By Pat Irish
Special to the Reporter

Last Thursday, in an effort to both reduce youth violence and combat the growing dropout rate that often contributes to it, City Councillor Michael Flaherty outlined a pilot program to move street workers directly into city schools. The plan received some criticism from those who believe the current street worker program, coupled with the school personnel in place already, effectively accomplishes those goals.

The threat of violence in Boston Public Schools remains ever-present to students and is a constant, uphill battle for administrators. Last week, Harvard School of Public Health reported in a study that 60 percent of 1,233 high school students surveyed had witnessed a violent act and one third had been directly involved in a fight. Statistics like these, said Flaherty, make it necessary to take action.

"The school environment is not immune to the violence that has been terrorizing our streets. In fact, many of the tensions leading to street violence often emerge in the school setting," said Flaherty during the hearing. "I believe the city has a responsibility to strategically place street workers in our schools."

Currently, the city's street worker program consists of 25 street workers, with eight to be added in fiscal year 2008. They are deployed Tuesday through Saturday from 12p.m.-8 p.m., in areas close to specific schools.

Flaherty's plan calls for creating eight new street workers and dividing them, one male and one female, between four local high schools - Charlestown High School, Jeremiah Burke, Madison Park, and Dorchester Educational Complex. The Councillor is looking into getting funding for the program from the school department's budget, which is close to $800 million. He believes that by immersing street workers into the school environment, they will be able to more effectively supervise and befriend students while also catching wind of potential confrontations and defusing them. But many argue these goals are already being accomplished.

"We believe assigning street workers to schools would fundamentally change their mission. In essence, we already have street workers in our schools. They just go by different names," said BPS COO Dr. Jim McIntyre during the hearing. McIntyre cited guidance counselors, student support coordinators, and school police officers as examples of people who play vital roles for students.

Carolyn Riley, senior director of Unified Student Services, described the student-teacher relationship being fostered within many schools, where a student feels comfortable talking to a teacher and knows it is confidential.

"Students are our biggest source of information," said Riley, adding that this type of exchange occurs daily. In addition, the Counseling and Intervention Center has many helpful programs and also collaborates with police and youth workers to conduct threat assessments and then follow up on leads with police to students' homes.

"Having the street workers in the school, they have an obligation to the kids, they build up a trust with the kids, but that obligation sometimes could prevent them from providing us with information in a timely fashion," said Michael Talbot, Sgt. Detective with Boston Police and School Safety Coordinator and Commander of School Police Unit. The new plan, Talbot argued, could hinder the flow of intelligence information to police, pointing out that the officers already on duty at the schools listed are some of the best in the city.

Chris Byner, who helps manage the streetworker program for Boston Centers for Youth and Families, argued that the street workers are already working with students from the schools in Flaherty's plan. To Byner, the potential for danger exists more outside of school.

"The most important part of our relationship with the schools is that we're able to be at the schools once school is dismissed to build relationships with the young people and work closely with the Police Department as well as the school personnel," Byner explained.

Still, Flaherty and supporters of the pilot program argue that if teachers, counselors, and others are filling the role of street workers in schools, it is evidence that the current system is ineffective.

"Guidance councilors should be helping kids getting into school, teachers should focus on teaching and coaches on coaching," said Flaherty spokesperson Andrew Kenneally.

During the hearing, Flaherty cited a survey from the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, which found that 82 percent of students said their teachers are sometimes or always too busy doing other things to teach effectively.

Flaherty believes youth would be more likely to speak with someone who had been there, who understands, rather than a teacher or other school administrator.

He also argued that street workers only showing up to schools at dismissal time is "like a firefighter showing up to fight a fire with no water."

John Leonard, principal of Noonan Business Academy, has had a lot of experience and success with the street worker program in the past. He recalls several occasions where at-risk students stayed with street workers hours after school finished.

"I'd be very happy to have street workers assigned to my school as long as I had some say about the kind of work they're doing and when it would happen," said Leonard, who likes the idea of sending a street worker out during the day to find a student who is not at school. For now, the students at Noonan have a packed schedule, with six classes during the day and no study halls.

"There are a lot of hours in the day, we shouldn't be focusing on school hours only," explained Leonard.

"School based street workers were once a cornerstone of Boston's large scale efforts to reduce crime back in the 90s," said Flaherty. Before budget cuts, there were 45 street workers, and cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Milwaukee followed Boston's example and formed street worker programs of their own.

Flaherty asked to keep a dialogue going on the subject at the end of the hearing and requested that McIntyre ask the superintendent to hold a meeting with the headmasters from the four high schools and other key players so the discussion can continue about the best ways to reach out to the city's youth.