Toulon joins panel on Suffolk school safety, outlines security measures

Suffolk parents and school staff are being asked to rely on a safety system that now stretches from classroom lessons to confidential law-enforcement alerts, even as the county’s 1.5 million residents continue to measure school readiness by what happens when trouble lands at the door.

Sheriff Errol D. Toulon, Jr. joined law-enforcement partners for a panel on school safety measures and questions from school officials, outlining a set of programs the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office says it has built since he took office as the county’s 67th sheriff on January 1, 2018. Toulon, Suffolk County’s first African American elected to a non-judicial countywide office, is serving his second term as the county’s highest-ranking law-enforcement official.

The sheriff’s office says its first major school initiative was the Sandy Hook Promise School Safety Initiative, launched in Toulon’s first year in office. Since then, the office says more than 30,000 students, faculty and community members have been taught how to recognize warning signs of distress, especially on social media, and how to report troubling information to a trusted adult.

The office also says it created a Security Assessment Initiative in 2018 that provides vulnerability assessments for Suffolk County schools and public buildings at no cost. Those assessments, along with Sandy Hook Promise, Say Something, and Youth Enlightenment Seminar tours, are part of the Sheriff’s Office Community Relations Unit, which has become one of the county’s most visible school-facing operations.

Recent expansions have pushed that work deeper into local districts. On February 26, 2025, the first Student Ambassador Program graduation was held at Patchogue-Medford High School, with 47 students taking part and two earning $500 scholarships. The curriculum covered cyberbullying, social media safety, vaping and drug use, issues that now shape the daily risk environment for Suffolk teenagers.

The sheriff’s office then piloted Handle With Care with the Huntington School District in September 2025 and expanded it to the Central Islip Union Free School District on February 19, 2026. Under the program, schools receive only an address and the phrase Handle With Care when a child is present at the scene of a traumatic law-enforcement-involved incident outside school, with no details of the event shared.

Central Islip Superintendent Dr. Sharon A. Dungee said Toulon had already established an important and positive presence in secondary schools through the Student Ambassador Program. The latest expansion suggests Suffolk’s school-safety approach is moving toward faster, quieter coordination between police and educators, while leaving families to judge whether those layers are enough when a crisis unfolds.