Petition circulating to remove police officers from San Diego school campuses
SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – California’s top schools official said Wednesday his office is working to re-imagine the role of police officers at the state’s 10,000 public schools but said some schools would still need officers on campus to protect students’ safety.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said the officers would be needed to protect students from dangers, including school shootings or bomb threats but officers would no longer be called upon to discipline misbehaving students.
“As a former school board member, I spent four years working very closely with school resource officers,” Thurmond said. “But I’ve already seen data that shows when there’s police on campus, this results in more suspensions and arrests, particularly for African American students and other students of color.”
The movement to remove police officers from school campuses has reached San Diego, and now there is even a petition circulating to remove officers from San Diego Unified School District.
Former San Diego Reserve Police Officer and San Diego County Board of Education Member Mark Powell joined Good Morning San Diego to discuss his plan to integrate police officers into the classroom as teachers.
“The focus is on officers building strong positive relationships and interactions with students, parents, and the community to regain public trust, especially in areas where trust in the police may be lacking,” said Powell.
Meanwhile, Oakland Unified School District Board voted Wednesday night to eliminate the district’s police department.
Oakland is one of 19 school districts in California with its own police department.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Education voted to cut ties with city police amid protests against police brutality across the country.
Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to end an agreement with the San Francisco Police Department involving 12 armed police officers assigned to respond to calls at schools.
The arrangement also included a district payment of $46,000 to help cover the cost of a police liaison, who oversaw a program that provided specialized training to the 12 officers.
Schools throughout the nation are grappling with how to address demands to get police officers out of schools amid protests against police brutality following the death last month of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The Oakland resolution to eliminate school police was named for Floyd.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest in the nation, rejected a proposal to cut the campus police budget by 90% by 2024.
The board of United Teachers Los Angeles, the powerful teachers union, recently voted to call for defunding the school police department and using $63 million of its $70 million budget for counseling and other student services.
However, some board members said they wouldn’t want to make the cuts unless there was another plan to guarantee the safety of the district’s 735,000 students.
