Our priorities are wrong.  Policing does nothing to support the needs of youth. We ask the FL legislature to reallocate investments in school policing to greater school-based mental health support for youth. Here's why: 

• 1 in 5 youth in schools will have significant mental health needs.
• Only 20% of youth will access the mental health services they need.
• In the last year, police presence in FL schools increased 97%.
• There are currently 13 districts with police, but no school psychologists and 17 districts with police but no school social worker. 
• There are now significantly more police in schools than school psychologists and school social workers. 
• The state spent nearly double the amount on school safety than they devoted to school mental health.
• As a result, we saw a nearly 10% increase in school-based arrests while community-based arrests for youth decreased.
• This reverses a multi-year trend where school-based arrests were on the decline.
• Additionally, the state has put police who have very little training in mental health in charge of involuntary crisis admissions for youth.