Newly released video of an all-out punching, kicking, hair-pulling, girl-on-girl assault in the cafeteria of a Queens middle school is just the latest sign New York’s schools are out of control — and it has parents fuming, teachers wringing their hands and the schools chancellor literally walking the other way. “I really don’t think he cares,” the mom of the victim in the caught-on-video cafeteria fight told The Post Friday, a day after Chancellor Richard Carranza walked out on her when she tried to confront him about the brawl at a town hall meeting for parents and teachers at the school.
“He didn’t say a word — he just sat there,” as she pleaded for action, said the mom, Katty Sterling, whose daughter was attacked at MS 158 in Bayside last week.
Video of the beating shows the older of the two girls, a 14-year-old, taunting her victim, who is 13 — goading, “Let’s start, bro!”
Then she continues the attack, at points slapping the younger girl in the face, then appearing to grab her by the neck and throw her into a cafeteria table.
When the younger girl falls to the floor — and as other schoolkids shriek or cheer in the background — the older girl grips her victim by the hair with one hand and pummels her with her other fist.Amid the chaos, teachers stood by helplessly or made feeble attempts to intercede. Their efforts were so weak the attacker was able to leap onto her victim from on top of a table like a WWE fighter.
The video ends with the 14-year-old standing on a table and raising her hands in victory to the cheers of classmates.
“And they can’t stop this? How is this possible?” Sterling said of the teachers. “The girl even gets up on a table and jumps on her. It’s unbelievable.”
As for Carranza, “He had no answers for what the parents were asking,” Sterling said of Thursday’s town hall.
“And then he left.”
The Post knows how Sterling feels — when a reporter tried to speak to Carranza before another event on Friday, the chancellor kept right on walking, and one of his two bodyguards interceded with instructions to call his press office.
But while Carranza stays protected, students, teachers and parents at MS 158 describe an atmosphere that is the opposite of safe and secure.
“It’s a dangerous place to work,” one teacher at the top-tier school, also known as Marie Curie Middle School, told The Post on Friday, asking not to be named. “The administration isn’t doing anything.”
Last year, administrators failed to punish a male student accused of sexually abusing a male classmate, the victim’s parents said last week, referring to an assault detailed in documents obtained by The Post.In November, a girl reported that after months of sexual bullying by a 13-year-old male classmate, the boy exposed himself to her in a school, grabbed her and demanded sex.
In none of the three instances — all of which happened on school property — were students suspended, outraged parents say.
Instead, parents had to call the cops to get action, according to documentation reviewed by The Post.
“I’ve been waiting almost a month for the results of this investigation,” Rep. Grace Meng, the US congresswoman whose district includes Bayside, said of the November sex assault.
“This is not acceptable,” she said, adding that parents like Sterling were justified in being furious.
“I would never personally get up and leave a meeting like that,” she said of Carranza ditching Sterling at the town hall meeting.
Meng, too, has been getting the runaround by Carranza, she said.
“We’ve been playing phone tag,” she said.
Other Queens pols have been livid — including Councilman Robert Holden, who blasted Carranza as “toxic” and urged the mayor to replace him.
“We share the concerns raised by parents about Marie Curie and are addressing them immediately by adding more safety agents and counselors to the school and retraining staff,” mayoral spokewoman Jane Meyer responded.
A Department of Education spokeswoman said Carranza is “taking decisive action” and only left “once it became clear the town hall was no longer going to be a productive conversation.”
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