Why are police deployed on school campuses? School police are now part of local law enforcement. In years past, police generally served as traffic cops during the morning and afternoon school “rush.” The past 20 years has seen the creation and expansion of “school resource officers” (SROs) dedicated to specific schools to police behavior that school staff could not. This came to include general student (mis)conduct and possible criminal behavior. The LWV San Diego researched the history and current school policing in San Diego County school districts. Locally, Police in Schools has become controversial as collisions between students and school police have led to negative media coverage and lawsuits. In particular, schools in communities of color have experienced intense policing generally not seen in schools predominantly caucasian. Most recently, public concern over police actions at La Mesa Helix Academy and Lincoln High Schools has increased community demands to remove School Policing from schools.
Is the level of threat at our schools high enough to require policing on campus? San Diego, like many other communities across the country, has experienced school threats and shootings over the years. The first recorded shooting took place at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in 1979 and was immortalized in the song “I Don’t Like Mondays.” This title refers to the reason given by the student for her shooting spree. Schools across the county still receive death threats via email or social media. Sometimes these threats are directed at specific students as cyber-bullying increases.
At the time, anti-violence advocates looked to the local police to reduce violence in the school yards. However, despite the number of threats and actual violence on campus, police officers on campus have had little impact on school violence. Our research has found three incidents where police aggression led to conflict: at a book-drive, before an athletic game, and with a student late to class.
The gun violence and resistance to school integration led to a convergence of calls for police on campus. San Diego Unified School District has its own police department, separate from the city. School police - their hiring, training, and discipline - is overseen both by the school police department and the city police department. Recent problems in San Diego schools, including assaults between police and students and arrests, have strengthened community demands to remove police from schools here in San Diego.
Parents in areas like the very diverse City Heights neighborhood complained over the years of continuous police harassment of their children. The swell of concern gelled into a well-defined effort by the neighborhood non-profit, Mid-City CAN, to insert restorative practices in local schools and restorative justice into the juvenile system. This community work to dampen the school-to-prison pipeline is supported by ongoing financial support from the CalEndowment Fund.
Restorative practices, including restorative justice, implements communication and shared decision-making to heal divisions and hurt caused by district policing and school discipline policies. School districts, police departments and courts have embraced restorative justice to change the narrative for youth caught up in the criminal justice system.
The restorative practices program is being used in many of our schools with success, most likely due to its focus on emotional needs. There are also efforts by criminal justice agencies in San Diego to incorporate restorative justice into their policies and procedures, from Juvenile Hall to the county Department of Parole.
The League remains concerned about pervasive racism in our social institutions, including our public schools. We call attention to the recent call for public comments from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights:
The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) today issued a Request for Information asking members of the public to submit written comments on the administration of school discipline in schools serving students in pre-k through grade 12. This information will assist OCR in determining what policy guidance, technical assistance, or other resources may help schools improve school climate and safety, and ensure equal access to education programs and activities, consistent with the civil rights laws that OCR enforces.
To have local police actively engaged in “discipline” on school campuses with children of color deepens our concern, given the national debate on racism in policing. It creates further potential for unsafe school climates and impacts equal access to education. School staff such as counselors are meant to deal with discipline unless a crime is committed. That is when police could be summoned.
Finally, if we are going to continue an unequal allocation of police to schools, then transparency and accountability need to be established to support a safe school climate for all, as well as the parameters of the work of a school officer. We are troubled by the apparent increase of police-student conflicts in our schools.
There is a commonly held faith in policing as an answer to school problems yet other schools seem to do fine without school police. The Cherokee Elementary School’s experiment in the Peace Path is a stand-out example of alternatives to violence, state or otherwise. Designed by Principal Godwin Higa, it offers a series of choices along a path of conflict and intense training in negotiation and self-awareness. The expulsion of young black children, especially boys, plummeted within months of the institution of the “Peace Path.”
Read the full report.