EPSB should not bring back school resource officers
Police can't fill gaps created by callous budget cuts, says Alexandre Da Costa.
Edmonton public school board trustees will debate a return of school resource officers (SROs), a.k.a. police in schools, on Tuesday.
This comes at a moment when school administrators and teachers in Alberta increasingly face challenging classroom conditions due to chronic underfunding of public education, exacerbated since 2019. As recent Edmonton public school board (EPSB) documents show, provincial funding formulas do not meet projected enrolment, leaving 4,002 students unfunded.
Record inflation has diminished school budget spending power. Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) president Jason Schilling alarmingly notes, according to Statistics Canada, “Alberta ranks last in education funding per student.” It is clear that economic austerity imposed by the Alberta government is hurting students and families.
Add to this the COVID-19 pandemic which has aggravated underfunded environments with unprecedented challenges for students, families, and schools across Canada, including mental health and teacher burnout.
An ATA pulse rapid research study from December 2023 identified key issues like large class sizes, crowded classrooms, rising complexity of student needs, alongside declining support. Educators clamour for more teachers, counsellors and educational assistants to address this ecology of issues.
By contrast, some media commentators weaponized the ATA report to distract from educator demands and project the idea of returning the school resource officer program to Edmonton Public Schools as a quick fix.
Such calls reveal little understanding of research questioning the effectiveness of police in fostering school safety and that shows police exacerbate punitive discipline and criminalize students based on race, ethnicity and class, among other characteristics.
The call to return police to Edmonton Public Schools also contradicts demands by organizations like the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF), which issued a report calling for “fully funded academic, social, health and emotional support services” rather than police. It also runs antithetical to the removal of police from many schools elsewhere in Canada.
The BCTF echoes what many parents, educators, researchers and community advocates have been saying: Police cannot fill gaps created by callous budget cuts that have amplified the learning, emotional and physical challenges facing youth.
Significantly, despite calls for other supports, recent evaluations of SRO programs in Edmonton Catholic and Edmonton public frame their investigations as a choice between “police or no police.” This is designed to evade thoroughly examining effective non-police solutions to build healthy and equitable schools.
School boards could give due consideration to policy successes of police-free schools. Fruitful efforts to remove police and change whole school cultures through restorative practices in similarly diverse school districts compared with Edmonton rarely enter the conversation.
As a parent and researcher active in conversations with educators and administrators, I attended an EPSB engagement session on imagining safe schools. These guided sessions included diverse high school students from schools around the city, principals, vice-principals and parents.
Not once in the myriad insightful conversations I witnessed was putting police back in schools mentioned by youth as a priority to address their needs.
Topping the list were mental-health supports and time and space to build stronger relationships with each other. As parents, educators and policymakers, we should listen to these perceptive students.
Unfortunately, participants in the EPSB consultation on school safety were not afforded the opportunity to see the final report.
As EPSB trustees prepare to vote on a motion Tuesday to return police to our public schools, many are asking: Have we exhausted the diverse, evidence-based options available to us? Has the provincial government supported the development of holistic programs to address the growing complexity of student needs? Did the EPSB and school administrators pilot alternatives to the SRO program during the three years it was suspended?
Sadly, the answer is: They did not. Nonetheless, we continue to push for policy that heals relationships in schools and fosters safe and healthy working and learning environments.
We should support students, families and educators in demanding better from school districts and provincial leadership.
The EPSB should say no to reinstating the school resource officer program.