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In a bid to reverse a drop in school safety personnel in recent years, New York City officials are recruiting assistant school safety agents fresh out of high school.
But the hiring process, already stalled nearly two years, is attracting complaints from advocates, who worry about putting teens in that role.
The New York Police Department got the green light to hire 400 assistant agents, young people under 21 who will help existing school safety staff in elementary schools, police officials said during a City Council hearing last month. The move to recruit the agents was first announced in 2023, but the Police Department has been slow to hire any.
The first class of assistant agents is expected to come in July. They will be tasked with answering phones, greeting visitors, monitoring doorbells, and helping identify people “violating New York City Public Schools rules and regulations,” according to the job description. Similar to regular safety agents, the assistants will wear uniforms and will not be armed.
The new hires are eligible as soon as they earn a high school diploma following eight weeks of training, which will include information about restorative justice techniques and responding to children dealing with emotional crises, police officials told City Council. The assistant job will pay $37,399, about $3,000 more than minimum wage (city officials had previously floated a lower starting salary for the role). The assistants are not expected to be placed in middle or high schools.
Recruiting people who may still be teenagers into the ranks of the school safety division has sparked heated debate. Dozens of advocates sent a letter to Mayor Eric Adams and schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos this week and protested outside the Education Department’s Lower Manhattan headquarters, urging them to abandon the decision to hire young people into school safety roles.
“These young adults deserve better employment opportunities and pipelines that don’t lead to poverty wages in high-stress roles for which they will not be properly trained or developmentally prepared,” according to the letter, which was signed by a slew of groups including the Dignity in Schools Campaign, Advocates for Children, and the Alliance for Quality Education.
“Reallocating resources from policing to student-centered supports such as mental health clinics and wellness centers, restorative justice coordinators, and social workers is essential,” they added.
City officials hope the assistant role will create a pipeline to help replenish the ranks of safety agents, which have plummeted 28% over the last five years to just 3,600. The decline has been fueled by high attrition during the pandemic connected to the COVID vaccine mandate, meager pay, and moves by Adams not to restaff the division.
School principals raised alarms earlier this year that the shortage was compromising safety. Many campuses have fewer agents to patrol school grounds during arrival and dismissal when staff say skirmishes are more likely to escalate. At some high schools, there have not been enough agents to operate scanning equipment, forcing students to wait in long lines to get to class.
Kevyn Bowles, the principal of New Bridges Elementary School in Brooklyn, said his campus is supposed to have two agents but routinely only has one. That means there is often no one conducting patrols or perimeter checks around the building. If a safety incident occurs, someone has to scramble to cover the front desk while the agent responds.
As much as he would like additional school safety staff, Bowles said he has some reservations about hiring fresh high school graduates.
“They have to do SOMETHING to solve their staffing crisis,” Bowles wrote. “However, I question whether agents at that age will consistently have the emotional maturity and judgement to respond to conflict and high stress situations in a safe and appropriate way.”
Representatives of the NYPD and Education Department did not respond to requests for comment. The union representing school safety agents declined to comment on the new role.
After this story was first published, City Hall spokesperson Zachary Nosanchuk wrote that “we are expanding school safety resources in direct response to feedback from families and community advocates by creating the new position of assistant school safety agent.” He downplayed critiques of the program, saying they came from a “vocal minority.”
Some school safety agents have previously expressed skepticism that the new assistant role will reverse the staffing decline, given that low wages can be a major barrier.
How to keep schools safe has long been the subject of intense conversation for years. Some critics argue stationing police staff in schools can lead to the criminalization of low-level misconduct, particularly among students of color. Still, large majorities of parents, students, and educators believe the agents help keep schools safe.
Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic nominee for mayor, has indicated that he favors expanding mental health support and restorative justice programs rather than hiring more school safety agents. His campaign did not immediately respond to questions about the assistant school safety agent program.
Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo, who is still mulling a third-party run after conceding the Democratic primary, has said he would increase the number of school safety agents. Jim Walden, who is running as an independent, said he would add school safety agents by increasing their pay and rehiring those who failed to comply with the city’s vaccine mandate. Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, also supports hiring more school safety agents.
This story has been updated with a comment from the mayor’s office.
Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
