By Madina Touré
02/18/2021 08:21 AM EST

Gregory Floyd, president of Teamsters Local 237, plans to testify against transferring oversight of the school safety agents his union represents from the NYPD — and he had some strong words for Council members looking to put the agents under the control of the city Department of Education.
“The politicians think they know what is happening in our schools, but in reality, they know nothing at all,” Floyd plans to say during a Council hearing Thursday, according to testimony previewed by POLITICO.

Key context: The City Council’s Education Committee is considering a package of bills, one of which calls for the NYPD to be “fully removed” from school safety and have the function transferred to the DOE. By August 2021, school safety agents would no longer be able to make arrests, carry weapons or mechanical restraints or wear law enforcement uniforms on school grounds.

Floyd said that would put his workers and students in danger.

“The fact that there have been no student deaths in school from the middle of 1992 until 2017, is a credit to the work of School Safety Agents,” he said. “It’s not magic, it’s hard work.”

Floyd argues such a move would be too much for the already overburdened DOE.

“They don’t do things well now, what are they going to do with a big task as security going forward,” Floyd said in an interview. “One would have to just ask themselves logically that question... and there are those who wanna go further by saying they don't need school security in the schools at all. So this doesn't stop."
The politics: In the wake of city protests against the killing of George Floyd, activists reignited their calls for school safety agents to be removed or seriously curtailed as a part of a larger effort to reduce the powers of the NYPD. During last year’s budget negotiations, students and advocates pressured elected officials to “defund” the police. In a grueling budget session, the city ended up transferring control of the agents from the NYPD to the DOE, but spaced the transition out over several years — one of several measures that ultimately fell short of the $1 billion cut to police that political leaders touted.
Speaker Corey Johnson was left with a budget that displeased moderate Black lawmakers as well as activists who wanted significant cuts to the NYPD. Council Member Brad Lander voted against the budget saying it did not go far enough to curtail the department. Both men now may face off in the city comptroller’s race — a race in which Floyd endorsed State Sen. Brian Benjamin.

“Why would I want Corey Johnson who's probably never worked in finance, who couldn't even manage a budget for New York City, managing my pension fund,” Floyd said.
Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Floyd also pilloried Lander.

“Brad Lander, whose children don't go to any of these tough schools, are making decisions for Black and brown parents who he's never probably even spoken to,” he said. “Where are the parents involved in this? Do you see any parents jumping and down? The answer is no.”
Lander declined to respond but Make The Road Action, which has endorsed Lander’s campaign and has been a leading group advocating for police-free schools weighed in on his behalf.

"Students of color have been leading the campaign to get police out of schools, and to bring the support services our communities deserve instead of more criminalization to our schools,” said Keri Foster a lead organizer for the group.

What’s next: There are 5,038 school safety agents, 70 percent of whom are women — mostly Black and Latina — and single parents, according to Floyd.
He said that if they are under the DOE, the staff remains the same but they lose the “supervision and intelligence” of the NYPD to actually do their job and function correctly. He also said the safety agents lose morale because they “feel that they’re being scapegoated unjustly.”