“We are students not suspects!” –Reginae Hightower, Freshman at McClymonds High School

Last night, BOP students, parents and community members attended a school board meeting to speak out in support of a new policy that clearly limits and defines the role of Oakland school police when interacting with students. For nearly two years, we have been organizing and negotiating with the school district to develop a policy that would really protect the rights of students and finally, the school board passed the policy unanimously.

In addition to limiting and defining the role of school police, the policy also provides that:

OUSD must develop district-wide intervention to help schools showing the greatest disparities in contacts and arrest rates for African-American students and share information about the interventions with the Board two times per year.
No school police officer or school security officer shall act as a school disciplinarian and law enforcement shall only be used as a last resort.
Alternatives to police involvement, such as the use of restorative justice practices, must be tracked and documented and a plan of support created for students who have multiple law enforcement contacts.
A private location out of sight and hearing of other students should be arranged whenever the arrest of a student is necessary, to avoid invasion of the student’s privacy and disruption on the school campus.
Data on referrals to law enforcement, citations and arrests must be tracked and shared with the Board of Education and OUSD must develop an action plan to address any disproportionate minority contact.
School police officers shall tell any student that he or she may have a parent/guardian present before and during an interrogation and that he or she may decide to wait for the parent before questioning begins.
A school official must take immediate steps to contact a parent/guardian to get oral consent to permit any police interrogation of the minor, unless the child is a suspected victim of child abuse. If the parent or guardian requests that the pupil not be questioned until he or she can be present, the pupil may not be made available to the peace officer for questioning until the parent or guardian is present.
School police shall make every effort to handle law enforcement related issues that are not school-related outside of school.

“My daughter is an 11 year old. The school has to ask for permission for my daughter to go on a field trip, to miss school or for a photograph. But the district has not found it necessary to ask my permission to have her questioned by the police? This is unacceptable.,” said Karissa Lewis, BOP parent member, as she addressed board members, showing her support for the amendment.

“This win is a huge victory for the Black community in Oakland because we have taken the first step in reversing the tide of the school to prison pipeline and further investing in a more restorative approach by engaging families. It is an even greater victory because It shows that there is power in organizing, power in collective voice and power in Black youth.”-Jasmine Jones, BOSS Organizer

Without this kind of agreement and accountability, our students are left at the whim of law enforcement and security staff. This is an issue that has state interest and implications since oakland is only the third district that we know of to pass such a strong policy and to address parent notice.