Police, schools just say no to cops as campus rule enforcers

SAN JOSE » Law- enforcement and education officials in San Jose are drawing a line on the chalkboard over campus police officers at the city’s public high schools, revising policies to make clear their job is to ensure safety, not dole out discipline to unruly students.

San Jose police officers received a department-wide memo this week notifying them of a revision in the duty manual that makes clear they report to the city, not school administrators, and that their job is not to enforce school conduct rules.

“The enforcement of the code of student conduct is the responsibility of teachers, school staff, and school administrators. San Jose police officers shall refrain from being involved in the enforcement of disciplinary rules that do not constitute a violation of criminal law, or are not criminal violations eligible for diversion,” reads the primary revision in the SJPD duty manual.

The duty manual already encourages officers to work with school staff to find non-police ways to solve issues like truancy, which police say is an issue that, if unabated, could lead to criminal activity that they would actually have to handle.

San Jose police also signed a memorandum of understanding with the East Side Union High School District, San Jose Unified School District, and Campbell Union High School District to establish the new policies and general sensibilities.

“This has been a long time coming,” police Chief Eddie Garcia said. “This agreement ensures our officers are in schools to provide a safe place to learn and build positive relationships with students and staff.”

Garcia said he was particularly affected by an October 2015 school encounter in South Carolina where a video went viral of a Richland County Sheriff’s deputy, who was

white, f lipping over and dragging a black female student who had been disruptive in class.

“After that, I was thinking to myself, we can’t have that happen here,” he said. “We’re not in crisis, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do something.”

That timing aligns with when policy discussions began, according to both police and school district officials.

“I know for a fact, officers are asked to do things that are out of their scope,” Garcia said. “As budgets shrink all over the place, schools will look to officers to do things they’re not trained to do. A police officer’s role on campus is to stop violence from coming onto a campus. We’re no longer going to act like dean of students.”

The new guidelines bolster an already existing diversion program coordinated between police, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, and Juvenile Probation Department aimed at reducing student citations and arrests. Under that program, low-level first-time offenses like vandalism and petty theft would be addressed with school-based services rather than facing full criminal penalties.

The shift in police policy may be barely perceptible at East Side Union High School District’s two dozen campuses— including large high schools, charters and alternative schools. More than two years ago, Superintendent Chris Funk limited the type of citations that police could issue on campus, mostly to violent or dangerous behavior such as robbery, assault, and brandishing a weapon.

That decision came as East Side Union was ranked among the top 20 districts in the country in numbers of citations given out, which in 2012 was approaching 1,800, against a student population of about 25,000. The volume of citations has been since been reduced by over 85 percent.

Before that, “we were having kids being cited for all sorts of things,” Funk said. “In the past, if you had a cigarette lighter, you could get cited, because it was illegal.”

Then once students had citations on their record, he said, they were more likely to drop out of school and become more involved in the criminal-justice system.

Aaron Zisser, San Jose’s independent police auditor, added that the new policy aligns with national progressive approaches to breaking up the “school to prison pipeline,” a term used to describe the disproportionate tendency of minorities and people from disadvantaged backgrounds being incarcerated because of harsh school discipline practices.

Zisser said his office’s meetings with students of color conveyed that they want a “balanced” police presence at school.

“They want police to lay off a little bit, but do want to feel safe on campus,” he said. “This policy promotes an appropriately limited police presence that doesn’t overreach into student misconduct issues, and still promotes safety on campus.”

Funk said police have had a diminishing presence on East Side campuses, even at football games, simply because fewer officers have been available. He expects with increasing police staffing, more officers can cover shifts at schools, and wholeheartedly welcomes the policy change.

“Police shouldn’t be involved in Education Code” violations, he said. “Officers should be here to build relationships.”