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Claims of increased violence in schools have sparked a national conversation around police and policing in schools. Some people have pointed to this violence as an indicator that school policing is necessary to keep children safe from harm. I started out as an eighth-grade social studies teacher in Columbia, South Carolina, joining the long tradition of Black educators answering the call for educational justice from Jim Crow to the modern era. This experience transformed me into a movement lawyer and advocate for police-free schools, supporting youth-led organizations’ fighting to abolish school policing throughout the U.S.

As Black educators, it is our duty to establish educational atmospheres that nourish students of color and build spaces that are responsive to and driven by their needs. Students throughout the county are crying out right now. Since March of 2020, students have experienced little in-person peer interaction, grieved loved ones and faced financial hardship. They weathered through all of this while witnessing the routine killing of Black people by police, only to be met with police officers upon their return to school. This is a recipe for immense trauma, which is intensified by adolescence itself — a time when children and teenagers are learning how to deal with complicated emotions and developing a sense of fairness and identity. While this can be a lot to manage as educators, it is also an opportunity to rethink how we approach supporting and engaging with our students.

As stated by Danielle Sered, “No one enters violence for the first time by committing it.” Behavioral issues are an opportunity to identify needs and provide support to students, including helping them understand the harms associated with their actions and providing them with an opportunity to repair them. School police officers eliminate these opportunities by responding with physical violence, criminalization and teaching students that the school environment is no place for their mistakes, vulnerability or unapologetic Blackness. This is clearly demonstrated by the over 175 police assaults, primarily against students of color, as documented by the Alliance for Educational Justice and Advancement Project on PoliceFreeSchools.org.

Police do not prevent violent behavior. A study by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University found that school resource officers (SROs) do not prevent gun-related incidents and shootings in school, but do increase the use of suspensions, expulsions, referrals to police and student arrests — especially for Black students. Similarly, a study conducted by the Department of Criminal Justice at Hamline University found that the number one factor associated with increased casualties after a school shooting with an assault rifle is an armed officer on the school’s campus. The study attributes this finding to the fact that the presence of firearms increases aggression, especially for students who are actively suicidal, and suggests that schools invest in preventative resources rather than armed officers or active shooter drills.

Every aspect of the youth legal system is counter-productive to adolescent development. Students are met with intimidation and unnecessary force upon arrest, removed from an educational environment and isolated from their support systems while detained, and alienated from their peer groups when released — all of which negatively impacts their physical and mental health, academic outcomes, and economic potential.

As educators, it is our responsibility to prevent harm and uplift students’ spirits. By continuing the practice of school policing, we are ensuring that another generation of students will bear the scars of criminalization without receiving the support they need to thrive as adults. Preventative services are more appropriately provided by unarmed, trained professionals like school psychologists, counselors, restorative justice practitioners and community de-escalators.

Guns at school are not the root cause of violence. They are a symptom of a larger issue that is more closely related to the impact of mass incarceration and inadequate investments in education and communities of color than not having police officers in hallways or the individual behaviors of one student. By the time a student brings a gun or weapon to school, it’s already too late. From a teaching perspective, the demand for police-free schools is about creating environments in which a caring adult or peer is able to intervene before circumstances reach that point. It is about perceiving these actions as symptoms of larger systemic issues.

Policing has never and will never solve any issues related to a student’s behavior. The bigger question is: How do we create communities, within our schools and neighborhoods, that prevent violence through transformative and restorative means of collective support and accountability? Schools and communities throughout the country are experimenting with intergenerational organizing to achieve safety without criminalization or incarceration. Schools are a perfect vessel for pilots in transformative and restorative justice models and other creative means of intervention. Yet, these programs often do not receive the funding or access necessary to maximize their impact on our youth and communities. Instead, we continue to underfund preventative measures while extensively funding the same carceral system that perpetuates the conditions we seek to change.

Some may argue that we don’t have enough evidence to claim that these supports can prevent violence in schools. However, a lack of will or imagination for what is possible does not justify the continuance of an ineffective and harmful practice. Policing and criminalizing students does not improve student behavior nor repair harms.

To those Black educators who are still not convinced of the need to remove police from schools, I ask this: What resources, services and support do you need in your school and classroom to feel safe without the presence of law enforcement?

I encourage you to collectively explore this question with your students, leaning into a bold curiosity for what is possible and away from limitations brought on by fear. This vision, once formed, can lay a foundation for the abundant and liberatory education our students deserve.

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Tyler Whittenberg is the Deputy Director of Advancement Project’s Opportunity program, where he supports youth-led campaigns to end the school-to-prison pipeline and implement their vision of a liberatory education. He began his career as an 8th grade social studies teacher in Columbia, South Carolina, before transitioning into movement lawyering. Follow him on Twitter @t_whittenburg.

Tyler Whittenberg

Writing since March 2022 · 1 story contributed