Objective

To determine whether the New York City Department of Education (DOE) complies with the school safety planning requirements in the Safe Schools Against Violence in Education (SAVE) Act. The audit covered the period July 1, 2015 through February 15, 2019.

About the Program

The potential for emergency situations – including school shootings – compels school districts nationwide to plan for the unthinkable. Since 2000, New York State schools have been required to develop and regularly review school safety plans as part of the SAVE Act. Among its key provisions, the SAVE Act added Section 2801-a of the Education Law (Law), which requires public school districts to develop district-wide safety plans (District Plans) and building-level emergency response plans (School Safety Plans). Section 155.17 of the State Education Department (Education Department) Commissioner’s Regulations (State Regulations) and the DOE Chancellor’s Regulation A-414 (City Regulations) provide additional guidance on School Safety Plans. The Law and State and City Regulations outline general requirements for the plans, and specific requirements are left to safety teams at each district and school building. The safety teams are composed of stakeholders from the schools and districts, including representatives from the school board and parent, teacher, and administrator organizations; school safety personnel; community members; and first responders. The Law and State and City Regulations also require schools to review their plans and submit them to law enforcement agencies and to hold and document regular safety committee meetings.

The DOE, the nation’s largest school system, serves approximately 1.1 million students at about 1,800 elementary, middle, and high schools.

Key Findings

We determined that the DOE could improve its compliance with the school safety planning requirements outlined in the Law and State and City Regulations. For example, we found that: 

• The City Regulations, which guide the DOE’s process for collecting, reviewing, and approving School Safety Plans, do not fully align with the Law and State Regulations. For example, the DOE does not require School Safety Plans to be submitted within the time frames specified in the State Regulations; School Safety Plans can be submitted up to a month after the latest allowed submission date under the State Regulations, and almost 2½ months after the typical beginning of a school year. Moreover, even with the additional time allowed, schools did not submit their plans on time.
• The DOE did not require schools to use the Education Department’s School Safety Plan template or send the School Safety Plans to the New York State Police (State Police); however, they are sent to the New York City Police Department. Additionally, schools were not required to submit floor plans; instead, copies of these plans were maintained with the DOE’s Division of School Facilities (DSF). Three of the 25 plans sampled from DSF were outdated and missing information regarding construction updates. As floor plans are a key piece of information for first responders to emergencies, having up-to-date plans is critical for school safety planning and emergency response.
• School Safety Committees play an essential role in establishing safety procedures, communicating expectations and responsibilities to students and staff, and designing prevention and intervention strategies and programs specific to the needs of the school. It is important that these meetings be held as required, with the designated personnel in attendance, and that they cover meaningful topics. We found that documentation did not support that meetings were held monthly (as required by the City Regulations), were well planned, or covered meaningful topics. Additionally, available documentation generally showed poor attendance. 
• We tested compliance with aspects of School Safety Plans at the 25 sampled schools, finding deficiencies such as incorrect contact information for key personnel, unarmed door alarms, radios that were turned off or were not working, and School Safety Plans that were not stored in secured locations. For example, one plan included an incorrect main phone number for the school and incorrectly listed key personnel such as nurses, a principal, and an assistant principal who no longer worked there – the assistant principal listed had not been at the school for at least four years. 
• Drills must be conducted regularly to practice school responses to an emergency in a pre-planned and organized fashion to allow for a quick response in the event of an emergency. Five of the 25 sampled schools did not conduct the minimum number of evacuation or lockdown drills and, for the 2016–17 school year, 3 of the 25 schools did not conduct drills within the required time frames.
• The DOE could also improve its compliance with district-wide planning requirements. We reviewed the DOE’s District Plan, comparing it to the Law and State and City Regulations, and found it was missing certain information, including: procedures to test drills in coordination with local/county emergency responders/preparedness officials; policies and procedures for responding to implied or direct threats of violence by visitors to the school; and policies and procedures for annual multi-hazard school safety training for staff and students.
• While the DOE does not conduct shelter-in-place drills and correctly states these drills are not required by the Education Department, the data supports the value of conducting them. Shelter in place is a response to an emergency situation in which occupants seek safety within the building rather than evacuate. During the 2015–16, 2016–17, and 2017–18 school years, the DOE reported 219 school lockdowns and 684 instances in which students and staff had to shelter in place – more than three times the number of lockdowns.

Key Recommendations

• Review and amend the City Regulations to ensure they align and comply with the State Regulations and guidance.
• Work with the Education Department to develop a process to submit School Safety Plans to the State Police, as required under both the Law and the State Regulations; and develop and establish a system to ensure that up-to-date building floor plans are submitted as part of School Safety Plans. 
• Review School Safety Committee meeting information submitted by schools to ensure the meetings take place, as required, and cover meaningful safety information; and establish a minimum number or percentage of committee members to be in attendance for each School Safety Committee meeting. 
• Ensure that the DOE’s review of School Safety Plans addresses accuracy and completeness (e.g., correct phone numbers, required number of alternate exits).
• Review procedures for monitoring emergency drills to ensure that all drills required by law are completed within the required time frames.
• Incorporate relevant outside documentation into the District Plans, including how drills are tested with local and county emergency responders and other preparedness officials. 
• Require schools to conduct shelter-in-place drills as part of their School Safety Plan testing.