As concerned citizens of Guilford County, we demand the immediate removal of SROs from Guilford County schools. The October 2015  NYT article affirms  locally, as it mimics the nation, that our communities are policed with implicit bias. We must apply the truth of this systemic racism to the institution of schools. To date, Guilford County School SROs have only tazed students of color. This example of implicit bias and racist practices such as these must cease.

Our youth are not inherently criminal. Studies show that black students are most often disciplined for disrespectful or threatening behavior, loitering and excessive noise, while white schoolmates get in trouble for less subjective offenses like smoking, leaving school, vandalism, and bad language. Black youth make up 26% of students in public schools in North Carolina, while 51% of those youth have been suspended throughout the state. In Guilford county, black youth represent 41% of students, while 64% have been suspended county-wide. These clear irregularities in discipline based on race are only exacerbated with police presence. We have seen videos in national headlines of a ripped from her seat by an SRO like a rag doll. Our children are the funneled through the school-to-prison pipeline everyday, lines of black and brown students in front of judges instead teachers.  We need more books not bail, more degrees no felonies, and this would require the intentional absence of the police from our schools.

The Guilford County School Board has recognized and discussed how costly SROs are at nearly $2.6 million a year.We demand the immediate removal of SRO's from our schools, divestment from SROs and investment into restorative justice practices like utilizing peer mediation programs, social workers and counselors. We have to commit ourselves to building a community that is about care and the acquirement of credentials for black students and not charges.