Thursday’s action brings the number of San Jose Unified’s police officer contracts to 38. Individual school officials can choose to use the officers during the school day, to deploy them for after-school events or not use them at all, said Ben Spielberg, a manager of strategic projects for the district.
Outraged community members who attended the meeting and protested beforehand said the board’s decision to bring even one cop on campus after it voted last June to phase them out was a betrayal.
Ava Phillips, a senior and student wellness coordinator at Lincoln High School, said the district should be putting the $1 million in funds it is allocating for cops into mental health support, school counselors, school nurses and programs to help students who are struggling.
“This punitive system causes more harm than support,” Phillips said.
At an emotional rally outside district offices, protesters held large signs that read “Care not cops,” “We need trauma informed mental health services,” and “Stop policing our students” alongside a painted mural that read “Remembering students impacted by SJPD.”
Crystal Calhoun, a grandmother of four kids in the district and a spokeswoman for the San Jose Unified Equity Coalition, termed “shameful” the board’s renewal last year of a contract with the San Jose Police Department to bring officers back to schools without evidence of an increase in crime and without considering parents’ input. She said her grandchildren have told her they are afraid of police.
Police officials were not available for an interview on the issue this week. But Spielberg said Wednesday that the officers will be used in a different way than they were before the pandemic and that they are part of the district’s “holistic approach to school safety.”
Instead of having officers stationed at every school for 6- or 8-hour shifts, individual schools can bring these district-contracted officers to campuses when they choose, he said. They’ll have more discretion until a new district-wide advisory committee is convened and decides under what circumstances the officers can and should be used, he said.
Spielberg said the district prefers to have the same officers deployed to the same schools over time so that students get to know them. The officers will not wear their uniforms, but per SJPD, they will be armed, he said.
Board members did not comment as they voted Thursday. But during a December board meeting where an expanded contract with the San Jose Police Department was approved, Board President Carla Collins acknowledged that the district and the community had not worked together to decide the best way to provide for student safety and said she hoped that a new advisory committee “will allow the district and the community to work together on a plan for the future.”
Teresa Castellanos, a board member who voted to bring officers back but abstained from the December vote, said at the time that she wants to make sure the use of officers and the advisory committee is an attempt to find a “real solution.”
“Key to all of this is changing the relationship with law enforcement and specific parts of our student population that have been historically targeted for ... as long as we have existed as a nation,” she said.
The board’s decision makes the district an outlier among other Bay Area districts, many of which have opted to decrease the number of police officers at their schools in the past few years.
East Side Union High School, Alum Rock Union High, San Francisco and Oakland school districts cut their contracts with local police in the wake of national protests demanding police reform following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
The San Jose school board had voted in June to end the district’s partnership with the San Jose Police Department after a yearlong debate about the impact of law enforcement’s presence on school campuses and on students of color in particular.
But the board then voted in August to have officers return to school campuses for after-school events only and approved a few short-term contracts between August and December. Then on Dec. 9, the school board approved a new version of an agreement with SJPD that allowed individual schools to determine if and when they want to call in officers “in order to address campus risks, prepare for emergencies, and create a safe, secure learning environment for students and school personnel.”
The board has continued to approve short-term limited services agreements with police officers — more than two dozen at its Jan. 27 board meeting and seven more at its Feb. 17 board meeting before its approval of four more service agreements Thursday.
The district spent about $1 million on campus police officers and more than $13 million on counselors, psychologists, nurses and behavior intervention specialists in the 2019-20 school year, Spielberg said, contending the district prioritizes student safety in a variety of ways. Spending on police will be “probably substantially lower” this year because they will be paying based on need. The amounts allocated for the officers range from $4,000 and $8,000, which are “not-to-exceed amounts,” Spielberg said.
Applications will be available this week for members of the public to apply to serve on the advisory committee, which will have 9-11 members. Spielberg said the committee could determine “the way SJ Unified does it now is the best way given California law and the school context” or decide “to never pay for officers and that limiting them only when we need to call is the best approach” or something else.
“There are never going to be 38 officers on our campuses at the same time,” he said.
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