State Assembly education leaders said Tuesday the Legislature should not rush to reduce the number of emergency drills conducted in New York schools each year after the Board of Regents adopted rules this week to mandate parents be notified of an exercise at least one week beforehand.

Starting this fall, about 6 million parents in the state will be informed in advance of a school lockdown or evacuation drills, according to new guidelines the Board of Regents voted to adopt Monday. Drills must also be age-appropriate for students and trauma-informed — reform education leaders have worked on after parents have complained about harmful drill practices including using fake firearms to imititate an active shooter emergency.

"This didn't spontaneously come to be — they had hearings and meetings within the educational community over the past year," Assembly Education Committee chair Michael Benedetto said of state education leaders, including Education Commissioner Betty Rosa, who led conversations.

"I know they not only spoke to school superintendents, but they also talked with law enforcement officials and anybody who might be part of the conversation before they came out with these regulations," he added.

The change comes after a bipartisan push by lawmakers in the last two years to pass legislation to create guidelines for emergency drills and reduce the required number of lockdown drills from four to two per year. The Education Department does not have the power to reduce the number of mandated school drills, and would need the Legislature to vote to change the state statute.

State education law requires schools hold at least eight evacuation and four lockdown drills each year to practice the emergency protocol. New York increased the number of required school drills in 2016 — more than 47 other U.S. states.

"I'm not necessarily anxious to reduce the number," Benedetto said Tuesday. "The educational commissioner, I think, did due diligence here."

Benedetto said he's confident in the regulations education officials and the Board of Regents agreed on, and lawmakers should not rush to make additional changes.

"Right now, I'm quite satisfied with what's there, and I will certainly be watching and see what develops in the months to come and make adjustments if and when we need them," he said.

The rules take effect July 31 before the start of the 2024-25 academic year. Schools must submit updated safety plans to the state Education Department each year by Oct. 1.

The guidelines also make emergency drills with simulations that mimic a violent incident a thing of the past in public and private schools throughout the state, and ban the use of props or actors during a student exercise. Nonpublic schools must submit updated safety plans to SED, but do not have to notify parents of emergency drills beforehand, according to the department.

Concerned parents and students have told lawmakers stories about situations when young children would become upset or confused an active shooter was real.

"We just need to rethink the system, acknowledging that the fear is real but dismantling the fear and bringing it back to reality as well," said Robert Murtfeld, a Brooklyn father of two elementary school-aged girls.

He led the parental fight pushing lawmakers to pass a bill to reduce the number of drills to two, and allow parents or guardians to opt students out. 

"If you do it from age three until age 18, it is 60 drills in your system," he said Tuesday. "I don't think that is a smart thing for us to think about how we want to go forward."

The legislation was changed this session to remove the provision that allowed student opt outs.

"The whole idea of having drills is incase something does happen... you want to know that everybody there is on the same page," Benedetto said. "If you're going to have drills, [opt outs] kind of defeat the purpose of having those drills."

Senate sponsor Andrew Gounardes says he'll continue to prioritize his bill to reduce the number of required drills to two per year.

"New York is a leader in so many things in this country," the senator said. "It should not be a leader in how many times kids have to simulate their own death in the classroom."

The legislation cleared the Senate the last two years, but has never been brought to a vote in the Assembly.

Gounardes said he will seek more input from education stakeholders about the choice for parents to opt students out of drills, but his main focus legislation will be to lower the mandate.

"We'll keep pushing as far as we can," Gounardes said. "We pushed this hard and we got this far, that means we keep pushing and we'll ultimately see the outcomes that we want."

New York parents will be able to access records related to notification of a school emergency drill for six years according to the new rules. State Education Department officials worked to create these guidelines with the state School Safety Task Force, which was created after the mass shooting at Columbine High School that killed 13 people in 1999.