Earlier this year, two parent council chairs from Victoria schools sent their district school board an unusual request: They asked trustees to reinstate a police-in-schools program.
The practice of having uniformed officers in schools in Canada has been controversial, and in recent years, it has been phased out in many school boards across the country. The Greater Victoria School District cancelled its school police liaison officer program last June.
However, in their January letters, the parents argued that the decision to eliminate the program was “short-sighted” because of what they described as increased gang activity in the region.
In the months since, the school district has been embroiled in a dispute between parents, community members and local police departments about reinstating the program.
The conflict centres around the effects of having police officers in schools. Some say it contributes to a sense of safety and helps forge better relations between police and the community. Others, however, say that students from racialized and marginalized communities have felt intimidated, targeted and uncomfortable with police in their buildings.
Earlier this month, the province got involved. It issued the board a directive to work with the local police departments to “address increased gang activity, safety concerns, crime prevention and crisis response at schools in the school district.” The province asked the board for a safety plan by mid-November.
Kindree Draper, a parent council chair who wrote to the board in January, said families want their children to feel safe in schools.
“We have heard in countless ways how the police liaison program provides an important service that is different from what counsellors or principals can do,” Ms. Draper said. “At a time when we know there are real issues and complexities in our schools, we want to see students and their safety being prioritized.”
Several school boards, including the Toronto District School Board, have ended their police-in-schools program. Meanwhile, others, like the Vancouver School Board, have reinstated the program recently with officers wearing casual uniforms and carrying smaller and less exposed firearms.
In Victoria, the school board has pushed back against the province’s directive. The board said it had asked local police departments for data on gang recruitment and other criminal activity involving young people.
“We are concerned that rather than engage in continued collaborative efforts alongside us and police services, the Minister took this pre-emptive and unprecedented step so close to the provincial interregnum period,” the board said in the statement, referring to the timing of the move during a provincial election campaign.
Board chair Nicole Duncan did not respond to The Globe and Mail for further comment.
The board’s decision comes after the B.C.’s Human Rights Commissioner recommended school districts end their school liaison officer programs. Commissioner Kasari Govender wrote to trustees that there were significant concerns raised by marginalized students, their families and communities about the harm caused by a police presence in schools.
Although there was a lack of research in Canada, the commissioner pointed to studies from the United States that showed the police-in-schools programs contributed to a sense of criminalization and surveillance that affected marginalized students.
Victoria Police Chief Del Manak said in an interview that he was willing to work with the school district, including having officers dress more casually while in school buildings.
He said there has been significant gang activity in the area, where drugs are involved, and students are being used to sell vaping products.
“We have seen a significant push where organized crime groups and local street gangs are going younger and younger all the way to middle school kids to recruit them,” he said.
Chief Manak said the province had taken an “unprecedented step” to get involved with in-school policing because of concerns around safety. “Unfortunately,” he said, ”the district is turning a blind eye to much of what is happening because of an ideological view that they have, that they feel that having police officers in schools is traumatizing for some students.”
However, Boma Brown, who runs the Support Network for Indigenous Women and Women of Colour in Victoria, questioned whether there was increased gang activity around schools. She was disappointed the province intervened as there was a lack of data around the program and how it affected students.
Ms. Brown said that reinstating the program was “premature.”
“I think my perspective is similar to that of the trustees, which is unless we have data, why would we potentially have a program that is harmful to some sections of the population?” she asked.