Senate Bill S2121

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S2121

 TITLE OF BILL :
An act to amend the education law, in relation to enacting the "public
schools emergency alert act"


 PURPOSE :
This bill would require New York City to establish an emergency alert
notification system at each of its public schools using a combination
of text messages, emails and phone calls in order to provide staff,
parents and the community notification and instructions in emergency
situations occurring within public school buildings. The cost to
establish such a system is minimal, particularly insofar as New York
City has the potential to plug into the existing NY -Alert system run
by the New York State Emergency Management Office.

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :
Amends the Education Law, requiring New York City to establish an
emergency alert notification system at each of its public schools,
pursuant to regulations promulgated by the Chancellor, using a
combination of text messages, emails and phone calls in order to
provide staff, parents and members of the community who choose to
receive such alerts notification and instructions in emergency
situations occurring within public school buildings. Participation by
staff, parents and community residents is voluntary.
              

 JUSTIFICATION :
It is essential that parents, staff and the community be given notice
and instructions in the event of an emergency in our public schools.
Text message, email and phone based emergency notification systems
have proved critical in containing emergencies and preserving public
safety. The campus massacre at Virginia Tech, where students walked
about the campus unaware that a fellow student was walking around on a
shooting spree, proved that a dependable system for disseminating
information efficiently during on-campus emergencies is necessary to
protect students, faculty and staff during incidents which pose a
threat to their safety and health. St. John's University recently
successfully deployed a text message based alert system to alert and
instruct students, faculty and staff when a gunman was discovered on
the university's Queens campus. Almost every SUNY and CUNY campus has
or is implementing an emergency alert notification system. New York
State's NY -Alert program has over one million enrollees. New York
City is conducting a pilot community alert system (Notify NYC) in four
neighborhoods.  The lack of such a system for New York City public
schools caused parents tremendous anxiety recently when three public
schools on a shared campus in Glen Oaks, Queens, were "locked down"
after a threatening letter was discovered on campus. Parents arrived
to pick up their children to discover the lock down and had little or
no information on what was happening.  Parents waiting for their
children to arrive home or at bus stops had no idea where their
children were. Thankfully, the emergency turned out to be a hoax, but
the anxiety which parents suffered was real.  Had it not been a hoax,
parents and the community could have been at risk for lack of
information and instructions.

 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :
2007-2008:  S.6775A - Referred to Education

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :
Minimal.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
This act shall take effect one year after it shall have become a law,
and the emergency alert system required by section 2801-a of the
education law as amended by this act shall be implemented in the
school year next succeeding such effective date.