Comptroller Releases Report on Oversight of School Safety Planning

April 15th, 2019

This week the Comptroller released his findings of an audit conducted by his office aimed at reviewing the State Education Department’s (SED) oversight of school safety planning. The SAVE Act, enacted in 2000, aims to prevent school violence and increase the safety of students and teachers in New York’s public schools. The act requires school districts to establish a code of conduct, mandates training and instruction for preventing and responding to incidents of school violence, and establishes a uniform system for reporting violent incidents.

The SAVE Act also requires schools and districts to be prepared to respond to incidents when they occur. Specifically, it requires public school districts, charter schools and BOCES programs to develop comprehensive district-wide safety plans and building-level emergency response plans. SED regulations were also developed to provide additional guidance and details on school safety planning requirements. The requirements outlined in the law and regulations apply to public schools and districts, but not to private schools.

Key findings of the Comptroller audit include:

SED is not sufficiently monitoring School Districts’ compliance with the requirements for school safety planning and does not have assurance that the requirements are being met.

SED efforts primarily focused on ensuring that School Districts submitted their Building Plans to the State Police annually and delivered a 99% rate of submission. However, SED did not similarly track submission of Building Plans to local law enforcement and there is no assurance that local law enforcement – likely first responders in an emergency – received the plans as required.

Due to SED’s lack of oversight, School Districts did not consistently: annually report their safety plans in accordance with guidelines, hold public hearings on the plans, appoint district-wide safety teams including all required representatives, or train employees on the plans.

SED never submitted a report to the Governor and Legislature as required.

Key recommendations include:

Develop a program to monitor compliance.

Clarify SED expectations for compliance with requirements under the law including, but not limited to, public comments periods, public hearings, plan adoption, and training requirements.

Prepare and submit required annual reports to the Governor and Legislature.

The Comptroller said:

“Horrific school shootings across the country show the urgent need for schools to remain vigilant against threats to student and teacher safety. New York schools are required to develop and regularly review safety plans as part of the SAVE Act. The State Education Department needs more staff and resources to help make sure those plans are being developed and sound. I urge the state Legislature to look at this issue. We don’t want to nickel and dime the safety of our children.”