New York City parents are angry with school officials after they were not notified that a boy was threatened in the bathroom at knifepoint by a stranger who gained access to the school.
The incident happened on December 1 during afternoon dismissal at the Robert A. Van Wyck Junior High School in Queens. The suspect, that police described as 5’2” and 110 pounds and possibly a teenager, walked into the school through a cafeteria entrance.
The intruder demanded money from an 11-year-old student. According to the New York Post, the boy didn’t have any cash on him, so the suspect took his water bottle, threatened to kill him, and ran out.
The school failed to notify parents immediately after the attempted robbery, and most found out through news reports. One parent told the Post that school staff confirmed the incident only after questioning them.
“Why weren’t the parents informed about it? Why did we get no phone calls about it?” Sean Brewster told the outlet on Thursday. “My son is afraid. That could have been him!”
The president of school safety agents, Gregory Floyd, cited cutbacks as part of the problem. Compared with 2019, there are now 1,800 fewer safety agents. On the day of the attack at Van Wyck, only one supervisor and three agents were on duty. Before the pandemic, there would have been a supervisor with double the amount of agents.
A city Department of Education spokesman told the outlet that officials “sent an initial notification to the community the Friday after the incident,” which happened Wednesday. Once more information was available from NYPD, the school gave a more detailed account on Monday.
Since the knifepoint attack, the DOE spokesman said the school has now made changes to both entry and dismissal procedures. School Safety Agents are monitoring all active doorways, and “students participating in the after-school program are now escorted to their programming to ensure safety.”
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