City Schools Chancellor David Banks rushed to Hillcrest High School on Monday in the wake of last week’s anti-Israeli student riot — and tried to quell the lingering fear of teachers who said they don’t feel safe going to work.
Banks said some students were suspended after the Nov. 20 riot that forced one Jewish teacher to lock herself inside a classroom for fear of the rowdy mob, while new fears have now surfaced over a planned pro-Israel rally later this week.
“There is some planned protest here for Thursday and teachers were feeling very concerned,” Banks told reporters. “And there is a sense that many of them have that their own safety might be in danger.
“We will work together with the mayor, NYPD, safety, to ensure the safety of everybody who comes to this school. Not only Thursday, but every day.”
Banks would not say exactly what sort of punishment the ringleaders of the hate-filled mayhem face, but he said the teacher that was targeted for supporting Israel will return to the school later this week.
“There was disciplinary action that was taken,” the school chief said. “We don’t share the names of students. Students who were responsible for creating this, we have invoked a set of disciplinary measures in that regard.
“We did not suspend hundreds of students who [were] in the hallway,” he added. “There are some people calling for us to just suspend 500 students. We are not doing that.”
Banks also revealed that the troubled school was placed on lockdown two days after the antisemitic rioting after one student told administrators that it would happen again if the Jewish teacher wasn’t fired.
One source at the school said educators at the troubled school told Banks during a closed meeting in the gym that they were still afraid in the wake of last week’s unrest — and the unrest to come.
“Some teachers told him they did not feel safe at the school,” the source said. “There was applause.”
Students also told The Post they were worried, with one showing an online poster for a rally Thursday.
“This is what everyone is talking about. This is what everyone is afraid of. I don’t think this should be affecting my school,” said Ruhan Alshin, 18, who is headed to Cornell University on a scholarship and who said he was a Muslim who supports the Palestinians.
“I just want to do my work and graduate. It’s been hectic.”
One teacher, who is from Israel, told Banks that he’s afraid to reveal that fact.
“His family urged him to stay home instead of going to school,” the source said.
Banks, a Hillcrest graduate himself, decried concerns that the students were “radicalized.”
“This notion that this place, these kids are radicalized and antisemitic is the height of irresponsibility,” he told reporters. “I will not accept that at all,” he told reporters.
Parents who arrived to drop off their children at the school Monday morning were greeted with an uneasy sight, with at least 30 police officers and 10 NYPD vehicles — with lights flashing — stationed outside.
“My daughter told me all about what was going on but I don’t want to leave her here,” one worried dad said. “I didn’t want to let her out of the car. I’m not sure it’s safe with all the… with all of the things that are going on here right now.”
Marsha Mullings, who said she has four children in city schools, was also reluctant to leave her 14-year-old daughter, a student at Hillcrest.
The Post exposed the rowdy rioting at the school on Sunday, revealing that a mob of hundreds of teens rampaged in the hallways after a teacher posted a photo on Facebook while at a pro-Israel rally.
The students waved Palestinian flags and banners as they ran amok through the building – destroying a water fountain and tiles along the way, videos posted on social media show.
The teacher stayed locked away in the office until she was escorted from the building by cops when students were finally corralled back into their classrooms.
The antisemitic riot, though, is just the latest in a string of violent incidents that has unraveled at the school of late.
A week earlier, four students — two 15-year-old boys and two 16-year-old boys — were arrested for allegedly assaulting an NYPD school safety agent who was trying to break up a fight.
“All my children are New York City public school kids but I’ve never seen this type of stuff,” she said. “This is a lot. I wanted to stick around for a little bit just but just to make sure they’re safe. Make sure she gets into school safely because I’m not sure what is going to happen, you know?”
Footage of the brawl, which broke out around noon Nov. 15 but only started spreading on social media on Sunday, showed the students repeatedly punching an officer after they stepped in to separate the students during the melee.
The boys were eventually nabbed and all given juvenile reports, which are often issued in lieu of a misdemeanor or felony charge when the suspects are minors.
Queens Councilwoman Vickie Paladino shared the disturbing footage on X as she assailed the Hillcrest administration as “totally compromised” and called for the school to be shut down “pending a full and thorough investigation.”
“This cannot continue in our schools. Order and discipline must be restored,” Paladino said.
Separately, cops were called to the school the day after the riots due to reports of an 18-year-old student allegedly making threats over a group chat. The teen was arrested and charged with aggravated harassment, police said.
The school, which had a graduation rate of 87% last year, is predominantly made up of Asian (28%) and Hispanic (36%) students, DOE data shows.
Additional reporting by Susan Edelman