Bars To Education: Rikers Island Teens Have Idle Summers Without School
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If ever there was a place where officials could make summer school mandatory, it is Rikers Island, but most of its young inmates have no opportunities for summer school. NY1's Education reporter Lindsey Christ filed this fourth part of her week-long series ins in part four of her series "Bars To Education." Some might say it is a crime, when it is summer on Rikers Island but the classrooms are empty. Youth in jail are left with little to do but stare at the walls.
"It's horrible, because I'm an adolescent and we don't have anything," says former Rikers inmate Avion David. "We just sit there all day and do nothing. We can't go anywhere. We have church services, but we can't even go to church, we need escorts. It's a whole mess. We just sit there."
"That's where a lot of fights happen. People get into more trouble during the summer," says Rikers inmate Safiyah Tate.
In Brooklyn, a mother worries about how her 13-year-old son is spending his days in juvenile jail.
"He told me he’s not going to school and I asked him why he’s not going to school. And he said they’re not offering school yet," says the mother. "Just playing games, and I think he got into one fight in there. They should be having summer school because a lot of these kids are behind in school."
Department of Education officials claim they do not have the budget for summer school in the jails, aside for classes for a small handful of special education students. Yet a NY1 review of the budget found the school on Rikers Island finished the year with $485,276 left over.
Officials play a different tune. They say getting students re-engaged with education every moment they are in custody is one of the major goals of new reform efforts.
"To make sure they have access to academically rigorous programs that will help accelerate their progress while they're with us, so that when they return to their home schools or to a different option, they're further ahead than when they came to us," says Superintendent of Alternative Schools Cami Anderson. "It's a real opportunity, it's a real moment in time to get them back on track."
Yet the opportunity can be lost in July and August. City Commissioner of Corrections Dora Shiro says the decision to hold summer school is up to DOE officials, but she also claims every moment in custody could be seen as a teaching moment.
"It's learning how to use leisure time, because it's learning how to use leisure time that gets people into trouble. All of life’s lessons can be learned in jail," says Shiro.
Although it is not hard to figure out that not all of those lessons are positive ones.