Strengthening Schools by Strengthening Families

didn’t know what was happening.” She said she used her own friends in the community and tried to
help him best she could—but the school had little available to assist him. Hakim later moved to the
Brooklyn New School in Carroll Gardens, a well-regarded school which admits children by lottery. It
serves a mix of upper middle class children of educated parents and low income kids from nearby Red
Hook. The difference was dramatic, Hakim says. If any child is having a problem, she can count on
help from a big team. “There is pretty intense intervention.”
Principal Anna Allenbrook, at the Brooklyn New School, says the school rarely, if ever, needs to call
the SCR, even though about a fifth of the students need some form of intensive help at any one
time. Instead, she says, the staff works with the family, employing the help of outside community
organizations. They can do this because the school has created a close relationship with the parents.
“The key word is trust,” Allenbrook says. “If there is no trust, this isn’t going to work.”
Of course, schools serving a high proportion of poor children are likely to face far greater numbers of
more serious situations. In these cases, the city should consider offering help from professional social
service groups with respected ties to the neighborhood, says Norma Martin, assistant executive director
of the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service. A community-based social worker could get to know
the staff, working the halls and assisting with all of the problematic cases. This would help ensure that
serious cases are indeed called in and lesser problems are handled by other means. Martin has run
programs like this over the years—and has been impressed with what one well-trained worker can do.
“You can have a big impact on a school,” she says.
Dramatically different approaches to these problems can even exist among schools on the same city block.
Caroline Bear worked as a social worker for two years with Bridge Builders (see page 31), a collaborative
of Bronx-based organizations doing family support work in three elementary schools in Highbridge—
schools so close, they often had different kids from the same floor of a single apartment building. Yet
the school administrations couldn’t be more different, she says. Bear recalls one principal who tried to
anticipate problems, employing, for example, a tireless attendance monitor who would quickly follow
up unexplained absences with a visit to the home, armed with a Rolodex of local groups who might be
of help to a family in need. At the other end of the spectrum was a school where the principal paid little
attention to attendance, Bear says. (After receiving a D on its 2007 progress report, the principal hired
an assistant tasked with more aggressive attendance and family outreach work, Bear reports. The school’s
grade rose to an overall C this past year and its achievement scores have been climbing.)
In talking to administrators, it’s clear their personal reactions to a situation will often make the
difference between whether ACS is called in or not. Principals and other administrators insist
the threat of an ACS call is often the only tool they have to get the attention of parents who are
particularly lax on attendance and other school issues. There are also teachers and others who are
worried about making headlines—and are quick to call in any suspicion. Even in the Bridge Builders
schools, teachers would fail to ask for the consult. Bear says she was often frustrated. “I said, why
didn’t you refer them to me? Their response was always: ‘I don’t want another Nixzmary.’”
Even so, better training and adequate support might decrease the number of unfounded reports
while giving schools a way to help troubled families before a problem is grave enough to warrant the
attention of ACS.
“The school system needs to be in a good position to have the resources and services that families
need at the earliest sign of any problem,” says Zeinab Chahine, who directed the Division of Child
Protection, the investigative arm of the ACS, for many years before taking a job with Casey Family
Programs. It is to the school’s benefit, she adds. If students’ family lives are stable, they will come to
class consistently, with a better focus on their studies.
“It’s a win-win situation for both,” she says. “It helps a school meet its own goals in educating kids—and it
serves at the same time to prevent child abuse and neglect. It’s doing the job earlier through the schools.” ❖
Administrators’
personal
reactions to a
situation will
often make
the difference
between whether
ACS is called
or not.
25