A frightening spike in violence has struck the troubled John Bowne High School in Queens, state Education Department statistics show.
Bowne grabbed headlines last week with a number of incidents, including a student being stabbed, a police officer assaulted and multiple teens arrested with weapons and drugs.
Now a Daily News analysis of state Education Department data shows weapons busts at the Flushing school are up eight-fold over the past three years, rising from three in 2014 to 24 in 2016.
Likewise, assaults with injuries rose, jumping from five to 16 in the same period. Overall violent incidents increased from 14 in 2013 to 53 in 2016.
New York City Parents Union president Mona Davids called on the city Education Department to step in and save the school — and the kids.
“It’s a mess. The city should’ve intervened a long time ago,” Davids said. “I guess they are waiting for someone to actually die before they do something to help.”
Bowne is a diverse school in a middle-class neighborhood. Enrollment has held steady and, despite the spike in incidents, its overall safety by some metrics is about average.
But Bowne’s embattled principal, Howard Kwait, has been the subject of multiple suits for inappropriate conduct and retaliating against whistleblowers who have forced the city to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Education Department spokeswoman Toya Holness said stats on which The News analysis is based come from a troubled violence reporting system that is now being overhauled.
“The data is flat-out misleading,” Holness said. “The incidents that took place last week were swiftly addressed and we are providing the school with ongoing support.”
