Reimagining School Safety
Traditional tools for public school safety are harming our students. School police, surveillance, canine searches, and harsh school discipline policies do not make schools safe. Instead, they create fear, undermine student achievement, and push students out of schools and into the criminal justice system.
“No school police ever taught me English.”
– A Pomona Student Union member
It is critical to reimagine the ways in which we keep our students safe. We must address the root causes of violence in schools – systemic violence, trauma, lack of social emotional support – and invest in solutions that allow students to heal and thrive.
How We Work on Systemic Changes to Reimagine School Safety
Public Advocates advocates for school safety change at multiple levels of the legal and educational system:
Legistlation
Public Advocates supports the following legislation to reimagine school safety and keep students in school and out of the school to prison pipeline.
Senate Bill 274 will eliminate the use of suspension for minor misbehavior covered under the “disruption or willful defiance category for California TK-12 students. Find out more about SB 274 here.
Assembly Bill 1323 will restore flexibility to educators to decide when law enforcement should be notified and will protect students from unnecessary contact with the criminal legal system. Find out more about AB 1323 here.
Enforcement
Public Advocates enforces legal requirements around funding to support local partners in their campaigns to eliminate police and reimagine school safety.
In 2020, we partnered with the ACLU to file a complaint against the San Bernardino County Office of Education (SBCOE) on behalf of Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement (COPE) and Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC), two community organizations. Among other concerns, SBCOE approved district spending plans that improperly allocated equity funding to school police. The California Department of Education (CDE) found that SBCOE should not have allowed districts to spend equity funds on police; as a result, districts have all but stopped the practice of using equity funds on police.
Local Campaigns to Reimagine School Safety
Public Advocates provides technical, legal, and policy campaign support to community-led campaigns to reimagine school safety. We have supported campaigns to remove school police and reinvest in mental health and other resources in districts throughout California, including Long Beach, Los Angeles, Monterey County, Oakland, Pomona, and San Bernardino. For more information on these local community-led campaigns, please visit our partners’ websites:
Gente Organizada’s Schools Not Prisons Campaign in Pomona Unified
Safer LBUSD Campaign in Long Beach Unified
LAUSD Police Free Schools Coalition in Los Angeles Unified
Black Organizing Project’s Campaign to eliminate school police in Oakland Unified
Public Advocates Can Support Your Work to Reimagine School Safety
If you are seeking support on a local campaign to reimagine school safety, want to find out more about our state advocacy work to reimagine school safety, and/or are concerned that your district is illegally spending funds on school police or other criminalizing measures or have other legal concerns about the conduct of school police or safety officers, contact Public Advocates.
Partners
Additional resources from our partners that have been working for decades to dismantle systems that perpetuate violence in schools:
ACLU
Black Organizing Project
Dignity in Schools California
Fix School Discipline
learn more
- From Criminalization to Connection: Nurturing Racially Just and Restorative School Cultures.
- Reimagining School Safety: Mapping the Movement for Racial Justice, Restorative Cultures, and Police-Free Schools in California – Resources from Life Changing Schools Community Schools Toolkit (2023, CA Partnership for the Future of Learning, Alliance for Boys and Men of Color)
- Right to Resources Report (2020, Public Advocates, ACLU of California, Gente Organizada, Pomona Students Union)
Resources
DECLARATION OF MATTHEW R. STEPHENS IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS’MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION in Miliani Rodriguez v. State
PLAINTIFFS’ NOTICE OF MOTION AND MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION in Miliani Rodriguez V. State
[PROPOSED] ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION in Miliani Rodriguez v. state
PLAINTIFFS’ APPENDIX OF supporting declarations in support of its motion for preliminary injunction in Miliani Rodriguez v. state
DECLARATION OF BRUCE D. BAKER in support of plaintiffs’ motion for Preliminary injunction in Miliani Rodriguez v. state