Activists Spent a Decade Getting Cops Out of Ontario’s Schools. Doug Ford’s Government Is About to Put Them Back

After a decade of work by community advocates, trustees at the Toronto District School Board voted in 2017 to remove police officers stationed in their schools. Over the next few years, activists and trustees across Ontario brought an end to similar School Resource Officer programs throughout the province. Now, Doug Ford’s government is set to put them all back — and, if it gets its way, there won’t be anything that school boards can do about it.

“It’s so draining, like, you know, it’s ‘here we are again’ — are you fucking serious?” said Butterfly GoPaul, a Toronto-based activist with Jane Finch Action Against Poverty, who spent years on the successful campaign at the TDSB. The group will be holding a press conference and rally at Queen’s Park today.

The change is part of Bill 33, or the Supporting Children and Students Act, which was introduced at Queen’s Park at the end of May. The bill is currently on its second reading, which means the government will have to wait until after the provincial legislature’s four-month summer break to pass it.

“By requiring school boards to implement School Resource Officer (SRO) programs where offered by local police services, we would be taking a significant step toward protecting Ontario schools and students,” Solicitor General Michael Kerzner said in a statement accompanying the bill’s announcement. “This initiative would foster stronger relationships between students, educators and law enforcement, creating secure learning environments and promoting trust between communities.”

But according to Joe Tigani, president of the Ontario School Board Council of Unions, reintroducing SROs would do nothing to address the issue of violence in schools.

“I don’t see how bringing law enforcement in will have a benefit for students,” said Tigani, who has a background as an educational assistant. “If this is their answer for addressing violence in schools, it seems not rooted in fact.”

Tigani, who spoke with PressProgress earlier this year about how violence in schools can be caused by understaffing, maintains that bringing police back into schools wouldn’t solve the problems created by funding-related personnel shortages.

He added that investing in education workers rather than SROs would have a much more positive effect on student well-being, and that the salaries of the SROs would be enough to pay for many more educational assistants.

SROs were introduced in Toronto in 2008, following the shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners at his high school. The Toronto program was lauded by supporters as a great success, despite having an unclear impact on the number of reported offences at participating schools (pdf).

More clear, however, was the criticism they received for how they made racialized students feel unsafe and surveilled. Despite this, the programs in Toronto and elsewhere persisted until efforts by community activists and school board trustees brought them to an end between 2017 and 2021.

Mo more cops in our schools. TDSB voted tonight to end their oppressive SRO program. A special shoutout to JFAAP, BLM-TO, ENI, LAEN, Desmond Cole and many other community activists and allies who have been fighting against SRO. The struggle continues! pic.twitter.com/jD7feLj4H8

— JFAAP (@JFAAP) November 23, 2017

GoPaul said that many parents hadn’t wanted police in their children’s schools from the beginning. Because Toronto’s Jane and Finch was such a heavily policed neighbourhood, many people in the community had seen or experienced violence from, or had other negative interactions with, the police.

“These guys would come (into schools) with their bikes and plant flowers, and then literally terrorize young people and the community that would be outside at night,” said GoPaul. “People were afraid.”

Attempts to relaunch SRO programs have taken place across the province in the following years, but were not successful.

“I would rather caring people in my school, I would rather a full-time guidance counsellor at my children’s school, I would rather a consistent principal and vice-principal for the term of my child,” said GoPaul. “There’s no consistency, there’s no leadership, there’s no care, there’s no investment directly in our school — and you put in cops?”

GoPaul also stressed the importance of bringing in trained, experienced education workers to help children in classrooms, rather than police officers.

“Do you remember when we were in school? When we had a full-time nurse in our school? Do you remember who was in the school, who went on our trips with us?” GoPaul asked. “Could you imagine an officer, a cop, coming in our class with a gun?”

This is just one of the changes to the relationship between the Ministry of Education and publicly-funded school boards proposed in Bill 33. Others include increased financial oversight of school boards, requiring boards to seek approval to change school names, and making it easier for the minister to open investigations into school boards and potentially take direct control over them.