#What it takes for NYC DOE to stop endangering special-needs kids

Cheers to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli for following up with a new audit in the wake of Susan Edelman’s July 2019 Post exposé on hazardous and unsafe conditions at PS 9, a school for special-needs kids.

His audit team visited 29 schools in 2019-2020, finding peeling paint, disabled door alarms, inaccessible water fountains, unguarded windows, unsafe play areas and a shortage of EpiPens at seven of the schools.

Naturally, the city Department of Education insists all deficiencies cited got fixed, even as it claimed many of DiNapoli’s findings were overblown. Yet the truth is that it didn’t start addressing the deplorable conditions until The Post reported on PS 9 and the comptroller’s inspectors started visiting schools.

Also credit City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) for first sounding the alarm about PS 9, isolated in a heavily industrial section of Maspeth.

It is unconscionable that the DOE, which bathes in billions in federal, state and city school aid, lets public schools deteriorate to the point where parents and/or staff must call in the media to get needed attention and resources. New York’s kids deserve better.