Baltimore City Public school students have Go Guardian installed on their devices, which surveilles them in order to detect whether or not they're having a mental health crisis. Students, youth activists, adult advocates are concerned about this because after school hours school police officers are made first responders to these mental health crises. We are concerned because we are Baltimore City public school students and alumna and have identified that this could be traumatic for most youth in Baltimore, most parents wouldn't be open to an officer coming to their home, and it wouldn't be as useful as having a 24 hour mental health worker, due to school police not being qualified or having the proper training to address these things. Also, a mental health worker would be best fit to help with next steps and provide the proper resources. As a result of the work that we've been doing we are demanding to have funds re-allocated from school police officers to mental health specialists and resources, such as therapist, chill out rooms, etc. We want to do this to ensure that students have a good environment to thrive in, getting closer to eliminating the school to prison pipeline, as well as to make youth feel heard.

Attached are testimonies from a few BCPSS students, staff and partners.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l6Illo97HsLogXR29he8LWMkOeiVjo85BgXv0KFHXo0/edit?usp=sharing