The bill would also aim to establish comprehensive training for schools and educators leading the drills, after Chalkbeat last year found teachers across New York City received little to no training before conducting them. “They don’t actually help keep students safe, or make them feel safe, which are both incredibly important.” “These drills are incredibly traumatizing for students,” Gounardes said of the current system. It would also offer accommodations to students with medical conditions, and require schools provide students with “an age-appropriate explanation” of the situation.įor young students, that might mean using codewords during drills - like announcing that a raccoon had entered the building and students needed to remain in their classrooms. If passed, their bill would require officials use a “trauma-informed approach” in the creation of lockdown drills - including lowering the required number of annual drills to just one, notifying parents at least a week in advance, and allowing them to opt their children out of the drill. Pupo and Robert Murtfeld, another parent at the school, have since advocated for changing the state law.Ī new bill introduced by state Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, both of Brooklyn, on Wednesday would do just that. “I don’t think there’s any research that needs to be done to say that this is traumatizing for kids.” “Kids at that age, they don’t know how to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not,” he said, adding other parents said their kids came home scared or asking what to do if bullets came through the window. In late 2021, Marco Pupo, a Manhattan parent, was shocked to hear his then-5-year-old son say his class had to lock their windows and hide because “there was a bad guy trying to get us.”
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