NYC Schools Are Safe, Chancellor Says

By DYLAN CAMPBELL

Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña deplored Wednesday’s school shooting in Florida as “too normal” while on Thursday touring the Queens Vocational and Technical High School in honor of Career Exploration Month.

The Chancellor visited the Queens school to announce that 346 high schools, up from 253 in the prior year, are participating in Career Exploration Month, and visit with the school’s diverse students focused on technical skills. But the conversation shifted from the initiative to inspire students’ careers to how to protect their futures. In the context carnage in Broward County, another on a growing list,  the question of what is being done to keep this violence from happening in New York City schools arose.

“Words cannot describe when you hear about another tragedy in one of our schools and to me this is really a wake-up call to the nation in terms of what we are going to do,” said Fariña. “But I really want to use this an opportunity to also reassure parents that in New York City we have done everything possible to mitigate that this doesn’t happen in our schools.”

The Chancellor added that all school principles and safety staff must review their safety guidelines and have a safety drill before March 15.

She said all safety officers are trained for an active shooter situation and principles also have instructions on how to handle active shooter scenarios.  She said the schools encourage a “see something, do something” policy that urges students to anonymously report warning signs in a reasonable way and trying to educate families about how to get information in an emergency.

Fariña cited Stuyvesant High School’s ability to lockdown and notify parents within minutes  during the recent terrorist attack in New York City where a rented Home Depot truck tore through lower Manhattan, injuring over a dozen. Two staff and two students were among the injured.

But in this climate of fear, she warned of making a scary situation even worse.

Fariña said she didn’t want the drills and preparation to add to the tension, but to “deescalate the fear.” She encouraged parents to bring the discussion of school shootings into the home.

She urged parents to “reassure the children that [we are] working with the NYPD … New York City schools are safe.”

“Encourage your children to talk about their fears and concerns and try to alleviate that across the dining room table,” she said. “This is not the time to escalate issues but to really try to have reasonable discussions with families to the degree that you can be reasonable given the tragedy that is.”

Fariña expressed hope that this incident and many others would finally ignite change.

“It is something, honestly, we as a country have to start looking at much more seriously because it’s become almost a point of it’s too normal and it’s gotta stop being normal, business as usual,” she said.