Two DPS board members seek removal of Denver police officers from schools by 2021 - The Denver Post

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Amid calls for law-enforcement reform in the wake of the George Floyd killing, two members of the Denver school board on Friday called for the removal of police officers from the district’s middle and high schools by the end of the year.

Denver Board of Education Vice President Jennifer Bacon and board Secretary Tay Anderson, one of the most visible figures in the ongoing Denver protests, announced a resolution they will introduce to the board next week that would end the district’s contract with the Denver Police Department.

Currently, Denver police provide DPS with 18 uniformed school resource officers to be placed in the district’s schools.

“We want to be able to have a school system where students are greeted by school nurses, by full-time mental health supports, with restorative practice coordinators — and not Denver Police Department,” Anderson said at a news conference with DPS leaders outside East High School.

But, he added, that “does not mean that our relationship with (Denver police) goes completely away. When we need them, we can call them.”

According to a Denver Public Schools news release, the resolution will direct the Board of Education to “review and revise policies” related to the role of school resource officers, and revise how the money allocated for that program is spent.

The district spends $721,403 a year on its portion of the contract with the Denver Police Department for 18 school resource officers, according to DPS.

Bacon and Anderson hope to divert resources spent on police officers to add more mental health workers and full-time nurses, and note that DPS still has its own Department of Safety that provides campus security.

“Our numbers show us that black children are still three to five times more likely to referred to law enforcement or suspension, respectively, and again some of our own practices have introduced students to a normalization, an internalization of their place, which is not something we want to contribute to anymore,” Bacon said.

Anderson said he expects to release the text of the finalized resolution on Monday. He read from a draft of the document, which notes that, since 2014, students have been ticketed or arrested in school by Denver police officers 4,540 times with “the vast majority being black or Latinx students between the ages of 10 and 15.”

The resolution calls for Denver Police Department school resource officers to be phased out through the fall, with officers fully removed by Jan. 1, 2021.

“School resource officers are not needed to ensure the safety of all of our kids,” Anderson said, reading from the draft resolution.

Declaring “black lives matter,” DPS Susana Cordova said at Friday’s news conference that she supports the district’s black students and black educators, and recognizes the “absolute need to end the school-to-prison pipeline.”

“There’s absolutely nothing more important than the fact that all students should feel safe, should feel cared for, should feel protected in our schools,” Cordova said. “Education does not happen without that… and this is especially true for our black students.”

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the district’s teachers union, supports the move to get law enforcement out of DPS schools, President Tiffany Choi said.

“Systemic racism is pervasive and it’s time that we clean out the house,” said Monica Hunter, a DPS teacher and founding member of the union’s Black Educator Caucus. “Until every white teacher checks their white fragility, our work is not done. We will not be silenced and we will call you out if you are participating and perpetuating systematic racism. Because black lives matter.”

The push by Bacon and Anderson comes as Minneapolis’ school board this week voted to sever ties with that city’s police department. Floyd died on Memorial Day after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Four fired police officers now face charges in connection with Floyd’s death.

Similarly, the school superintendent in Portland, Ore., this week announced he’s discontinuing the use of armed police officers in schools.

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Two DPS board members seek removal of Denver police officers from schools by 2021 - The Denver Post
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