Small city yeshivas and other religious schools would receive millions of taxpayer dollars each year to add security guards to combat rising hate threats, according to proposed new legislation.
The current law only pays for such security measures for non-public schools with more than 300 students, but a bill sponsored by Democratic Brooklyn Councilman Justin Brannan would expand the coverage to all of the sites.
“This is a grim new reality,” said Maury Litwack, founder and CEO of the Teach Coalition, which advocates for yeshivas and Jewish day schools.
“Hate crimes and harassment fueled by antisemitism and Islamophobia are at record highs, and our children deserve to be protected, no matter where they go to school,” he said.
“This program has been successful and effective, but it needs to be expanded to ensure smaller schools are on a level playing field to get the resources they need to keep their students safe,”
The city is authorized to spend up to $19.8 million under the current security grant program for larger non-public schools. Including the smaller schools would likely double that tab to nearly $40 million.
There are about 550 private and parochial schools with fewer than 300 students in the city that would benefit.
The city would reimburse the schools for the cost of hiring security guards.
“There is nothing more important than keeping our kids safe when they’re in school,” Brannan said in a statement. “Expanding the Nonpublic School Security Reimbursement Program (NPS) to cover more schools and more students just makes sense because we know the program works.
“It allows kids to focus on learning and gives parents and guardians priceless peace of mind in an upside-down world. Schools are a place for education, exploration, and inspiration, never hate, fear or violence,” the pol said.
“When it comes to keeping our kids safe, there should be no difference what kind of school building they are learning in. All kids in New York City schools deserve to be safe.”
But not everyone is on board.
During a hearing on the bill last month, Beth Haroules of the New York Liberties Union blasted the current law and Brannan’s bill to expand it as a “violation of the constitutional separation of church and state” and called it “bad policy.”
Meanwhile, representatives from charter schools who don’t share space with traditional public schools said they want to be included in the program. Funding for security guards currently comes from the general budget of the publicly funded, privately managed schools.
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