Buffalo Teachers Federation presents BPS with school safety solutions

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — After countless fights, safety concerns have been a big issue this year at Buffalo Public Schools.

On Wednesday, the Buffalo Teachers Federation sat down with BPS Superintendent Tonja Williams to talk about solutions to the problem, a meeting that had been in the works since October.

In Wednesday’s meeting, the BTF presented the superintendent with a list of solutions meant to put a stop to fights at Riverside High, and throughout the district.

“We all want the same thing. Teachers want a safe work environment. Students want a safe place to learn, administrators I think want the same thing,” said BTF President Rich Nigro.

“We went over a pretty thorough agenda. It was the first time we had all stakeholders, like the head of security, my principal, union representatives, all kind of having a conversation,” said Riverside teacher Marc Bruno.

Bruno says the agenda presented included steps like reinstating Buffalo police officers in school buildings, security officer retention, along with district security cameras to capture footage of fights. Bruno said these steps should have been thought of months ago.

“They should be coming to our schools, to mandatory faculty meetings and asking those three very simple yet very important questions. What’s working and what’s not working? What can we do to help your individual school,” Bruno continued.

“The things that we’re dealing with, the problems usually when you get to this point aren’t things or solutions that developed in a matter of weeks. They’re usually things that are kind of built up over the course of years,” added Nigro.  

BPS once again declined to be on camera Wednesday but did issue a statement saying the meeting was productive.

However, it’s not just Riverside that needs solutions, fights even broke out at East High School just days ago.

“Friday, there were several, a series of brawls and it was pretty violent and traumatic for all the teachers and staff who were involved. Dialogue is fantastic, but we must actually enact some of these policies, and we have to also look at some of the current policies that we are using,” said 309 Delegate and East High teacher Joe Slater.

“The hope is that we’re able to get a little bit of traction after our next meeting to implement some things before the years up,” Nigro said. “I really hope that the things that we do there are things that we may be able to implement in other schools.”