Pressure on to end on-campus policing
SAN JOSE >> Teachers, students and police reform activists staged a car caravan and circled the San Jose Unified School District offices on Dec. 10 to reenerg ize t heir ef for t s to get district leaders to move toward remov ing the contracted presence of police officers on district campuses.
Some of San Jose Unified’s peer districts in the city, including the A lum Rock Union and East Side Union High school districts, have moved not to renew contracts with police.
The action Dec. 10 was timed to a board of trustees meeting and continued a campaign launched in the summer following national and local protests of George Floyd’s killing by Mi n ne apolis polic e. U ltimately, the board of trustees approved renewing a school-police cooperation agreement but put of f f u r t her d i sc u s sion s about keeping on-campus police officers.
“Any role that a police officer is doing at a school c a n be done bet ter by someone else,” said Jennifer Alva Lewis, 34, a parent of two young students in the district. “We need to prioritize actual school safety over the feeling of safety for a small number of students.”
Tension bet ween the g roup dem a nd i n g t he change, aligning itself as the San Jose Unified Equit y C oa lit ion, a nd the board reached a new level when board President Teresa Castellanos reported that protesters had staged outside her home, which she said represented “lines
being crossed.”
“We are not in school. There are no police officers on campus. I understand the urgency of the moment, I understand the historical context and in many arenas I agree with what you’re asking us to do,” Ca stellanos said. “I do not appreciate the aggression that is starting to cross boundaries.”
Castellanos suggested the demonstration wa s taking place at her home rather than the distr ic t offices, though there was ample evidence of a protest at the headquarters. It was not immediately clear whether the people Castellanos mentioned were from the same group.
Organizer Derr ick
Sanderlin, who was at the district offices, said later that he could not speak to what Castellanos described and saw its men
tion as a deflection.
“If a prot e st out side of her house was in fact just a protest, to me that sounds like a community
that is begging to be heard and is actively not being heard,” he said.
During a special session on the campus officer issue in August, administrators in San Jose Unif ied a sser t ed t hat havin g on- c a mpus of f icers is a vital protective measure helped to “maintain a sense of communit y ” that allows for more effective responses to potential safety issues.
Those who support ending the police presence — which has cost the district upward of $1 million annually over the past few years — point to the city’s Guardian Program that has officers on call for potential active-shooter scenarios as a reason the distr ic t can change. Steering that money toward avenues like trauma-informed counseling, ethnic studies requirements and behavioral health support, they say, would y ield far greater benefits for troubled students than police officers could.
O ut side t he d i st r ic t building, coalition memb er L at oy a Fer n a nde z said enforcement-oriented measures like suspensions and police at schools inflict more trauma on student s a lrea dy beset by trauma.
“St udent s don’t need police; they need guidance that gets to the root of the issue ,” Fer na ndez sa id. “Students need to know they’re welcome and safe to make mistakes, and feel supported through that.”
T he equ it y c oa lit ion, made up of students, parents, teachers and residents, has gathered more than 1,800 signatures on an online petition in suppor t of st eer i n g f u nd s away from a police contract t owa rd suppor t ser v ices. T hey want the school board to agendize a resolution — named after Sanderlin, who wa s injured on the first day of George Floyd protests in late May when a San Jose police officer shot him in the groin w ith a rubber bullet — that would turn the petition into formal policy.
What took up most of that portion of the meeting was a discussion between the board and admi n i s t r at or s a b out r e - newing a Memorandum of Understanding between the district and San Jose Police Depar tment governing conduct and guidelines for officers when they are on San Jose Unified campuses.