FACTS

• Over $1 billion spent on 20,000 school police officers in public schools
• 50% of all public schools have at least one school police officer 
• 90% of high school students attend a school with a school police officer
• 72% of high schools have school police officers who carry a gun routinely
• Black students are 4x more likely to be suspended, 2X more likely to be expelled, 2X more likely to be referred to the police & 3X more likely to be arrested in school than white students
• Black girls are 4X more likely to be arrested in school than white girls nationally
• 14 million students are in schools with police but no counselor, nurse, psychologist, or social worker
• Black students are 3X more likely to attend a school with more security staff than mental health professionals

ABOLISH SCHOOL POLICE! School police must be kept out of our schools. Presence of school police have been shown to increase discipline, reduce graduation rates and lower college enrollment rates. Daily police presence in our schools traumatizes our black students and criminalizes their behaviors. School police, especially armed ones, is an example of the constant violence inflicted on our black students. The over-policing of our black youth in schools has become the vehicle in the school-to-prison pipeline. Our schools need to be places where every student feels welcomed; liberated to be his, her or their whole self; affirmed and loved by all school and district staff; and empowered to grow with dignity. 

RALLY FOR CHANGE! ALL school districts must defund and remove school police from schools. ALL school districts should adopt the following changes to liberate our black students and restore their humanity and dignity. 

• Defund school police and keep school police out of schools
• Invest more in restorative justice and trauma-informed trainings and practices
• Hire more restorative coordinators and train parents & elders to be restorative coordinators
• Meet the recommended students-to-counselor ratio of 250:1
• Increase the number of nurses, psychologists and social workers for stronger social, emotional & mental health support
• Decriminalize student disciplinary policies and adopt anti-racist & pro-black disciplinary policies
• Use community-based referrals for students
• End police referrals & school arrests for common student behaviors
• Train all school and district staff on adolescent development, implicit bias, mental health, de-escalation, and cultural competency
• Reserve school suspensions and expulsions for most harmful infractions only

SIGN THIS PETITION! There is a group of the nation's largest urban school districts, Council of Great City Schools (https://www.cgcs.org/domain/57). Of these 76 urban school districts, only a handful have committed to removing school police officers from schools. Let’s advocate for all of the nation's largest urban school districts to keep school police out of schools and adopt all of the above changes as ways to liberate our black students! 

If you are interested in learning more, here are two reports: The Advancement Project | We Came To Learn (https://advancementproject.org/wecametolearn/) and ACLU | Cops and No Counselors (https://www.aclu.org/report/cops-and-no-counselors)