City schools not prepared for mass shootings: report
City schools are not adequately prepared for the next Adam Lanza, according to a hair-raising new report by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli that found Department of Education campuses are relying on faulty alarms and radios, late and outdated safety plans and incorrect personnel records.
“The state Safe Schools Against Violence in Education Act aims to keep school children and teachers as safe as possible in a time of school shootings by requiring districts to plan for the unthinkable,” DiNapoli said in a statement accompanying the audit’s release.
“While it’s clear the New York City Department of Education takes school safety seriously, there are gaps that must be addressed. Schools large and small need to do everything possible to protect students and teachers from senseless tragedy.”
DiNapoli’s probe looked at how well a sample of 25 city public schools complied with the so-called SAVE Act adopted nearly 20 years ago in 2000.
The act requires schools to submit annual safety plans by Sept. 1 — just before the start of the school year. And yet the city allows schools to file their safety plans up to two and a half months after classes begin, DiNapoli found.
“Even then, some schools did not submit their plans on time,” the report states. And when plans were submitted, they were rife with errors.
“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,” the report states.
Other schools were relying on broken walkie-talkies and disarmed door alarms.
When auditors sampled school floor plans on file with the city, they found three of 25 were outdated.
“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,” the report reads.
One-fifth of the schools surveyed did not conduct the minimum number of evacuation or lock-down drills, and three of 25 schools failed to do the drills in the required time period, investigators noted.
The Department of Education claimed it “exceeds” state safety guidelines, but nonetheless admitted it is taking up fixes proposed by the comptroller.
“As we continue to work with NYPD on a daily basis to ensure safety at every school, we’re immediately implementing some of the Comptroller’s findings and will take others into consideration,” said Education Department spokeswoman Miranda Barbot.
School shooter Lanza murdered 26 people, including 20 children under the age of 8, when he opened fire at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012.
Since 2013, US schools have suffered at least 456 incidents of gunfire on school grounds leading to 180 deaths and more than 350 injuries, according to the Everytown for Gun Safety gun control advocacy group.
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