Our Story of Eliminating Willful Defiance in Oakland

Wednesday night the Oakland Unified School Board voted unanimously on a policy to end suspensions and involuntary transfers for “willful defiance and disruption” as of July 1, 2016. Earlier that day, the OUSD superintendent announced a commitment to meet the community demand to put $2.3 million into restorative justice and prevention programs. This victory is a result of relentless organizing and push-back from BOP members, including OUSD parents, students, community members and supporters from the Dignity in Schools Bay Area coalition. This process began in April of last year when we were developing two other board policies that clearly define and limit the role of police operating in OUSD schools. What we recognized last year as we were strategizing around our campaign to eliminate reliance on police in our schools, is that Black youth were not only being arrested at disproportionate rates, but that that disproportionality was also reflected in suspensions for Black students. The primary reason, we found, was because of willful defiance.

The new school Black codes

Eliminating willful defiance was important to BOP and our allies because overwhelmingly, Black students, both boys and girls, are targeted with this vague category which pushes them out of classrooms. The term willful defiance is so general that it can include just about anything a student does and is subjective to the adult that is engaging with the young person. We know this is tied to implicit bias in our communities and classrooms and is not a proactive solution to ensuring student success or safety. Data from last school year shows that African American students account for more than half of the students suspended for “disruption and willful defiance”, even though they only make up about ¼ of the student body in OUSD. Having an attitude of zero-tolerance discipline doesn’t take into account underlying circumstances that our students are dealing with. There is no recognition of the structures and systems that create the condition of poverty, violence and illness that are perpetually traumatizing our students. Many administrators and teachers don’t recognize their own racial bias when they react to the cultural differences that are simply a part of the way Black and Brown students communicate and express themselves. Eliminating willful defiance is a great step toward increasing the accountability of the district to put real effort into prevention and intervention before throwing a student out of class.

Putting our money where our values are

OUSD spends over $7 million on school police and security officers but in last year’s budget only $1.5 million went to prevention programs like restorative justice. We are pushing the district to show that it actually values prevention over policing by investing in programs in a meaningful way. One of the challenges with a lot of the programs in the current form is that they are not fully implemented, which can be frustrating to students and teachers. In some cases only partial investment with little political will for real transformation, creates shallow programs that can do more harm. We are glad the superintendent has finally agreed to invest $2.3 million of OUSD’s budget money toward enhancing prevention and intervention supports like restorative justice and the manhood development program. This is an unprecedented and hopefully important step toward shifting the way we see Oakland students. The school police chief’s report on Wednesday, revealed an interesting dynamic that has been going on for a long time. There is a reverence and unquestioning support on behalf of police by district leadership. We have seen tactics like throwing out fear and imagery of guns almost falling from the sky and confiscated from backpacks. These inflammatory images allow the status quo to continue to use fear as a basis of control and are not based in facts or reality. Board members like Jumoke Hinton-Hodge have clearly stated that they will continue to fully support a school police force and are not hearing anything about capping spending. There is still much work to do.

It’s clear that there’s a political blocking of any strategy that invests more in community than in police. But when Black and Brown students are the ones most affected by the type of intimidation and school climate that is created when police are consistently present, how can we not address that? It is proven that being over-policed and over-surveilled does not work for our community. It is not proven anywhere that more police equals safer schools. It is proven, however, that having the right mental supports, caring mentors and adults is an effective strategy in keeping our students safe and on a path towards success.

The Chief of OUSD police himself acknowledged at the school board meeting, that you cannot arrest yourself out of the problem. This then calls us to question: what is the district’s vision for shrinking the police department and investing more in violence intervention and prevention programs? We’re calling all parents, students and community members in favor of investing in quality education for all of our students to join us in our direction forward.

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