Pittsburgh PA December 28 2019 Five Pittsburgh schools are among the top 25 in the state for arrests and citations, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

The figures are fuel to the fiery debate over school security and police officers in the buildings.

“I don’t believe there should be police presence in schools,” said Pam Harbin, co-founder of the Education Rights Network and a member of the Pittsburgh Public School Board. “I think schools should be places of safety and sanctuary for students and putting in police just changes that dynamic.”

The annual Safe Schools report for the 2018-19 year was published in October and contained data about student misconduct, arrests and citations in every public school in the state. The report identifies the number of times local law enforcement was called, total arrests and citations during the school year, and categories of misconduct.

There were 266 arrests made and citations issued across all Pittsburgh Public Schools, making up more than half of the 359 in schools in Allegheny County. The arrest and citation rate for the district, however, is less than 2%. Ebony Pugh, public information officer for the district, called the Safe Schools report misleading and said it doesn’t provide needed context to the numbers.

The goal of keeping police in schools is ultimately to provide another resource for students, said Pam Capretta, chief operations officer for the district.

“There are daily relationships built with students,” Capretta said. “It’s just the same concept as community policing.”

There are 22 officers and 66 security guards in the district’s police department. Unlike officers, the security guards need no certified training. They do not make arrests, carry handcuffs or have the same duties as a police officer. None of the officers carry guns.

“We’re proactive,” said Pittsburgh Public School Police Chief George Brown. “A lot more fights would happen if there weren’t officers in the building.”

But police in schools continue to be a divisive topic in Pittsburgh. At a budget hearing in early December, residents raised concerns about resources being allocated to school security and policing instead of counseling and intervention programs. At a televised education forum with the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, some of the questions were geared toward ending the school-to-prison pipeline.

For advocates and educators in and around Pittsburgh, the reports of high arrests and citations don’t indicate unsafe schools. They are concerned about over-policing. Advocates like Harbin say the schools aren’t necessarily dangerous or crime-ridden. She said that when schools have an officer posted on the premises, arrests will increase.

Studies from the Education Law Center and other entities have indicated that zero-tolerance policies and aggressive policing in schools lead to greater suspensions, expulsions and arrests of students. Many of these students come from circumstances rife with poverty or violence, or suffer from learning disabilities, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Brown said this just isn’t the case in Pittsburgh Public Schools, where there has been a police force for more than 30 years. Brown said that arrests in the Pittsburgh Public School District as a whole have decreased in recent years. But according to the Safe Schools report, arrests and citations in the district are erratic, at best. The numbers in 2019 were up from 2018, jumping from 86 to 266. Before that there were 177 arrests made and citations issued in 2017, one in 2016 and 55 in 2015.

Proponents for school policing say having officers in the building helps mitigate emergency situations. Officers can also collaborate with counselors and mental health services. They know the schedule and the layout of the building. Some in Pittsburgh Public Schools even work as athletic coaches and counselors.

Brown said that the presence of a school police force helps reduce the rate of arrests and citations in the district. He believes that an outside officer would be more likely to arrest a student than someone who works on the grounds.

“It’s a team effort inside the schools,” Brown said. “I honestly believe every kid does not need to be arrested.”

But others believe the exact opposite, that an officer on school grounds has the chance to criminalize what would normally be small infractions. For example, school police have fewer restrictions than city officers when it comes to interrogating students on school grounds without a parent or guardian said Ghadah Makoshi, a community advocate with the ACLU.

“We have things that might be normal, teenaged behavior that are now criminalized,” Makoshi said. “Things you might have been suspended for or gotten detention for, you’re now being arrested for.”

The ACLU in Pittsburgh is currently working on a revised draft of the Memorandum of Understanding, a document that clarifies the ground rules between Pittsburgh Public Schools and police. The group is also advising individual school districts across Allegheny County on ways to reduce their arrest rates.

One point that the two sides can agree upon is that the Safe Schools report lacks certain details needed for an informed opinion. While five Pittsburgh schools were called out for having a high number of arrests, the Safe Schools report does not put the number in proportion to the number of enrolled students, both sides said. The report also does not distinguish between arrests and citations but groups the two together.

“It misrepresents that school’s culture and climate,” said Pugh, the district’s public information officer.

The report does not say whether arrests were made by school safety officers or the city police. It also does not falls short in defining what certain misconduct categories entail. For example, according to the Pennsylvania Information Management System manual, “minor altercations” are defined vaguely as misconduct against another person.

Pittsburgh Public School District only started identifying misconduct as “minor altercations” in the last two years. From 2015 to 2017, the district reported none; then in 2018, there were 1,604. The open interpretation leaves room for misinformation, Harbin said. It’s hard to really know what is going on in the school.

“Everybody wants to feel safe,” Harbin said. “More staff — and appropriate staff — are needed. I think the policing have been a mistake. I think that’s doing it the wrong way.”

triblive.com

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