We ask that Gwinnett County Public Schools FULLY support the peace of mind and safety of Black students by ending the School Resource Officers Program, and to reallocate the funds used for Student Resource Officers into school psychologists, counselors, and social workers for schools in Gwinnett County that need them the most. 

Gwinnett County Public Schools has made 22.7% of the total school arrests in the state of Georgia, and 14% of the referrals to law enforcement. School Resource Officers, or SROs, were popularized in general during Wars on Poverty, Drugs, and Crime; they’re immediate extensions of the carceral system and are integral in bringing that system into schools. In Minneapolis, the city where George Floyd was murdered by four police officers two weeks ago, Minneapolis Public Schools has made the decision to pull all SROs from all schools and end all contracts with the Minneapolis Police Department. This has now set a precedent for the rest of the country. 

According to Gwinnett County Public Schools, SROs are meant to “mentor and counsel students” and encourage students to take responsibility for their community,” and to “promote and enhance acceptable social behaviors.” This is a role that should be undertaken by administrators, teachers, and counselors, not police officers, as they can potentially criminalize activities that would normally only warrant administrative punishment (which is also racially skewed in GCPS; Black students are 2.9x more likely to be suspended than white students, 3.1x for Native students, and 1.8x for Hispanic students). Simply getting into a fistfight (an activity teenagers are often prone to) can lead to a charge of aggravated assault; even if the charges are dropped, this can still traumatize students. Police officers are not trained to spot behavioral problems like counselors, social workers, and school psychologists are, yet are authorized to use force and to arrest students when these behavioral problems manifest. Gwinnett County’s expectation that “all students will behave so their peers can learn and teachers can teach” should not EVER be a task assigned to people with guns, tasers, and handcuffs.

It's extremely important to mention how stressful a police presence can be for students of color, especially Black and Latino students, when schools are supposed to be a safe space for children and teens. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights found that Black students are 2.3 as likely than white students to be arrested and/or referred to law enforcement, despite making up only 15.5% of students nationwide. Disabled students are also over-arrested; again, police do not have training in recognizing behavioral or social problems, nor are they trained to recognize tics and body language in children with mental disabilities. The police officers that racially profile and kill Black, Latinx, and disabled folks with impunity belong to the same industrial complex as the officers in our schools, a system that encourages brutality and protects police from accountability. 

We ask that Gwinnett County Public Schools FULLY prioritize the peace of mind and safety of Black students by ending the School Resource Officers Program, and to reallocate the funds used for Student Resource Officers into school psychologists, counselors, and social workers for schools in Gwinnett County that need them the most.