Schools have never been safe from the threat posed by policing. Recent narratives by politicians and police departments have made school violence seem astronomically high. They also suggest that more police should be on campus to address the problem, even though campaigns have been pushed to eliminate police from schools in the past two years. The narratives cite anecdotal reports of violence in schools following students’ return to physical classrooms after the quarantine but fail to contextualize the violence or its causes and rarely mention that crime levels in schools are far below levels in the 1990s and 2000s. Instead of assuming more police are necessary, decision makers should be consulting students and educators — especially those of us in heavily policed schools — about solutions.
In middle school, I witnessed a friend get rammed on a police car. In high school, I witnessed students getting pepper-sprayed by the police in common areas between classes. In high school, there were just one or two police officers. Now, there are four to five officers and security dogs on campus. Their presence creates a hostile atmosphere that makes students wonder why the school hired them.
Arrested LearningA national survey of students was conducted in April 2021. It asked them what makes them feel secure when they are physically at school. Eighty-four% of respondents said their friends. 63 percent responded teachers. 16 percent replied police. A third of respondents felt that they were being targeted by police because of their identities.
Not more police, but programs and resources that allow us to focus while learning are needed by students. The real question is: How can students voice concerns and press school districts to make these improvements? Local organizing around school board elections has been a success.
School boards play an important role in deciding whether schools will have a police presence. We’ve seen police officer associations fund pro-police school board candidates in Nassau and Suffolk counties in New York. In El Paso, Texas, the El Paso Municipal Police Officers Association and Sheriff’s Officers Association helped elect a former police officer.
School boards are one of the best ways to challenge campus police presence. However, a 2020 National School Boards Association report revealed “discouragingly low” school board election turnout numbers (between 5 to 10 percent). That year in my home district (the fifth-largest school in the U.S. — Clark County, Nevada), only 33 percentApproximately 4500 votes were cast for school board elections.
Students can make a difference in the presence and effectiveness of police officers at their schools by organizing themselves through school boards. The Center for Popular Democracy Action’s new toolkit analyzes how school boards affect students’ lives and how to use them to challenge injustices like school policing.
School boards hold immense power. Far right conservatives and police interests understand this, but they aren’t alone. For decades, community activists have challenged racist policies and classist practices through public school boards. Recent examples of effective organizing have been seen in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where Leaders Igniting Transformation helped to create the Milwaukee Board of School Directors. unanimously pass a resolution ending their contract with Milwaukee’s police department.
As a fellow at Make the Road NevadaMy classmates and me pressured the school board into creating a student section at meetings. This would have provided us with a dedicated platform to express our opinions. We’re pushing hard to remove police from our schools, add more counselors and support candidates who back our priorities. It isn’t easy, but we’ve won some victories, including helping elect our endorsed candidate to the school board this summer, and keep building a solid foundation to win more.
Nationally, students have spent two years dealing with a pandemic which has added to the already difficult private lives. To get through such turbulent times, we need more social workers and counselors. Before Las Vegas started its COVID lockdown in Las Vegas, my high school had an assigned social worker. Post-lockdown, I haven’t seen them around, and it appears additional police officers took their place. That’s a tradeoff that has benefited no one but the police.
Make the Road Nevada Action also helped create “Youth Mandate for Education and Liberation: A Mandate to Guide Us From Crisis to Liberation,” which details how police and security in schools don’t make students feel safe and instead, often lead to harmful interactions. It also revealed that students prefer school districts to provide more resources for students and support them over security and police. Youth groups of the Center for Popular Democracy Network demanded in the Youth Mandate that schools stop supporting police officers to fund programs and services that emphasize restorative practices over strict discipline.
Here’s the root problem with the police: They can’t prevent violence but can only respond to it, often with more violence. Our schools should foster creativity, healing, and joy — and work to prevent harm. That’s impossible with hardline disciplinary actions and on-campus police militarization. We need resources that put students first and allow them to succeed. To obtain these resources, students, parents, and all those who care about our well-being must organize around school boards.
