Board to review police-in-schools program

Edmonton Public Schools will request an independent review of the school resource officer program and an investigation into placement of officers with disciplinary histories in the program.

The board unanimously passed the motion Tuesday evening to ask a university researcher to do a literature review, environmental scan and qualitative analysis of the experiences of students and families with SROS and policing, “focusing on the experiences of Black, brown and Indigenous students” and students with disabilities.

The district also voted to ask the province to include anti-racism teaching in an updated curriculum and ask the province to include funds for anti-racism professional development for teachers.

Board chairwoman Trisha Estabrooks said at the meeting the SRO program has not been reviewed since it was brought into Edmonton Public Schools in 1979.

“One of the things that is so apparent to me, and it was apparent to me before today, but just hearing from the numerous speakers that we heard from, the emails, the dozens of phone calls I had with people, that there are still so many questions about the SRO program, questions that we as a board are not able to answer, and so that is the reason why we need an independent review to happen,” she said.

“I think it is quite frankly shameful that we have not had an independent review of this program since its inception.”

The board was slated to vote on whether to put the program on hold until a review could happen, but did not make a decision by print deadline.

Ward G trustee Bridget Stirling, who brought forward the motion, said she doesn’t know that the district would continue working with any other partner if it is known they placed problematic workers in the schools.

“I hope we will stop today and finally hear the voices of those who have said for a long time this is a problem,” she said.

Stirling said often positive comments about the SRO program note interactions that don’t involve a police function, such as coaching or counselling.

“Are we really talking about 98 per cent of a job that could be done just as well by somebody without a badge and a gun,” she said.

She asked whether police are the best ones to fill that function.

Stirling previously put out a request for more information about the SRO program, but said they couldn’t wait for a report to come back and needed to act with urgency.

Of 21 speakers signed up to speak ahead of the motion Tuesday, nearly all voiced opposition to the school resource officer program, many saying it creates a school-toprison pipeline, where often poor or racialized children are targeted for discipline, then funnelled from schools to the juvenile corrections and criminal justice system.

Many referred to research on SROS by local writer and advocate Bashir Mohamed, and reiterated calls from Black Lives Matter Edmonton to get rid of the program.

Felice Lifshitz said her daughter who is on the autism spectrum and struggles with mental health had a “dramatically counterproductive” experience with an SRO.

She said her daughter had a meltdown and ran away from school, and the SRO put her in handcuffs and brought her back. She said he also threatened to charge her for assault because she was kicking and struggling while being handcuffed.

“But this year, she never attended school once, because she was too afraid that she would be charged by the school resource officer,” she said, later clarifying her daughter attended a few days of class. “She had more and more and more anxiety about the possibility of having to be ... handcuffed by him, having to be thrown in the back of the van, or having to be charged by him.”

Edmonton Catholic Schools has said they aren’t currently reviewing the SRO program.

Edmonton Catholic board chairwoman Laura Thibert said Monday “our board is very supportive of the school resource officer program.”