The City must ensure schools are safe and supportive for all students and staff. Yet safety is undermined when Black students and students with disabilities are treated as threats and subjected to policing rather than support. Extensive evidence shows that punitive responses to student behavior are associated with negative long-term outcomes and do not improve safety. By contrast, trauma-informed care, restorative justice, mental health services, and positive behavioral interventions are proven to strengthen school climate.

We see the impact of the lack of appropriate support in our case work. As one example, this year we worked with a 10-year-old, 5th grade student struggling with an emotional disability who was repeatedly suspended, disciplined, and met with law enforcement intervention in school, instead of receiving appropriate special education and behavior supports. Police are not trained mental or behavioral health professionals and should not be the primary responders to student needs.

Although police interactions with “children in crisis,” when a student in emotional distress is removed from class and transported to the hospital for psychological evaluation, have declined, there were still 2,321 such incidents in the 2024–2025 school year, with persistent racial disparities. Black students, who comprise less than a quarter of students enrolled in NYC schools, accounted for 44% of crisis interventions and 70% of cases involving handcuffing. In our work, we continue to see young students, often with Individualized Education Programs (“IEPs”), met by law enforcement rather than trained school staff or mental health professionals when experiencing behavioral challenges in school.

To invest in school safety, the City must, at a minimum, include the following key priorities in the budget this year:

Sustain Restorative Justice funding by baselining the expiring $6M in funding

Restorative justice practices enable schools to keep students in the classroom while helping them resolve conflicts and build and repair relationships. Of the $17M for restorative justice in the FY 2026 budget, $6M was funded for one year only. The City must baseline the expiring $6M to solidify its commitment to safety in schools.

Baseline the Mental Health Continuum at $5M

The Mental Health Continuum is a cross-agency partnership (NYCPS, Health + Hospitals, Department of Health & Mental Hygiene) to help students with significant mental health needs access expedited mental healthcare in 50 schools in the Bronx and Brooklyn, but it is only funded through this June. We strongly urge the Council to prioritize this investment in the mental health of New York City’s young people and ensure the Fiscal Year 2027 budget extends and baselines funding for the Mental Health Continuum at its current funding level of $5M (H+H: $3.74M, NYCPS: $787K, DOHMH: $472K). We appreciate that the City Council’s preliminary budget response calls to restore and baseline funding for restorative justice and the Mental Health Continuum.

Hire behavioral specialists to support schools in meeting the behavioral and mental health needs of students ($8M)

In many of our cases, students with behavioral challenges are being suspended or are recommended for a private school setting because there’s nobody with behavioral expertise within the public school system who can go to the school and develop a plan to meet the students’ needs. Schools need access to behavioral specialists who can work directly with educators and school staff to model, coach, and support the implementation of effective, individualized behavior supports for students, including students with autism and other disabilities, and provide concrete recommendations for helping students remain in the classroom. We urge the City to invest $8 million to hire at least one behavior specialist per school district.