(Andrew Kelly)
A Lower East Side high school has gotten so lawless even the students are calling for a tougher sheriff.
The pleas for stronger discipline at Marta Valle HS come just as the city has proposed shuttering 19 struggling schools.
To avoid closure, parents and students are sounding the alarm over fights that they say are getting swept under the rug and over kids cutting class.
Several parents and former staffers told The Post that Principal Mimi Fortunato has tried to downgrade or underreport incidents in order to bolster the school’s reputation.
“Parents were not called. She didn’t want the ambulance to be called,” one former staffer said of an incident in which a teen got jumped by classmates. “I’m talking about a bloody, beat-up kid.”
PTA President Linda Surles said a boy who “beat the dickens out of a girl” got off with a two-day suspension because his father had been supportive of the new principal.
Marta Valle HS was designated “persistently dangerous” in 2008, the last year it also served kids in the middle grades.
It shed that designation in 2009, and Fortunato took over last year.
Fortunato dismissed the claims, saying administrators were vigilant about documenting misbehavior.
She said a drop in the number of principal suspensions since she took over, from 41 in 2009 to 16 in 2010, was a reflection of a safer environment.
“MVHS is a warm and wonderful school that has a proven track record of improvement” she wrote in an e-mail.
“The compelling story here (and the accurate one) is an inspirational story about a small innovative high school that was previously considered unsafe.”
Asked about students fleeing the building through side doors, Fortunato said they’re allowed to leave, depending on their schedules.
But on a recent morning, The Post saw handfuls of kids sneaking out and hiding from administrators — sometimes leaving altogether.
“See how I leave to get a drink?” said a teen outside a bodega across the street.
“If there was discipline, I’d be in class.”