’s charter school networks, it is free to set its own discipline policies. And staff at the Success Academy Charter School network — which operates 49 schools, most of them serving kids under 10 years old — called on police to respond to students in emotional distress at least 87 times since July 2016, according to an analysis of NYPD data by THE CITY and ProPublica. Read more in our collaborative investigation here. Some other items of note: A week before the unofficial start of summer, the city Department of Parks and Recreation is still facing a lifeguard shortage — even after boosting pay and recruitment. The city has only about one-third of the guards needed to fully staff beaches and pools, the Parks commissioner said at a budget hearing yesterday. Seeking better pay and patient care standards, resident physicians at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens walked off the job on Monday morning. It was the first time in more than three decades that city doctors have gone on strike. The city Health + Hospitals Corporation has mobilized clinicians from other public facilities to assist with medical duties at Elmhurst while the residents strike through Friday; other doctors who remain at the hospital also have picked up additional shifts. THE CITY hosted an Open Newsroom session on Thursday, May 11, at the Brooklyn Public Library on mental health resources in New York City public schools and how to get appropriate support for kids. If you missed it, you can watch the video recording here. Thank you to everyone who attended the Missing Them project’s closing reception at the Bronx Documentary Center on Sunday! Our public art exhibitions with Photoville are on view through Memorial Day weekend. For the latest local numbers on COVID-19 hospitalizations, positivity rates and more, check our coronavirus tracker.
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