Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
POD: New research on Edmonton SROs sheds more light on a harmful system
146 Plays2 years ago
Bashir Mohamed and Alex Da Costa join host Duncan Kinney to discuss their work on the Edmonton SRO Research Project. Their research shows hows the school resource officer (SRO) program in Edmonton public schools criminalized students, got them expelled and suspended and got them started on the school to prison pipeline.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Welcome
00:00:12
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host Duncan Kinney. We're recording today here in Amiskwetchi, Waskiagan, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty 6 territory on the banks of the mighty Kasiskasaw, Wanesipi, or the North Saskatchewan River. Joining us today is a friend of the show, Bashir Mohammed. I think you've been on a couple times now, Bashir, over the 100 plus episodes. Welcome back.
00:00:35
Speaker
And the joining us for the first time is Alex Dacosta, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. Bashir and Alex, welcome to The Progress Report. Thanks, Duncan. It's good to be here.
Background of SRO Program
00:00:51
Speaker
So the reason we have both of you here today is to discuss a very important research project that you just released to the public. It's called the
00:01:03
Speaker
SRO or School Research Officer Research Project. This was released just recently, like what, last week? Yeah, two Sundays ago, I think. It got a bunch of media coverage, but as is how it goes, the media did a job of covering it. They definitely looked at your numbers and reported on it.
00:01:32
Speaker
The trouble about an issue like this is that there's one, there's just a lot of information to process and digest and two, like a 90 second radio hit or even like a 700 word story is not necessarily enough time to really kind of like digest.
00:01:47
Speaker
everything that you found. Today, we're going to have a decent long conversation about what the heck you guys found. But before we get into the results of your research, let's provide a bit of background on what exactly we're talking about when we're talking about school resource officers or SROs. Bashir, why don't you lead
Impact of SROs on Schools
00:02:07
Speaker
off first? What is the SRO program? When did it start? Why did it start?
00:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, so the SRR program is a police presence in schools. It was created in Edmonton in 1979. And if you look at how the program has been advertised, it's kind of advertised as a community engagement tool, right? So on the website, you know, they talk about diversion, mentorship and all that. And that's kind of how, um, you know, defenders of the program are people who argue for its expansion, often speak about it.
00:02:39
Speaker
What we uncovered was another side of the program that's much more in line with traditional policing, and that's unfortunately been hidden. So we could talk about that other side later. It's not just all sports teams and high fives is what you're saying. These cops in schools are still in fact cops.
00:03:02
Speaker
Yeah, basically what we found is our schools are essentially many, many police stations where students still experience being charged, still experience being labeled as offenders, 20,000 over the last 10 years.
Expansion of SRO Program
00:03:21
Speaker
Damn. So what is the size and scope of the program that we're talking about here? And let's talk about that kind of pre-2020.
00:03:31
Speaker
Um, well, I mean, it says here, um, well, we, the information we found, right, that there were, uh, in the year 2019 to 2020, there were 29 police officers in 36 different schools in Edmonton. Um, it wasn't always this number. The program started with one officer in, uh, the proposal, the proposal for one officer in Emmy Lazerte. Uh, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Emmy Lazerte school, Emmy Lazerte, excuse me.
00:04:01
Speaker
And interestingly enough, I'm doing some research on that. And I found that the SRO program there was requested by the School Parent Association. And they did this after the Calgary Police Department came up and presented about the program in Calgary. So this is the other interesting thing, and we can talk a little bit about this later, that the development of these programs, it's not an isolated thing. The police agencies in various cities
00:04:30
Speaker
And in fact, between the United States and locations in Canada are communicating with each other and sharing these types of programs, what they do, the types of plans you can implement. And so there is an international conversation among police agencies around these types of policing, right? So we see this happen even in the local case where the Calgary Police Department comes up and presents to the parent association as well as superintendent and a couple other folks.
00:04:57
Speaker
So that starts the conversation. And then by the first year that they're implementing it,
Funding and Transparency Issues
00:05:02
Speaker
they've already got several officers. So it grows quickly from, oh, we propose one officer, now we have several officers. And then year by year, more and more principals make requests to have officers at their schools in conversation with superintendent as well as the police agencies. And so we see it slowly grow to where we have 29 police officers in 36 different schools.
00:05:27
Speaker
The other thing that is important to know is that, and I'm not familiar with how many other school districts do this, but sure, I believe you may have talked about this before, but the Edmonton Public School Board pays for half of each SRO salary, right? And if I'm not mistaken in places like Toronto, those were fully paid by the police association rather than the school district, right? So you have a situation where public's money
00:05:56
Speaker
for education is also supporting these types of programs. Yeah, like we actually did some reporting on this and back in 2019, 2020, we found that
00:06:08
Speaker
Edmonton Public and Edmonton Catholic had spent $1.67 million on armed police in schools for their SRO program in the 2018-2019 school year. $1.67 million in the context of those two school board's budgets, not huge, but it's still money that could be going to educational assistants or books or resources or field trips, like literally anything that would be improving the education.
Review and Suspension of SRO Program
00:06:33
Speaker
of the students, which is ostensibly why kids go to school. So I think that's a good summary of why they started, where they're at, what was the scale of the program pre-2020, what happened in 2020 to the SRO program at Edmonton Public Schools? Yeah, so this was in the wave of the resurgence of BLM. It was a time where everybody
00:07:01
Speaker
was putting out pro-BLM statements and everything. I don't know. For me, it was kind of a weird time having talked about this for years. But suddenly, the school board decided to have a big public meeting about this issue. The city council started having meetings about policing. And with the school board specifically, a bunch of people showed up, spoke about the SRO program, cited previous research on it.
00:07:31
Speaker
that showed a little bit of the data that we uncovered. For example, it showed people would cite data from 2013 that was revealed by police themselves that showed an enforcement aspect. And what ended up happening was the program in the public school system was suspended, but in the Catholic school system still continued. So it doesn't mean the program ended like it can still easily come back.
00:08:00
Speaker
Basically, what's happening right now is there's a review with a public system. Apparently, there's also a review with the Catholic program.
Data Collection and Media Criticism
00:08:08
Speaker
But at the end of the day, these reviews are super sketchy. If you look at the request for proposal, it's interesting because it doesn't really speak about data. It just speaks about talking to students. And if you look at talking to students, parents, cops, and if you look at
00:08:28
Speaker
What the PL study did, and we can get into this maybe a bit more. But the PL study also didn't mention data, didn't really mention race. By data, I mean enforcement data. Didn't really get into race. And it's cited by SRO supporters as like the gold standard because it's seen as having students, teachers, parents,
00:08:56
Speaker
uh, say how valuable the program is, but it doesn't get into what the program actually is. So long story short, uh, there's this weird review process that's kind of happening that's pretty secretive. I don't really know who's leading it. And from that, I assume they'll decide what to do with the program.
00:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. There's currently a review process happening with respect to the Edmonton Public Schools. In Edmonton Catholic Schools, there are currently 14 school resource officers in 17 schools. That program continues just as normal, just as before. One other thing I think before we get to the research project findings, which is that we'll link to this in the show notes, but like right before
00:09:36
Speaker
The right before the public school board decided to suspend the program and while it was under review. We released a story at progress upward at the progress report where we quantified and reported on.
00:09:51
Speaker
the fact that there were multiple cops involved in police brutality, police misconduct cases, including the infamous like sweat box case that ended up as SROs. And there was some speculation in that piece from advocates that SROs were a place where bad cops were kind of like sent as punishment, which is also worth considering. And we will link to that in the show notes. But the reason why we're here today though is because of
00:10:20
Speaker
the work that you Bashir and Alex have done in pulling together this freedom of information requests with respect to this SRO research project.
Research Findings vs. Reality
00:10:30
Speaker
So what did you find?
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah, so the main thing we found is that the way the program is advertised is very inaccurate. So I mentioned before the enforcement aspect, we found that about 2,000 students were charged over a 10 year period. We also found that 20,000 students were labeled as offenders and that SROs are involved pretty extensively in suspensions and students that are expelled. We also found more information about the bait phone program, which is,
00:11:01
Speaker
a program that's designed to entrap students and does not mention anything about diversion. So if you look at how the program has been advertised by True Blue Friend or any SRO supporter, they often speak about diversion. But what we found is at least some of the things they ran, some of the programs they ran, their main goal was not diversion. Diversion
Negative Impact on Students
00:11:28
Speaker
wasn't mentioned at all. Instead, it was pure enforcement.
00:11:30
Speaker
So yeah, essentially that's kind of the key takeaway from this, right? Like this program is active policing in our schools. It's not necessarily what people say. And something to note in that context is back in the day, you know, when I was like speaking about the program,
00:11:51
Speaker
A lot of people's response, if they're pro SRO, would often say, what do you mean? Edmonton is not Toronto. Our students are not being criminalized. The police are there as mentors. Now the data has come out.
00:12:11
Speaker
you'll see the response has kind of shifted. And it's like, well, what do you expect? You know, these students are criminals. Our schools are super unsafe. We need police. And it reminds me, I think it was, is this for real? And it may have also been Progress Alberta, when Sergeant M. Chan, who kind of runs the program, was on CBC. And he said students bring guns to school. And I think Michael, with CBC, pushed them on this, which is very interesting, because usually, Edmonton Media doesn't really
00:12:42
Speaker
do that or know how to do that when it comes to policing. And he had to backtrack and say, well, no, there actually hasn't been a gun brought to a school. So it's interesting. Now you're seeing a lot of fear mongering. So I'm kind of going off of tension now, but hopefully that provides a summary of the research. Yeah. I think what this information, what this really shows is that
00:13:09
Speaker
There are harmful effects of having SROs in schools. Students are criminalized. Students are expelled. Students are suspended. Students are labeled as offenders, whatever the fuck that means. And when students face those consequences, their path forward in life is like you are essentially just knocking like
00:13:27
Speaker
30% of their hit points off, to use a shitty video game analogy, right? You are making it extremely hard for those students to actually succeed and have worthwhile meaningful lives where they control their own destiny.
Systemic Racism in Education
00:13:41
Speaker
There's lots of research to show that when students don't complete high school, they are more likely to end up on the street. They're more likely to end up
00:13:48
Speaker
uh, you know, in the criminal justice system and like, you know, you were saying it, right? Like, Oh yeah, it's all about diversion. It's all about community. It's all about sports teams. And it's like, well, no, it isn't. It's about this other stuff too. Uh, Alex, is this, is this like what you found here? Is this really the like evidence of the, the school to prison pipeline kind of inaction?
00:14:13
Speaker
Yeah, I would say yes. And I'll get to that in one sec. I just want to touch quickly back on a point that was made, you know, where one of the things I've noticed over the years is you observe that in Edmonton, the police here have tried to differentiate themselves. So Bashir said we, you know, the idea of we are not Toronto, whether it's people or the police spokespeople themselves, whether it's the general public or them.
00:14:40
Speaker
And, you know, this is something, you know, I'm from the US and I moved to Canada in 2007. And one of the first observable things that I noticed is how much Canada seeks to differentiate its violent history from that of the United States. And so it puts up this binary. So, okay, we are not the United States. You know, we treated indigenous people differently, which we know is not true.
00:15:06
Speaker
you know, we did not have slavery, which we know is not true in Canada. And so you get this idea of, you know, those folks are racist, we are not racist. So the Toronto police force may have issues with racism, we are not racist. So the use of this binary to differentiate, and I saw that come up during the carding conversation, right, where the police chief even said that, you know, we are not Toronto. But so there's this idea that somehow the type of work that the police is doing here is
00:15:37
Speaker
very, you know, it may be different slightly, but that it's very different from the overall system of policing that exists in Canada more broadly or in North America. And one of the ways they do that is through that community policing, the portrayal of, you know, community policing in a particular way. So, you know, the Edmonton Police Services has won awards throughout the years
00:16:03
Speaker
for its community policing initiatives. And so they use that type of thing to differentiate themselves from other forms of policing. But at the end of the day, it's still policing. It's like the bad apples analogy when you say, oh, well, it's just one officer that is causing all these troubles, that is being violent. It's not the institution. And we know that it's actually the institution of policing. Well, Edmonton Police is different than Toronto Police.
00:16:27
Speaker
because it's kind of a bad apples thing, right? It's still a larger system of policing that emerges out of racist and colonial history. And so that's where the school to prison pipeline kind of comes out naturally from that, right? We do see certain populations in our society that are incarcerated at higher rates than others. And the school system is part of putting people in that situation and snaring them into that system. And so when you have, and this is something we point out in the study,
00:16:57
Speaker
when the tendency for students to end up somehow ensnared in the school to prison pipeline or pushed into it increases with things like discipline in schools, especially suspensions and expulsions. So absolutely the chances of them ending up there instead of in university are much higher when they go through the forms of discipline related to police in schools.
00:17:25
Speaker
Uh, you know, and in the U S you have the zero tolerance policies, right? That are really, really harsh. Um, you know, students can get in trouble for dress code violations. Um, you know, these kinds of things that, that are just, that are just absurd. That shouldn't be part of education at all. Um, so that's sort of a roundabout way to get to the answer that, yes, I believe that is happening here. Um, that the data shows that we need to explore this further because I'm not going to believe.
00:17:54
Speaker
claims that policing is somehow done differently when we're talking about a larger system. I'm not talking about the police chief as an individual. We're talking about policing in general, you know, and what we've seen in other jurisdictions and how it relates to what goes on here. Yeah, systems not individuals always, right? And Bashir, I've seen you say this a lot on social media and in the
Need for Public Scrutiny
00:18:14
Speaker
in the media that was quoting you with regards to your research, it's like, clearly this information was being collected, right? You were able to get it in a Freedom of Information request, but this information was not made public until you asked for it. Isn't that incredibly fucked up that these details were simply not publicized? Yeah. I think what I said, this program has existed since 1979 and the fact that there's been
00:18:43
Speaker
No data on it should be a scandal. And I feel like that point's kind of being whitewashed to an extent or like not really being addressed by the school board. Because if you look at 20, like it's not like we weren't asking for the specific information. In 2018, I went to the school board and you can look at their minutes and I asked about the program and I asked about data. I met with multiple trustees back then asking about this specific information.
00:19:09
Speaker
So at best, it's thumb just ignoring us and being ignorant. At worst, it's pure, I don't really know how to say it, but at worst, it's something much more intentional. It's a way to justify the program by hiding information. And it's really a lot of, it's kind of how systemic
00:19:38
Speaker
you know, racism kind of operates in Edmonton, right? Like if you go back, like, if you talk about like any issue, the way it's allowed to continue is through the hiding of data. So for example, like Harding, like Progress Alberta was very involved in the whole Harding stuff a few years ago. Prior to that, you know, the police were like, what do you mean? And it does not happen here. And then the data comes out.
00:20:04
Speaker
like this is just the classic Edmonton strategy that I think a lot of people like need to realize that there's a very clear reason why this information is being hidden. And I think it's something that speaks about how this program should have just been canceled from the get go like there's no
00:20:20
Speaker
There's no other city or public funded program that's able to heavily increase its budget, that's able to launch their own missions and operations without some level of public scrutiny. Think about any city department. Think about anything that's funded by our tax dollars. There's always scrutiny. It's like clearing snow off the streets. It's heavily audited and scrutinized.
00:20:47
Speaker
16 different fucking people have their fingers in that pipe. Yeah, it's it's it's super messed up and I feel like I feel like Through the last several years. I've been you know standing on top of a mountain The giant megaphone trying to make this point that we need the information so
00:21:07
Speaker
Yeah. And, and the other thing too is like, uh, Alex is right. Like, um, we, we need information that shows us that this is a systemic problem. We did not need EPS parading around random teachers or parents.
00:21:24
Speaker
that supports programming using that as evidence. After this came out, I had so many teachers messaging me on social media talking about how schools are dangerous. I love my SRO. He's great. Yeah. And how they don't feel safe if a big student is an argument with another student. It's just weird because
00:21:48
Speaker
Are our schools this wild? Like if you look at Toronto, and Toronto is always cited as a extreme compared to Edmonton, but if you look at Toronto, they ended their SRO program and schools haven't really, you know.
00:22:03
Speaker
blown up. The other thing to mention too is one interpretation of our data is well if 2,000 students have been charged then that's good because those 2,000 students are criminals and they deserve the criminal charge. But if you actually look at the data and you look at public data police already released, in 2017 only 1.6% of those charges actually led to someone being guilty.
00:22:28
Speaker
Everything else was put to diversion or something else happened that that that led to the charge Not leading to that
Importance of Racialized Data
00:22:37
Speaker
conclusion. So you see this inflation that doesn't actually Solve the problem instead. It just pushes people through criminal justice system 1.6% and end up with an actual guilty plea so
00:22:51
Speaker
Yeah, sorry, I'm kind of rambling, but hopefully that makes sense. Well, I think the other part here that's important to note is that while it is important that you got this data and you were able to get this data with your freedom of information requests, the Edmonton Public School Board
00:23:06
Speaker
does not collect racialized data. We still don't know what proportion of these students who were criminalized. We still don't know what race they were. We can guess just based on past historical trends and the reality of white supremacy in action. But Alex, this racialized data wasn't being collected. Is it being collected now? Well, they're developing a plan to collect it. I think there has been a committee that did some consultations with
00:23:35
Speaker
members you had to apply and you could, you could write, I think it was like 150 words about why you'd be good for the committee. I, full disclosure, I applied to be on that committee because I feel like they should have social scientists on there who work with data and who understand the ethics of what it means to collect things like race-based data. So there's a lot of ethical questions involved. There's a lot of implications, right? And so I'm not a hundred percent sure who ended up on the committee.
00:24:04
Speaker
I have to look into that actually, but, uh, they're developing a plan at any PSB at least to collect that data. Um, that's one of the things that actually was a bit surprising to me, you know, on top of what we saw in the, in the numbers themselves was I sat back and contemplated thinking, you know, if this is going on and people are seeing these numbers, you know, one can only, well, I don't say one can only, but why would this data not have been collected?
00:24:34
Speaker
a long time ago, especially since in Toronto, they developed a plan of collection of this type of data two decades ago, right? So if you're watching what other school districts in very diverse urban context, let's say, let's just limit it to that, are doing, why would they not have followed suit and said, well, if we want to actually have this world-class education system that Alberta is touted as having, isn't part of that understanding the different ways
00:25:03
Speaker
different students experience that system. If we were to collect that data and talk about it, including, and when I say the data, it's just race, ethnicity, English language learners, immigrant status, refugee status, disability, sexual identity, all of these things need to be collected because we might find that our school, some of the areas in which we think it's doing best, the school system, it may actually not be doing as well as we thought. And so the collection of this type of data
00:25:33
Speaker
is to identify the problems, to see who's not being served well by the public education system, and to serve them better, to improve their experience, to make sure we're addressing the issues that affect them in the school system. So they're creating a plan to collect it. I'm very much looking forward to that. I don't see the collection of race-based data as this game of gotcha, like, hey, look, we finally can prove that the school system is racist.
00:26:00
Speaker
It's more about, yeah, it probably is having effects that are disproportionate on certain communities. And that's a serious thing that, you know, links back to questions of systemic racism and those other elements that are institutionalized in our education systems, whether as educators, we like it or not. Right. And so we shouldn't avoid it. We should, we should confront it head on and we should do something about it. Right. And so that's, that to me is the significance of collecting that data.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah, and it also goes back to another Edmonton thing, Canada thing, right? As I was mentioning before, the way systemic racism is upheld is by hiding the information. So if you look at some of the response to the information we released,
Understanding Systemic Racism
00:26:44
Speaker
there's also this argument, well, how can you say the impact is disproportionate if
00:26:51
Speaker
you don't even have race, which is so disingenuous. Because if you look at any enforcement data in Edmonton that's broken up by race, like traffic stops, karting, cannabis possessions, they all have a very disproportionate impact with black people, for example. That's one category. But in all cases where there's been enforcement data, we've seen a clear disproportionate impact.
00:27:19
Speaker
There are other ways to go about this. So am I flyped a few years back? The reason they quoted me 64 grand was I asked for them to break up the data by ESL student, by students who have special needs, because that's information they do collect.
00:27:39
Speaker
And apparently that's like a super big project. So they quoted like 64 grand, but yeah, we're, we're definitely trying to look at other ways to, to, to, to see if there's, um, to see if there's a disproportionate impact. Um, even a school breakdown would help too, right? Like seeing breakdowns and enforcement between a school, like between Elizabeth versus, uh, Lily announced one. Yeah.
00:28:04
Speaker
Yeah, and sorry, just to add one more thing, you know, when we think about the disproportionate impact, right, you asked about race-based data, Duncan, but, you know, we see in other jurisdictions the over-representation of, let's say, ESL or English language learners in certain tracks in the education system, right? So that practice we call streaming, we see certain students from populations
00:28:31
Speaker
people of African descent, especially being over categorized as having behavioral problems or certain types of learning disabilities. These are things that are known in the literature, the academic research in various jurisdictions that so then we're talking about the intersection of things like disability and racism. Right. And so I think that type of data will allow us to explore just how entangled some of these things are in
Critical Examination of Education System
00:29:00
Speaker
in the education system, you know, and I was on a master's thesis committee where the some qualitative interviews were done with students who are of Somali background. And they were saying that they were treated as English language learners, even if they were third generation by counselors, right, but we can't we can't trace that
00:29:25
Speaker
if we don't have a larger systemic collection of data and information. And in fact, also the opportunity to research these questions in the school systems. You know, so the school boards and the people who are running the research divisions should be more open to this type of work because it improves the quality of education for every student that seeks out education in the Edmonton Public School
00:29:54
Speaker
district, right? So if the goal is to improve education, if the system does, if the people in the system do care about students, then we should be doing more of this type of research. We should be looking at these issues more thoroughly. So I just wanted to add that because it goes back to that data question and how much we know about what is actually going on in our school systems and how different students are affected.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah, I just have to completely agree with Alex. If anything, what we've done showed how little our schooling system is being critically looked at. So we specifically talked about school resource officers.
00:30:33
Speaker
But there's a whole other can of worms that we can get into, right? Like we could talk about streaming, for example, which in Ontario showed that there is a disproportionate impact there when you break down by race. And if you look at some studies in Alberta, there's one study called cash Alberta and it actually quotes a Somali mom whose kid that was born in Canada was put in ESL.
00:30:58
Speaker
Me, I was pulled out of my schooling to learn how to properly pronounce words because I was apparently pronouncing some letters wrong. And I almost got streamed down below if it wasn't for my dad.
00:31:14
Speaker
who was an engineer in Somalia, I definitely would have had a different education experience. So I think if anything, this data shows how there needs to be a more critical examination of the awkward things that no one really wants to talk about.
Rethinking School Discipline
00:31:30
Speaker
So enforcement and race are two big ones. So if anything, we're barely scratching the surface. And hopefully this inspires more people to take a look at our school system.
00:31:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think you've made the case here pretty conclusively that the SRO program has harmful effects and that it needs to be discontinued. Right now, Edmonton Public School Board is reviewing their program. It's suspended. Edmonton Catholic seems to be really gung-ho about the program. But let's say we're in charge. We cancel the program tomorrow. What are the alternatives to policing schools? What would we rather see school boards spend their money on?
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah, I want to add before, uh, before Alex jumps in, the Catholic school board also wants SROs in elementary schools. Um, like I, like it's, it's wild, but anyways, yeah, I'll let Alex maybe answer that because he helped me write the alternative section. Yeah. Um, or he, he brought the alternative section. Yeah. I mean, well, I put, yeah, I thought, you know, we have to, cause we were talking about when we were having a conversation about how to present the data, you know,
00:32:34
Speaker
oftentimes people say, well, what can I do then? And this comes up a lot actually in my work at the university with pre-service teachers. When you point out systemic issues, the question is, well, what can we do to address it? Sometimes it seems insurmountable, et cetera. And I want to sort of preface this by saying that it's not surprising given the socialization in our society here in Canada, but in general, that people look to
Exploring Alternatives to SROs
00:33:04
Speaker
certain forms of punishment to address harm. We've been socialized to see particular forms of punishment as the right consequence for these things. So I feel like this also opens up the general question, not just about the alternatives to policing schools, but how can we begin as a society to rethink the ways we've been socialized to want to see certain forms of things like retribution that often involves pain,
00:33:34
Speaker
incarceration, like I said earlier, I'm from the United States, they just reinstated a firing line as a form of death penalty. I want to say in South Carolina, but I'm not 100% sure, you know, a firing line, right? The death penalty still exists. So this is also, you know, shaped by all the media we see, you know, Hollywood is filled with revenge stories, you know, these kinds of things. And so it's not surprising that folks
00:34:03
Speaker
that are writing to us saying, well, these students are criminals and they should see consequences. I'm not surprised that that exists because that is the society that we've created ourselves, right? We're all responsible for creating that society. So when it comes to schools, so many people have been doing work. You can follow folks on Instagram now that are doing daily posts on things like what is restorative justice in schools
00:34:30
Speaker
Um, you know, so we start to move from that discipline, punishment, carceral type, logics, you know, um, suspension, expulsion into alternatives, but not just alternatives for addressing harm, but you have to sort of start before that. Right. What kind of community is being, is being created. So how are you addressing something even like bullying? What are your strategies to address bullying? What types of bullying education is working in your school?
Implementing Restorative Practices
00:35:00
Speaker
And we know that some of those programs work well and some are not very successful, right? So what's the information out there to address these programs, to address bullying, right? What type of programs? So basically overall, the general thing is how do we address harm in ways that don't involve punishment and incarceration? And that takes a lot of work. And I think that's why it's very, it seems insurmountable for a lot of people because we quickly turn to not only punishment,
00:35:28
Speaker
but we turn to the idea that the police are the ones that should be handling the consequences and that police in turn can keep us safe. But we know that police with mental health, whatever it is, they're not addressing the causes of those issues. In a sense, they're there to address the symptoms and they do so for many things like mental health crises, not in a very good way. So in schools, I don't know, I would like to see
00:35:56
Speaker
a more open conversation about this. We point out on our website that the restorative justice, restorative practices in education is even a page on the Alberta provincial website, the education website, right? So even the province is advocating for these restorative practices.
Reallocating SRO Funds
00:36:16
Speaker
I think they involve, you know, a basic idea behind that would be the question of accountability, right? How do you
00:36:23
Speaker
not how do you make a consequence about accountability rather than punishment and this you know there's tremendous work coming out by uh black abolitionist feminists for a long time on these questions because they had been doing it in their own communities right it's not like this is something that you know i'm coming at from a middle i'm a middle class white professor from the university and i'm inventing these things that don't pertain to my community people from these communities are the ones that are doing this work and have been doing this work and so
00:36:54
Speaker
We should turn to their experiences and practices and the many things they've written and the many websites that exist on how to implement these alternatives in schools. I think you brought it up in other media Bashir, but it's like Toronto got rid of their SRO program a few years back.
00:37:14
Speaker
And they saw a dramatic drop in kind of like punitive discipline, right? A dramatic drop in expulsions and suspensions. Am I right there? Am I remembering your statements in the kind of literature correctly?
00:37:24
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. And if you want the exact numbers, or if anyone listening to this wants the exact numbers, it's all on our website. And yeah, it shows a very dramatic drop in suspensions and compulsions. And yeah, the other thing too is like, yeah, you know, schools haven't exploded. And I mean, the obvious challenge here, and I got this question from a teacher is, okay, your alternatives are great. And how do we fund it?
00:37:50
Speaker
Well, the nice thing about the SRO program in Edmonton is that it's already funded, you know, like the school board already puts money into it. So immediately after the program is fully eliminated, you could put funds towards mentors, you could put funds towards supports for teachers. And if you want specifics on what that actually looks like, we also listed on the alternative section.
00:38:14
Speaker
So there's a way already to start building a better world. And a lot of people, especially physical conservatives, will talk about, well, we need something that's cost effective. What I'll flip on them is, do you really think it's cost effective to have somebody who makes $106,000 a year, whose primarily job is not even mentorship, to help coach a team, to help mentor a child? No, there's trained professionals who also should be being paid
00:38:41
Speaker
uh, well, you know, like, um, uh, but are fully trained for this instead of like a two day seminar police officer attends a cop of their six months of enforcement training.
00:38:52
Speaker
Yeah, you can get two educational assistants in a school for the cost of one cop, just FYI. I suppose one thing that constantly comes up, right, is like, well, what do you say to the people or the teachers or the parents or the students who say, well, my SRO is great, you know, and they really these kind of like positive anecdotal experiences with SROs. Like, how do you respond to that in a kind of effective way? Yeah, I mean, for me, like, I would respond
00:39:21
Speaker
by saying, yeah, people will have good experiences with somebody. Personalities are, what they're speaking of is a personality. They're speaking of a situation where enforcement didn't happen, where that person was a good influence on the child.
00:39:46
Speaker
that stuff will still happen. It'll still happen with education assistance, it'll still happen with mentors or coaches that are not police. So parents and teachers will still get that, assuming the funding is reallocated to the alternatives. The only thing that's taken out is the enforcement aspect. So I would almost like flip the question back and say, you know, is this the effect you really want though? Because
00:40:14
Speaker
Yeah, you know you may have someone who's a great person, but they also have a C8 rifle in their school.
00:40:19
Speaker
They also charge 2,000 students over a 10-year period. They also conduct investigations in your schools. They introduce students to the school-to-prison pipeline. So I think what Alex is saying earlier is a very good point that people need to reflect on. Do we want our schools to effectively become prisons? Do we want our schools to become mini-police stations? Or do we want an environment that
00:40:49
Speaker
actually is based in community support is actually based in diversion so that kids if they make a mistake, and everybody has made a mistake as a child is not introduced to the criminal justice system because I'm telling you now if a cop sees you jaywalking or whatever.
00:41:09
Speaker
they'll find you. If a teacher sees you do that, or a student support sees you do that, they'll go and talk to you, tell you not to do that again. If they see you having a social problem that's messing up your schooling, a social worker can help you guide through that instead of finding ways to criminalize you. The question here is also about, you know, so people did say, well, how would we fund these alternatives?
Political Will for Change
00:41:36
Speaker
And
00:41:37
Speaker
The question here is political will and priority. Uh, you had a podcast, uh, an episode of this podcast just, I think two or three weeks ago about how 72 million is being invested in charter schools in this province. Right. Um, Duncan, is that correct? Was it 72 million? That's correct. Yes. So, you know, what is the cost of the SRO program? We have 1.677 million, right? Um, that, so.
00:42:05
Speaker
What could be done with that amount of money, 72 million, if it were injected into, let's say the school systems in Calgary and Edmonton, in terms of creating alternative ways in which you have safe, caring and healthy schools, right? That's, so there's a question of political will and choice. And I also want to link this back, right? So we've seen with the last four or five decades within the neoliberal capitalism is that we prefer
00:42:35
Speaker
uh as a society we have allowed to happen not that we prefer excuse me for saying that we allow to happen a concentration of wealth and an increase in inequality between the the top and the bottom um a decimation of social services and our response to it is to increase police budgets and have them do the work for the hose holes that have been poked in the the ship through um the gutting of these services and the gutting of our safety net
00:43:03
Speaker
and those types of state guided forms of care, right? So you're putting cops in the schools to do this. So this is actually, this question about police, I see it also about getting rid of the SRO program as a larger question about how we want our society to look and what capitalism has done over the last few decades to it, where we choose surveillance and punishment rather than investing in schools and investing in communities, right?
00:43:29
Speaker
So I think there's a larger question there that we didn't always have police in schools. They emerged in the 1970s. Why have we normalized it as, okay, we never had police in schools before, but because we've had it for the last few decades and some kids get along with them at the barbecue, we're just going to keep them in schools because we think that having them there keeps us safe from all these things, all these other problems in our society that really we need to fix.
00:43:59
Speaker
I see this question as a question around also creating a strong, vibrant, healthy public education system. And SROs is one of the many issues there. But it is a major issue that affects particular students. And as Bashir said earlier, once the program is eliminated, which I also agree should be done. They shouldn't have even reviewed it. They should have just decided to cancel it and come up with alternatives. I want to see hard work from the school boards and from teachers and public
00:44:29
Speaker
you know, researchers like myself, community advocates and activists like Bashir on how do we move forward to build a better public education system that is actually safe and caring? So that's a rule for all of us. There's a rule for all of us to play in that, you know, that larger question.
00:44:47
Speaker
That is, I think, a great way to end the podcast.
Future Research and Conclusions
00:44:51
Speaker
What's next for the SRO Research Project? Are you guys going to be doing more research, more analysis with this data? Are we should we expect future releases on this? We're not going to be going away. And yeah, expect more. And yeah, I agree with you. The way Alex ended that is perfect.
00:45:11
Speaker
Okay. Well, thank you so much. We will link to the SRO Research Project, obviously in our show notes. Bashir, how can kind of people, Bashir and Alex, how can people kind of follow along with your work on the internet? What's the best way? Best way, sroresearchproject.ca. You know, it'll be updated there, or you can go to the contact page there if you want to reach out and have specific questions, or if you would like to offer your skills or your own research.
00:45:41
Speaker
Yeah. And you can see too, um, you know, many people might already follow Bashir on Twitter. Um, I have a Twitter account too, and I, we would share anytime we would release something, it would be shared through that also. Um, but, uh, yeah, I think in the upcoming weeks, um, look for, look for an update. We were, we're still working through some stuff and hoping to release more soon. And as Bashir said, uh, we're not gonna, we're not gonna go away.
00:46:09
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for coming on. Folks, if you like this podcast, if you want to join the 500 or so other folks who help keep this independent media project going, something very simple that you can do. Rate, review, subscribe, please share. But the thing that's most important is actual cash money dollars.
00:46:26
Speaker
Uh, there's a link in the show notes, but also just go to the progress report.ca slash patrons, putting your credit card, contribute. There's other ways you can contribute as well. You'll find them on the page. Just email me. Uh, also I'm very easy to get ahold of. If you want to chat about, uh, giving us money or literally anything else you can find me on Twitter at at Duncan Kinney. You can find me by email at Duncan K at progress, Alberta.ca. Thanks to Jim story for editing this podcast. As always, thank you to cosmic family communist for our theme. Thank you for listening and goodbye.