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)