Photo courtesy of Shema Kolainu-Hear Our Voices School
It has been seven weeks since Avonte Oquendo, a 14-year-old autistic teenager, left school in Long Island City, Queens on October 4th, and disappeared. The city’s Department of Education is going to review school security measures, and provide extra training for District 75 staff members and school safety agents, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said last Thursday on “The John Gambling Show” on WOR. The measures, he said, will include two-way radios, video surveillance, panic buttons, and public address systems.
Meanwhile, some schools have already made changes. Shema Kolainu-Hear Our Voices School, in Borough Park, Brooklyn, which offers education and therapy programs to children with autism, is one of them. The private school is nondenominational and nonprofit.
“We took some important steps in our own school and around the community to highlight the tragedy and safety first activities to make sure the same thing will not happen again,” said Joshua Weinstein, 66, the founder and CEO of Shema Kolainu-Hear Our Voices. “We always have safety procedures in place, but we developed workshops and seminars for all teachers and assistants.”
Teachers, too, came up with ideas about how and what they had to do to safeguard the children, as well as how to develop a safety program to help parents at home or taking the kids to the public places.
“What we did specifically is outline different warning signs, how to work with children from activity to activity, how to deal in the classroom, how to deal in the lunchtime, how to deal in the morning when they come out of the buses, how to deal in the afternoon when they leave the school,” said Weinstein. “We also spoke about the responsibility of every classroom teacher to constantly make sure that there is nothing in the way and in the classroom that a child can have accidents or a child can leave this place.”
“We had rules before but now we enumerate them,” he said. “Before we didn’t enumerate wandering, now we enumerate there is an issue with wandering, and issue with children who are hyper and self-injurious. You have to pay more attention to these.” Weinstein added that the kids that have tendency to wander are assigned teachers to stay with them all the time.
The school also added daily procedures for child safety, emphasizing no child would go alone to the buses, and reviewed lost child procedures. “We have cameras all over the building,” said Weinstein. But now, he said, the school makes sure that there is always someone responsible to monitor the cameras all the time.
Earlier this month, Senator Chuck Schumer proposed to use tracking devices to prevent the similar incident. Weinstein said one parent has approached his school to suggest the tracking devices and the school has set up meetings with companies to research the idea. “If we think something is worthwhile, we will set up workshop with parents, give them opportunity to contact companies,” he said. “It’s up to the parents.”
Every group of six children in Shema Kolainu-Hear Our Voices has one teacher and three assistants to take care of them in one classroom, and extra teachers will offer help if kids have other classes such as art and music. “Teachers will pay attention to kids every time, and will report an accident immediately no matter how small it is,” added Weinstein.
Weinstein said the school constantly updates its procedures. “Safety first is always highlighted. We don’t want to loosen up,” he said. “We always thank God that everything is OK, but we work on it very hard to make sure that it (accident) doesn’t happen.”
Avonte is 5-foot-3 and weighs 125 pounds. He was last seen wearing a gray striped shirt, black jeans, and black sneakers. Anyone with information is asked to contact NYPD Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS, visit the Crime Stoppers website at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or text tips to 274637 (CRIMES), then entering TIP577.
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