Protest Over Metal Detectors Gains Legs as Students Walk Out

By FERNANDA SANTOS

The first rumors started swirling last spring, in hushed talks in the classroom, amid hallway banter, in lunchtime chats at pizza parlors along Jerome Avenue. Metal detectors were coming to DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx.

By the time the summer school term began, students were noticing the newly installed surveillance cameras along DeWitt Clinton’s stairwells and the shell of a metal detector perched beyond a side door. "The school is on lockdown," one student wrote on an Internet message board, Sconex.com.

Soon, instead of their usual postings about classmates turned couples, prom king contenders and unbearably hot days of boredom at home, students were complaining about the changes that awaited them - and, eventually, organizing a protest.

Two days ago, all the planning became a reality. For the first time in recent memory, 1,500 New York City high school students skipped classes, marched for two miles and got what they wanted: a sit-down meeting with school administrators, who have agreed to meet with students again and listen to their demands.

How they got to this point is a lesson in modern-day democracy that blends teenage angst and the Internet; a show of force borne out of disagreement and frustration among the students of one of the city’s most traditional and toughest high schools.

The Education Department installed the metal detectors because of DeWitt Clinton’s high crime rate, one that is 60 percent higher than the citywide average for schools of the same size. But the protest was not violent, said Edward Jackson, 17, a senior and a tight end on the high school’s football team.

"It was a good protest, the way protests should be," he said. "We got a chance to show that we care about what goes on in our school. We were able to express our point of view."

The DeWitt Clinton of today, which had 13 major crimes during the 2003-4 school year, counts many celebrities among its graduates. It is the alma mater of the actor Burt Lancaster, the fashion designer Ralph Lauren and the cartoonist Stan Lee. It opened its doors in 1935 as an all-boys’ school and stayed that way until the mid-1980’s, when it began to enroll girls.

The protest started to gather steam on Sept. 14, six days after the school year began. That morning, at each of the 10 periods of gym class, school safety officers explained to the students how the process would work: Line up, remove metal from your pockets, take off your belt and walk through the metal detector. Book bags would be searched, too, scanned by X-ray machines like those at airports, and, starting Monday, no one would be allowed to leave the building at lunchtime. The safety officers said it would be too hard to screen all the returning students.

It did not sit well with José David, 17, a senior. Last Thursday, he circulated a petition against the lunchtime confinement and the metal detectors.

"In 46 minutes, I got 266 signatures," he said.

On Friday, Mr. David posted a message on the Sconex.com site and invited students to join him in a protest on Monday. The plan was to gather south of the school and stand there, silently, until the end of the first period of classes. At 7 a.m., Mr. David said, he found himself standing alone on the lawn outside the high school while other students queued up around the block, waiting for the security clearance to get in.

"Nobody stood with me, not even my friends at first," Mr. David said. "A lot of people were like, ’Don’t even waste your time.’ I felt like an idiot."

A cameraman and reporter for a local cable news station arrived (Mr. David had sent them an e-mail message last Friday). But as the time passed and the line into the school grew, clusters of frustrated students decided to join Mr. David. By 11:30 a.m., they numbered 1,500, said Mr. David and other students outside the school yesterday.

"People got so excited that we were all coming together," said Héctor Garcia, 18, a senior. "I honestly didn’t think that we would get that many people marching for one cause."

Three hours later, the protesters arrived at the Department of Education’s office at Fordham Plaza, two miles away, carrying banners and demanding to be heard. Four students were eventually invited in. They asked that the metal detectors and security cameras be removed, that they be allowed to have lunch outside the school, and that an earlier ban on cellphones be lifted.

None of the new rules were eliminated, but officials agreed to keep listening. Guidance counselors are to meet today to select a team of student representatives who will present the student demands and negotiate with the administration.

But in the meantime, there has been a change: the line to get into the school yesterday morning moved faster because school safety officers used three of the four metal detectors at the school, instead of two, as they did on Monday.

Keith Kalb, a Department of Education spokesman, said that yesterday, "no student was late for any period due to scanning."

He said students and parents had been told earlier that DeWitt Clinton would have metal detectors, but students said that all they knew was that the school would undergo a security upgrade.

"This is just the beginning," said Anthony Stafford, a student. "The protest was just to get the word out that we’re serious about being heard."

Janon Fisher contributed reporting for this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/21/nyregion/21walkout.html