Sworn officers from the Los Angeles Unified school police department could be replaced at secondary school sites by “school climate coaches” who will help mentor students, and the use of pepper spray by officers on campus could end, if the district’s school board accepts the recommendation of a task force convened last year as the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum.
Those are just a couple of the items being proposed as part of a larger effort to support Black students, including the adoption of a Black Student Achievement Plan, that the school board will consider Tuesday, Feb. 16, more than seven months after it voted to slash $25 million from the Los Angeles School Police Department’s budget as calls to defund law enforcement swept across the nation.
“We can’t ignore the legitimate concerns and criticisms that students and other members in the school community have about all forms of law enforcement,” Superintendent Austin Beutner said Monday during his weekly message to the community. “No person should feel the presence of a safety officer on a campus as an indictment of them or their character.”
Last summer, the school board voted 4-3 to cut the LASPD’s budget by 35%, or $25 million, and to redirect those dollars to programs to support Black student achievement, gang reduction and other services. The result: the proposed reduction of 133 positions, including 70 sworn officers, from the school police department.
While the idea is to remove school police officers off campus, the proposal the board will consider includes a process by which schools can request to have an officer on site.
The question of whether there should be a police presence on campus continues to be debated.
Although a group called Students Deserve wants the LASPD to be completely eliminated, a majority of students, parents and district employees across demographics subgroups support the presence of school police on campuses, according to the results of a poll commissioned by the district. At the same time, the survey noted that just 35% of Black students felt safe with officers on campus.
The survey also found that while a plurality of students and parents supported diverting money from LASPD to pay for other student support services, there was a more even split between those who support and those who oppose the idea among school staff.
And while results were mixed as to whether funding should be diverted from the LASPD budget, there was broad consensus that there should be more funding to hire more nurses, psychiatric social workers and counselors; to expand mentoring and afterschool programs; and to provide other supports to students.
In addition to hiring nurses, social workers and counselors, the proposed Black Student Achievement Plan calls for funding school climate coaches, restorative justice advisors, professional development for teachers and individual school grants.
Beutner said Monday the district has committed additional funding for some of its highest-needs schools, including 53 that serve the largest concentration of Black students. In all, efforts to support schools with the highest-needs students will cost the district more than $200 million, he said.
“The question might be asked, ‘How can we afford this?’” Beutner said. “The answer is, ‘How can we afford not to?’”
Tuesday’s special board meeting will begin at 1 p.m. and will be livestreamed on the district’s website.