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Walk into a New York City public school, and you may be greeted by a police official who is not old enough to buy cigarettes or order a drink.
The Police Department has deployed 114 assistant school safety agents as young as 18 and fresh out of high school to patrol the city’s elementary schools, city officials confirmed this week.
The assistant agents are responsible for answering phones, operating recently installed video intercoms, greeting visitors, and helping identify people “violating New York City Public Schools rules and regulations,” according to the job description. The position pays $37,339 a year, about $2,000 more than minimum wage.
First announced in 2023, the program was slow to get off the ground. It has also faced sharp criticism from dozens of education advocates who oppose police presence in schools who tried to convince former Mayor Eric Adams to drop the program.
City officials hope the assistant agents will help replenish the ranks of school safety officers, who wear police uniforms but are unarmed. Including the new crop of assistant school safety agents, there are nearly 3,600 police officials stationed in the city’s schools, down about 28% over the last six years from 5,000. The decline has been fueled by attrition during the pandemic connected to the COVID vaccine mandate, low wages, and moves by Adams not to restaff the division.
School leaders have raised alarms that the drop in school safety agents has compromised safety. It’s also caused delays getting to class since the agents are responsible for operating metal detectors on campuses that require students to be screened before entering the building.
“We are experiencing a massive shortfall,” Mark Rampersant, the education department’s safety chief, said at a City Council hearing this week.
Kevyn Bowles, the principal of New Bridges Elementary School in Brooklyn, initially feared that an assistant safety agent might not have the emotional maturity to respond to conflict or high-stress situations. But after his school was assigned one, he changed his mind.
“Schools are stretched, so any extra help is beneficial and appreciated,” Bowles said.
The assistant agent largely supervises the front desk and buzzes people in, freeing up the other agent to respond to behavioral crises or safety issues. In the past, a school staff member would have to cover the front desk if the school’s sole safety agent was responding to an incident or on a lunch break.
“She’s very calm, professional, respectful — maybe I shouldn’t have doubted the 19-year-olds of the world,” Bowles added.
Still, a range of education advocates and civil rights groups have raised concerns about the new role and argue the city should focus more on staffing up mental health support and using alternative approaches to conflict resolution.
Johanna Miller, director of the education policy center at the New York Civil Liberties Union, emphasized that the assistant agents receive about eight weeks of training, which is less than half of what regular agents receive.
“We’re concerned about poorly trained NYPD officers in elementary schools,” Miller said. “There are a lot of people who could be qualified to watch a door without having a direct line to the NYPD and the potential for children to be arrested.”
A police department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the assistant agents’ training.
Officials noted major crimes in schools have fallen 9% so far this school year compared with last year, and school arrests are down about 10%. As part of a reorganization of the school safety division, staff who previously held administrative positions were deployed to schools.
It remains to be seen whether the assistant agents will make a dent in the city’s efforts to restaff the school safety division. The 114 assistant agents assigned to schools are far below the 400 agents the Police Department was originally approved to hire. (Officials did not respond to a question about what the current target is.)
Rampersant, the Education Department’s safety chief, said officials are visiting high schools and parent association meetings to advertise the program to get more recruits. But he said low wages remain a sticking point for all school safety agent roles and starting salaries for other law enforcement agencies are significantly higher.
“When you are a school safety agent — you rather work in a correctional facility than a school, right? — that’s really telling,” Rampersant said.
Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
