S.J. Unified wants cops to remain at schools
Two neighboring districts have recently ended their contracts with the police department
Amid a nationwide campaign calling for the removal of police officers from schools, top San Jose Unified School District administrators believe that keeping cops on campus will help their schools “maintain a sense of community.”
During a special San Jose Unified school board meeting Tuesday night, the board and administrators held a lengthy discussion about the district’s relationship with the San Jose Police Department and the merits of having officers on campus.
Although no final decision was made on whether to maintain the district’s contract with the department, school administrators recommended preserving it.
“We understand the concerns overall about the horrible things that have happened over the course of many, many years,”
San Jose Unified Superintendent Nancy Albarrán said about incidents of racial discrimination and police violence. “But we also understand that there are times where we do have to reach out to police, and having the ability to know who is responding gives us more confidence that it will be handled appropriately.”
San Jose Unified is not the only district in San Jose to discuss the possible removal of officers from campus since it was brought to the forefront of the national conversation in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
The Alum Rock Union and East Side Union High School districts’ boards of education in June joined the movement and unanimously decided not to renew yearslong contracts with the city’s police department that funded school resource officers and were expiring this summer.
The terminated contracts will free up $100,000 for Alum Rock and $700,000 for East Side Union, which they plan to use to help offset budget shortfalls caused by the coronavirus pandemic and state funding cuts.
Unlike those districts, however, Albarrán said San Jose Unified is in a sound financial state and is not struggling to fill deficits.
Under the district’s contract with the San Jose Police Department, San Jose Unified has allocated up to $1.3 million of its funds annually on officers and services provided by the police force.
Over the past two years, however, funding spent by the district on police services has hovered around $1 million.
Comparing the district’s school resource officers to smoke detectors, San Jose Unified Assistant Superintendent Dominic Beja
rano said on-campus officers play an integral role in helping school principals and administrators “prevent catastrophic events.”
About 16 of its school resource officers have been working within the district for more than 10 years, and nine have been with the district for more than 20 years, according to Bejarano.
He said that continuity helps schools “maintain a sense of community” and could not be matched by just calling 911 if an issue warranting a police presence arises at a school.
Two years ago, he said, four young men — armed with weapons — pulled up in front of Gunderson
High School looking for a student.
Refusing to listen to administrators, the group did not leave the campus until a school resource officer responded to the scene and pulled out his weapon, according to Bejarano.
“Until you’re in that situation, you do not appreciate the support you get from an on-campus officer,” he said.
Still, many teachers, parents and students are at odds with administrators over the value — or detriment — school resource officers bring to campus.
The San Jose Unified Equity Coalition, a group made up of students, parents and teachers, strongly urged the board and administrators Tuesday night to end the district’s contract with the police department and divert that $1 million
in funding to additional student resources and programs. As of Wednesday morning, more than 1,360 people have signed an online petition in support of their stance.
“We all know that the changes must lie on focusing on the system as a whole — one that is proven time and time again to disproportionately hurt Black and brown youth,” said Eduardo Valladares, a social studies teacher at San Jose High School and member of the coalition. “Police do not change the roots of the issues that we see on our campuses, but counseling and restorative practices do.”
In addition to school resource officers, the San Jose Police Department in 2019 launched the Guardian Program, which places officers
around the city whose sole responsibility is to respond to “active-shooter” reports at schools and large public events.
Evelyn Cervantes, a Spanish and social studies teacher at Herbert Hoover Middle, called active shooters an “authentic fear,” but said that with officers outside schools dedicated to responding to those incidents, school resource officers are less essential.
Instead, Cervantes implored the board to invest in dedicated mental
health services, restorative practices and ethnic studies classes to “help make school a place where students not only learn to be scholars but learn to deal with their very real life as well.”
The district plans to have more conversations over the coming month about “reimagining” the role of officers on its campuses.
Board President Teresa Castellanos requested that the district send out a poll to students and parents to gather their input on the role of cops on school campuses. She also asked administrators to return to the board with a detailed breakdown — including race, gender and disabilities — of students who are referred to police.
“We’re seeing the social movement out there, and now it’s coming into our district,” Castellanos said. “And for me, it feels like a challenge but also a blessing … because obviously it’s something young people are feeling and engaging in, and we need to listen.”