expressing hostility to the school. It should also cover such topics as how to recognize a brewing crisis, how to respond to a non-negotiable demand, and when to call the police.

7. Principals should be expected to develop a safety plan for their own schools, determining the proper use of police, School Service Officers, teachers, parents, and students.

8. An effective grievance machinery should be established in each school. Since school communities vary widely, the principal should be empowered to determine what best meets the needs of his or her school. In making this choice, the principal should keep in mind the need to involve students, teachers, and parents; the need for a way to defuse sudden flareups as well as long-range complaints; and the need for a system which can act on problems brought before it, not just rehash them. Possibilities include broadly representative committees, teacher ombudsmen, etc.

II. PRIORITIES AND BUDGET

The Immediate Need referred to in the title of this report calls for leadership at this time from the Chancellor and the Board of Education in establishing a comprehensive program of school safety. Assuming that it would be very difficult to implement the entire program at one time, the following priorities are suggested:

1. Announcement of the inauguration of an overall school safety plan as outlined in this report. (Early July)

2. Appointment as Administrator of School Safety of a man with the expertise and political awareness to oversee an effective program. Appointment of small supporting staff. (End of July)

3. Identification by principals of those who were security guards in 1971-72 whom they want rehired and trained as Student Service Officers. (The number for training is estimated to be 100 to 150.) (End of July)

4. Development and conduct of two training programs, one for Student Service Officers and one for Student Service Coordinators. Given the short time available, it might be advisable to contract for training with professional experts. (During August and early September)

5. Selection of 20 Student Service Coordinators. Leave-of-absence arrangements to be made where appropriate. (In August)

The cost of these steps is estimated as follows:

Following the opening of school in September 1972.

Once the foregoing steps are underway, the remainder of the program can be implemented as follows:

1. Identification by principals of an additional 300 persons suitable for training as Student Service Officers in all schools.

2. Establishment of an arrangement with one or more two- or four-year colleges to enable Student Service Officers to use their in-school assignment as the first rung of an educational and career ladder.

3. Conduct of a training course for new personnel. Once they have been checked and hired, they can start work and attend training course after school hours. (See suggestions below with respect to use of Coordinators as trainers.)

4. Development and conduct of a training course for principals in all aspects of school safety and people management.

5. Insistence that every principal develop a comprehensive plan for his or her school covering all aspects of safety.

6. Establishment of some form of effective student advocacy machinery in every junior high and high school.

Since the Student Service Coordinators, once trained themselves, should be qualified to conduct a major portion of the training for new Student Service Officers, the cost for implementation of these steps is estimated as follows:

The training budget will not recur in anything like that magnitude. The ongoing annual budget for personnel is $3,300,000, which is comparable with $1,700,000 spent for security in the Chicago public schools which have a student register of 560,000, or half of that of New York City. The District of Columbia spends over $500,000 for salaries for a system of 144,000 students, or 13 percent of the New York City register.

III. PERSONNEL

The success of the school safety program to be outlined by the Panel in its final report should result in a lessening of the need for personnel primarily devoted to "security". Also, so-called security problems stem from a variety of causes which lend themselves to a variety of solutions. Thus, the Panel is recommending several types of personnel to fulfill different functions.

ADMINISTRATORS

There are several interrelated factors which make a school a safe place in which to teach and learn. The Panel felt that it should be concerned with fire hazards, health standards, and safety rules in order to provide complete safety for both buildings and personnel. In order to coordinate these functions, the Panel recommends the creation of a new position in the New York City Schools of Administrator of School Safety. In recognition of the importance of safety, the person so designated should not only have a thorough knowledge of the laws and regulations in areas pertaining to safety, but should be a person of enough distinction and political sophistication to be able to communicate with officials at the highest level. The new Administrator of School Safety should have regular and emergency access to the Mayor's office, the Police and Fire Commissioners, the Transportation Authority, the Presiding Judge of the Family Court and key City officials such as the head of the Youth Services Administration. Because safety and security in the schools is a nationwide problem, the study staff examined the school systems of 26 other cities. Each of them had one or more citywide administrators who devoted full time to security and related problems. The problems are so pervasive, so volatile, and so complex-in New York as elsewhere-that the Chancellor should appoint a full-time Administrator of School Safety. The Administrator would be responsible for the day-to-day administration of the school safety program seeing to it that there are proper training opportunities for Student Safety Officers, that the Principals are adhering to their safety plans, that proper action is taken on the information provided by the Student Service Coordinators and that the program for student grievances is working effectively.

In addition he would be responsible for selecting and supervising professional help to develop and conduct a training program for Student Service staff, for principals and possibly for other school personnel. He may wish to contract for these training programs from specialists rather than to enlarge his permanent staff.

STUDENT SERVICE COORDINATORS

Present personnel who have been hired to perform a narrowly defined security function are supervised solely by the Assistant Principal or other schoolrelated official designated by each principal. However, an additional staff of skilled professionals is needed. They should perform an intelligence function for the Chancellor similar to the function performed for the Mayor by his Education Task Force. In addition to providing a communications network between the schools and the Board of Education, the Coordinators would serve as a clearinghouse for the sharing of experiences among the City's 92 high schools and 31 School Districts, and could offer continuing advice and emergency aid to individual schools or District Superintendents.

The Panel suggests 10 two-member teams of Student Service Coordinators. Each team would be responsible for three Community School Districts and nine or ten high schools. They would visit each District or school on a regular basis, and would respond at once to an emergency call from any school to which they were assigned.

They would be expected to develop rapport with members of the school staff, parents and other community leaders, the local police, and students representing the variety of backgrounds within the school register.

The personal and experiential qualifications for this staff of coordinators should be flexible. They should have a broad spectrum of talent in communications, insight into personal and group dynamics, a keen interest in community relations, and training in mediation techniques. As the eyes and ears of the administration as well as the emergency operating team, the coordinators must be a multi-talented diplomatic corps. The Administrator of School Safety should experiment with several types of personnel, all of whom should be college graduates. Among those who might be used are teachers or former teachers, community leaders, and police or former police. Teachers and policemen who volunteer and are selected to serve on these teams might be given a 2-year leave of absence from their present assignments.

Because the role of Coordinator could serve as an excellent training ground for those interested in youth work, school administration, or other community service, funds to train personnel for this new type of position might well be forthcoming from sources such as the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council.

As communications specialists, the Student Service Coordinators could serve many functions. First, they would report daily to the Administrator of School Safety with a running account of what is happening in the shools and the communities surrounding them as it affects the schools. They would know about local conditions, community meetings, rising crime, incidents likely to be picked up by the media, and so forth. They would also be aware of schools that lacked or had inadequate personnel and could see to it that the situation was improved. More importantly, they would learn first hand about safety programs that seemed to be working particularly well. Thus they could serve as a kind of data bank for the high schools and Community School Districts which now have no common meeting ground on safety matters.

Second, the Student Service Coordinators could consult with the principal and the person directly in charge of safety in each school to discuss his or her problems and personnel, and with his guidance (and permission) work with individual staff members to improve their performance. For instance, Student Service Officers should have an opportunity to ask how a specific incident should have been handled-or could alert the Coordinators to an anticipated situation. They would also have an opportunity to use the Coordinators as a go-between to handle complaints or grievances they might have about their job or about their in-school supervision.

Finally, these Coordinators should be called in whenever a principal feels that a school crisis could be calmed or averted with the use of additional personnel. This would be particularly advantageous in a situation where the principal determines that the presence of police-in uniform, unfamiliar with the school, and possibly unresponsive to the principal's direction-might exacerbate a volatile situation.

It should be noted that the establishment of these teams would obviate the need for present mobile squads. Their members could form the Student Service staff at specific schools-or be trained as members of the communications teams if the Administrator of School Safety feels they have the proper qualifications and attitudes.

STUDENT SERVICE OFFICERS

The title security guard is not really suitable for the in-school staff proposed. The Panel prefers Student Service Officer, which would more closely describe the role envisioned in this report. Their function would be to service the needs of the school population, particularly the students, and it is important that their title reflect this important responsibility.

Recognizing that the principal has the ultimate responsibility for the safety of his or her school-and that safety is directly related to the school's relationship to the community, the Panel proposes that the principals immediately be empowered to determine which of the present guards are to be rehired and to select any new personnel to serve as Student Service Officers from the local community or persons known to it.

Where the principal does not choose to rehire-or does not have his allotted complement of guards-he should begin immediately to seek the requisite number of men or women from his school community. Parents and siblings of students, graduates of the school, street leaders, and returned veterans are all likely sources of recruitment.

Like the high schools, the local school districts should be informed that all funds for the safety program will be available only for personnel that meet the Board's guidelines and have taken the Board's training program. They will, of course, retain the right and be encouraged to hire community people as Student Service Officers.

The Student Service Officers, unlike the present guards, should have the same job security and fringe benefits as other paraprofessional school staff members. New Personnel should be carefully interviewed and investigated, particularly for acceptability to students. (The principal might well use a group of students to help interview prospective Student Service Officers.) While additional checks will be made by the Central Board and the police, the prime responsibility for selection of Student Service Officers compatible with the community and the students must rest with the principal.

The job description for Student Service Officers should stress their contribution to the educational mission of the school, their role as supportive of teachers and other staff, and their ability to get along with students. Qualifications should be flexible. Since it is hoped that the training program will be tied into an institution of higher education, it would be preferable if Service Officers were high school graduates. Older people who desire to further their education and to move up a career ladder should not be ruled out.

The principal and student deans and advisors will determine the tasks to be performed by each Officer. A minimum assignment should involve the identification of and building a relationship with as many students as possible. Hopefully this would enable the officer to build a cadre of student aides. However, he must not become so friendly that he is unwilling or unable to stop misconduct on the part of a student/friend.

All guards who are retained as Student Service Officers should be required to attend the training course outlined below, along with any new Officers appointed by the principals. It is anticipated that the first Training Program will start on August 7. Since many principals will not make their appointments until fall, Officers hired after September 1 should be carefully screened and should be allowed to start work under close supervision. A second course should offered after school hours in November and December to train these new officers.

IV. TRAINING

One of the most important components in the success of the safety program for the New York public schools will be the training provided for Student Service Officers. The present training course is an informal improvised program touching on human relations, school rules, law, police training, narcotics, self defense and first aid in a four-week period.

Training programs across the country vary in length and content. Los Angeles Public Schools, for example, has a ten-week training program in police sicence, legal theory and human relations; Baltimore runs a six-week program in cooperation with the Maryland Police Academy; in Detroit, guard training is conducted part-time for 30 hours; in Dade County, Florida, guard training is in

service only; and in Chicago, since guards are almost all off-duty policemen, they do not receive additional formal training.

Since the Panel is recommending a new concept in people management for safety purposes, it is recommending that four-week training programs be conducted for Student Service Coordinators and Officers. In addition, the program schedule provides two weeks of field experience and two more weeks of performance evaluation, review and on-the-job orientation, This plan can be reduced, if necessary, to meet time and budgetary considerations. What is most important is that the program equip Student Service personnel to assume a preventive, service-oriented role rather than that of enforcers of the law.

It is not desirable to have Service Officers attend police academies, mix with police officers and acquire a police philosophy. A successful school safety program must contribute toward the educational process and the improvement of group and interpersonal relations.

Some of the instructors for the proposed program could be drawn from principals, deans, and counselors, as well as from the New York Police Academy, youth organization representatives, NYCLU, parent groups, students, Community Action Groups, UFT Teacher Centers, narcotics experts, and private security representatives. There should also be a number of behaviorial scientists included, especially some who are known as community psychologists. Training, to be effective, must be a continuing procedure. This might be accomplished through bulletins, in-service sessions and conferences.

Because a new training program must be devised and conducted to meet the immediate need, it is recommended that outside professional help be employed to develop this unique program. Funding for such a contract might well be available from the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council.

1. Student Service Coordinator Orientation (146 hours, 4 weeks)

A. Introduction to the Board of Education, the New York City public school system, and the school community.

Board's functions, structure; philosophy; structure and functions of a typical school and school district; community control; identification of nonschool personnel significant to school-local police, community leaders, etc. 5 hours

B. Introduction to the Student Service Coordinator function.

Student service department, function, structure; philosophy of Student Service Coordinator role; relationship to educational function; channels of communication, educational hierarchy; job description and performance standards 5 hours

C. Interpersonal skills development.

Principles governing human behavior; urban environment; current trends in New York City affairs-population, economic and social conditions, and the school as a focal point of social change; introduction to nature of crime and criminals principles of social psychology with attention to ethnic relationships and intergroup tensions 40 hours D. Introduction to the criminal justice process.

Relationships between federal, state, and city governments; basics of a law suit, civil and criminal court proceedings; role of the police, district attorney, judges, jury, legal aid and the defense attorney; note taking and report writing; interviews, interrogations, statements; emergency aid to persons; recognizing and handling abnormal people; New York City Police Department functions and structure, rules and regulations 10 hours

E. Selected aspects of New York penal law.

Statutes most frequently used by patrolmen and detectives, including: assault, conspiracy, sex offenses, damage to and intrusion upon property, larceny, robbery, bribery, official misconduct, drug offenses, gambling offenses, offenses against public order, firearms and dangerous weapons 10 hours

F. Physical training and law enforcement techniques.

Calisthenics; handling emergency situation (bombs, bomb threats, etc.); search and frisk procedures; group control; first aid 36 hours G. Sensitivity training.

T-Group experience with emphasis on group interaction and values related to behavior 40 hours

2. Student Service Officer Orientation (141 hours, 4 weeks)