Religious Groups Call on de Blasio to Provide Police at Schools' Request
New York City parochial school leaders aren’t waiting on prayers when it comes to budget requests this year.
Beginning today, a $100,000 advertising campaign in the pages of major Jewish and Catholic publications will urge New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to finance NYPD security agents for private schools.
One ad features a group of four children under the banner, “Don’t our children deserve to be safe?” A second featuress two young boys wearing kippahs with the same message. Both promote a bill backed by 46 of 51 City Council members that would allow private schools to request that safety agents be posted on their campuses.
City Councilman David Greenfield, who sponsored the bill, says the ad push emerged from some religious groups’ displeasure with the administration’s publicly ambivalent attitude toward the legislation. Several Jewish and Catholic philanthropists financed the advertisements, but a source familiar with the campaign said they wish to remain anonymous.
“Especially around ethnic communities and Jewish communities, there has been disappointment that the mayor has not come out in support of this,” Greenfield said. “To move the issue forward, we really need to see the mayor more engaged.”
The mayor’s office did not directly respond to a question about whether de Blasio backs the bill.
“Protecting all of New York City’s children, regardless of which school they attend, is a mission the NYPD takes on each and every day. And it’s a job the department does exceptionally well,” said de Blasio’s spokesman Wiley Norvell in a statement. “We constantly seek out new ways to deepen that protection, and will gladly continue our dialogue with members of every community on how we can achieve that together.”
Greenfield and City Council Jewish Caucus Chairman Mark Levine emphasize that the bill has more co-sponsors than any other pending measure and note that it has made it into the Council's formal budget request. They say it builds on other services the city already for provides private school pupils, such as transportation to and from class, crossing guards and nurses.
The bill has garnered widespread support, according to the lawmakers, because it seeks to provide protection for all students, irrespective of their background, at a time when hate crimes are on the rise. Levine said hate crimes targeting Jews were up 29 percent this year while those targeting Muslims increased from two instances to five.
Given the city's $3 billion projected surplus, the councilmen say the $50 million annual price tag for providing security agents seems viable. And Levine says that figure could be negotiated down by limiting the service to schools with a certain number of students or by using other parameters.
“The hope is that we can work out some sort of agreement with the administration on the budget before putting it to a vote,” Levine said. “The speaker is listening to members and running an analysis at this point. And I think the mayor and the administration are certainly considering the bill and running an analysis as well.”
Despite the bill's wide support in the Council, at least one lawmaker, City Councilman Daniel Dromm, has publicly come out against the measure, arguing that increasing the number of NYPD safety agents in schools actually does more harm than good.
Below are the ads: