BVSD updates its discipline policy and looks at ending its relationship with police departments

In one of the first moves following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in late May, Minneapolis public schools moved to cut ties with law enforcement on June 2. Supported by thousands of letters from students and endorsed by the teachers’ union, the school board unanimously passed a resolution that ends the district’s contract with the Minneapolis police department to provide school resource officers (SROs), a growing field of law enforcement around the country.

What started in Minneapolis has sparked similar conversations in school districts nationwide, including here in Boulder County. But the idea of removing police from schools is not unique to this moment. It’s been a topic of discussion for years as the presence of SROs in schools has grown since the turn of the century, largely prompted by the Columbine High School shooting and subsequent high-profile mass school shootings.

“Although this just now is coming to the mainstream white consciousness, this work (to create police-free schools or to decrease the emphasis of policing in schools) has been going on in terms of organizers and advocacy groups for decades,” says Kathryn Wiley, a research associate working on issues of school discipline at the University of Denver and member of the NAACP Boulder County.

There are roughly 46,000 SROs in American schools and organizations like the Advancement Project, the Alliance for Educational Justice and the ACLU have years of research showing that police presence disrupts learning environments for students of color particularly, but also LGBTQIA students and those with disabilities. These reports show that black and brown students are routinely and disproportionately impacted by policing in schools, leading to what many have called the school-to-prison pipeline. In many ways, schools have become the first point of entry black and brown students have with the criminal justice system, and an early indicator of the racial disparities that have become inherent in the American experience.

It’s why the NAACP Boulder County Branch is calling on the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) to discontinue its relationships with area law enforcement, which provide — and pay for — 10 SROs in area middle and high schools. But the discussion comes in the context of disproportionate discipline, something the school district, along with the NAACP and other groups like Engaged Latino Parents Advancing Student Outcomes (ELPASO), have been looking to address for almost two years.

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