NEW YORK—New York City is installing 21,000 audible door alarms at public schools to prevent another tragedy like the disappearance and death of an autistic student in 2013, city education officials said Thursday.
The alarms will be in place by the end of 2015, Deputy Schools Chancellor Elizabeth Rose said.
Principals, teachers, and school safety agents also will receive additional training on managing students during transitional periods, like lunchtime when they can slip out unnoticed.
“Schools will all have security and be safe for our students,” Rose said.
Fourteen-year-old Avonte Oquendo, who was autistic and unable to speak, walked away from his Queens school and was found dead in a river months later.
A March 2014 report released by the special commissioner of investigation for city schools found that several errors led to Avonte’s death. The report described how the teen broke away from his classmates after lunch. A school safety agent told investigators she saw a boy in the lobby but did not know he was a special-needs student, the report said. The agent said she called out twice, “Excuse me!” but the boy did not respond; she said she could not chase him because she could not leave the front desk unstaffed.
