Police Won’t be Stationed at Pomona (CA) Schools in the Fall
Pomona CA July 2 2021 Pomona Unified School District will no longer have dedicated police officers assigned to its campuses, Superintendent Richard Martinez confirmed on Tuesday, June 29.
After months of conversations between local advocacy groups and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, funding for community school resource officers with the Pomona Police Department won’t be part of the district’s upcoming 2021-22 budget, set to be approved Wednesday, June 30.
The decision to shift away from school police is the result of concerns from parents and students calling for more on-campus resources such as mental health services, Martinez said by phone Tuesday.
The disruption of the ongoing pandemic and calls for social justice presented an opportunity for the district, which serves Pomona and Diamond Bar, to make “impactful changes,” Martinez said.
“I believe there’s a willingness to be a solution to problems and what we’re seeing is the community wants us to be that without outside entities,” he added. “This is an opportunity to be better.”
Joined by the ACLU and nonprofit law firm Public Advocates, Gente Organizada, a Pomona social action group, applauded the announcement after years of advocating for the removal of CSROs from campuses.
The group credited its recent report on racial disparities in arrests of Pomona youth for helping to bring an end to the school district’s contract with the Police Department.
Martinez agreed.
“The recent report on law enforcement factored into this decision,” he said. “It’s always good to take input from all, including parents, students and the community.”
While PUSD won’t have funding for campus police officers for the upcoming school year, the decision isn’t permanent, Martinez said. The district will consider bringing public safety services to campuses if needed, he said, but will aim for more restorative practices that de-emphasize discipline and focus on efforts to keep students out of trouble.
Gente Organizada will continue working with PUSD on youth diversion and prevention practices that include potential updates to district policies on in-school interrogations or interviews of students by law enforcement, said Jesus Sanchez, co-founder and executive director of the community group. Earlier this month, Martinez, Pomona Mayor Tim Sandoval and Tri-City Mental Health Executive Director Toni Navarro met with the group to discuss ways to make these efforts a reality, according to a news release.
“For years, we’ve been talking to city leaders and PUSD about preventing young folks from getting into the justice system in a collaborative effort,” Sanchez said. “It took some time, but this is that first step.”
The announcement Tuesday comes less than two years after Gente Organizada shed light on the district’s failure to spend appropriately on its high-need students with Local Control and Accountability Plan, or LCAP, dollars. In 2019, the district planned to use those funds for school police and other security programs but then reallocated a total of $5.4 million for a variety of resources including counselors and science, math, technology, arts and music programs.
Iris Villalpando, 20, was part of the advocacy group’s efforts calling for removal of PUSD campus police when she was a sophomore at Garey High School. Campus police made her and countless other students feel “constantly criminalized” when they’d done nothing wrong, she said.
“We would discuss why CSROs were on campus and staff would tell us they were mentors,” Villalpando said Tuesday, but it just felt like like they were policing us.”
Now a sophomore at Citrus College, Villalpando said news of PUSD’s plans are overdue and she hopes to see this type of change enacted at more school districts.
Los Angeles Unified School District’s board approved a plan in February to cut one-third of its CSROs and last June, the Oakland Unified School District board unanimously voted to eliminate its school police department.
“This is hopefully the start of more changes and more investment in the mental health of students,” Villalpando said. “We need to keep moving in this direction.
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
