We first would like to thank you for your time. We are Ilyas Awadh, Karisma Franklin, Hailei Gordon, and Aniya Leon, students at New York City’s first fully virtual public high school, Virtual Innovators Academy. As students of our school's amazing leadership class, we are committed to making positive changes that impact both our school community and the city as a whole. While VIA provides flexibility, academic precision, and a safe learning environment, we recognize the importance of in-person experiences to support healthy social-emotional development. Events like field trips and peer contact are  essential for building confidence, communication skills, and real-world skills. However, many students, like us, often hang back to take part in these opportunities due to concerns about safety on public transportation especially during early morning and late-night hours, when crime is more likely to occur and police presence is limited.

We know how crazy they NYC subways can be, and there should be improvements to the train stations so that there is less of a possibility of an accident or attack. We know things like guardrails and metal detectors are currently being put into place, but we realize that those efforts won't be enough to truly improve the safety. There should be changes to the infrastructure entirely so that we can start to put in place safety measures. This petition is towards our governor Kathy Hochul, and trying to convince her to put more money towards our trains and improving the safety as well as the infrastructure.