Nassau County District Attorney Calls on State to Upgrade School Violence Reporting System

Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas recently called on the New York State Board of Regents to upgrade the system of tracking school violence.

Singas wrote in a letter that the board should update the "widely-criticize" method of tracking violence in order to "facilitate more timely and comprehensive public disclosure of school violence, discrimination, harassment and bullying."

The State Education Department recently proposed to make changes to the Violent and Disruptive Incident Reporting System which identifies the most "dangerous" elementary and secondary schools and requires them to maintain a record of all violent and disruptive incidents that occur within each school year.

In addition, the schools have to provide an annual report of such incidents to the superintendent.

The incidents that are required to be reported include: homicide, forcible sex offenses and other sex offenses, robbery, assault with serious physical injury, arson, kidnapping, assault with physical injury, reckless endangerment, minor altercations, intimidation, harassment, menacing or bullying, burglary, criminal mischief, larceny or other theft offenses, bomb threats, false alarm, riot, weapons possession, drug use, possession or sale, alcohol use, possession or sale, and other disruptive incidents.

The State Department claims that in recent years stakeholders have expressed concern that the categories do not accurately capture the types of incidents that occur in schools.

In addition, they claim the categories do not serve as a tool for schools to identify strategies to reduce incidents of violence and improve school climate for the purpose of improving student outcomes

Singas criticized the proposal claiming that it does not provide a framework that will "facilitate timely, consistent, and comprehensive reporting of school violence" and also claims that it fails to collect enough detailed data for drug use, gang activity, and hate-motivated incidents.

“In 2016, we should not settle for a system that provides parents and policymakers with sparse, inconsistent, two year-old data regarding violence, bullying, harassment, and discrimination in our schools,” she wrote in the letter. “Our kids deserve safe schools in which to learn, and we all deserve accurate and timely information about violent and disruptive incidents so that we can work collaboratively to address school safety issues before they escalate.”

She offered several recommendation to the Board of Regents including requiring real-time reporting of school violence, reporting of gang activity and adding "gender identity or expression" to the list of reportable incidents.

“I am glad that the State Education Department is working to revamp how schools track and report violence and bullying, but the reforms that they have proposed are woefully inadequate and we owe it to our kids to get this right,” Signas said.

The public comment period for the proposed rule is open until November 19, 2017.