A school district voted to defund the school police, ultimately firing over 130 officers who provided security for the students. Subsequently, the board decided to replace the officers with a less effective alternative.
After a student-led campaign to eradicate law enforcement in the school halls, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education voted to cut 133 positions from the L.A. School Police Department (LASPD). In the name of racial justice, the board dissolved 70 sworn officers, 62 non-sworn officers, and one support staff member, CBSLA reports. However, the positions wouldn’t remain unfilled.
“We demand that the school board invest in Black futures and the way to start that is to defund LASPD in full,” one attendee said.
“My question to you is, who’s going to take up the role of school safety if you eliminate all of the security guards, your police force, that is there to protect the students,” another attendee said.
As the education system adopts Critical Race Theory, teaching students that the U.S. and white people are inherently racist, schools unsurprisingly implement institutions that conform to this new ideology. Putting its money where its mouth is, the country’s second-largest public school system is determined to scrub out every remnant of perceived systemic bigotry, students’ and teachers’ safety be damned.
Disturbingly, the pivotal modification includes replacing the police officers with “climate coaches,” who are nothing more than members of the community tasked with “mentoring” students. The move was pushed through despite a poll showing that the majority of the student body, parents, and district employees supported having a police presence on campus. The same poll, however, showed that only 35-percent of black students felt safe with officers on site. Thus, the minority ruled.
“[It’s] the same students who are dramatically over represented not only in school police interactions, but by school disciplinary systems as well,” another attendee said. “This is why we call on the school board to adopt a motion that does not allow schools to opt in to having school police officers on campus.”
Of course, the idea of having less-qualified “climate coaches” in place of certified security officers isn’t receiving the warm welcome the Los Angeles Unified School District wanted. In fact, some believe it could make the schools even more dangerous for both students and faculty members.
“If you have to call in outside police force, it takes time to get there and they don’t necessarily know the layout of your school,” one meeting attendee said. “So it’s beneficial to have somebody there that actually knows how things are.”
Chief Leslie Ramirez confirmed that the LASPD would lose more than a third of its staff members, reducing the department to just 211 officers. The decision follows a ban on the use of pepper spray along with cutting $25 million in funding from the department to “better support black students.”
“Although LASPD was not part of the decision making relative to the new policy recommendations that were announced today, we feel the proposed policy language has potential liabilities, lacks clarity, and will result in unintended consequences impacting the safety of students and staff,” Ramirez said in a statement.
The district also passed a $36.5-million budget, which will allocate money to fund “school climate and wellness” as well as a fleet of social workers and counselors in lieu of police officers. Additionally, the district’s new curriculum will focus on “diverse representation” in learning, which is expected to be race-centered.
Despite the school board’s claim of hoping to help black students succeed, their initiative has little to do with the actual areas hindering the black community’s economic and social progress. Instead, the move exacerbates fear and division, leaving the vulnerable within the black community without needed security.
In an effort to atone for the sins of the fathers, social justice activists are promoting an equally racist and ultimately destructive system that sees one race as morally superior and another as inherently oppressive. The result, of course, is never unity but tribalism, which always produces violence.
