Parents in the city said the Education Department should have warned them earlier of a threat of shooting at a TikTok school – and the late notice left no time to consider keeping their children away. home Friday.
New York City Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter sent a note to principals about the unspecified threats Thursday night at 11 p.m., according to the DOE.
Administrators were then tasked with relaying the warning to parents – and many families said they were not notified until Friday morning, after their children had already attended class.
Deborah Alexander, a member of Community Education Council 30, said parents in her district of Queens were notified too late to potentially prevent their children from attending class in light of the disturbing messages.
Alexander said news of the threats was already skyrocketing on social media early Thursday.
“It would have been nice if the DOE sent something much sooner so that parents actually had time to make a decision,” she said.
Alexander said most people hadn’t heard from their schools until morning – and some had already dropped their children off by the time they were alerted.
“I think a lot of parents would have preferred to have this option,” she said. “Making that decision while you’re getting ready for morning work is a problem. ”
Alexander noted that a school in Long Island City – the New York Institute for Collaborative Education – had to close for an hour on Friday due to a threat called.
A parent at Brooklyn High School said she received a message regarding TikTok’s posts around 7 a.m. on Friday.
“If this had happened the day before, we should have been informed much earlier,” she said. “As if there weren’t enough worries right now.”
The DOE said it acted in a timely manner given the unspecified nature of the threats and the lack of a direct connection to New York.
“We sent letters regarding general and non-specific threats circulating on social media to schools as soon as we had credible information,” DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer said. “This was a general threat circulating across the country, not specific to New York City, and schools relayed this information to families in a timely manner and without delay.”
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