The terrorist attack in Mumbai is prompting 17 City Council members to call for New York Police Department protection of private schools. The following is an exchange between NYC Councilman Simcha Felder & WNYC’s Bob Hennelly:
REPORTER: Currently the NYPD has almost 5,000 safety officers deployed in the City’s public schools. Brooklyn City Councilman Simcha Felder says the current economic crisis puts hiring private guards beyond the reach of financially strapped private schools, but he says they’re vulnerable and deserve protection.
FELDER: This City and others should be providing at least the most basic forms of security for non-public schools, whether they are Catholic, Jewish or Muslim or another.
REPORTER: Under Felder’s bill, private schools would have to request security support through the Department of Education. Hundreds of private schools would be eligible. A council spokesperson says it’s unclear how much the initiative would cost.
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4 Responses
Get real, Felder! The almost 5,000 safety officers deployed to the city’s 4,000+ schools are hardly enough to secure the over 1,000,000 public school students, let alone the private schools (don’t forget — they are unarmed). And you want to shrink those ranks and deploy them to private schools? It would be far more prudent for the City Council to seek additional funds to increase the number of safety officers.
Also, the safety officers are under the jurisdiction of NYPD, not the Department of Education.
Oops! That’s 1,400+ schools.
This is a very important concern. Coupled with the monies given to the schools in the past year specifically for security, this should make the schools very safe. And it goes without saying, they should be very safe.