The New York City Council will take up a major school safety issue on Sept. 10, when Council Member Frank Morano introduces a resolution calling on Congress and the president to establish a National School Safety Task Force focused on protecting school leaders and creating safer schools for students and staff.

The resolution calls for a national task force to develop actionable recommendations addressing secure access systems, sufficient safety staffing, comprehensive stakeholder training and formal protections for school leaders.

For AFSA, which has made protecting school leaders a national priority, action by the Council in the nation’s largest city represents a significant step toward greater recognition of a problem that principals and administrators in New York City and across the country have faced for years.

Safe schools are essential to student learning. And the people responsible for creating and maintaining those safe learning environments need to be safe themselves.

“The introduction of this resolution is a giant step forward in recognizing a serious problem facing principals and administrators in New York City and across the nation,” said AFSA President Mark Cannizzaro. “Safe schools are essential to student learning, and we cannot have truly safe schools if the people responsible for leading them and protecting students and staff are themselves being threatened, harassed or assaulted.”

The Council action comes less than two months after new research led by The Ohio State University provided striking evidence of the threats and aggression school administrators are experiencing. The July study found that 77% of school administrators reported experiencing verbal or threatening aggression from parents after pandemic restrictions were lifted — nearly 3.5 times the rate reported by teachers.

 More than four in 10 administrators reported being verbally threatened by parents, while about one in five reported being publicly humiliated and about one in five reported being cyberbullied.

 Even during COVID restrictions, when many schools were operating remotely, 42% of administrators reported experiencing verbal or threatening aggression from parents.

Researchers described violence and aggression against school personnel as a “silent epidemic” and noted a major gap in understanding its full scope: There is currently no national system for tracking or reporting aggression against school personnel.

The research also suggests incidents may go unreported because school personnel can be reluctant to report aggression out of concern that doing so could make them appear unable to handle difficult situations.

Those findings echo research conducted by AFSA in 2023. In a survey of nearly 1,000 AFSA members, 31% of responding school-based leaders said they had been physically assaulted in their role. More than half—52.43%—said they had been threatened with physical violence by a student, while 46.56% said they had been threatened with physical violence by a parent.

Yet just 35.22% of responding school-based leaders agreed that their school’s policies and resources were sufficient to provide a safe environment.

The AFSA findings underscore the broader challenge facing school leaders: They are expected to protect students and staff, respond to threats and manage crises, yet many say they do not have sufficient policies and resources to do that work safely.

“As a former school leader and someone who talks with school leaders every day, I know firsthand that these numbers tell only part of the story,” Cannizzaro said. “School leaders are problem solvers by nature. We are used to stepping in, taking responsibility and trying to solve problems ourselves. Too often, that means a threat, harassment or intimidation is handled quietly and never formally reported. We need to change that culture. No principal or administrator should believe that being threatened or assaulted is simply something they are expected to handle as part of the job.”

Protecting school leaders from threats and violence has been an AFSA priority for years. AFSA’s Resolution 3 from 2025, Threats and Assaults Against School Supervisors and Administrators, calls for stronger protections for school leaders and enforcement of policies protecting them from threats, harassment and physical intimidation, including by parents or community members. It also calls for recognition of school leaders under school safety regulations and emergency response protocols.

Most significantly, AFSA convention delegates called for the establishment of a National School Safety Task Force charged with developing actionable recommendations to promote secure access systems, sufficient safety staffing, comprehensive stakeholder training and formal protections for school leaders.

The resolution being introduced by Morano specifically cites AFSA’s position and brings that call for national action before the New York City Council.

AFSA’s Resolution 4 also from 2025, Enhancing School Safety, Stopping Gun Violence, lays out the union’s broader approach to school safety. It calls for sufficient numbers of trained school safety personnel, improved physical safety infrastructure and access systems, expanded mental health and crisis intervention resources, comprehensive safety and emergency preparedness training, and greater collaboration among school leaders, staff, parents, safety personnel and community leaders.

Together, these policy positions reflect AFSA’s belief that school safety cannot be addressed through a single policy or security measure. Schools need prevention, trained personnel, appropriate security, mental health resources, threat assessment, emergency preparedness and coordination among everyone responsible for keeping a school community safe.

“School leaders are on the front lines of school safety every day,” Cannizzaro said. “When there is a threat, a weapon, a fight, an angry parent or another crisis, principals and administrators are often the first people expected to step in and take responsibility. The people responsible for keeping everyone else safe need to be safe themselves.”

Threats also increasingly extend beyond the school building. Morano’s resolution points to threats made anonymously through social media and the challenges they can create for schools and local authorities. The New York City resolution argues that these challenges, combined with school staffing shortages across the country, require federal leadership and coordination.

Morano’s resolution would not itself create the task force. Instead, the New York City Council would formally call on Congress and the president to establish it.

The proposed National School Safety Task Force would be charged with developing practical recommendations for protecting school communities and the people responsible for leading them.

For AFSA, New York City taking up the proposal represents an opportunity to move an issue school leaders’ have been raising for years into a broader national conversation.

“We thank Council Member Morano for listening to school leaders and recognizing that this issue deserves national attention,” Cannizzaro said. “Having the New York City Council take up this call sends an important message well beyond New York. Threats, harassment and violence against school leaders are not simply part of the job, and they should never be accepted as such.”

“The goal is not to turn schools into fortresses. It is to make sure schools have the people, resources, training, protections and coordination they need to remain safe and welcoming places where students can learn and educators can do their jobs. Keeping school leaders safe helps keep schools safe,” Cannizzaro said. “And safe schools are fundamental to giving every student the opportunity to learn and succeed.”