New York City will begin hiring security officers for private schools after Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed to a $19.8 million bill designed to improve school security.
The bill, sponsored by Councilman David Greenfield of Brooklyn, requires the city to provide at least one security officer in all non-public schools holding more than 300 students, according to capitalnewyork.com.
The agreement marks a change in policy for the city, which has never provided taxpayer money for non-public school security.
The officers, referred to as security guards in the bill text, will be privately contracted employees from a state-licensed security guard agency. It was decided that the officers would not come from the NYPD School Safety Department after department officials warned that thinner staffing levels could compromise public safety.
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Religious schools will also qualify for the private school protections after de Blasio faced pressure from religious groups in recent months. Still, the $19.8 million agreement is a major decrease from Greenfield’s original estimate of $39 million. The initial proposal covered 233 Catholic schools, 212 Jewish schools and 66 other schools affiliated with religion in addition to 138 non-public schools.
Currently the NYPD’s School Safety Division employs more than 5,000 school safety agents and more than 200 uniformed police officers to serve public schools throughout the city’s five boroughs.
