GUELPH – Officials at local school boards say no significant changes are coming to their police partnerships.
That’s in light of a provincial motion asking the Ministry of Education to encourage school boards to partner with police through Community School Liaison Officer (CSLO) programs.
The Upper Grand and Wellington Catholic District School Boards (UGDSB and WCDSB) already partner with police through CSLO programs.
The motion, introduced by Kitchener South-Hespeler MPP Jess Dixon, passed on Dec. 4.
Perth-Wellington MPP Matthew Rae supports the motion and told the Advertiser a CSLO is the same as a School Resource Officers (SRO).
But UGDSB associate director Brent McDonald said that is not the case.
SROs are designated officers assigned to a school or a few schools who spend time within the schools and have daily interactions with students and staff, while patrolling for illegal activity.
“SROs primarily serve as liaison,” said WCDSB director Michael Glazier. “They develop relationships with school staff and students.
“They provide information to some of our students, whether that be education programs … or helping students understand some of the consequences of their actions or helping them look at diversion programs so they can stay out of the legal system.”
Changes in 2020, 2021
After a police officer murdered George Floyd in Minnesota in May 2020, international protests about police brutality and anti-Black racism erupted.
Most protests were part of the Black Lives Matter movement, which led to widespread conversations about systemic racism and policing, including within Canadian schools.
Prior to 2021, the UGDSB had an SRO program in Wellington and Guelph high schools and a CSLO program at all schools.
After an extensive, year-long review of police presence in schools during 2020 and 2021, UGDSB trustees voted unanimously to remove the SRO program, and for the CSLO program to continue.
The CSLO program includes police presentations, safety patrol training, and emergency response.
Now that SROs have been out of UGDSB schools for almost four years, McDonald said he can’t think of any challenges or disadvantages to discontinuing the program.
WCDSB officials also conducted a review in 2020, but opted to keep SROs.
The WCDSB review included school social workers and student focus groups, with “newcomer students as well as members who identify as equity seeking groups,” Glazier said.
“We wanted to understand how the program should look if we continued it.”
Glazier said the feedback included students feeling safer around SROs than around other officers who were unfamiliar to them.
He said the review led to a closer collaboration between police and the board’s mental health team.
Officials from both boards say their current partnerships and programs with police are working well.
“We are grateful for the support of OPP and Guelph Police,” Glazier said.
McDonald said the UGDSB has “a really strong partnership with all three police services (Wellington OPP, Dufferin OPP and Guelph Police) working in collaboration, not just for emergencies when they come up but on preventative, proactive measures that help ensure safety in schools and in the community.”
In an email to the Advertiser, OPP officials stated, “Within Wellington County, we look forward to continuing our partnership with the local school boards.
“Ensuring that youth engagement remains a priority through schools and other community opportunities is essential.”
UGDSB task force’s report
The UGDSB decision to scrap the SRO program was based on a recommendation from its Police Presence in Schools Task Force, which released a 151-page report with seven recommendations.
Then-superintendent Cheryl Van Ooteghem said “The recommendations support the UGDSB’s values, beliefs and guiding principles, and they uphold the UGDSB’s anti-racism statement and equity plan.”
The committee of trustees, school staff and community members formed in response to concerns about police targeting racialized students.
According to the report, “The purpose of the task force was to gather community feedback, consult with police, summarize research, and make recommendations.”
Over 1,600 Grade 10 through 12+ students completed a survey, showing:
– Black students were more likely to have negative experiences with SROs and want SROs removed;
– Indigenous students interact with SROs most and were most likely to feel somewhat discriminated against; and
– 2SLGBTQIA+ students were three times more likely than non-2SLGBTQIA+ students to want SROs removed.
The report states, “When an officer lacks skill specific to working with youth, especially those with mental health needs or living in the margins, or uses fear-based or monitoring tactics instead of de-escalation strategies, harm is done, well-being is seriously impacted, learning is affected and equitable outcomes for all students is not achieved.”
The report also found the data “indicates the police play an important role in the UGDSB,” including through curriculum-based presentations, which the task force recommended continue, with vetting, advanced notification to parents and students, and feedback collected from staff and students after each presentation. This is part of the CSLO program.
Results of removal
“The removal [of SROs] led to a reduction in fear and discrimination in racialized bodies,” said Kween, who led the Black Lives Matter protest in Guelph in 2020 and was involved with the UGDSB review of police presence in schools as a liaison to Black Lives Matter Guelph.
She said removing the SRO program made schools safer for “all people.
“We were seeing the action of violence and harm on young Black youth…” she said. “So much harm was happening to these Black students who were not getting the voice that they needed.
“That’s why folks like myself, Marva Wisdom and Selam Debs [who both sat on the task force] stepped up to have those conversations” about police in schools.
Around the same time, Black unions and Black student groups started forming in UGDSB schools, she noted.
Kween described this as a change in identity for Black students in that it enabled them to live more fully. She noted powerful and widespread conversations took place about systemic racism and other issues that Black people had expressed for years.
Institutions including school boards acknowledged the systemic racism in education and the criminalization of Black and Indigenous students, she said.
“That acknowledgement felt like a win in many ways,” she said, but it wasn’t enough.
When asked whether SRO programs have changed to address these concerns, Rae said local police, including the OPP and Guelph Police, “do great work in recruiting a variety of people with a variety of backgrounds of religion, race and creed.”
So racialized students can see themselves in police officers, Rae noted.
“Our police officers, both OPP and municipal, do great work in our community, reaching out to racialized communities and people of different backgrounds, and I think its important that our students see the important role they play in our society …. showing the student population that police are there to help them, and not police them,” Rae said.
In a press release, Dixon stated the CSLO program “is about fostering trust, creating connections, and ensuring every student feels safe and supported in their learning environment.
“When an officer’s presence becomes a source of mentorship and support, it starts to replace fear with trust. It moves us closer to a future where no child feels excluded form the safety and protection that every Ontarian deserves, and where a police uniform could become a symbol of security and reassurance for all.”
To Kween, the motion shows MPPs aren’t looking at the data or the importance of removing police from schools.
“Evidence has shown [SRO and CSLO] programs disproportionately harm Black and racialized students,” Kween said.
“Removing police presence from schools has been a step forward towards equitable and inclusive learning environments for all.”
