A group of 250 incoming New York City school safety agents received word Friday that they won’t be starting training after all because Mayor Adams’ administration canceled their class at the 11th hour, the Daily News has learned.
The reason for the abrupt cancellation was not immediately known, but it comes as Adams continues to warn that the costly migrant crisis will necessitate “painful” spending cuts across city agencies. It also comes on the heels of the mayor instituting a hiring freeze that bars all city agencies from adding any new workers to their ranks, with exceptions for public safety, public health and revenue generation. It’s unclear whether school safety agents are part of the exemption.
Greg Floyd, president of Teamsters Local 237, which represents city school safety agents, said the class was supposed to start Friday and that the 250 recruits got notice just hours beforehand that it’s no longer happening. He blasted the move and noted the school safety ranks are already reeling from staff shortages that began during the pandemic.
“There are a lot of shootings and stabbings and violence outside the schools. Because of the shortage, the school safety agents do not have the units on the outside like they used to,” Floyd told The News.
Hank Sheinkopf, a Local 237 Teamsters rep familiar with the same notice Floyd received, said the city is “going to suffer” from not hiring more guards.
“We continue to have more violent incidents in schools,” he said, “and we need more agents to protect our kids.”
Spokespeople for the mayor’s office did not return requests for comment.
School safety agents are part of the NYPD and training for their positions typically lasts about 20 weeks.
NYPD Inspector Kevin Taylor, commanding officer of the department’s School Safety Division, testified before the City Council earlier this week that there are currently 3,930 school safety agents on the municipal payroll — down roughly 1,000 compared to pre-pandemic levels.
According to the Mayor’s Management Report released last month, major felony crime in public schools spiked by 16% in Fiscal Year 2023 — which ran between July 2022 and this past June — compared with Fiscal Year 2022. Burglaries and grand larcenies in schools also saw increases, according to the report.
On the 2021 mayoral campaign trail, Adams distinguished himself from his more left-leaning rivals by arguing that it’s critical to maintain a strong safety agent presence in city schools, a position he likes to remind constituents of to this day.
“Those people who were saying when I was campaigning they’re going to move school safety agents out of school, we don’t need them in school, I said, ‘No, our children said we want our school safety agents,'” Adams said at a town hall event in Brooklyn earlier this month.
At the same event, though, Adams said he is constrained from hiring any more school safety guards because of “the direct impact of the cost of asylum seekers and migrants.”
“We had to do a hiring freeze. We can’t hire any more. We can’t hire any more school safety agents. We can’t hire any more crossing guards,” he said. “We don’t have the money. So, when people want to know the direct impact, this is the direct impact.”
