Teacher Tom: If Our Goal is to Help Our Fellow Humans Rather Than Merely Control Them

Teacher Tom: If Our Goal is to Help Our Fellow Humans Rather Than Merely Control Them

If Our Goal is to Help Our Fellow Humans Rather Than Merely Control Them

Yesterday, I arrived home from walking the dog, to find police cars, fire trucks, and an ambulance filling the city block just below my apartment window. Last weekend, the seven square blocks just north of the building were completely shut down for an entire morning due to a gas leak and I wondered if it had something to do with that. In recent years, I've taken it on as a civic duty to get nosy about anything involving police activity, so instead of just staying out of the way, I got out my phone and got it ready to record. As I waited to cross Westlake Avenue, a young man excitedly told me that there was someone on the roof of my building, eleven stories up, threatening to "start a fire and jump." 

My first thought is to wonder if it was was someone from the building I know. One would need to gain access to the building and then use an elevator code to get up there, so it was likely that it was one of the 300 or so people who live in the building. 

I did what we all do, I think, when we consider suicide. I recognized how small my problems were compared to what this person was going through, I despaired about the tragedy of mental illness, I wondered if there was something I should be doing to help. I finally decided that the best thing I could CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: If Our Goal is to Help Our Fellow Humans Rather Than Merely Control Them

De-Gun the Police: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

De-Gun the Police: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

De-Gun the Police: A Reader

Officer Who Fatally Shot Daunte Wright With ‘Accidental Discharge’ Is Identified

The police officer said to have fatally shot Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man killed in what started as a traffic stop on Sunday, has been identified as Kim Potter.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in a statement on Monday evening described Potter as a 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center, Minn., Police Department, now on administrative leave.

The department offered no other details about Potter’s career, saying, “Further personnel data are not public from the BCA under Minnesota law during an active investigation.​”

However, a report from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office dated Aug. 5, 2020, indicates that at the time Potter also served as the Brooklyn Center Police Union president.

Police officials called Wright’s death the result of an “accidental discharge” of a gun by a police officer.

OFFICER WHO FATALLY SHOT DAUNTE WRIGHT WITH ‘ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE’ IS IDENTIFIED, BECKY SULLIVAN AND VANESSA ROMO

OPINION: To Lessen Police Violence, Remove Cops From Traffic Stops

The largest predictor of police violence in America is not poor training, lack of discipline, or militarization. The largest predictor is simply contact with the police — and the most common contact Americans have with police is traffic stops. There are at least 20 million traffic stops per year in the United States. Racial bias pervades traffic enforcement, enabled by its largely discretionary nature; there are more drivers speeding and violating other traffic laws than police have the capacity to pull over and ticket, so who are police disproportionately targeting? People of color.

TO LESSEN POLICE VIOLENCE, REMOVE COPS FROM TRAFFIC STOPS, ALESSANDRA BIAGGI

Inside 100 million police traffic stops: CONTINUE READING: De-Gun the Police: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

Another School District Ends Contract with City Police for Security Guards: Will Improve Counseling and School Climate | janresseger

Another School District Ends Contract with City Police for Security Guards: Will Improve Counseling and School Climate | janresseger

Another School District Ends Contract with City Police for Security Guards: Will Improve Counseling and School Climate

Last June, after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, the Washington Post reported that school districts across the United States suddenly felt obligated to take seriously the warnings from civil rights organizations about problems when school districts hire armed police as so-called “Student Resource Officers”:

“For years, civil rights activists have worked to remove police officers from the nation’s public schools, arguing that they pose a greater risk to students of color than the intruders they’re supposed to guard against. But in the wake of George Floyd’s death, a shift that seemed impossible only a few weeks ago is underway: Several major school systems have canceled their contracts with police, and others are mounting pressure to do the same.” School districts named by the Post last June included: Minneapolis, Portland, Denver, Oakland, and West Contra Costa Unified School District in California.

Now, the New York Times reports that last week another large school district, the Los Angeles Unified School District, approved a plan to eliminate a third of the armed police guards in the city’s public schools: “After a months-long push by students in the nation’s second-largest public school system, leaders in Los Angeles approved a plan on Tuesday to cut the district’s security force by a third, joining a growing number of cities that have reduced the presence of police officers in school hallways… The vote on Tuesday… would also ban the use of pepper spray on students and divert $25 million to programs supporting students of color. It was the result of months of meetings on how best to reconfigure public safety in the district, which serves about 650,000 students… The plan… eliminates 70 sworn officers, who have arrest CONTINUE READING: Another School District Ends Contract with City Police for Security Guards: Will Improve Counseling and School Climate | janresseger

Shanker Blog: Re-Imagining School Discipline: A Plea To Education Leaders | National Education Policy Center

Shanker Blog: Re-Imagining School Discipline: A Plea To Education Leaders | National Education Policy Center

Shanker Blog: Re-Imagining School Discipline: A Plea To Education Leaders

In many large urban school districts, there are more security employees than counselors. In the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) system, for example there is one security guard for every 147 students, while the counselor-to-student ratio is 1:217. In addition, based on 2015-16 data, Groeger et al. (2018) found that Black students in DCPS were 15 times more likely to be suspended than their white peers (nationally, Black students were four times more likely to be suspended). In short, many students are not getting the emotional and mental support they need as they go through our schools. Instead, as exemplified by these staffing ratios, too many students are affected by punitive, militaristic methods of discipline, which may not only have negative consequences for the students who are disciplined, but for their peers as well (Perry and Morris 2014).  

A commonly used discipline approach, which used to be known as “zero tolerance,” was to discipline all students who didn’t follow the expected “rules.” Zero tolerance policies proliferated in public schools as a reform to help manage student behavior, using a “quick fix” method. Weaver and Swank (2020) define zero tolerance as “policies…[that] include exclusionary practices (i.e., office referral, suspension, expulsion) that involve the removal of the offender from the context of the incident and isolating the student from others involved and their school community.”

Unfortunately, as Skiba et al. (2011) show, these policies have created negative experiences for students and have disproportionately affected Black and brown students. Because they are CONTINUE READING: Shanker Blog: Re-Imagining School Discipline: A Plea To Education Leaders | National Education Policy Center

If Schools Don’t Overhaul Discipline, ‘Teachers Will Still Be Calling The Police On Our Black Students’ | HuffPost #BLM #BLACKLIVESMATTER #BLACKHISTORYMONTH

If Schools Don’t Overhaul Discipline, ‘Teachers Will Still Be Calling The Police On Our Black Students’ | HuffPost

If Schools Don’t Overhaul Discipline, ‘Teachers Will Still Be Calling The Police On Our Black Students’

As districts across the country cut their school resource officers, advocates warn it won’t be enough to end overly harsh discipline of Black students.

Shyra Adams vividly remembers the days after the death of Tony Robinson, an unarmed Black teenager killed in 2015 by police in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. 

Angry and distraught over the injustice, Adams, then a high school sophomore, staged a walkout with hundreds of other students, who filled the state Capitol to protest Robinson’s death. She joined weekly protests and helped organize sit-ins at her school. Then, she cried quietly in class as she watched the Dane County district attorney announce on TV that no charges would be filed against the officer who shot and killed Robinson.

“It felt kind of hopeless at that point,” Adams, now 21, said. 

But this summer, after five years of testifying at nearly every Madison school board meeting about the importance of removing police from schools, Adams found herself crying for a different reason. This time, she said, the tears came from her renewed hope that fighting for young people of color could lead to change. In June, she and other members of the Freedom Youth Squad, a group of Black and Southeast Asian activists, gathered to watch the Madison school board’s unanimous vote to cancel its contract with municipal police and remove all officers stationed at its high schools.

“A lot of people in different states were winning, but I thought, ‘In Madison? No way. They’ve been ignoring us for years,’” Adams said. “But that’s changing now. We finally got CONTINUE READING: If Schools Don’t Overhaul Discipline, ‘Teachers Will Still Be Calling The Police On Our Black Students’ | HuffPost

OPINION: What math class and police brutality have in common

OPINION: What math class and police brutality have in common

What math class and police brutality have in common

An obsession with rule-following cuts short Black students’ opportunities

Last May, a 15-year-old Black girl in Michigan known only by her middle name, Grace, was put in juvenile detention for not completing her homework. Teens not turning in their homework is hardly an anomaly. Other teens are scolded, lose marks or, at worst, get detention for this offence. But Grace was incarcerated. The difference? She’s Black.

Grace’s story is just one example of how the American education system and American policing tactics converge.

The education system has a dangerous obsession with rule-following for Black children that cuts short opportunities, just as policing has a dangerous obsession with rule-following for Black people that cuts short lives.

This is particularly evident in math class.

Black students often receive compliments in math class for rule-following. In lower-income schools (which are often predominately Black), students are encouraged to follow math rules and formulae without questioning the teacher or the math itself, leaving them no room to ask questions or screw up.

Teachers are more likely to judge their Black students’ math abilities based on non-academic qualities, such as behavior and physical characteristics. A decade ago, Common Core math was introduced to emphasize understanding over rote learning, but the delivery of standards varies across schools, classrooms and teachers, depending both on who is being assessed and who is doing the assessing.

Related: White and female teachers show racial bias in evaluating second grade writing

In higher-income schools (which are often predominately white), understanding is often prioritized over procedure, and students learn math in more abstract ways, such as understanding why one uses a certain formula, instead of just being told to use it “because that’s the formula.” They also are shown how these abstract concepts contribute to the higher CONTINUE READING: 

“Ultimatum”: A searing challenge to institutional racism by Gerald Lenoir from his new book of poetry, “United States of Struggle: Police Murder in America” – I AM AN EDUCATOR

“Ultimatum”: A searing challenge to institutional racism by Gerald Lenoir from his new book of poetry, “United States of Struggle: Police Murder in America” – I AM AN EDUCATOR

“Ultimatum”: A searing challenge to institutional racism by Gerald Lenoir from his new book of poetry, “United States of Struggle: Police Murder in America”

ast week, my dad, Gerald Lenoir, released his brand new book of poetry, United States of Struggle: Police Murder in America. Gerald also released a video of one of the poems, “Ultimatum,” that will knock you off your feet (be aware that the evocative imagery and strong language can be triggering especially for victims of state violence).

After attending the book launch event where my dad read many of his poems aloud, I can tell you with conviction that if you love justice and Black people you need this book.

Gerald’s poetry is animated by his lifetime of dedication to building movements for racial and social justice. In the 1960s, he was part of the student uprisings at the University of Madison, WI, that won the Black Studies program. In the 1960s and 70s he was part of the movement against the war in Vietnam. In the 1980s–1990s he was a leader in the international campaign to end apartheid in South Africa. He helped lead campaigns against police brutality, racist violence, gentrification and for affirmative action in the 1970s and 1980s; the Rainbow Coalition and the Jesse Jackson for President campaigns in the 1980s; the HIV/AIDS response in the 1980s and 1990s; and the immigrant rights, Palestine solidarity, peace and Black Lives Matter movements in the 2000s and CONTINUE READING: “Ultimatum”: A searing challenge to institutional racism by Gerald Lenoir from his new book of poetry, “United States of Struggle: Police Murder in America” – I AM AN EDUCATOR

The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19 | Dissident Voice

The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19 | Dissident Voice

The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19

Virtual School Dangers

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
— George Orwell, 1984

Once upon a time in America, parents breathed a sigh of relief when their kids went back to school after a summer’s hiatus, content in the knowledge that for a good portion of the day, their kids would be gainfully occupied, out of harm’s way, and out of trouble.

Back then, if you talked back to a teacher, or played a prank on a classmate, or just failed to do your homework, you might find yourself in detention or doing an extra writing assignment after school or suffering through a parent-teacher conference about your shortcomings.

Of course, that was before school shootings became a part of our national lexicon.

As a result, over the course of the past 30 years, the need to keep the schools “safe” from drugs and weapons has become a thinly disguised, profit-driven campaign to transform them into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, school resource officers, strip searches, and active shooter drills.

Suddenly, under school zero tolerance policies, students were being punished with suspension, expulsion, and even arrest for childish behavior and minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight.

Things got even worse once schools started to rely on police (school resource officers) to “deal with minor rule breaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes.”

As a result, students are being subjected to police tactics such as handcuffs, leg shackles, tasers and excessive force for “acting up,” in addition to being CONTINUE READING: The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19 | Dissident Voice

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety | Diane Ravitch's blog

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety | Diane Ravitch's blog

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety

This valuable report analyzes how money could be better spent to protect students at school. It’s findings are stunning. We as a nation are spending vast sums on police in schools but insignificant amounts on mental health services and counselors who interact directly with students.

KEY FINDINGS & OBSERVATIONS

*Since 2018, states have allocated an additional $965 million to law enforcement in schools.

*According to a 2019 ACLU study, 1.7 million students have cops in their schools, but no counselors; 3 million have cops, but no nurses; 6 million have cops, but no school psychologists; and 10 million have cops, but no social workers.

*As of 2020, nearly 60 percent of all schools and 90 percent of high schools now have a law enforcement officer at least part time.

*The $33.2 million “school security” budget allocated for 2021 in Washington, D.C., could instead fund up to 222 psychologists, 345 guidance counselors, or 332 social workers.

*The $15 million “school security” budget approved for 2021 in Chicago could instead fund up to 140 psychologists, 182 guidance counselors, or 192 social workers.

*The $32.5 million “school security” budget allocated for 2021 in Philadelphia could instead fund up to 278 psychologists, 355 guidance counselors, or 467 social workers.

The report describes “militarized schools”:

As of 2019, there were nearly 50,000 school resource officers patrolling the hallways of America’s schools.

In schools that serve predominantly Black student populations, it is often much more than hallways that are patrolled.

For example, D.C. police are deployed to nearly all high schools to monitor cafeterias, auditoriums, hallways, stairwells, restrooms, entrances, and exits, as well as provide security for school-sponsored events. Such schools promote a learning environment that is more akin to that of a correctional institution than an educational one

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety | Diane Ravitch's blog

DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT

VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools!

The popular late night comedy news show, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, just ran a powerful expose on the brutality of police against students in school. As they wrote of the program,

Correspondent Mike Brown gets an education from Dr. Monique Morris, Dream Cannon, Nathaniel Genene, and Jesse Hagopian in all the reasons School Resource Officers should be in schools. Just kidding, there aren’t any!

Check out this episode and then join the Black Lives Matter at School movements new campaign, the “Year of Purpose.” Part of BLM at School’s campaign is to demand, “Fund Counselors, Not Cops.” Also learn more about police in schools from The Advancement Project and Dignity in Schools.

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VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

NYC Educator: The School Safety Shuffle

NYC Educator: The School Safety Shuffle

The School Safety Shuffle

There's a recent Post article that suggests it's a bad idea to take school security from the police and assign it to the DOE. They trudge out Mona David and her mysterious parent organization, and offer two examples of bad behavior before the officers were under the supervision of NYPD. David, of course, is the woman who thinks teacher tenure will lead us to Armageddon. I'm sure she's good for a quote here and there.

The two examples are the kind of argument frequently used against us. This teacher is awful, and that teacher is awful, and therefore all teachers are awful. It's exactly the sort of argument people like Campbell Brown and Mona David like to use. Take away teacher tenure, and have them depend on the tender mercies of Joel Klein and Mike Bloomberg, or every single teacher will be terrible. They take a few sensational examples, a quote here or there from one questionable source or other, and the case is closed.

I don't know about you, but I could tell stories about rogue police officers and write a similar story. I could cite examples of rogue reporters and write a similar story. We have a President who tells stories about reporters who tell the truth and condemns them for it. If you want to make an argument against a group, you don't do it effectively via a few sensational arguments about outliers. Arguments of that sort are called stereotypes. I'm offended by them, and you should be too. They can be used against any and all of us.

Will the DOE do a terrible job supervising school safety officers? Of course they will. The DOE does a terrible job at everything. It's a monument to blithering incompetence, a master of bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake. I don't know how much time I've wasted over the last decade fighting with idiots employed by Tweed. Any chapter leader who CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: The School Safety Shuffle

Seattle’s educators: Defund the police and expel them from schools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Seattle’s educators: Defund the police and expel them from schools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Seattle’s educators: Defund the police and expel them from schools!

A version of this Op-Ed originally appeared in the Seattle Times.

Seattle’s Education Association representative assembly — the union body that represents Seattle’s teachers, nurses, librarians, instructional assistants, office professionals and educational support staff — has overwhelmingly passed seven resolutions in solidarity with the movement for Black lives. These included removing police from schools (which was achieved with a recent vote of the school board) and the King County Labor Council, (which was achieved by a recent vote of the council), educating SEA members on alternatives to calling 911 on students, and my own resolution to defund the Seattle Police Department and reinvest the money in education, health care and programs to support families.

These bold resolutions, adopted June 8, were surely spurred by the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, and the ensuing uprising that’s swept the nation. But this vote wasn’t only about injustices elsewhere. Seattle’s educators have been fighting institutional racism and the school-to-prison-pipeline here for some time.

In Seattle, our “Black Lives Matter at School” movement erupted September 2016. A white supremacist threatened to bomb John Muir Elementary School when the educators there — in conjunction with parents, community and the group “Black Men United to Change the Narrative” — declared they would celebrate Black students with an assembly, and by wearing “Black Lives Matter” shirts to school.

Black Lives Matter at School then went national, thanks to educators in Philadelphia who organized a full week of action and broke down the 13 CONTINUE READING: Seattle’s educators: Defund the police and expel them from schools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Task Force on Safe Schools Address School Reform - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

Task Force on Safe Schools Address School Reform - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond and Task Force on Safe Schools Take First Steps to Address Statewide School Police Reform

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond today convened a hearing that took a comprehensive look at the role of police officers in schools and the impact that law enforcement presence has on students, learning, and campus safety. The hearing was a three-part panel discussion that examined: different models of school policing, research and data on the impact and consequences of police officers in schools, and a framework for potential policy recommendations for reimagining school safety.

An archived broadcast of today’s hearing can be found on the California Department of Education (CDE) Facebook page.

As many school districts re-examine the role and impacts of police on their campuses, Tuesday’s Task Force on Safe Schools hearing was the first step to address these issues on a statewide level and within the context of equity and racial justice.

“These are tough conversations that we have to have,” said Thurmond. “Addressing these challenges head-on will help steer us in the right direction. In looking at these issues, we do have to acknowledge that implicit bias and racism does exist, but doing this work together and keeping our students as the most important focus, will allow us to provide solutions that will not only keep our students safe but will make our school communities stronger. We must take all steps to ensure our students are not criminalized.”

The Task Force on Safe Schools was created in response to the current social climate that is focused on racial justice and putting a spotlight on implicit bias and institutional racism.

During Tuesday’s hearing, participants heard reports from State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond and researchers from WestEd and the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies. Together, they provided an in-depth overview of data that indicates schools with police are not measurably safer than those without. Additionally, the research review indicated that schools with police had a disproportionate number of students of color arrested and removed from campuses.

The meeting also included viewpoints from law enforcement organizations including the National Association of School Resource Officers, the Richmond Police Department and the San Diego Unified School District Police Department, who shared personal stories about the positive relationships school officers have cultivated with the students they serve.

Prior to the hearing the State Superintendent provided a framework for policy recommendations including: establishing immediate best practices and requirements for school police; promoting and funding alternative programs such as restorative justice and intervention programs; and creating more data collection, monitoring, and accountability.

“This framework is not one-size-fits-all,” said Thurmond. “More research needs to be done so we can be clear regarding what the best alternatives are to current school police programs. The reality is that districts may elect to keep police officers on campuses, but there needs to be better training for officers and school staff in restorative justice practices. School police officers should not be viewed as or put in the position to be the school disciplinarian.”

At the conclusion of the hearing State Superintendent Thurmond outlined next steps, including future conversations in the coming weeks with state legislators on exploring funding for resources to implement restorative justice practices and training in areas such as de-escalation techniques and crisis management. Thurmond also announced the formation of a committee comprised of task force research partners and police organizations to review data and trends.

The lawmakers who participated in the hearing were:

• Senator Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles)
• Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley)
• Senator Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco)
• Assemblymember Rob Bonta (D-Oakland)
• Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella)
• Assemblymember Monique Limon (D-Santa Barbara)
• Assemblymember Reggie Jones Sawyer (D-South Los Angeles/Huntington Park)
• Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento)
• Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego)

# # # #

Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Task Force on Safe Schools Address School Reform - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

Will Two Cities Defund School Police? - LA Progressive

Will Two Cities Defund School Police? - LA Progressive

Will Two Cities Defund School Police?

In Oakland, an Emphatic Yes; In L.A., Not So Fast

Amid ongoing protests against police brutality and racial injustice, two of California’s largest school districts  this week joined other education leaders across the country pressured to rethink their policing of students.

In Oakland and Los Angeles, thousands of protesters of all races and ethnicities spent days in the streets calling for an end to the school district-funded police forces that unfairly criminalize students of color.

After weeks of public protest and a 12-hour school board meeting Tuesday, the deeply divided Los Angeles Unified School District turned aside plans to defund its school police department in favor of further study, rejecting impassioned pleas to disband the force of 471 officers patrolling 1,386 schools across the city.

But the board of the Oakland Unified School District, meeting the next day, took a different approach, unanimously deciding to eliminate its school Police Department ahead of the next school year. The George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate the Oakland Schools Police Department could redirect up to $2.5 million in funding from the Police Department to students. That is believed to be the first time that an education system of Oakland’s size – with 50,000 students – has abolished its school police department entirely.

“This is a way to reimagine how we educate children without harming them with constant contact with the police,” school board director Roseann Torres said at Wednesday’s meeting.

In Oakland and Los Angeles, thousands of protesters of all races and ethnicities spent days in the streets calling for an end to the school district-funded police forces that unfairly criminalize students of color.

The day of the Los Angeles school board meeting Tuesday, protesters organized by Students CONTINUE READING: Will Two Cities Defund School Police? - LA Progressive