Education

A group of Durham Public School students calls for the removal of school resource officers

A group of Durham Public School students are demanding the removal of School Resource Officers. This comes after increased scrutiny of current police practices.

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By
Lora Lavigne
, WRAL multimedia journalist
A group of Durham Public School students are demanding the removal of School Resource Officers. This comes after increased scrutiny of current police practices.
The Youth Justice Project has called for a drastic change in school policing for over two years. Now, the group is saying that small shift in reform that they’ve been pushing for, is too little too late.

A movement taken to the streets, is now making its way to the classrooms.

“School is supposed to be the safest place for a student,” said Elijah King. “The safest place rid of bias, rid of religious bias, rid of all that stuff, but they go there and see the same stuff they’re trying to escape from,” King added.

This fight is nothing new for students like King and Jennah Formey. Over a year ago, they compiled a list of recommendations for the current contract with the Student Resource Officer Program with DPS and Durham’s Sherriff’s department. They said, since then, nothing has changed.

“They’re not very transparent with what’s going on. We’ve asked them for information about incident reports. They don’t provide those. I feel like that should be public record for our parents to see what’s going on in our schools,” said Formey.

An online Instagram petition is gaining thousands of supporters. The group drafted a new proposal with research and data showing a lack of mental health resources, intervention and crisis training among the officers. They believe S.R.-O.’s aren’t even helpful assist in mass shooting situations.

“Having police officers in schools is not tied to a decrease in mass shootings. The data shows that police in schools, and the presence of police in schools leads to an increase in arrests for minor offenses,” said Tyler Whittenberg, the Chief Council of Justice System Reform at Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

With the removal and replacement of the SRO program, they want to re-allocate the funds elsewhere.

“A restorative justice counselor, de-escalation taskforce, and mental health support services to address mental health and social support for at risk students,” said King.

In a statement, the Durham Public School System said it is open to completing a thorough assessment of the program. The coalition of young activists said it should not take a social media trend for their voices to be heard.

“I hope that if DPS, the county and the sheriff’s office really care about us, then they’ll support this. That’s what I hope comes out of all of this,” King added.

WRAL News is waiting to hear back from DPS to obtain some of their data regarding the SRO's incident reports over the past year.

The Youth Justice Project has organized a ‘Black Students Matter’ march for Saturday, June 13 at D.P.S. to continue calling for change.

Students in Wake County are also pushing for the removal of School Resource Officers. Letters were sent to the County Board of Education today.

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