TDSB ends program with police in schools

Police officers will no longer be posted in any Toronto high schools, Canada’s largest school board has decided.

Trustees at the Toronto District School Board voted Wednesday night to pull the plug on the decadeold school resource officer (SRO) program.

The move, greeted with cheers from a boardroom full of spectators, was in response to feedback from students, parents and the community who warned the regular presence of armed police officers on school grounds has undermined some of the city’s most vulnerable youth.

“I think it’s a really important moment,” trustee Marit Stiles said after the vote, which was not unanimous.

“The community has been telling us for some time that this program has been problematic,” added Stiles, who supported the motion to discontinue it.

One opponent who has been advocating an end to the SRO program, called it “a transformative and courageous change” by the board.

“The TDSB has taken a bold stance for equity,” said Andrea Vasquez Jimenez, co-chair of Latinx, Afro-Latin America Abya Yala Education Network (LAEN).

The decision means officers posted to 45 TDSB high schools last year will not return there for regular duties. They had not been in schools this year because the board suspended the SRO program in August pending its review.

The program was launched after the shooting death of student Jordan Manners at C.W. Jefferys, a school in Ford’s ward.

Trustee Tiffany Ford said the SRO program was flawed because it focused on having police at schools in only the most racialized and marginalized areas.

The decision Wednesday followed recommendations earlier this month from TDSB staff, who called for termination of the program based on results of a six-week review and input from thousands of students, staff, parents and community members.

While a majority of teens reported being satisfied with the SRO program, or had no opinion, staff concluded the thousands who did say that having officers at school made them feel uncomfortable, intimidated and targeted were far too significant to dismiss.

While 57 per cent said having police in school made them feel safer, 46 per cent said they weren’t sure they wanted the program to continue. But 1,715 (11 per cent) said the presence of an officer intimidated them and 2,207 — or14 per cent — said they felt watched and targeted as a result.