Advocacy groups to HISD: Ax police unit

Organizations argue that officers make pupils feel less safe

Several social justice organizations called Monday for Houston ISD to eliminate its police department and contract with local law enforcement agencies, whose officers would respond only to emergency situations on campuses.

In a letter to HISD Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan, the organizations’ leaders argued police officers make students feel less safe in school and drain funds that could be better spent on mental health counselors and social workers. The organizations are Disability Rights Texas, ONE Houston, Texas Appleseed, Children’s Defense Fund Texas and the Earl Carl Institute at Texas Southern University.

“All children have a right to feel safe and supported at a school, and the police officer’s presence makes some kids feel less safe,” said Karmel Willis, an attorney for Disability Rights Texas. “I don’t think people always look at that.”

The effort follows the death last month of Houston native George Floyd, who stopped breathing after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his back and neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyd’s death has triggered nationwide calls for police reform.

School districts throughout the U.S. have increased the presence of police in schools and installed more security measures in recent years following numerous on-campus mass shootings. About 30 miles southeast of HISD, a student is accused of fatally shooting 10 people at Santa Fe High School in 2018.

In a statement Monday, HISD’s administration said its leadership “requires time to thoroughly examine this proposal.”

Lathan is proposing to spend an additional $3.5 million in 2020-21 on raises for HISD police officers, whose salaries trail those of HPD officers. Trustees are scheduled to vote Thursday on the 2020-21 bud

get.

HISD Board President Sue Deigaard said she has talked to Lathan in recent days about evaluating the district police department’s policies, practices and patterns. However, she said a “bigger conversation” is needed before making major changes to HISD’s police force.

“That is something that should be open for discussion as a board,” Deigaard said. “But we need to balance that conversation, especially in a world we live in with outside threats to our students.”

HISD employed about 215 people in its police department with a combined annual salary of about $11 million as of early 2020, payroll records show. The department’s total budget was not immediately available Monday.

State records show HISD spent roughly $24 million from its nearly $2 billion general fund on “security and monitoring services,” which includes police officers, vehicles and crossing guards.

Willis said the organizations hope HISD eliminates all police department funding in its 2020-21 budget, which must be approved by the end of June. She added that the group plans to call for disbanding police departments in other Texas school districts, but started with HISD given its standing as the state’s largest.

In their letter, the five organizations noted that students of color — who constitute about 90 percent of HISD’s enrollment — are referred to law enforcement officials at higher rates than their white peers nationwide.

In HISD, the district’s black students were four times more likely to receive a law enforcement referral than their white peers in 2015, the most recent year with available federal data. Law enforcement referrals include citations, tickets, court referrals and school-related arrests.

HISD also boasts stark disparities between black and white students in school discipline, with

black students seven times more likely to get an out-of-school suspension in 2018-19, Texas Education Agency data shows.

“When a student is suspended or expelled, that student misses out on relationship development that promotes pro-social growth and positive life outcomes,” the groups wrote to Lathan.

Researchers generally attribute school discipline disparities to multiple factors, including differences in behavior patterns, varying societal attributes among demographic groups and discrimination. However, they often differ on how much each factor contributes to the gaps.

The social justice organizations said funds used for police officers could be better used to bolster staffing dedicated to students’ emotional and mental health needs — which often fall well below national standards.

State data shows HISD employed one counselor for every 900 students in 2019-20, well below the 1-to-250 ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association. The district also staffed one social worker for every 6,350 students, far from the National Association of Social Work’s recommended 1-to-250 ratio.

HISD does employ about 155 staffers dedicated to students’ non-academic needs in its wraparound resources department, equal to 1-per-1,350 students.

HISD Trustee Kathy BluefordDaniels, who represents some campuses with the area’s highest disciplinary rates, said she would not support eliminating the district’s police department this month or in the future.

“I can’t emphasize enough that the most important thing we can think about as board members is to ensure our children get to school safely and return home safely,” Blueford-Daniels said. “Heaven forbid that something should happen like it did in Santa Fe and there’s no one there to protect them.”