Sunday, April 11, at 2:00pm, at City Hall Park
School Safety Matters! School Lives Matter!
Parents and Community Leaders Stand With School Safety Agents
“We will not allow politicians to jeopardize the safety of our children!”
We reject and condemn the recent attacks on School Safety Agents and we will not allow politicians to jeopardize the safety of our children! School Safety Agents are mostly Black, Hispanic, and Asian, and the majority are women. To claim that these caring and hard-working people are responsible for racist policing in our schools and also responsible for the school-to-prison pipeline is a despicable lie. We are sick and tired of politicians using our children to score political points through “fake news” when seeking higher office. Reforming the criminal justice system cannot include scapegoating innocent workers.
School Safety Agents protect our children every day. Ignorant attacks smearing and maligning the majority Black, Hispanic, and Asian women workforce are reprehensible. The real cause of the school-to-prison pipeline is the failure of the Department of Education to properly educate our Black, Latino and Asian children combined with the failure of the City as a whole to provide enough good employment opportunities for our young people. Yet some politicians think their paths to higher office require the destruction of livelihoods of women of color. This would be horrid enough at any time, but it is particularly despicable during a pandemic.
Politicians do not speak for parents and have now chosen not to speak for workers, either. We will speak for ourselves and stand with our School Safety Agents on Sunday, April 11, at 2:00pm, at City Hall Park.
“Our parents and children are welcomed every school day by our School Safety Agents’ smiles. They not only ensure the safety of our teachers and students but also provide a great example for positive influence on our school communities. With the recent rise in anti-Asian violence, our families need School Safety Officers to keep our children safe! — Mazeda Uddin, Founder and CEO of South Asian Fund for Education, Scholarship and Training, Inc.
“Our School Safety Agents are needed for our children. Every day, School Safety Agents tend to the safety and well-being of our children in school, not just during the school day, but before and after school as they come and go from school. We need them to protect our children — dealing with gangs and weapons before incidents, stopping fights when they occur, and more. We support our School Safety Agents for ALL our children.”
— Wai Wah Chin, Charter President of Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York
“Our School Safety Agents are civilians. They are not police officers. School Safety Agents do not carry weapons yet they put their lives on the line every day for our children. Our communities of color have been hit the hardest by the Covid-19 pandemic. Our children have lost an entire year of school and instead of focusing on educating our children, reopening schools, and the well-being of our children, politicians are trying to completely destroy families of color. This racist attack on mothers, women of color, and immigrant women who protect our children is contemptible. We want our schools fully reopened with our School Safety Agents protecting our children.”
— Jacqueline Colson, NYC Parents Union
“We stand with our School Safety Agents. Many in our community are School Safety Agents. They are mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, and grandparents who protect our children every day in school. We have peace of mind dropping our children off at school because we know they are in good hands.”
— Shabir Gul, President, Bronx Community Council and Muslim and Immigrant Coalition for Justice
“School safety cannot and should never be compromised, especially in this time of crisis. 1,677 knives were confiscated from NYC students in the 2018-2019 school year,
which was 92 percent higher than in 2015. The presence of School Safety Agents, along with all the other security measurements make the parents, the teachers and students, and the entire school community feel safe and protected.”
— Donghui Zang, Parent, President, New York City Residents Alliance
“In this time of increasing uncertainty and heightened concerns about public safety, School Safety Agents are a source of stability, comfort, and knowledge for tens of thousands of families who rely on them to keep the children safe. School Safety Agents, many of whom are moms, know how important it is to protect our children–both in and out school.”
— Maud Maron, Parent
“Today, the biggest threat isn’t an active shooter or gang-related activities. The threat is falling victim to the political rhetoric that has no true understanding of the importance of School Safety Agents. Many of our School Safety Agents have survived knife attacks but now are in jeopardy of succumbing to budget slashing. They go to work every day unarmed but can’t avoid the shots taken at them by local politicians in order to appease a misguided agenda.
As a parent of two sons who attend public high school here in NYC, I cannot imagine a school building without a School Safety Agent. Knowing so many agents during my time as a student and as a father of public school students, I’ve seen the long term positive impact these agents have had.”
— Leonardo Coello, Parent
#StudentSafetyMatters #SchoolLivesMatter #ProtectSchoolSafety #SupportSchoolSafetyAgents #SchoolSafetyAgentRally
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