Jan Resseger writes here about the decision by Minneapolis and other school districts to remove police from the schools.
She begins:
In the aftermath of the tragic police killing of George Floyd and the widespread protests of police brutality that have followed, the Schott Foundation for Public Education comments: “We want to lift up one ray of hope in this dark moment: The Minneapolis Board of Education made in important step… when it voted to sever its relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department… which until now had been the recipient of more than $1 million in education funds to put its officers in schools… The danger of police officers in schools—and their contribution to creating the school-to-prison pipeline that threatens so many children of color—is well documented and their removal has been a central demand of education justice organizations that Schott is proud to support….”
Several school districts have followed the lead of the Minneapolis Board of Education including the schools of Rochester, New York, and Portland, Oregon. It also looks as though the members of the Denver, Colorado Board of Education will vote to terminate the employment of police school resource officers, known everywhere these days as SROs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not just armed police. Any police.
It’s time to get police out of our schools. It’s also time to get no-excuses discipline out of our schools. And it’s time to get no-excuses charter schools out of our cities.
and in days where so many are saying that they would like to know more about how racism plays out, it is WAY past time for the national government and school districts across the nation to be exposed for their complicity in the test-score-based school-to-prison pipeline
Wait! Wait! Wait!
Before removing campus police officers and no-excuses discipline from public schools, every school must have enough counselors (shrinks for want of a better word) to step in and work with children that are disrupting classrooms. Every school must also have a nurse and a library and a librarian.
That takes money.
The high school where I taught had four counselors one for each grade level: 9, 10, 11, and 12, and those four were not enough because each counselor was responsible for about 750 students EACH.
That high school also had a half dozen CPOs (campus police officers) that patrolled the campus during school hours on ten-speed bikes. They did not carry pepper spray, tasers, or firearms.
That high school also had a 70-percent child poverty rate and the local community surrounding the high school was dominated by violent teenage street gangs. Because of rival gangs, the local police send a squad car and two officers every day at lunch just to sit in their car and watch two to three thousand kids eat lunch in the quad. This was a deterrent to make the gangs think twice about starting a riot. As far as I know, those two officers seldom if ever left their squad car.
Removing security and harsh displace rules will not magically every child into an angel that loves to read, cooperate with their teachers, et al.
There must be a plan and all the major local stake holders must be involved in developing that plan: teachers, parents, students, and in last place admin. Admin should not have the final say. The teachers, parents, and students should have that.
Armed police are no replacement for resources. Schools can better serve the needs of students with smaller classes and other support services, as Lloyd mentions. A well resourced school with appropriate supports for students will help young people a lot more than potentially getting students entangled in the criminal justice system.
Thank you for adding “smaller classes”. I did not think to add that to my comment and smaller classes (like 12 to a class) is very important.
I agree, Lloyd. This is another one of those issues best decided locally, by districts, based on their actual needs, trusting that local BOE’s will heed parental concerns. That’s how it works in my town. SRO’s are a “light touch,” rotating on a part-time basis among the hisch & midschs. And their contract renewal/ staffing is periodically & vociferously debated at BOE mtgs.
Though they may not have ed/ counseling/ socwkr certs, ours are clearly well-trained for this app; they are like community beat cops & have friendly stud relations. [Our town police excel at this: there are many who are insensitive cruisers of “driving while a teenaged white kid,” but when you need highly-sensitive user-friendly types to talk your psychotic teen into self-admitting to a psych hosp, I’ve found them here, on morethan one occasion.]
I’m venturing a guess that the SRO black eye has been earned in communities that (a)grossly underfund the pubschs in poor areas– as noted, where there is a dearth of pubsch counselors/ socwkrs/ community services, and (b)where districts are run top-down, remotely, one-size-fits-all by mayors or govrs w/o input/voice from local community.
I taught for thirty years in a district in Southern California that was run top-down, but the high school where I taught in that district had a really tough/stubborn staff that fought back (peacefully) and often sent the district administrators packing with their tails wrapped around their legs. District admins were also tough on Ps and VPs so many left when they couldn’t take the top-down management style.
I think that Cincinnati public schools will not soon be removing their SROs. The SROs work for the City of Cincinnati.
” Cincinnati’s School Resource Officer program was established in 1967 and is the third oldest SRO program in the country. The Cincinnati Police SRO Unit subscribes to the “Triad” concept, which includes the SRO serving as law enforcement officer, educator and counselor.
School Safety Plan
A comprehensive School Safety Plan has been in place in Cincinnati Public Schools for several years. It includes:
• 15 School Resource Officers (Cincinnati Police) and the 160-member CPS Security Team, plus 10 CPS Rapid Response Team members
• Radio communication between CPS’ Security Team and SROs
• Monthly safety drills and emergency training for students and staff, including active-shooter drills
• Background checks for visitors upon entry and controlled access to all CPS buildings
• Closed-circuit monitoring in our buildings by 4,000 digital cameras
• Regular security audits
• Bag checks
In 2017, Superintendent Laura Mitchell established a Safety Task Force that brings together experts from the Cincinnati Police and Fire departments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Homeland Security to develop strategies to enhance CPS’ School Safety Plan. The Safety Task Force uses insights gained from the violent situations occurring around the country to ensure that our students stay safe.
Click to access Code_Of_Conduct_2019-20.pdf
Jan’s from Ohio?
It probably won’t surprise Ohio Democrats that GOP Sen. Steve Huffman, in the news today for showing racism and then, apologizing for it, wrote an op ed in January stating that he wanted to advance the mission of the EdChoice program. His first cousin is the majority leader of the Ohio House.
Matt Huffman can be contacted about the racism of his cousin, who is a member of the Education Committee of Ohio’s Senate, at 614-466-7584.
ALEC Exposed lists Matt Huffman as a member of Koch-funded ALEC civil justice task force. People of color can’t breathe in Ohio.
Of course they do- “the Catholic Conference of Ohio urges Ohio legislators to go back to the table NOW to finalize the EdChoice program for 2020/2021”.
Reblogged this on The Most Revolutionary Act and commented:
Several school districts have followed the lead of the Minneapolis Board of Education including the schools of Rochester, New York, and Portland, Oregon. It also looks as though the members of the Denver, Colorado Board of Education will vote to terminate the employment of police school resource officers, known everywhere these days as SROs.