N.Y. Students Give Politicians Low Marks : Schools: Teen-agers say the candidates forget their promises and are out of touch with the everyday concerns of the neighborhood.

The view from the grieving room of Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn is that today’s New York presidential primary is taking place virtually in another nation--a country separated from neighborhood concerns by a chasm of apathy, cynicism and unfulfilled promises.

Students at this school, where three of their classmates were killed earlier this academic year, expressed profound distrust of politicians, including Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., the two major candidates in the Democratic race.

Clinton visited the school on Jan. 20, the holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, when classes were not in session; Brown did not come at all.

Some students said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who also toured the school and urged them to vote, seemed to be a bit passe and somewhat out of touch with their everyday concerns.

“They are in a popularity race. It’s not business,” said Jefferson’s student body president, Jeffery Rumph, 17. He criticized both Brown and Clinton for inattention to the problems plaguing the neighborhood: drugs, violence and a lack of education.

More than other high schools in New York City, Jefferson has become a national symbol of urban violence amid considerable educational progress. Over the last five years, almost 40 of Jefferson’s students have been killed, including the three who were shot to death at the school. In the police precinct where Jefferson is situated, 107 people were murdered in 1991--about 5% of the city’s 2,154 murders that year.

But in 1991, the school’s principal, Carol Beck, won the American Hero in Education Award from Readers Digest magazine and the National Assn. of Secondary School Principals for her efforts to improve test scores and the curriculum.

Because of all the student deaths, Beck set up a special grieving room near her office so students could feel free to mourn.

What became clear in interviews with a group of nine Jefferson students gathered in that room to meet a reporter was their craving for understanding and their desire that politicians be accountable for their actions.

The students said that the candidates’ visits to Jefferson sometimes verge on political show-and-tell and that politicians quickly forget the promises they make. The students also said they were acutely aware that they remain in the area after the politicians leave for the next campaign stop.

“We have to live here for years. If they (politicians) come . . . like for one day, it’s not the same,” said Sherena Fredericks, 18, a senior who has been accepted to Vassar College. “They are just going to come and see how it looks, but they are never going to feel it. They are never going to live here.”

“Even if they do come out, they are just going to be coming out here to get our votes to make sure they get in office. They are not really focusing on us,” said Marsha McKenzie, 15, a freshman. “They are focusing on the people with the money because the people with the money can get them in office.”

Students said that if candidates appeared to be suffering from a comprehension gap, it often was magnified by the generation gap. They said they viewed politicians as mired in the past.

“They (politicians) are working on the past, and they should start thinking about the younger kids who are in school because they are the ones who are going to build up the future,” said Gresha Wallace, 16, a junior. “If we don’t start working on the future, we are just not going to be any good.”

Students said that concerns about drugs, AIDS, jobs, school safety and homelessness seemed to be back-burner issues in the primary campaign.

They fear that promises by both candidates about New York’s problems will be quickly forgotten once Brown and Clinton compete in other states.

“They are going to the community and telling the people what they want to hear so they can get the people to vote for them,” said Philip Solomon, 17, reflecting the sentiment of others in the grieving room. “When it comes time for them to fulfill their promises, they can’t do it.”

But support for President Bush also was minimal. Students criticized the President for concentrating too much on foreign policy and helping other nations at the expense of New York City and their neighborhood.

“If I became President, I would make it better for my country before I started making deals with other countries,” said Arlee-Nicole Smalls, 16, a junior, reflecting the common view.

Asked if they distrusted national politicians, all the students said yes--as if the answer were so obvious it was a silly question.

Only Rumph, the student body president, said he might someday seek public office.

“The only reason I have thought about it is because people sitting in these high places aren’t doing anything,” he said. “That’s what I see.”