New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Matthew Fraser announced Monday, Oct. 27, the nation’s first pilot program directly integrating public schools with 911 services for life-saving rapid response in case of an active shooter situation. City officials said more than 1,900 K-12 school shooting incidents occurred in the United States between 2015 and September 2025, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database, and K-12 school shootings peaked at 351 in 2023. They said another 336 occurred in 2024.

The new Emergency Alert System (EAS) created by the New York City Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI) debuted at the Spring Creek campus in Brooklyn, the first school building in the United States to have direct 911 integration, and is scheduled to be rolled out to a total of 25 school buildings, representing 51 public schools in five sites per borough, across the five boroughs during the 2025-2026 school year.

Norwood News has asked the City to confirm which public schools in The Bronx are to be included in the roll out and will confirm asap. City officials said EAS provides an immediate, secure, and automated pathway for public schools to directly alert 911 of a critical emergency associated with a hard lockdown involving a weapon-based threat or active shooter situation.

“Public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity and the key to delivering for working-class families, because our students deserve to feel safe in school, our parents must know their children are in a secure environment, and our teachers should have the confidence to focus on shaping young minds,” said the mayor. He added that although shooting incidents and shooting victims are at their lowest point in New York City’s recorded history overall, the program was rolled out to further school safety measures.

“For the first time ever in our nation, a public school system will have direct integration with 911 services to ensure that help is on the way within seconds if there is ever an active shooter or weapon-based threat,” Adams added. “Every parent deserves to know their child is safe in school, and this system gives them that peace of mind. We’ve already taken more than 24,097 illegal guns off our streets, and now we’re making sure our classrooms have the strongest, fastest protection possible. This new Emergency Alert System will protect our students, teachers, and staff, making sure New York City Public Schools have the most secure line of defense possible to keep our schools safe.”

For his part, Fraser said, “The Adams administration’s cutting-edge use of technology to protect New Yorkers from physical and online threats is a major reason why New York City is the safest big city in the nation. As a father of school-aged children, there is nothing more important to me than my kids returning home safe at the end of the day.”

He added, “This brand-new Emergency Alert System, the nation’s first to directly integrate schools with 911 in a hard lockdown event, marks a crucial advance in our city’s broader school safety efforts and provides additional peace of mind — a priceless commodity — for the parents and families of students. I commend OTI’s Public Safety and Emergency Management team, in partnership with New York City Public Schools and NYPD, for their work on this groundbreaking project.”

A critical bridge between schools and real-time police dispatch operations, City officials said EAS can be activated from multiple fixed buttons and wireless lanyards within a school and can initiate a 911 response in under 10 seconds. They said each school participating in the pilot program will have multiple fixed buttons and wireless lanyards that can activate the emergency system during a hard lockdown sparked by a weapon-based threat.

City officials said the school-activated EAS bypasses the 911 call flow straight to real-time dispatch, and within a matter of seconds, the dispatcher will put the call over the air and the system’s dashboard will provide emergency responders pertinent information on the school. They said, simultaneously, in these situations, the schools will have audible and visual indicators notifying students and faculty that 911 has been notified, and that the school is on a hard lockdown. Additionally, they said electronic notifications will be sent to NYPD School Safety and New York City Public Schools officials.

They said that in late 2023, OTI’s Public Safety and Emergency Management division started working with the mayor’s office, New York City Public Schools, and NYPD’s School Safety Division to research options for a school-based panic button with direct connectivity to 911 in response to active-shooter scenarios, as no such product existed on the market at the time.

They said the available emergency alert options transferred calls through a remote system in another state before subsequently routing them back to New York City. They said OTI worked with an external vendor to build a new EAS that meets the needs of New York City Public Schools, then rebuilt and tested the system within its internal lab to confirm its effectiveness. They said OTI also created dashboards that provide law enforcement and school officials with real-time insights in the event of an active shooter situation.

“There is nothing more important than the safety of our young people,” said New York City Public Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos. “Today’s announcement adds another layer of security in our schools and offers peace of mind to our school communities in a worst-case scenario. This pilot builds on the robust safety measures already implemented in our schools, including the Safer Access Program, which locks main entrances to our buildings, NYPD School Safety Agents in every school, and emergency protocols that keep our schools safe. I am proud to take this step alongside our city partners to continue to prioritize the safety of our kids.”

In terms of other public safety initiatives to counter gun violence, City officials said more than 24,097 illegal firearms have been removed from the City’s streets since January 2022, including over 4,100 this year. They said shootings have also decreased by 67 percent citywide since before Adams came into office. In September 2025, they said major crimes dropped by 3.8 percent.

In 2022, Norwood News reported on apparent bomb threat dysfunction at P.S. 20 in Norwood.