Special Officer (NYC H+H) requirements

By the date of appointment you must possess either a four-year high school diploma or its educational equivalent, approved by a State's Department of Education or a recognised accrediting organisation, or an Individualized Education Program (IEP) diploma together with six months of full-time work experience.

The second route matters more than its single line suggests. An IEP diploma is awarded to students who complete an individualised programme rather than the standard diploma requirements, and it is not usually accepted as a high school equivalency. This notice accepts it, paired with half a year of work, for a peace officer position — which makes 6328 the most open door onto a uniformed city career covered on this site.

Education obtained outside the United States must be evaluated for equivalence, and the notice says you will receive instructions from the appointing facility during pre-employment screening about which evaluation services to use. That is a different process from most DCAS titles, which send you to a published guide instead.

If the six months of experience were worked part-time at fewer than 35 hours a week, the notice gives the formula rather than leaving it to be guessed: (number of hours worked per week ÷ 35) × number of months worked.

Its own worked example is 21 hours a week for 12 months: 21 ÷ 35 × 12 = 7.2 months. That clears the six-month requirement comfortably, and it is worth running your own numbers before assuming part-time work does not count. Twenty hours a week for eleven months, for example, comes to 6.3 months and qualifies.

The check happens after the test, not before it. A candidate deemed Not Qualified afterwards forfeits the $54 fee and receives no score, so the conversion is worth doing on paper before filing rather than hoping.

Under Criminal Procedure Law § 2.10(40) the position is designated a peace officer position — the notice cites the specific subdivision, where its sibling cites the section generally. The consequence is stated in the same terms: proof of good character is an absolute prerequisite to appointment.

You must therefore reveal ALL arrests, convictions and pending charges that have occurred in your lifetime, including any material sealed, expunged or set aside under federal or state law, and youthful offender adjudications. Advice that a sealed record need not be disclosed to an ordinary employer does not carry across to this application.

The factors the notice names as possible cause for disqualification are the familiar four: an offence whose nature indicates lack of good moral character or a disposition toward violence or disorder; repeated arrests or convictions indicating disrespect for the law; a discharge from employment indicating poor behaviour or inability to adjust to discipline; and a dishonourable discharge from the Armed Forces. These are factors to be weighed. The disclosure requirement is not.

The first is the state peace officer training certification. Once obtained it must be maintained for the duration of employment, and attendance at annual recertification training is mandatory and a continuing condition of employment.

The second appears on no other notice covered here. As part of the NYC Health + Hospitals Special Officer Training Academy you must satisfy the requirements established by the New York State Department of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to obtain CPR/BLS certification and Basic First Aid certification, and both must be maintained for as long as you hold the title.

Read that alongside the duty list and it stops looking like paperwork. Officers are expected to provide assistance to the sick, injured and disabled and to call for medical attention — in a building where the people around them are patients. The certification requirement is the job description made into a condition of employment.

NYC H+H has established medical and psychological standards for the position. Everyone offered a post must undergo and pass medical and psychological examinations before the date of appointment, and a drug screening is carried out during the medical examination. Reasonable accommodation is provided where appropriate.

You must have reached your 20th birthday by appointment, be a United States citizen at appointment, and be a New York City resident at appointment with residency maintained afterwards. The two-year exception permitting Nassau, Westchester, Suffolk, Orange, Rockland or Putnam requires two years of employment with NYC Health + Hospitals specifically, not with the City generally.

What is absent is worth stating explicitly because candidates assume it. There is no firearms qualification requirement in this notice and no driver licence requirement. Notice 6327 has both — firearms on certain assignments, a New York State licence for positions in certain agencies. If either is a barrier for you, these are two different exams and only one of them raises it.