5710- School Safety and Educational Climate (SSEC Reporting)

The Board of Education is committed to promoting and maintaining the safety of all students, staff, and visitors to the schools. The Board is also committed to maintaining a school an environment that is free from harassment, bullying, and discrimination. Consistent with this commitment and in accordance with state law and regulation, the district shall submit an annual report to the Commissioner of Education regarding violent and disruptive incidents and material incidents of harassment/bullying/discrimination, as part of the New York State Education Department’s School Safety and Educational Climate (SSEC) Summary Data Collection.

Reporting Requirement

Each Building Principal shall be responsible for preparing on regular basis a report of all the violent and disruptive incidents and material incidents of harassment, bullying, and discrimination, that have occurred on school grounds, at a school function, or at a school-sponsored event and forwarding the report to the Superintendent of Schools. The Superintendent or designee shall be responsible for compiling the reports received from the Building Principals into the annual report and submitting the report to the Commissioner. The summary report shall contain all the information required by law and shall be filed with the Commissioner on or before a date set by the Commissioner. The Superintendent shall also present this summary report to the Board at its first meeting following the filing of the report with the Commissioner. Additionally, the Board of Education shall ensure that copies of each SSEC report at the building or program level be made available to the Commissioner upon request.

The district is responsible for assuring that copies of each SSEC report, both individual and summary reports, are retained until the youngest person involved in a reported incident is 27 years old. Individual incident report forms will not be kept in the student cumulative folders nor sent to the next school or district that students attend.

Confidentiality

Any violent or disruptive incident or harassment, bullying, and discrimination, report prepared in accordance with law shall be available for inspection by the State Education Department upon request. All names and other personally identifiable information included in any report shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed to any person for use by any person for purposes other than the reporting purposes in Education Law §2802, except as otherwise authorized by law.

Ref:

  • Education Law §10-18 (Dignity for All Students Act);§ 2802 (Uniform Violent Incident Reporting System)
  • 8 NYCRR 100.2 (gg) (Uniform Violent Incident Reporting System)
  • 8 NYCRR 185.11 (Appendix I) (Records Retention and Disposition Schedule ED-1)

Adoption date: December 14, 2009
Reviewed: May 22, 2017