Invest in real, long-term school safety; do not reinstate the SRO program
December 4, 2022
As an organization made up of students, parents/caregivers, educators, researchers, journalists, and community organizers, we are here once again to fight alongside youth against renewed calls and efforts to reinstate the School Resource Officer (SRO) program in the TDSB. We recognize the uptick in violent incidents in our schools over the past few months, and are in solidarity with students and families demanding their safety be prioritized in real and meaningful ways. We also recognize that trustees and board officials are under great pressure to act swiftly and are being lobbied by the police themselves for the reinstatement of the program. In this context, we emphasize once again that police do not keep our schools safe.
The pandemic, and inadequate social responses to it, exacerbated pre-existing inequities in our schools and communities. This fall, students returned to what they hoped would be more consistent in-person learning after three years of disruptions that had significant educational, mental, and emotional impacts –made worse by cuts to staffing and supports that students need now more than ever. There is a tremendous need for thoughtful and evidence-based solutions that provide students with the educational opportunities and experiences of belonging and well-being they deserve. The TDSB has already determined that policing is not the answer.
In November 2017, the TDSB was the first school board in Canada to end the School Resource Officer (SRO) program, an initiative that put armed and uniformed officers in schools in racialized and low-income areas across Toronto on a full-time basis. Following the TDSB’s decision, several other urban school boards in Ontario (and many others across Canada and the U.S.) have made the same decision. Ending this program came as the result of a decade-long push from community organizations, students, and families demonstrating that police in schools do not create safety, and instead make school far more dangerous, particularly for Black, Indigenous, and racialized students.
Deputations by students and parents, TDSB student focus groups, and academic research have all clearly showed:
- Many cases of SROs criminalizing and assaulting TDSB students;
- SROs routinely inserting themselves into school disciplinary decisions and escalating routine incidents into matters of criminal justice (entrenching the school-to-prison pipeline), with a disproportionate impact on Black students in particular
- That the mere presence of SROs leads to many students feeling unsafe in school, and minimizing their involvement in or disengaging from school activities in order to limit contact with the police;
- The SRO program violates the TDSB’s own Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy (Policy P061 - Students Without Legal Immigration Status), placing students and families with precarious immigration status in serious danger of detention or deportation;
- That countless teachers and many school administrators were in support of suspending the program–many publicly, and others who we heard from privately for fear of reprisal. Many of these are racialized education workers who themselves are made unsafe by the presence of police in schools.
In the TDSB’s own review of the program, including a survey of close to 2,000 students at 45 schools that had contact with an SRO, and a series of community-based focus group sessions, students indicated that they were very uncomfortable with having an SRO in their school, noting that it made them feel intimidated and under continual surveillance and suspicion. They spoke of the impact of community perceptions related to having an SRO at their school, and were deeply aware that SROs were placed in communities that are disproportionately racialized and overpoliced. At every consultation, participants expressed that the roles played by SROs could be more appropriately and effectively filled by trained education professionals including child and youth workers and social workers.
In Falconer’s 2008 report on school safety, commissioned by the TDSB, he warned the Board against “quick fix” carceral solutions. While tempting, these will never transform unsafe conditions into healthy learning environments. As Falconer’s report notes, "The real change that is essential to making headway on issues of safety involves abandoning the failed philosophy of addressing safety through discipline/enforcement mechanisms. It does not work." The research on what makes schools safe is well documented, and is in fact very much aligned with the clear and cogent demands from the students at York Memorial.
In the current climate of austerity and cuts to education, our schools have become dangerously and shamefully under-resourced. As a result, we are currently seeing the manifold ways that years of neglect and the chronic devaluing of marginalized young people is manifesting in the day-to-day life of schools. Addressing these gaps is essential for ensuring safe and healthy school communities. Many of our schools increasingly face a revolving door of staff and administrators. Students have little ability to build the trusting relationships they need. Students need more access to support staff and programming to proactively engage with underlying issues and conflict before it escalates into violence.
We cannot police our way out of this crisis; turning to the police is a misguided, lazy, and ineffective solution to the issues we collectively face. Instead, we implore you to listen to the students, parents, and communities that have been harmed by the SRO program, and to let your elected trustee know that we will not stand for the reinstatement of this program.
For more information about the SRO removal timeline and research, please see our SROs in the TDSB Fact Sheet.
Sincerely,
Education Not Incarceration