Coalition calls for removal of police from Pittsburgh Public Schools
A coalition of more than 10 local, state and national social justice groups on Friday demanded that the Pittsburgh Public Schools board remove police from all district buildings.
The move comes amid a wave in which school districts across the country have cut ties with police following George Floyd’s death in the custody of Minneapolis officers.
“It is time to take back our schools from the hands of the police and to place our students in the loving palms of community driven and culturally informed processes,” Paulette Foster, a district guardian and co-founder of the Education Rights Network, said in a statement.
Education equity advocates have criticized the presence of police in schools for years, saying that black youth are disproportionately criminalized. Advocates believe schools should end the schoolto-prison pipeline by investing in restorative justice practices and hiring more counselors and mental health professionals instead of officers.
The coalition calling upon the school board to remove police said the district should immediately remove Pittsburgh Public Schools officers and probation officers from inside and outside of schools. It also said the district should stop the “open-door” policy that often utilizes Pittsburgh police.
A spokeswoman for the district could not immediately provide comment Friday afternoon. A representative for the school board could not immediately be reached.
The groups said the district should adopt policies that exclude the involvement of law enforcement except when it is required by the state or there is an imminent physical threat.
Organizations in the coalition include One PA, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, Duquesne University School of Law, the Education Law Center and the Center for Popular Democracy.
The list of demands goes further than removing police officers from schools. The coalition also wants the district to end what it calls “systems of policing.”
The district should stop “policies, practices and funding that contribute to the surveillance, militarization and criminalization of schools,” the coalition said.
The groups said the district should eliminate the use of handcuffs or restraints on any student under 10 years old and ensure compliance with state and federal disability laws. They also demand an end to active-shooter training, a moratorium on school police issuing summary citations, and “full transparency” from Pittsburgh Public Schools on all interactions between officers and youth.
A community-led police review board should be created to track and evaluate incidents when police are called to schools, they said.
At the same time, the coalition said the district should “invest in a community led re-envisioning” of school safety.
Pittsburgh Public Schools, they said, should seek culturally responsive approaches to restorative and transformative justice, social-emotional learning, trauma-informed curricula, and require implicit bias training and disability awareness for all district staff.
By shifting funding from school police, the district could then invest in intervention and support staff, as well as mental health professionals.
“Research indicates that police in schools do not make schools safer but instead criminalizes black and brown students,” said Jitu Brown, national executive director for the Journey for Justice Alliance. “This philosophy of school safety stems from a lens of hate and low expectations as opposed to compassion, love and accountability.”