School Police Operations to Get an Overhaul in Two Big-City Districts
July 3, 2019
By: Stephen Sawchuk
Source: Edweek
Two of the nation’s largest school districts are revising their approach to school policing, highlighting an ongoing, complex debate in these post-Parkland days: Do police belong in schools? When—and under what conditions—should they be used?
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio late last month announced the first revision in 20 years to the agreement between the city’s school district and police department. The new pact moves away from a so-called “zero tolerance” approach to one minimizing police intervention in schools, and the city is coupling it with a flood of social and mental-health resources meant to curb disruptions before they escalate.
Chicago’s efforts to craft a new school policing agreement, meanwhile, have thus far been conducted mostly behind closed doors. And newly elected Mayor Lori Lightfoot, seemingly frustrated by a series of searing independent reports faulting the city’s sluggishness in revamping its school policing arrangement, has publicly questioned whether police officers are appropriate first responders in schools.