Objective

To determine whether the State Education Department (Department) is monitoring schools, districts, and other programs to ensure they are complying with legislation and regulations governing school safety planning. The audit covers the period September 1, 2016 through September 27, 2018.

About the Program

Incidents like the February 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida highlight the need for schools to remain vigilant against threats to student and teacher safety. Since 2000, New York State schools have been required to develop and regularly review school safety plans as part of the Safe Schools Against Violence in Education (SAVE) Act. Among its key provisions, the SAVE Act created Section 2801-a of the Education Law (Law) requiring public school districts, charter schools, and Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) programs (herein collectively referred to as School Districts) to develop district-wide safety plans (District Plans) and building-level emergency response plans (Building Plans). The Law outlines general requirements for the plans, but the specifics are left up to safety teams appointed at each district and school building. The safety teams are composed of stakeholders from the School Districts, including representatives from the school board and parent, teacher, and administrator organizations; school safety personnel; community members; and first responders. The Law also requires School Districts to review and adopt their plans and submit them to law enforcement agencies and to provide training on those plans to staff.

Key Findings

• Overall, we determined the Department is not sufficiently monitoring School Districts’ compliance with the requirements for school safety planning and, consequently, does not have assurance that the requirements are being met.
• We found that Department efforts primarily focused on ensuring that School Districts submitted their Building Plans to the State Police annually. Their efforts resulted in 99 percent of required plans being submitted to the State Police. However, the Department did not similarly track or monitor submission of Building Plans to local law enforcement. Consequently, there is no assurance that local law enforcement – a group more likely to be among the first responders to the scene of an emergency – is receiving the Building Plans as required.
• In addition, due to the Department’s lack of oversight, School Districts did not consistently: annually adopt their safety plans in accordance with Department guidance, hold public hearings on the plans, appoint district-wide safety teams including all required representatives, or train employees on the plans.
• The Department has never submitted a report on the implementation of and compliance with the provisions of the Law to the Governor and the Legislature, although it has been required to do so annually since 2000. As a result, lawmakers do not have the information necessary to evaluate whether the Law is achieving its desired outcomes.

Key Recommendations

• Develop a program to monitor School Districts’ compliance with school safety planning requirements outlined in the Law, regulations, and Department guidance.
• Clarify Department expectations for compliance with requirements under the Law, regulations, and Department guidance including, but not limited to, expectations for public comment periods, public hearings, plan adoption, and training requirements.
• Prepare and submit the required annual reports to the Governor and the Legislature.