(no subject)

[LeoCasey at aol.com]

Today I spent most of the day in the UFT offices dealing with two sets of 
issues that have come out of the WTC tragedy. Four high schools are being 
displaced; two to provide staging grounds for rescue/recovery effort, and 
two because they were right across from the WTC. It is not clear whether 
that building is viable; we are receiving different reports. But not of 
these buildings will be available for the foreseeable future, so a very 
overcrowded urban school system is stuffing over-stuffed schools. Not an 
easy process.

Even more complicated is handling conflicts among high school students. 
Since NYC is an international city, we have as many as 20 different high 
schools with significant concentrations of Arab students. Ethnic conflict 
is always a serious potential problem in our high schools, given the vast 
diversity of our students. Now, the problem is particularly acute. 
Thousands upon thousands of students have lost family members, and the 
danger of looking for scapegoats among the Arab students is quite acute. 
And a very small number of Arab students are contributing to that problem 
by making statements indicating their support and approval of what 
happened. [It sounds stupid beyond belief that you would open yourself up 
in this fashion, but remember we are talking about adolescents, and some 
pretty stupid behavior takes place as part of growing up.] The high schools 
are still pretty empty today, but as more and more students return, this 
will be a serious ongoing issue.

Leo Casey
United Federation of Teachers
260 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10010-7272
212-98-6869

Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never has, and it never will.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who 
want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and 
lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
-- Frederick Douglass --

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