Harvey Litzelman, a teacher in California, explains why police don’t make schools safe.
When he first entered teaching, before he ever got any lessons about teaching, he was shown a video about how to handle a school shooter. The video was called “Run Hide Defend.” It made clear that the teacher was the first line of defense for students.
He writes:
Having taught in Oakland for several years after watching that video, I’ve seen very clearly how cycles of poverty, violence, and trauma manifest on my campus. I’ve seen students brutally attack one another; I’ve seen their adult family members join in. I’ve heard rumors and reports of weapons changing hands and threats of school shootings. And in every single instance, I’ve seen unarmed professionals trained to work with young people leverage the relationships they have with students to deescalate tense situations and repair harm after violent ones. Never have I seen a situation that would have been better handled by an officer of the Oakland School Police Department (OSPD) or the city’s Oakland Police Department.
The police do not keep kids (or adults) safe at school, whether from school shootings or any lesser offense. Teachers, support staff, and students themselves do. This is an argument that requires us to challenge the basic premises of modern policing. It is an argument that borrows from the long intellectual tradition of police and prison abolition, developed largely by Black women like Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Mariame Kaba, and many others. But it is also an argument grounded in the lived reality of schools.
We must follow the lead of local organizers in Minneapolis, MN; Portland, OR; Denver, CO; Milwaukee, WI, Richmond, CA; and Hayward, CA, who have already convinced their school districts to cut ties with the police. We must unpack the privileges that let many of us feel safe around the police while many of our students do not. And we must do the creative work of abolition: building the institutions that keep us safe while dismantling those that do not.
Read the rest of this interesting article.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Many good points.
(Haven’t heard much about arming teachers these days — an incredibly foolish idea…even for this current crew.)
Our SRO fired his gun during school.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wusa9.com/amp/article/news/local/alexandria/alexandria-sro-charged-with-firing-service-weapon-inside-middle-school/65-556749773
Sent from my iPhone
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That article is a pathetic piece of “reporting”. How the hell does someone, especially a trained officer, “accidentally” fire a gun? Triggers don’t pull themselves. What was his gun doing out of its holster? What was his finger doing on the trigger? One of the first things they teach in gun safety classes is that you never put your finger on the trigger unless you intend to shoot. And, unless you’re at the shooting range doing target practice, you don’t shoot unless you intend to kill. This article needs to go into a whole lot more depth about exactly what happened here.
good lord. A loaded gun in a school: accident waiting to happen.
Thank you so much!
Harley,
Would you say that student unruliness is a big problem in Oakland schools? Do teachers find it difficult to teach and serious students find it difficult to learn because of a borderline chaotic environment in many classrooms across the district?
This is a GREAT piece. Thanks, Mr. Litzelman, and thank you, Diane, for posting it.
So, what does one do about school discipline? This is the unanswered question. Years ago, when I was first teaching, the answer was simple: you beat the child. When I took my first teaching job, there was a large paddle sitting in the chalk tray of every teacher in the school. My first principal refused to rehire me for the coming year. The reason he gave was that I refused to paddle students.
Well, we’ve moved beyond that. As a young teacher of often disruptive remedial students who refused to use corporal punishment, I was quite naturally interested in what the experts had to say about other ways of maintaining classroom discipline. And when I turned to those experts, they inevitably had (and still to this day continue to have) the following kinds of advice:
Begin class with an activity (bellwork) to get the kids settled down.
Do not lose your temper. Be the adult. When disciplining a student, maintain a calm demeanor.
Set clear expectations for classroom behavior.
Be consistent in your responses.
Seat students who present discipline problems in the front, away from other such students.
If behavior is particular egregious/problematic, enlist the support of an administrator.
Speak to children privately about their behavior. Do not reprimand students in front of their peers.
If necessary, hold a parent-teacher conference.
Document all disciplinary incidents and actions.
And such advice always seemed to me obvious and pretty close to useless.
Consider “enlist the support of an administrator.” One or two disruptive students in a classroom can make it incredibly difficult to teach the rest of the kids who are there to learn something. Suppose that you have a student in class who, the moment your attention is focused elsewhere, does something disruptive. He pushes the books of another student off his desk onto the floor to make a loud bang. He plays a fart noise on the cellphone in his backpack. He gives you the finger or throws a spitball. You turn toward him. He’s smirking. But, of course, he vehemently denies that he did this, and you have no proof. After a time, you get tired of this. You send him to the principal’s office. The principal talks to him. He denies having done anything. The principal sends him back. It’s your word against his. The student feels empowered. Other students think his antics are “funny.” None will snitch. The problem grows. The principal tells you, privately, that the next time this happens, issue a detention. You do that. The student’s parent calls to scream at the AP and the Principal about the wrongful detention when “my child did nothing wrong.”
You meet with the parent. The parent denies that his or her perfect child would ever does such a thing, gets really incensed, and threatens to report you to the school board, the mayor, the police, the governor, the president, and to God because you “hate my child.” The student is further emboldened. The problem gets worse and worse.
Of course, it’s necessary to get disruptive children out of classrooms so you can teach. So why didn’t the Principal do that? Why didn’t he or she say, “Well, when this happens, send him down and we’ll do an in-school suspension. Eventually, he’ll get tired of that and stop acting out”?
Because administrators are AFRAID of parents. The average tenure of a high-school principal in the United States is only 3.38 years. Compare this with federal employees, 8.3 years; workers generally who are 55 to 64, 10.1 years; management employees generally, 6.4 years. Principals don’t last. They have very little job security. They are constantly trying to contain things and not get themselves in trouple? Why? Some parent raises a fuss, and the Superintendent and/or the School Board doesn’t want the problem, and the Principal is out.
Administrators live in fear of parents and have very little job security. Teachers are no longer have autonomy and authority in their classrooms.
And so we have in this country today an epidemic of out of control classrooms and a huge industry of Edupundit consultants writing books and giving workshops and giving lame, near-useless advice.
Forgive the typos above (e.g., would ever does, lol). I need to proof more carefully before hitting that Send button!
Corporal punishment? You’ve been around a long time, Bob.
I’m reading Tim Russert’s book about his relationship with his father to my son. Last night, I was reading about a priest who was known for his tough punishments — sometimes even for crimes in advance. Whenever Russert or his friends complained to their parents, the response was the same. “If Father Sturm said you did wrong, you done wrong.” Russert makes the claim that many parents — and we’re pretty much talking a generation back from right now — are doing their children a disservice when they don’t fully back the teacher (not to say that his parents thought the teachers were perfect; but his dad noted that you’re going to have tough bosses and life isn’t always going to be fair, either). I should probably get the direct quote (and will later). Teachers need respect and support to do their job correctly.
Nineteen U.S. states currently allow public school personnel to use corporal punishment to discipline children from the time they start preschool until they graduate 12th grade; these states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.
Ohio Algebra Teacher: This was in Indiana. Corporal punishment is STILL legal in schools there.
Wow. I didn’t realize this, Bob. Crazy.
Great advice for new teachers, Bob. Skilled teachers know that they can generally use their relationship with students to deescalate the tension. Sometimes administrators need to get involved too. We should always discipline with dignity.
Thank you, Bob, for acknowledging reality. Sometimes when I read teacher commentaries that gloss over these stark realities I think, “Am I being gaslighted?”
I despair about this, Ponderosa. It sometimes seems that NO ONE wants to talk realistically about this issue. Instead, they offer the same lame advice that, while good advice, doesn’t eliminate or even substantially reduce the problem. In my days as a textbook author, I often traveled around the country, visiting schools with salespeople, and I was in many, especially in big, urban districts, where there was simply pandemonium in every class one passed in the halls. It’s really long, long past time that steps be taken to change this, including a) reasserting teacher authority and getting rid of the “it’s your word against the student’s” nonsense. IMHO, administrators who say such things ought to be fired. Teachers have to have the authority to determine who is being disruptive and what behavior is unacceptable in class, and in almost all cases, this authority should be accepted by all involved. Otherwise, the teacher is left without an essential tool for maintaining classroom discipline–his or her authority. Kids aren’t stupid. They know when a teachers is made basically powerless by the system he or she is attempting to do the job in. And it needs to be much easier to remove disruptive students from class and place them in a less-than-ideal environment, one that is–horror of horrors to a middle-school or high-school kid, “boring.” But it’s much, much easier for school- and district-level administrators, parents, school board members, etc., simply to pretend that there’s not an issue. This is one of those great unspoken problems in U.S. education, I think. There has to be a modicum of civil behavior in classrooms for learning to take place. Without the former, none (or very little) of the latter.
Here’s a principle that I applied as a parent: consistent consequences for unacceptable behavior. I never spanked my kids (I strongly oppose that). But if they acted out–if, for example, one hit the other, there would be an immediate and unequivocal negative consequence such as sitting in a chair facing the wall in the corner for half an hour. And as a result, my kids were well behaved and I rarely had to discipline for they knew that discipline would be swift and sure.
If every disciplinary incident in school becomes a situation in which the teacher is on trial before administrators or parents to determine, first, whether he or she asserted authority appropriately, then kids learn that the system is all bark and no bite and think of the teacher and administrators as jokes.
So, what’s wrong here?
ADMIN: Ms. Perfect called me. She’s very upset. Why did you issue this detention?
TEACHER: Her child, Reggie Perfect, threw a little, pink rubber ball across the room at another student.
ADMIN: Did you see him doing this?
TEACHER: No, but he was smirking and laughing.
ADMIN: So you didn’t see him do this.
TEACHER: It’s pretty clear that he’s the one. As I say, he was smirking and laughing.
ADMIN: OK. So you didn’t see this. And, that brings up another issue. Why weren’t you keeping an eye on your class?
TEACHER: I was entering student responses on the whiteboard. So, I had turned away for a moment.
ADMIN: So you weren’t even watching your class.
TEACHER: This is not the first time. Reggie P does this kind of thing. It’s a game for him.
ADMIN: Listen. Here at Perfect Gated Community High School, we expect our teachers to be able to control their classrooms. I’m going to have to place a note about this in your personnel folder.
TEACHER [sighs]
I should have given the entire name for the mother in that scenario I just described: KAREN Perfect.
There are a great many administrators who will make it quite clear that they simply don’t want to be bothered with disciplinary issues. They will say things to teachers like, “Look. It’s your responsibility to control your classroom” and offer no suggestions/guidance whatsoever. In my experience, this attitude is very, very common.
Although I agree with Mr. Harley Litzelman, wholeheartedly, is it fair to ask this of teachers? Is it fair to ask teachers to be the first line of defense? And is that understood by teachers entering the profession?
Please understand – I am very confidant about being foolish enough to be that teacher – but should I be risking that kind of physical harm?
You are asking untrained individuals (is a professional development now considered “trained”) to enter an unsafe situation and make no attempts to defend yourself. We are saying that if things go in a bad direction, you must allow it to happen, and the consequences of those actions from others will be decided afterwards.
I believe if that was truly understood before entering the profession, you would continue to see shortages.
The closest the police come to keeping anyone safe is when they are at your elbow, and that does not always keep you safe, or alive. “Remember Dallas, Texas, November 24, 1963.”
No one in a school should have a gun or a club or any other instrument for doing major violence against persons. Police in schools is a bad idea. Now, let’s talk about alternatives.
Valentines Day. April 19 and 20 – Hitler’s birthday, Oklahoma City, WACO and Columbine. Those days are a principal and superintendents’ dreaded days.
Now add just about every Monday when the weekend social media traffic comes to school.
On those days you count on three things: Heightened awareness and listening by all teachers; kids knowing it’s “ok to tell” bad stuff and adults who listen; and an SRO or Security guard who knows kids, the hot spots, internet chatter, and is present.
The most important and necessary are teachers and administrators, not police!
We count on this:
*Teacher-student relationships.
*James Comer: Every student known well by at least one caring adult.
*English teachers read journals and report students who express depression.
*Every adult is a mandatory reporter (annual training to recognize potential child abuse.
* Teachers learn drug jargon and report a white supremacist or gang symbol on a notebook or ballcap (or in the president’s sickness world – in Facebook campaign ads)
*Principals and teachers review classroom management and discipline plans before school so they are on the same page and know what is supported and not and communicators.
*Principals ask students (note cards collected or new fancy surveys) if they have an adult they could go to for anything and about other “climate” issues.
*Kids are taught to distinguish “tattle telling” from responsible telling (something that could hurt people) and “It’s ok to tell if something bad is going down.”
and yes, classroom management and regular discipline situations occur and handled.
and NONE OF THOSE SITUATIONS require a police officer, security officer or “omg” an adult with a gun.
Now the HOWEVER…
A good school resource officer is trained to be in schools. They learn about cultural sensitivity, how one does not touch some children with particular disabilities, language barriers, how to talk to young women and young men and what topics are off-limits, and de-escalation.
Good School Resource Officers (by policy and direction) do NOT get involved in classroom or school behavior plans or discipline.
Good School Resource Officers and Security officers exemplify every trait in the first part of this. They know kids – all kinds of kids. They greet them – yes, maybe at the metal detector in some schools – but they greet them and they are around.
In my experiences and communications with hundreds of others educators…
Their SROs – the ones they or the district interviewed and selected are an asset – they don’t get involved where they shouldn’t – but they are right there so teachers and administrators are not doing police work and they are right there before 911..
Ask – you will hear stories where …
Principals rely on the SRO to go to the locker when a gun was reported – and handled it.
Principals let the SRO follow up the drug transaction after the rehab assignment or suspension.
Students reported a suicide ideation to the SRO first who took it to the counselor.
The SRO has been at the door when the angry child custody battle (literally) was going on at the entrance
The SRO has tracked down the parent who bolts through the door and heads straight to a classroom to go after a teacher
The security officers check the bathrooms and unlocked lockers during a bomb threat and SROs walk the halls at 3:00 am with the police and the bomb dogs.
Tell me you do not feel more safe in some situations when there is a police officer or security guard present. Kids are no different.
And, kids do some bad things – but they think twice before bringing the gun or knife inside, dealing drugs in a back hall, visible heinous bullying and taunting, and fighting because of the presence of the SRO.
Everyone has a story that blows this argument out of the water.
And, some SROs and security officers have been removed or fired because they do not fit this description. I assure you, kids are not afraid to tell a teacher or administrator of a racial epithet or bad behavior of an officer – and administrators act immediately.
But here’s the BIG difference between 100% of the police on the streets and even the institutional racism in police departments and school officers:
SROs and Security Officers are not randomly assigned. They are hand selected, they apply, they are interviewed – they want to support safe schools and support teachers and administrators.
Sadly – there are numerous alumni reports across the country now about racial issues with teachers and administrators and school systems. And, they were educated, trained, interviewed and selected, too!
You have kids trolling the internet and those who are tragically depressed and rejected – and some who do bad things – and on February 14, April 19 & 20, and just about everyday, I’m glad there is a trained, selected SRO around.
The parent stories are right on target. Parents tell their kids, “You don’t have to do what the teacher says, you have to do what I say”. Undermining any teacher authority from the get-go. A lot of this behavior is control and attention seeking issues-no control at home translates to students trying to take control of themselves and others at school, through defiant behavior.
Allow each district to make its own decision concerning SRO’S on campus. Different school districts have different needs.
Thanks again for sharing this. I thought I’d let you know that I’ve written another article, “Teachers: Refuse to Return to Campus.” It’s a follow up to an article I wrote in spring, “We Cannot Return to Campus this Fall.” It’s clear to us that our districts and states are getting ready to send some of us to die, and we’re not standing for it.
-Article: https://link.medium.com/uw0JqZPlK7
-Petition: http://chng.it/p5gxjQCL
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