CM Mealy questions OPHC on school incident reporting and DOE coordination

Okay, I have just two questions.

How has OPHC ever been contacted for guidance or education specifically in response to an incident at a school?

Could you give me an example?

Because I know one already.

I just had me stopping into my precinct, and I went in.

I saw some young kids sitting there, and I said, hi.

I didn't know them that well.

Find out it was my staff children, and they were there because they were bullied.

And the mother, she was on her way there to press charges.

So an incident like that.

How would your program work with the police department to give that data that we desperately need?

You say that y'all work with the police department, so could y'all give me how it trickles down?

Or do they call you and tell you?

I would love to know how this works.

Sure.

So on our website, we have links that anyone who wants to request our office to come.

That's the only way.

That's not the only way.

So again, we are at the schools as well where we work with the New York City Public Schools to share out information across the whole city via the Respect for All Liaisons, through the guidance counselors, through the district.

leaderships to all the schools that are in our offices.

We also have the Heartwork Against Hate programs.

So we try to make sure that a lot of schools and all schools know all the programs that our office offer and how they can get in touch with us.

Again, we're doing this work based on capacity and we plan to increase and continue to do this across the city in a larger, more direct way.

But I want to answer this question to you.

Any school can reach out to our office, and we can get involved with them to do this.

So it's up to the school.

So how are you working with the Board of Education to let them know that shouldn't the principals report it?

To NYPD.

Yes.

Yes.

And then?

But sometimes the principals do not.

If my staff didn't follow through with it, it would never have been a case.

So it's up to the principals now to at least report it.

So are you working with Board of Education to make sure, or maybe we've got to put some legislation, that it's a mandate that they report it?

Because we need this information with bullying, any other thing.

That is harmful regarding hate.

So that's something I got to think about.