The State Education Department (SED) needs to improve its efforts to ensure school districts are following state requirements for school safety planning, including whether those plans are shared with local first responders, according to an audit released by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

The audit found that SED did not do enough to make certain that the requirements under the Safe Schools Against Violence in Education (SAVE) Act were being met by school districts. For instance, many of the school districts the auditors visited could not demonstrate they had adopted annual safety plans in accordance with SED guidance, held public hearings on the plans, appointed some required personnel to district-wide safety teams or trained employees on the plans.

“Horrific school shootings across the country show the urgent need for schools to remain vigilant against threats to student and teacher safety,” DiNapoli said. “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.”

Auditors found that SED is not providing critical oversight to ensure schools have adequate and up-to-date safety plans. While SED has collected certain required school safety planning information directly from the school districts, the department has not reviewed or verified what it has collected or monitored school districts’ compliance with other requirements in the law or regulations. Absent stronger direction and oversight from the department, there is a risk that school districts will continue to misinterpret requirements related to the school safety plans.

SED has never submitted a report on the implementation of and compliance with the provisions of the law to the Governor and the Legislature, even though it has been required to do so annually since 2000, auditors discovered. Without those reports, lawmakers don’t have the information necessary to evaluate whether the law is working as intended and whether protections are in place for children and staff.

DiNapoli recommended SED:

• develop a program to monitor school districts’ compliance with school safety planning requirements outlined in the law, regulations and SED guidance

• clarify expectations for compliance with requirements under the law, regulations and department guidance including expectations for public comment periods, public hearings, plan adoption and training requirements, and

• prepare and submit the required annual reports to the governor and the Legislature.

SED officials generally agreed with the audit recommendations and indicated they will act to address them. SED was awarded a five-year School Emergency Management Grant from the U.S. Department of Education in September 2018 and expects to use a portion of the funds to hire a full-time person to improve its oversight of emergency response planning requirements.

SED officials disagreed with the finding regarding submission of plans to local law enforcement, stating that plans are entered into the Integrated Justice Portal. However, auditors found that this access is not always reliable for all local law enforcement agencies.

The audit is part of DiNapoli’s initiative to focus on educational issues in his new term, according to a press release from his office. Upcoming audits will look at safety planning at several local districts across New York and violence in New York City schools as well as New York City’s Universal Pre-K program. The audit looked at schools outside New York City..

Read the entire report: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/audits/allaudits/093019/sga-2019-18s34.pdf