They’re armed and ready — for class.
Weapons busts in city schools hit a five-year high in 2018 and have spiked by 26% since 2014, according to a Post analysis of state data.
A total of 2,903 “dangerous instruments” were intercepted across all five boroughs during the 2017-2018 academic year, up sharply from 2,292 in 2013-2014, the figures show.
“This needs to be a wake-up call,” said Greg Floyd, president of the school safety agents union and a vocal critic of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s school discipline policies.
“More children are bringing weapons to school and here we have the numbers. They know others are bringing them so they are bringing their own to protect themselves.”
Asked to comment on the sharp increase in weaponry being found at schools, the Department of Education insisted the numbers reflected improved enforcement. While the number of metal detectors at school entrances fluctuates, the total usually hovers around 90 system-wide, according to the DOE.
But Floyd cited the surge in gun and knife confiscations to call for more detectors at the city’s roughly 1,300 school buildings.
Some 997 of the 2,903 weapons seized, or 34%, were discovered by metal detectors, the data shows.
Scanner critics argue that they acclimatize kids to punitive environments.
Twenty schools had at least 10 weapons seized during the 2017-’18 school year — a list that includes Brooklyn Tech, a top specialized high school. According to the data, 16 weapons were taken from students inside the nation’s largest high school, which has a student body of nearly 6,000.
Brooklyn Tech had just 12 weapons busts over the prior four years combined, the numbers show. Another top high school, Edward R. Murrow in Midwood, logged 11 confiscations.
Frederick Douglas Academy HS in Manhattan had the most weapons busts in the city last year with 24 — after logging just 11 over the prior four years combined.
Metropolitan HS in Bronx was next on the list with 20 seizures and Brooklyn’s Progress HS for Professional Careers had 18.
DeWitt Clinton in The Bronx, one of de Blasio’s Renewal program participants, logged 17 weapons incidents last year.
The new numbers come amid a brewing confrontation over control of school safety.
City Councilman Mark Treyger and others have questioned the NYPD’s stewardship of school safety agents and have broached the possibility of giving the DOE more oversight.
Floyd has staunchly opposed that approach, arguing that it would lead to less transparency.