A look at back-to-school safety with the NYPD School Safety Division's commanding officer

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The NYPD School Safety Division is preparing for a successful and safe school year with some new technology. Students are heading back to the classroom in less than two weeks in New York City. Inspector Tracy Mulet took over as commanding officer for the School Safety Division in February. "Welcome back to the kids. Youare safe. You are safe not just inside of school, but you're safe outside of school," says Mulet. Since moving into her new role, Mulet has been laser-focused on enhancing safety in and out of the classroom. Part of that is introducing new scanning technology to detect for weapons. This September, certain schools will be outfitted with scanners that Mulet says is less rigid for the kids. "We can raise the sensitivity, we can get scalpels, we can get box cutters, we can get also kubatons, which is a sharp object but not as much metal," says Mulet. Data shows 5,922 weapons were confiscated In the 2022-2023 school year, including 14 guns. Where scanners are not on all school grounds, the NYPD relies heavily on School Safety agents to ensure no weapons are being brought onto campus. "The guns that have been retrieved, those were retrieved in schools that didn't have scanning, that you see the importance of having an agent there and the communication between the DOE, the principals, the assistant principals," says Mulet. Mulet says there is at least one school safety agent assigned to every school in the city. They are ramping up recruitment efforts to get more people to join the agency. "We can't do it alone, it's not just the safety agents, it's not just the principals, it's the parents," says Mulet. The first day of school is Sept. 5. "