Thursday, June 8, 2017

Dear Toronto Police Services Board Member,

We are writing to you today because of our longstanding and urgent concerns about the School
Resource Officer (SRO) program in both the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and the
Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB).

As organizations made up of youth, students, parents/caregivers, educators, researchers,

journalists, and community organizers, we urge you to immediately suspend the program, and
not permit any similar programs in any way or capacity in the future.

We know you are under pressure to continue the program until it can be studied, so we are
writing to remind you of what you already know:

To continue a program which no one asked for, which was introduced without research or public
consultation, and which clearly contradicts both board policies (including the TDSBs Equity
Foundation Statement) and two historic investigations into school safety and youth violence
all in the name of further reviews is to experiment with children.

Our children as well as hundreds of parents, educators, and experts told Julian Falconers
School Community Safety Advisory Panel in 2008 what they needed to feel safe and succeed in
school: more caring adults, and educational professionals whose primary and single duty was to
support their learning.

The McMurtry-Curling Report spent months and millions of dollars studying the roots of youth
violence and found that for too many Black, Indigenous, and racialized youth the police do not
make them feel safer, but instead pose a direct and immediate threat to their safety and
well-being.

A 2004 study1 of SRO programs throughout North America conducted by the International
Centre for the Prevention of Crime found that universally the programs have negligible impact
on the common stated goals of improving school safety or improving relations between
students and police.

While many Principals, Superintendents, and police officers have shared dozens of anecdotes
of the great work done by SROs, the Toronto Police Services own 2011 survey told you that
thousands of students in the TDSB close to 50% of the student body say they are less safe
with police officers assigned to their schools.

1
Police, Schools, and Crime Prevention: A Preliminary Review of Current Practices
https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/lbrr/archives/cnmcs-plcng/cn3768-eng.pdf
Indeed that study confirms what our children, students, and fellow parents have said from the
beginning: that while those who already feel safe with police may benefit from it, the program
constitutes a clear and present daily danger to thousands of children.

We want to remind you that one child is too many.

We want to tell you that one reason why you have not heard from more principals or teachers
calling for the removal of the program given their daily witness of the harms perpetuated by
it is because the culture of fear and silence described in Falconers report is alive and well
in both boards.

We want to tell you that to argue that the program needs more study is to consciously insult
Black and Indigenous students and parents who live on the receiving end of the well
documented systemic racism which plagues the Toronto Police Service; is to erase the
countless undocumented families who know that police are required to collaborate with
immigration officials, in direct violation of the TDSB Dont Ask Dont Tell and the City of
Toronto Sanctuary City policies.

As groups committed to challenging educational policies and practices that compromise the
safety and quality of learning environments for young people in particular Black, Indigenous,
and racialized students as well as the equity and integrity of the education system as a
whole, we urge you to cancel the program.

While we understand the instinct for more study, we all know this is a delay, an attempt to
have someone else make the decision for you.

You know it is morally inexcusable to conduct studies on unwilling subjects, on children who
have already told you that SROs are a threat to their safety and their learning.

Common sense and multiple studies reveal the obvious.

You have the information you need.

Sincerely,

Education Not Incarceration (ENI)

Educators for Peace and Justice (EPJ)
Latinx, Afro-Latin-America, Abya Yala Education Network (LAEN)