Do police keep students safe? What does safety mean and how can we ensure every student has it? On August 13, Mt. Rainier Organizing for Racial Equality, PG Changemakers, Public Health Awakened, and Teens for Justice held a town hall to answer these questions. Parents, students, community members, and experts in public health, education, police reform, and youth trauma shared their vision for safe schools.
We learned that schools with armed police officers have nearly five times the number of arrests for disorderly conduct, the sort of thing that would normally be addressed by educators. The data on student arrests are quite clear, but there is no clear data showing that increased police spending decreases crime. Student activists told us they don’t want police officers breaking up fights with force, they want staff trained in deescalation. These kids understand that more frequent police contact means a greater chance of entering the school to prison pipeline.
This is why the Maryland Office of the Public Defender wrote to the PGCPS Board of Education in support of the resolution to remove SROs from our schools “The reality we hear from our clients is that the mere presence of an armed, uniformed officer changes the learning setting and escalates simple disagreements, contributing to a culture of criminalization and antagonism in schools.” As Student Board Member Ninah Jackson said in September, if the first thing that young Black kids see in the morning is armed police and flashing lights then they are not in a mindset to learn. This High Point High School student agrees:
$3.5 million is spent on SROs in PGCPS every year and $17 million for security more generally. Students know we can make better use of our resources. They see that we do not come close to the recommended nurse- and psychologist-to-student ratios. Sadly, this is the story all over the country. In fact, in DC, the Institute for Policy Studies found that the school security budget could instead fund up to 222 psychologists, 345 guidance counselors, or 332 social workers. Check out our Budget for Care for the local numbers.
We are dealing with a systemic problem. Black students make up 55% of our student body but 87% of school arrests in total, 92% of arrests for fighting specifically, and nearly 80% of suspensions. 11% of PGCPS students receive SPED services, but these students make up 20% of school arrests and 24% of suspensions. The NAACP has said that this systemic over-policing of Black and disabled students violates federal civil rights law. Meanwhile, following a recent legal filing detailing PGPD’s racist organizational culture, the NAACP called for the police chief to step down. He did. At the state level, the ACLU of Maryland led more than 60 statewide organizations in calling for police reforms that include the removal of SROs.
While police have targeted Black and brown youth for decades, police in schools are a relatively recent phenomenon--only 1% of schools had police in 1975. Many more entered our schools after Columbine, despite little to no research showing SROs can prevent school shootings. Police have been a key part of a failed decades-long project to ‘get tough’ at schools. We know that suspended students are more likely to suffer poor academic outcomes, and that suspensions double a student’s chance of arrest. And we've all seen the videos of SROs intervening in school discipline and attacking students. There are so many incidents of police violence in schools that the Alliance for Education Justice created a map.
All over the country, students, parents, educators, and neighbors are fighting to rethink school safety, removing police and replacing them and the ‘get tough’ model with the people and resources students need to succeed. Youth advocates and allies in Dignity in Schools created a Model Code on Education and Dignity to show how to make this vision a reality. Parents in Chicago made restorative justice guidelines designed to keep their kids out of the school to prison pipeline. A premier education research organization, WestEd, has compiled research about using restorative justice as an alternative route to improving school safety. And national teachers’ unions crafted a proposal to reimagine school discipline in a way that fosters healthy relationships.
See what the research says about the big school policing Myths. And check out our Safe Schools USA page to learn more about this national movement!