Want Safer Schools? Remove the Police

IT IS TIME for radical change. This summer Black students in Oakland, Calif., demonstrated they deserve it—schools without police. After a 10-year organizing effort, students of the Black Organizing Project were victorious. The Oakland school board voted unanimously to pass the “George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate the Oakland Schools Police Department,” which will dismantle the school police department and redirect $2.5 million to pupils’ needs. Like students across the country, Oakland scholars want to reimagine safety because too many of them have been dehumanized, disrespected, and criminalized by police in their schools.

Following the brutal murder of Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in May, the United States has seen a surge in progress in the movement for police-free schools. While this demand is not new, the moment made it real.

The Minneapolis school board led the way when it unanimously voted to end its contract with the police department. Then Portland. Then Denver. Then Charlottesville, Rochester, Milwaukee, and San Francisco.

Fueled by Black and brown students, the police-free schools movement asserts that removing police from schools will increase students’ chance to thrive and feel safe from state violence. The presence of police in schools increases the chances of youth interaction with the criminal legal system. Whether we call them “school resource officers” or police, they enforce the criminal code. Moreover, police too often aggressively suppress what they perceive to be disobedience or disorder. They ticket, arrest, and violently impose their will upon young people.

Removing police from schools is only the first step. As communities demand that school boards end contracts with and defund the police, they demand the funding be reinvested in resources that make students safe. Developing a permanent funding stream for school social workers, trained counselors, restorative justice programs, mental health resources, and other practices creates secure schools where young people can thrive. Research and the experiences of young people of color have taught us that having police in schools creates a toxic climate. Cops are not part of the equation regarding the safety of young people in their schools.

In Denver, the school board ended the district’s contract with the police department and voted to invest in students. The school board’s resolution calls for a 25 percent reduction of school resource officers by December 2020 and the complete elimination of school resource officers in all of Denver’s public schools by June 2021. It directs the superintendent of Denver Public Schools to reallocate money used for school resource officers toward social workers, counselors, restorative justice, and more.

For two decades, Advancement Project National Office, a multiracial, nonprofit civil rights organization, has supported Padres y Jóvenes Unidos, our Denver-based partner, in its campaign to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline and defend equal access of all students to high-quality public schools that prepare them for college, regardless of race, income, or immigration status. Members of Padres y Jóvenes Unidos have learned through experience that, for many Black and brown youth, the presence of police in schools disrupts learning environments. A culture clash exists between law enforcement and the learning environment: Police enforce criminal laws, while schools are supposed to nurture students.

This work set the stage for the police-free schools campaign and the publication of “We Came to Learn: A Call to Action for Police-Free Schools,” a report by Advancement Project and the Alliance for Educational Justice, as well as the #AssaultAt mapping program that charts incidents of students assaulted by police at school. Ahead are innovative opportunities to disarm school personnel, decriminalize age-appropriate student behavior, delegitimize over-policing as a safety mechanism, and invest in counselors, social workers, nurses, and others trained to de-escalate high-stress situations.

As we seek to create safe learning environments for young people, it is important to remember: There is no evidence that school police officers make students safer. Increased police presence in schools is linked to increases in school-based arrests for minor, age-appropriate behaviors. The most effective methods to improve school climates instill a sense of community throughout the campus. Police do not do this. It is time that we heed the demands of young people who have sounded the alarm by calling for police-free schools.