Credit: Brooke Anderson/Courtesy of Oakland Education Association

Protesters last week call for eliminating Oakland Unified's district police force strength.

Credit: Brooke Anderson/Courtesy of Oakland Education Clan

Protesters last week telephone call for eliminating Oakland Unified'south district police force.

A majority of the Oakland Unified school lath, along with the superintendent, on Wednesday signaled back up for dismantling the district'south police. Merely the board won't vote on the proposal until June 24.

But in nearby West Contra Costa Unified, the five-member board voted unanimously on Wednesday to cancel the commune's contracts with local police departments for school resource officers, or campus constabulary. Oakland Unified has its own in-business firm police force, while West Contra Costa pays local police force to patrol its campuses.

In Oakland Unified, board fellow member Roseann Torres introduced "The George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate Oakland Schools Police Department," which was also backed past board fellow member Shanthi Gonzales and dozens of speakers who called into the virtual meeting, forth with about 500 participants watching on Zoom. It would shift about $2.5 million spent on ten sworn officers and police administrators to instead pay for student support services such as counselors and coordinators for "restorative justice," which is an alternative form of conflict resolution that allows students to make amends for wronging others through discussions.

The lath did not talk over the resolution, but did respond to reports by board president Jody London and Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell, in which both leaders said they want to piece of work toward a plan to operate safely with no district police.

To achieve that, the district must negotiate the cease of a contract with the officers that extends through June 2022. Johnson-Trammell said she didn't realistically think the police force would exist out of the district until at least the end of December.

"I am recommending that we motion forward to create a districtwide safety program to ensure safe, healthy, and positive schoolhouse environments for students and adults without a schoolhouse district police section," Johnson-Trammell said. "Together, we can reimagine how to continue our schools safe, healthy and welcoming in a way that builds on our strong restorative justice roots, strong foundation of community schools, and critical partnerships throughout the urban center to protect our students' physical rubber."

She said the district'south police chief also supports this thought, but that she was non prepared to complete the program until the end of December and that it was contingent on negotiations with labor unions that represent officers and administrators.

Torres' resolution calls for Johnson-Trammell to begin the planning process by July 17 and to eliminate the law by the time school starts on Aug. 10 or equally soon every bit possible after. But Johnson-Trammell said she doesn't realistically believe she can start the planning process until late Baronial or to "move abroad" from an in-firm constabulary force until the end of December.

Instead, she said she needs to focus her attention kickoff on planning for reopening schools.

"Nosotros're in the center of a local health pandemic," she said. "I do believe correct now the prime focus needs to be on how nosotros're returning to schools and what that's going to look similar."

Board member Gary Yee said he supported Johnson-Trammell'south vision and wanted to ensure that the planning process would upshot in an "implementation strategy that'south not just symbolic, but will actually help interrupt the racism we have seen" while also supporting students' access to high quality education, restorative justice, and positive behavior programs.

Lath fellow member James Harris told Johnson-Trammell that he supported the "bold step" she was taking, while noting that some black children tin be "triggered" by police officers based on negative memories. But he also stressed the importance of the entire lath and superintendent uniting effectually the program.

"This has to be virtually all eight of u.s.a. together," he said, adding that the district should also work with the urban center and other customs partners to develop alternative strategies for student and staff safety.

Lath member Aimee Eng expressed some concerns nearly pushing back a September deadline the board had given to Johnson-Trammell in March for a safety plan, saying she wanted the adjacent school yr to be a time of transition. Eng said she hoped that plans for reopening schools could include planning for students' academic, social and emotional, and rubber needs.

Board fellow member Jumoke Hinton Hodge was the merely member of the seven-member board who did non say whether or non she would support the plan. She pointed out that delaying the implementation would mean less money for the other services chosen for in the resolution.

Torres' resolution is based on a program developed by a community arrangement called the Blackness Organizing Project, which suggests that the positions of almost 60 not-sworn campus security officers that currently work in the constabulary department be replaced by "peace-keepers." Torres told EdSource the current campus security officers would be able to re-apply for the new positions.

Johnson-Trammell said she couldn't speculate about how different positions might be repurposed without negotiating with the union that represents the campus security officers. Unlike constabulary, the security officers practice not carry a gun and do not have the authority to charge or abort.  Torres, notwithstanding, said that if the board adopts the resolution, staff would be required to implement the new policy.

"When the board votes, information technology is then executed and that is terminal," she said. "This isn't about renegotiating. This is about a department being eliminated. I want to make certain that's abundantly clear."

But Janell Hampton, labor representative for the California School Employees Clan that represents the 7 sworn officers, said their contract extends through June 2022. The officers see themselves as "a valuable part" of the commune and  want to meet with the superintendent "at the table" to share their vision for prioritizing students' safety and and aid come upwards with "a slap-up plan," she said.

Keith Brown, president of the Oakland Teaching Association teachers' union urged the lath to evidence "courageous leadership" to "terminate the school to prison pipeline."  "Black lives matter in school is not a slogan. We must brand that a reality."

Lee Thomas, who represents the administrators marriage that includes police leadership, said his membership was non 100% in agreement on the resolution. He said some members had safety concerns about what might happen in an emergency if the commune did not have campus police and staff or students needed to rely on urban center law to respond. He cautioned the board not to add new responsibilities to principals as they are transitioning to new educational models when schools reopen.

In West Contra Costa Unified, activists accept been calling on the district to dismantle its school resource officeholder programme for years; the teachers wedlock, the United Teachers of Richmond, issued a statement Tuesday urging the commune to use the $1.5 meg it had budgeted in 2020-2021 for school resource officer contracts to instead be used on  to fund programs specifically for African American students.

https://twitter.com/UTRichmondCA/status/1270966974147747840?s=20

Though the proposal was not on the agenda for Wednesday night's coming together, a resolution was put forth "Condemning Police Violence and Brutality Against People of Color." More than 25 parents, students, teachers and alumni spoke in response to the resolution, calling on schoolhouse board members to take the symbolic resolution a footstep further, and rid the district of armed police officers.

Samone Anderson, a recent Kennedy Loftier graduate who is currently studying at UCLA, said at the coming together that she witnessed her loftier school friends "beaten, tazed, slammed against lockers, thrown to the ground, put in chokeholds and handcuffed," past schoolhouse resource officers.

"Innocent kids are being policed, brutalized and violated in a place that'south supposed to keep united states safe, instead nosotros're being treated like criminals," Anderson said "…police in our schoolhouse districts perpetuate an oppressive organisation that limits the accomplishment of our black students."

W Contra Costa Unified school board members at a meeting Wednesday unanimously vote to cancel contracts with local police enforcement agencies for schoolhouse resource officers.

School board member Valerie Cuevas added an amendment to the resolution canceling the district's contracts with those police departments until issues of police brutality and institutionalized racism are "adequately addressed." Though school lath member Mister Phillips had suggested that the proposal be brought upward at a separate meeting in order to provide the opportunity for the public to comment, the board unanimously voted in favor of Cuevas' amendment.

Later on on in the meeting, during a discussion of the 2020-2021 school year upkeep, school board members voted to allocate the $1.5 meg that had been budgeted for campus police force contracts towards African American student achievement programs.

"The presence of armed police officers is detrimental to the good for you evolution of black and brown youth in our schools," Cuevas said at the coming together. "And the reason why is considering those racist overtones, that excessive force, and those militarized constabulary practices can in fact end up in our schools as a upshot of the institutions not having addressed these bug historically over generations."

Editor's Note: Every bit a special project, EdSource is tracking developments in the Oakland Unified and West Contra Costa Unified School Districts as a fashion to illustrate some of the challenges facing other urban districts in California. West Contra Costa Unified includes Richmond, El Cerrito and several other East Bay communities.

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