{"id":49784,"date":"2025-07-08T22:10:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T22:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/49784\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T22:10:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T22:10:19","slug":"long-delayed-assistant-school-safety-agent-job-posting-is-unlawful-ny-civil-liberties-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/49784\/","title":{"rendered":"Long-delayed assistant school safety agent job posting is ‘unlawful’: NY Civil Liberties Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

After nearly two years of setbacks, Mayor Adams\u2019 push to hire hundreds of junior school safety agents<\/a> could hit a legal snag, a civil liberties group has warned.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the Adams administration revealed plans to hire 400 assistant safety personnel \u2014 newly minted high school graduates under 21 who could help address staffing shortages in elementary schools. The program languished until this spring<\/a> when the NYPD finally posted the job.<\/p>\n

Now, the New York Civil Liberties Union is alleging the job description violated state law by giving the young agents more responsibility over school discipline than is legally permitted. The posting states that tasks may include \u201cidentifying persons violating New York City Public Schools rules and regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis responsibility is not merely inappropriate, but unlawful,\u201d NYCLU wrote in a letter made public on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law<\/a> makes it clear that school safety personnel, whether School Safety Agents or Assistant School Safety Agents, must not serve as school disciplinarians or enforcers of school rules. Their intervention is strictly limited to situations involving serious criminal conduct, presenting a clear and present danger of serious physical injury,\u201d continued the memo, which was addressed to Adams.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn NYPD School Safety patch. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

City Hall rejected NYCLU\u2019s interpretation of the law and stood by the job posting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is clearly inaccurate,\u201d said Zachary Nosanchuk, a spokesman for the mayor. \u201cAs Mayor Adams often says, \u2018the vocal minority is not the majority,\u2019 and we are expanding school safety resources in direct response to feedback from families and community advocates by creating the new position of assistant school safety agent. This role is completely legal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Efforts to restore the ranks of school safety agents<\/a> have reignited a years-long debate over their presence in public schools.<\/p>\n

Last spring, just over 3,600 agent positions were filled out of an authorized head count closer to 4,000, according to data compiled by the NYCLU \u2014 a 28% decrease over the past five years.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the new initiative say it will not only beef up staffing now, but also build a pipeline of school safety personnel for the future by recruiting new graduates to the NYPD. Junior agents will earn a starting salary of $37,300 and be tasked with greeting students, preventing trespassing, and assisting with \u201cmaintaining order,\u201d according to the job description.<\/p>\n

\"NYPDNYPD School Safety vehicles are pictured in Manhattan on Jan. 28, 2022. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

But critics of school policing have welcomed the downward staffing trend since the COVID-19 pandemic and George Floyd protests, saying some of their work is better left to mental health professionals.<\/p>\n

NYCLU also raised specific concerns about the deputy role \u2014 which requires candidates have a high school diploma or GED and undergo eight weeks of training. Traditional school safety personnel must be 21 or older and go through up to 17 weeks of training<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to be even less trained than the current school safety agents,\u201d said Jake Martinez, deputy director of the education policy center at the NYCLU. \u201cThis is straight out of high school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely concerning because they don\u2019t really have to have any experience at all to be going into the schools. And now, these young people are going to be responsible for enforcing school rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the letter, the NYCLU said the Adams administration \u201cat a minimum\u201d should revise the job description and update any trainings to comply with state law. But the civil liberties group also urged City Hall to go further and eliminate the program altogether.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore fundamentally, New York City should not be expanding police-like surveillance into elementary schools at all,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n

Applications closed mid-last week, and new hires are expected to start soon. Asked if NYCLU would consider legal action if the job description is not revised, Martinez said the center is \u201ccurrently exploring all of our options.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally Published: July 8, 2025 at 12:28 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After nearly two years of setbacks, Mayor Adams\u2019 push to hire hundreds of junior school safety agents could…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":49785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,407,1370,728,405,403,5294,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-49784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-county","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114819906190564448","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}