Treyger, Richards want School Safety Division returned to DOE
Following protests around the city demanding to defund the police, Councilmembers Mark Treyger and Donovan Richards have called for the Division of School Safety to be removed from the NYPD and returned to the New York City Department of Education (DOE).
During a joint statement on Monday, Treyger (Bensonhurst-Coney Island-Gravesend-Sea Gate), and Richards, who represents Queens, said the plan put in place in 1998 by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani that transferred the Division of School Safety from the DOE to the NYPD is no longer viable.
“We are past the days of ‘Zero Tolerance’ approaches to discipline, which meted out severe consequences for minor infractions, disproportionately against black and brown students, and students with IEPs, but we maintain its systems and structures,” they wrote. “Despite students, educators and advocates raising the same concerns for the last 25 years, and despite a move away from the aggressive, punitive model of Zero Tolerance, attempts to address the problems with having school safety managed by the NYPD and deployed into DOE’s buildings have focused on incremental reforms.”