Rally to protest high number of suspensions in city schools
Roughly a thousand kids are suspended every week in New York City schools and advocacy groups say these suspensions are unnecessarily harsh, especially for black and Latino students.
On Friday night, members of the Dignity in Schools Campaign New York (DSC-NY) held a candlelight vigil and march across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the suspensions. About a dozen groups participated, including Advocates for Children of New York, American Friends Service Committee, Children’s Defense Fund and Make the Road New York.
“I’ve been suspended, and I feel like it affected me a lot,” said Andrew Opong, an 11th-grade student at the Eagle Academy for Young Men in the Bronx. “When you come back you’ve missed out on so much knowledge.”