@ChangeTheLAUSD Dr. Mike Robinson: Carl Petersen, please share your opening thought on the issue of SRO in schools and the recent protests taking place across America?
Carl Petersen: As protests continue into the fourth week after the murder of George Floyd, more attention has been placed on the defunding of police forces. As this is a concept that has arisen organically and not from the messaging of establishment politicians who run everything through controlled marketing studies, there is not always a clear definition of what this would look like. For purposes of this discussion, I will define “defunding” as systematically eliminating the existing policing system and rebuilding it from the ground up. The goal is to create a system that actually “protects and serves” rather than acts like an occupying force. This includes redirecting funding to better reduce the causes of crime rather than waiting until people are criminals to interact with them.
I am also answering these questions from the vantage point of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) which operates its own police force. For this conversation, I will equate Los Angeles School Police (LASPD) officers with School Resource Officers.
Dr. Mike Robinson: Should P-12 school districts remove armed SRO officers from schools?
Carl Petersen: With politicians unwilling to focus on the problem of the proliferation of guns in our country, our children are vulnerable in ways they have never been before. This failure by society makes the armed protection of school buildings essential. However, the scope of these officers’ duties should be limited to protecting students from violence, never to police students who are not a lethal danger to their classmates. With the limited exception of when students are in danger, these officers should focus on securing the school’s perimeter without operating on school grounds when children are present.
Dr. Mike Robinson: If they are removed what does security look like for schools? What role will teachers have as it relates to safety, will they be expected to do more?
Carl Petersen: Having moved to Los Angeles after growing up in New York, I have seen first hand the difference in the way these two cities approach policing: While entering a Rush concert at New York’s Madison Garden I only noticed one police officer in the courtyard in front of the arena. However, a fight broke out near me, and within seconds what seemed like hundreds of officers suddenly appeared. The calmness returned and they were gone as quickly as they had appeared. It was startling for a couple of minutes but soon forgotten.
In comparison, I attended a Van Halen concert at the Los Angeles Coliseum where the police were out in force and were even frisking people as they entered the venue. When a crowd rushed the field area to get closer the police hit them with their batons as they went by. When they lost control of the crowd’s behavior, they turned off the sound system causing tensions to grow even more. Order was only restored when a radio station DJ was given a mike and the ability to communicate with the crowd. Even after this, the police constantly buzzed the outdoor arena with a helicopter for the rest of the event.
In order to be effective without disrupting the educational experience, school police need to act more like the officers in the New York story; they should have a small footprint until an actual emergency occurs and then be prepared to react swiftly and in mass. The police in the Los Angeles story had an attitude that showing force from the beginning would keep the crowd in control. However, it just elevated the tensions from the beginning of the event and left them unable to do anything but inflict punishment when they lost control.
Teachers should always be the first line of defense for students. Their job is to build rapport with the children in their charge and they should, therefore, be the first to know of talk about impending threats circulating amongst the student body. They are also in the best position to offer help to students facing problems and divert them from a path that could lead to crime.
Dr. Mike Robinson: To what extent can School Resource Officers add or subtract for a school culture?
Carl Petersen: A poorly executed police presence is incompatible with an educational environment. Students are in a place of learning, not a prison.
Dr. Mike Robinson: How do you respond to the claims that SROs are more likely to arrest students of color rather than having those students be disciplined by school administrators?
Carl Petersen: These claims are backed by data. From the ACLU report The Right To Remain A Student:
“The ACLU of California (ACLU) is one of the first organizations to analyze recently-released data from the U.S. Department of Education Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2013-2014 school year. In that dataset, California K-12 schools reported 22,746 student referrals to police and 9,540 student arrests. We uncovered troubling statistics showing that these police interactions disproportionately affect students of color, students with disabilities, and low-income students. In particular, Black students are three times as likely as white students to be subjected to school-related arrest, American Indian students are twice as likely as white students to be arrested at school, and Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander students are 1.5 times as likely. Latino students are also arrested at a rate higher than their rate of enrollment in California schools.”
In addition, it should also be noted that students with disabilities are also heavily affected by the presence of law enforcement in our schools. From the same report: “students with disabilities are three times as likely as students without disabilities to be arrested.”
Even without this data, just the perception by students of color that they are more likely to be negatively affected by the presence of law enforcement on their campus is harmful. Instead, everything possible must be done to change that perception so that students feel that the school police are there to protect them and are not their jailers.
Dr. Mike Robinson: What do you say to schools that utilize SROs in the discipline process?
Carl Petersen: You are off-loading your job to someone else and contributing to the school to prison pipeline. A school’s job is not only to educate the student but to prepare them for adulthood. If there are problems, find the cause and divert the student to another path. The police should only be brought in to protect students.
Dr. Mike Robinson: What are the roles of SROs in schools?
Carl Petersen: In my article “Dismantling Our Public Schools,” I detailed one example in the LAUSD of how the police should not be used in a school environment: Under what circumstances should the police be called on a five-year-old child? According to parents at Mayberry Elementary School in the Silver Lake/Echo Park area of Los Angeles, the principal has called the Los Angeles Police Department about students under her charge on six different occasions. In one incident, a kindergarten student was questioned by police after he “pulled his pants down to a playmate”. When the boy’s mother, Britney Ingram, attempted to find out what was happening, she was told by the officers that the matter was a “confidential problem”, that she could not “be present while they questioned her son” and “that if her son did not testify they would take him to the police station.” Another parent who attempted to record the events was removed from the school at the direction of the principal despite the fact that she “was a registered [school] visitor at the time this happened”.
BIO: Carl Petersen is a father of five, including two daughters who are on the autism spectrum. During a drawn-out mediation over special education services, he turned to his wife, Nicole, and said: “somebody has to change this.” Nicole replied, “What about you?” He accepted the challenge and has run twice for a position on the LAUSD School Board. During his last campaign, he was endorsed by the Network for Public Education (NPE) Action and Dr. Diane Ravitch called him a “strong supporter of public schools.” Links to his blogs can be found at www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.
Twitter: @ChangeTheLAUSD
Instagram: changethelausd
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LAUSDchange/
Carl Petersen: As protests continue into the fourth week after the murder of George Floyd, more attention has been placed on the defunding of police forces. As this is a concept that has arisen organically and not from the messaging of establishment politicians who run everything through controlled marketing studies, there is not always a clear definition of what this would look like. For purposes of this discussion, I will define “defunding” as systematically eliminating the existing policing system and rebuilding it from the ground up. The goal is to create a system that actually “protects and serves” rather than acts like an occupying force. This includes redirecting funding to better reduce the causes of crime rather than waiting until people are criminals to interact with them.
I am also answering these questions from the vantage point of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) which operates its own police force. For this conversation, I will equate Los Angeles School Police (LASPD) officers with School Resource Officers.
Dr. Mike Robinson: Should P-12 school districts remove armed SRO officers from schools?
Carl Petersen: With politicians unwilling to focus on the problem of the proliferation of guns in our country, our children are vulnerable in ways they have never been before. This failure by society makes the armed protection of school buildings essential. However, the scope of these officers’ duties should be limited to protecting students from violence, never to police students who are not a lethal danger to their classmates. With the limited exception of when students are in danger, these officers should focus on securing the school’s perimeter without operating on school grounds when children are present.
Dr. Mike Robinson: If they are removed what does security look like for schools? What role will teachers have as it relates to safety, will they be expected to do more?
Carl Petersen: Having moved to Los Angeles after growing up in New York, I have seen first hand the difference in the way these two cities approach policing: While entering a Rush concert at New York’s Madison Garden I only noticed one police officer in the courtyard in front of the arena. However, a fight broke out near me, and within seconds what seemed like hundreds of officers suddenly appeared. The calmness returned and they were gone as quickly as they had appeared. It was startling for a couple of minutes but soon forgotten.
In comparison, I attended a Van Halen concert at the Los Angeles Coliseum where the police were out in force and were even frisking people as they entered the venue. When a crowd rushed the field area to get closer the police hit them with their batons as they went by. When they lost control of the crowd’s behavior, they turned off the sound system causing tensions to grow even more. Order was only restored when a radio station DJ was given a mike and the ability to communicate with the crowd. Even after this, the police constantly buzzed the outdoor arena with a helicopter for the rest of the event.
In order to be effective without disrupting the educational experience, school police need to act more like the officers in the New York story; they should have a small footprint until an actual emergency occurs and then be prepared to react swiftly and in mass. The police in the Los Angeles story had an attitude that showing force from the beginning would keep the crowd in control. However, it just elevated the tensions from the beginning of the event and left them unable to do anything but inflict punishment when they lost control.
Teachers should always be the first line of defense for students. Their job is to build rapport with the children in their charge and they should, therefore, be the first to know of talk about impending threats circulating amongst the student body. They are also in the best position to offer help to students facing problems and divert them from a path that could lead to crime.
Dr. Mike Robinson: To what extent can School Resource Officers add or subtract for a school culture?
Carl Petersen: A poorly executed police presence is incompatible with an educational environment. Students are in a place of learning, not a prison.
Dr. Mike Robinson: How do you respond to the claims that SROs are more likely to arrest students of color rather than having those students be disciplined by school administrators?
Carl Petersen: These claims are backed by data. From the ACLU report The Right To Remain A Student:
“The ACLU of California (ACLU) is one of the first organizations to analyze recently-released data from the U.S. Department of Education Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2013-2014 school year. In that dataset, California K-12 schools reported 22,746 student referrals to police and 9,540 student arrests. We uncovered troubling statistics showing that these police interactions disproportionately affect students of color, students with disabilities, and low-income students. In particular, Black students are three times as likely as white students to be subjected to school-related arrest, American Indian students are twice as likely as white students to be arrested at school, and Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander students are 1.5 times as likely. Latino students are also arrested at a rate higher than their rate of enrollment in California schools.”
In addition, it should also be noted that students with disabilities are also heavily affected by the presence of law enforcement in our schools. From the same report: “students with disabilities are three times as likely as students without disabilities to be arrested.”
Even without this data, just the perception by students of color that they are more likely to be negatively affected by the presence of law enforcement on their campus is harmful. Instead, everything possible must be done to change that perception so that students feel that the school police are there to protect them and are not their jailers.
Dr. Mike Robinson: What do you say to schools that utilize SROs in the discipline process?
Carl Petersen: You are off-loading your job to someone else and contributing to the school to prison pipeline. A school’s job is not only to educate the student but to prepare them for adulthood. If there are problems, find the cause and divert the student to another path. The police should only be brought in to protect students.
Dr. Mike Robinson: What are the roles of SROs in schools?
Carl Petersen: In my article “Dismantling Our Public Schools,” I detailed one example in the LAUSD of how the police should not be used in a school environment: Under what circumstances should the police be called on a five-year-old child? According to parents at Mayberry Elementary School in the Silver Lake/Echo Park area of Los Angeles, the principal has called the Los Angeles Police Department about students under her charge on six different occasions. In one incident, a kindergarten student was questioned by police after he “pulled his pants down to a playmate”. When the boy’s mother, Britney Ingram, attempted to find out what was happening, she was told by the officers that the matter was a “confidential problem”, that she could not “be present while they questioned her son” and “that if her son did not testify they would take him to the police station.” Another parent who attempted to record the events was removed from the school at the direction of the principal despite the fact that she “was a registered [school] visitor at the time this happened”.
BIO: Carl Petersen is a father of five, including two daughters who are on the autism spectrum. During a drawn-out mediation over special education services, he turned to his wife, Nicole, and said: “somebody has to change this.” Nicole replied, “What about you?” He accepted the challenge and has run twice for a position on the LAUSD School Board. During his last campaign, he was endorsed by the Network for Public Education (NPE) Action and Dr. Diane Ravitch called him a “strong supporter of public schools.” Links to his blogs can be found at www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.
Twitter: @ChangeTheLAUSD
Instagram: changethelausd
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LAUSDchange/