#sros

A resident of the historic Winters Hotel that burned down one year ago has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the City of Vancouver and a non-profit that operated the hotel as low-income housing. The Winters Hotel, which was built in 1907, was gutted by a fire on April 11, 2022. The fire was sparked by unattended candles and led to the displacement of over 70 residents. Two people — Dennis Guay and Mary Ann Garlow — were found dead, and five others had to be taken to hospital in the aftermath of the fire at the hotel, which later had to be demolished. One of the survivors is seeking costs and damages from the city and Atira Property Management, the non-profit that operated the Winters Hotel as a single-room occupancy (SRO) housing building.

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Are Police in Schools Doing More Harm Than Good? | The Amber Ruffin Show [source]

* indicates a petition that is NOT hosted on change.org

HOPKINS, MN: Police Out of Hopkins Public Schools!

BELLINGHAM, WA: Remove police presence from Bellingham Public Schools

ANN ARBOR, MI: Call for AAPS to end their relationship with AAPD

VERONA, WI: Make Verona Area High School Police Free

EVANSTON, IL: Cops out of Schools Districts 65 and 202

PALM SPRINGS, CA: Call for Police Free Schools in PSUSD

PHILADELPHIA, PA: Tell the School District of Philadelphia: We Want #PoliceFreeSchools!

TEANECK, NJ: Get The Teaneck Police Department Out Of Teaneck Schools

DANVILLE, PA: Get police out of Danville schools

NEW YORK CITY, NY: Get NYPD Defunded & Out Of Public Schools!

DALE CITY, CA: Jefferson Union High School district to cut ties with the police department

FORT COLLINS, CO: Take SRO's Out of Poudre School District

MANOR, TX: Remove police from Manor ISD schools

MINNEAPOLIS, MN: Request that DeLaSalle High School terminates its contract with the MPD.

WESTMINSTER, MD: Abolish Police Presence in Carroll County Schools

MARIN, CA: Remove Police from Marin County Schools and Reinvest in Student Support Programs

*SALEM, OR: Police Free Schools in Salem-Keizer School District

ONTARIO, CANADA: We Demand Police-Free Schools Ontario Wide! #PoliceFreeSchoolsONWide

SUWANEE, GA: Remove Police from Gwinnett County Public Schools!

CARY, NC: Remove SROs from Wake County Schools

*PROVIDENCE, RI: Counselors NOT Cops #PoliceFreeSchools

OAKLAND, CA: Remove Oakland school police and reinvest in student support programs.

*PITTSBURGH, PA: Cops OUT of PGH Public Schools

*WASHINGTON, D.C.: Tell D.C Leaders: We Demand Police-Free Schools!

*DULUTH, MN: We want SROs out of our schools.

*FRAMINGHAM, MA: Divest from Police in Our Schools

Barging into my sixth-grade science class at Lucas Middle School in Durham, my school’s police officer would warn students about the dangers of certain misbehaviors. I remember being intimidated by the threat of arrest, the weapons on his holster, and the menacing authority of his uniform.

What I don’t remember is having a guidance counselor, a nurse, or a social worker to support me through the horrendous transition that is being a teenager. Up until high school, I was treated more like a threat than a student.

School resource officers have a disproportionate effect on students of color. According to the Southern Coalition for Social Justice’s Racial Equity Report Cards, 12 percent of cases sent to juvenile court in Durham County were school-based, and of those cases, 86 percent of the offenders were Black.

At Josephine Dobbs Clement Early College High School in Fayetteville, we didn’t have school resource officers. Our administrators and our one guidance counselor would handle any disciplinary issues we had. Though we were under-resourced, our environment felt safe.

Why can’t this same system of discipline be implemented at Riverside, Northern, Durham School of the Arts, Jordan, Southern, and Hillside to prevent student behaviors from being criminalized?

A common argument is that teachers and administrators don’t feel safe without their school resource officers. This is concerning because it implies that faculty are frightened of their students. That speaks more to a need for teacher training and additional mental health support, not more school resource officers.

Mass school shootings are also a major concern, but school resource officers at my middle school didn’t have the training to prevent or protect me from one. The school shooter is most likely to be a student at that school, so if we took preventative measures like mental health intervention, we could stop a traumatic experience like this from happening altogether.

Durham County recently passed a budget that reflects misguided priorities, with $2.7 million allocated to funding school resource officers. This does not consider student needs, especially during a pandemic, which has had devastating effects on the Durham community. We’re going back to school in August, and what we need are therapists, nurses, psychologists, guidance counselors, substance abuse specialists, sexual health educators, and restorative practice centers, not an institution that reinforces the school-to-prison-pipeline in a place where people are supposed to feel safe.

That’s why I’m organizing a Youth Summit on School Safety with the Durham Youth Climate Justice Initiative, to be held via Zoom on Monday, July 20 from 6:00–8:00 p.m. If you are a middle or high school student in Durham Public Schools, RSVP online for more information and a $25 gift card.

In a recent statement, Chairman Mike Lee of the Durham Public School’s Board of Education stressed the need for a replacement plan if he were to vote for the removal of school resource officers. With input from students across Durham Public Schools, together we are going to create one.

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For years, I’ve argued that putting more armed officers in schools is not the magic solution many people think it is. After school shootings, especially high-profile ones, politicians inevitably start calling for more school resource officers, more security, and more police presence. The idea sounds simple enough. If there are more cops in schools, surely schools will be safer. The problem is…

Corsicana, Texas, had one of those mornings where the news release tries very hard to make something sound routine. Around 9:20 a.m. this past Wednesday, inside Bowie Elementary, a Corsicana ISD police officer managed to shoot himself after what the district politely labeled an ‘accidental discharge.’ That’s the official phrasing, anyway. In plain English, a cop’s gun went off at Bowie Elementary…