I.-1 20-1335 Adoption by the Board of Education of Resolution No. 1920-0260 - George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate the Oakland Schools Police Department.
Our kids would benefit from well-paid counselors, teachers, and after-school programs in our schools — not police and policing. What positive impact has this contract with the cops actually produced? Nothing but pain and harm. The school police do not create safety in our schools but create environmental that are not safe. Consider the impact of these interactions and juvenile records on the futures of our students. Consider the psychological impact of policing on young minds and identities. What is the message we are sending to students — about who we are as a society, about who they are as students — by having police roam the halls and be called in for things that others can be trained to handle? By continuing to rely on police, and the violence they embody, how are we missing the opportunity to really address student conflict and issues in a more student-centered, transformative, humane, and effective way? Cut the contract! Resource schools to create community-rooted safety instead.
As an Oakland resident and parent of an OUSD student, I hope you will support the George Floyd Resolution to eliminate Oakland School Police Department. Schools are where our kids learn how to be the Oakland community of the future - we owe it to them to ensure that learning happens in spaces where every child can feel safe and be treated equitably and with dignity, Removing the police from schools and redirecting resources to things like mental health services is a step in the right direction.
There are so many reasons to be proud of having my child in Oakland schools - I hope you will give me and so many other parents another one by removing police from our schools.
National research shows, among other things, that arrests and contact with the juvenile justice system are significant contributors to high rates of school pushout and negative future outcomes for youth. There are specific, research-based alternatives to policing that work! This includes restorative justice, positive behavior interventions, and reinvesting in caring, competent school counselors. Please remove police from our schools and invest in solutions that provide the support that all children need, regardless of skin color.
We need to invest in the programs, curriculum, and resources that prevent violence and promote safety and accountability. The police do not make our communities safety and do not belong in schools with young people. Everything we need to support the growth and learning of young children are all the things police are not trained to do. We need care not cops, and to make them happen we need to defund the police.
Though it may be a small department, taking this action would send a BIG message to the community that OUSD prioritizes supporting rather than criminalizing students, especially our black and brown youth. The time is now!
My name is Angela and I am a resident of district 7 and my child attends an Oakland public school. I am also a public health practitioner and an ethnic studies researcher and scholar. I'm writing in support of the Black Organizing Project's George Floyd Resolution to get police out of our schools. The only way to make schools safe and nurturing for Black children and their families is to remove police (and policing tactics) from our schools. We need more restorative and transformative justice practitioners, school counselors, librarians, teachers, smaller classroom sizes...there is so much we can do with the money currently spent on police. We don't need police in our schools! We need schools where Black and Brown children and their families are valued and cared for. This community has been ready to put in the work to make police-free schools a reality. We need your support today! Don't let the children down!
I urge the board to adopt the George Floyd resolution, because our schools DO desperately need counselors and nurses. We do NOT need to police our youth in perpetuation of the school to prison pipeline. Our children are not the enemy. Let’s treat them with compassion and support. Let’s teach them to solve their problems without violence. Let’s show them that we believe in them and we see their potential for greatness. Let’s fund equity in education, instead of sewing deeper inequity through police in schools. I am an Oakland resident and OUSD parent. I emphatically urge the board to make the only right decision here: de-fund OUSD police. Thank you.
Stand in full support of the George Floyd Resolution. As an educator and pedagogy student I feel that police presence in public schools is completely detrimental to the learning environment and disproportionately impacts black & brown students. Continuing to fund and allow a police force to occupy Oakland’s public schools in particular (while no other school districts in Alameda county have a dedicated police department) means continuing to fund the hyper-policing of black youth and historically black neighborhoods. This is an opportunity to strike a blow against the school-to-prison pipeline and restore an environment of safety and trust in our public schools.
I am an OUSD parent. My kids attend Sequoia elementary and we plan to send our rising 5th grader to a district middle school. I strongly urge all board members to vote yes on the George Floyd resolution without amendments. Our schools do not need police. Oakland schools need counselors, librarians, restorative justice leaders and other adults that can form relationships with students rather than only punish them for behaviors that are seen in all schools. School police do not protect our students from neighborhood issues etc. There are other ways to keep our students safe. sincerely, Tracey Kelp
My name is Saabir Lockett, I’m a commissioner on the Oakland Army Base CJOC. I’m the director of Faith Alliance for a Moral Economy. People of faith across this city mourn the loss and suffering of Black and Brown lives and we stand with others throughout all of Oakland, the United States, and indeed across the globe, against police murders, mass incarceration, and racial disparities in housing, public health and education.
We urge every School Board Member to stand with Black Organizing Project and immediately vote yes on this unprecedented and pathbreaking resolution to eliminate Oakland’s School Police Department. We urge your leadership by:
● Supporting the resolution as it currently stands
● Supporting police free schools
● No hybrid models or substitutes for OSPD
● We don’t want or need police as part of a community-centered safety plan or the committee that will create it.
Our students and children need access to resources that will help them thrive and support them through challenges and opportunities. Having police in our schools does NOT create an environment of support, nurturing, or care, but instead creates an environment that defaults to criminalizing our children. Safety in schools is not shaped by having police present - it is shaped by having social workers, educators, nurses, restorative justice practitioners, and therapists who are trained in anti-oppressive, anti-racist methods and awareness.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Listen to the students who are telling you what they need to feel safe. They know what they need. Please listen to them.
Growing up in a school system with armed police officers and now living in a community that still supports the same, I ecstatically support the George Floyd resolution. Remove police from our schools, empower social and psychological support systems that encourage and celebrate success—students shouldn't fear violence from a corrupt, institution of oppression that measurably targets people of color.
Based on my experience working with Black youth through an afterschool architecture program, reading BOP’s comprehensive People’s Plan, and researching supplementary data around the school-to-prison pipeline, I strongly support this George Floyd Resolution. Safety at school is created through community care, educational and extra-curricular programs, mental health resources, and healthy spaces. NOT through police presence. Please adopt this resolution as a step on the path of peace, healing and justice for black & brown youth and families.
I am a current OUSD parent. I join my community in DEMANDING that OUSD remove ALL police presence from our children's schools. You are actively responsible for perpetuating and strengthening the school to prison pipeline for children of color in this city, and it is unconscionable. The money you spend to incarcerate and assault our children belongs in the hands of counselors, nurses, teachers, and principals. That money belongs in the hands of the professionals who CARE FOR AND EDUCATE our children. All eyes are on you. You have one chance to land on the right side of history, and show Oakland that you are not ignorant racists who would rather incarcerate than educate. What choice will you make???
As an Oakland resident and parent of two OUSD students, I whole-heartedly support the dissolution of the OUSD police department. The criminalization of students, especially our Black and brown students, is unconscionable. Reallocate this finding to support counselors, RJ programs and other support services. No police in schools!
I support the George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate the Oakland Schools Police Department. As an educator in East Oakland, we need more resources that will uplift our students, this funding should be reallocated to counselors and student services.
Our kids would benefit from well-paid counselors, teachers, and after-school programs in our schools — not police and policing. What positive impact has this contract with the cops actually produced? Nothing but pain and harm. The school police do not create safety in our schools but create environmental that are not safe. Consider the impact of these interactions and juvenile records on the futures of our students. Consider the psychological impact of policing on young minds and identities. What is the message we are sending to students — about who we are as a society, about who they are as students — by having police roam the halls and be called in for things that others can be trained to handle? By continuing to rely on police, and the violence they embody, how are we missing the opportunity to really address student conflict and issues in a more student-centered, transformative, humane, and effective way? Cut the contract! Resource schools to create community-rooted safety instead.
As an Oakland resident and parent of an OUSD student, I hope you will support the George Floyd Resolution to eliminate Oakland School Police Department. Schools are where our kids learn how to be the Oakland community of the future - we owe it to them to ensure that learning happens in spaces where every child can feel safe and be treated equitably and with dignity, Removing the police from schools and redirecting resources to things like mental health services is a step in the right direction.
There are so many reasons to be proud of having my child in Oakland schools - I hope you will give me and so many other parents another one by removing police from our schools.
I support the resolution to eliminate OPD in Oakland schools.
National research shows, among other things, that arrests and contact with the juvenile justice system are significant contributors to high rates of school pushout and negative future outcomes for youth. There are specific, research-based alternatives to policing that work! This includes restorative justice, positive behavior interventions, and reinvesting in caring, competent school counselors. Please remove police from our schools and invest in solutions that provide the support that all children need, regardless of skin color.
Eliminate Police from OUSD & put funds that will support youth instead of punishing them.
We need to invest in the programs, curriculum, and resources that prevent violence and promote safety and accountability. The police do not make our communities safety and do not belong in schools with young people. Everything we need to support the growth and learning of young children are all the things police are not trained to do. We need care not cops, and to make them happen we need to defund the police.
Though it may be a small department, taking this action would send a BIG message to the community that OUSD prioritizes supporting rather than criminalizing students, especially our black and brown youth. The time is now!
My name is Angela and I am a resident of district 7 and my child attends an Oakland public school. I am also a public health practitioner and an ethnic studies researcher and scholar. I'm writing in support of the Black Organizing Project's George Floyd Resolution to get police out of our schools. The only way to make schools safe and nurturing for Black children and their families is to remove police (and policing tactics) from our schools. We need more restorative and transformative justice practitioners, school counselors, librarians, teachers, smaller classroom sizes...there is so much we can do with the money currently spent on police. We don't need police in our schools! We need schools where Black and Brown children and their families are valued and cared for. This community has been ready to put in the work to make police-free schools a reality. We need your support today! Don't let the children down!
I urge the board to adopt the George Floyd resolution, because our schools DO desperately need counselors and nurses. We do NOT need to police our youth in perpetuation of the school to prison pipeline. Our children are not the enemy. Let’s treat them with compassion and support. Let’s teach them to solve their problems without violence. Let’s show them that we believe in them and we see their potential for greatness. Let’s fund equity in education, instead of sewing deeper inequity through police in schools. I am an Oakland resident and OUSD parent. I emphatically urge the board to make the only right decision here: de-fund OUSD police. Thank you.
Stand in full support of the George Floyd Resolution. As an educator and pedagogy student I feel that police presence in public schools is completely detrimental to the learning environment and disproportionately impacts black & brown students. Continuing to fund and allow a police force to occupy Oakland’s public schools in particular (while no other school districts in Alameda county have a dedicated police department) means continuing to fund the hyper-policing of black youth and historically black neighborhoods. This is an opportunity to strike a blow against the school-to-prison pipeline and restore an environment of safety and trust in our public schools.
I am an OUSD parent. My kids attend Sequoia elementary and we plan to send our rising 5th grader to a district middle school. I strongly urge all board members to vote yes on the George Floyd resolution without amendments. Our schools do not need police. Oakland schools need counselors, librarians, restorative justice leaders and other adults that can form relationships with students rather than only punish them for behaviors that are seen in all schools. School police do not protect our students from neighborhood issues etc. There are other ways to keep our students safe. sincerely, Tracey Kelp
My name is Saabir Lockett, I’m a commissioner on the Oakland Army Base CJOC. I’m the director of Faith Alliance for a Moral Economy. People of faith across this city mourn the loss and suffering of Black and Brown lives and we stand with others throughout all of Oakland, the United States, and indeed across the globe, against police murders, mass incarceration, and racial disparities in housing, public health and education.
We urge every School Board Member to stand with Black Organizing Project and immediately vote yes on this unprecedented and pathbreaking resolution to eliminate Oakland’s School Police Department. We urge your leadership by:
● Supporting the resolution as it currently stands
● Supporting police free schools
● No hybrid models or substitutes for OSPD
● We don’t want or need police as part of a community-centered safety plan or the committee that will create it.
Our students and children need access to resources that will help them thrive and support them through challenges and opportunities. Having police in our schools does NOT create an environment of support, nurturing, or care, but instead creates an environment that defaults to criminalizing our children. Safety in schools is not shaped by having police present - it is shaped by having social workers, educators, nurses, restorative justice practitioners, and therapists who are trained in anti-oppressive, anti-racist methods and awareness.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Listen to the students who are telling you what they need to feel safe. They know what they need. Please listen to them.
I strongly support the elimination of the OUSD police department.
Growing up in a school system with armed police officers and now living in a community that still supports the same, I ecstatically support the George Floyd resolution. Remove police from our schools, empower social and psychological support systems that encourage and celebrate success—students shouldn't fear violence from a corrupt, institution of oppression that measurably targets people of color.
Based on my experience working with Black youth through an afterschool architecture program, reading BOP’s comprehensive People’s Plan, and researching supplementary data around the school-to-prison pipeline, I strongly support this George Floyd Resolution. Safety at school is created through community care, educational and extra-curricular programs, mental health resources, and healthy spaces. NOT through police presence. Please adopt this resolution as a step on the path of peace, healing and justice for black & brown youth and families.
I am a current OUSD parent. I join my community in DEMANDING that OUSD remove ALL police presence from our children's schools. You are actively responsible for perpetuating and strengthening the school to prison pipeline for children of color in this city, and it is unconscionable. The money you spend to incarcerate and assault our children belongs in the hands of counselors, nurses, teachers, and principals. That money belongs in the hands of the professionals who CARE FOR AND EDUCATE our children. All eyes are on you. You have one chance to land on the right side of history, and show Oakland that you are not ignorant racists who would rather incarcerate than educate. What choice will you make???
I urge the council to proceed with this work and adopt this resolution.
As an Oakland resident and parent of two OUSD students, I whole-heartedly support the dissolution of the OUSD police department. The criminalization of students, especially our Black and brown students, is unconscionable. Reallocate this finding to support counselors, RJ programs and other support services. No police in schools!
I support the George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate the Oakland Schools Police Department. As an educator in East Oakland, we need more resources that will uplift our students, this funding should be reallocated to counselors and student services.