PITTSBURGH (Newsradio 1020 KDKA) - Some groups will protest the use of police officers in Pittsburgh Public Schools on Monday.One Pennsylvania and the Education Rights Network are leading the afternoon demonstration calling on the district to remove police from campuses.
There are 20 officers on the Pittsburgh school force and they are not armed. The protesters say they will rally at the Board of Education building in Oakland at 4:00 p.m. An online petition asking for Pittsburgh Police to be removed from schools has issued the following demands:Removal of Police:· Immediately remove all 22 Pittsburgh Public School Police Officers from inside and outside of our schools;· Immediately stop the open-door policy that over utilizes the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police in school-based incidents, and immediately adopt policies that exclude the involvement of law enforcement, except when required by state law and/or there is an imminent risk of serious physical harm;· Immediate removal of probation officers inside of Pittsburgh Public School buildings. End Systems of Policing:· Eliminate policies,practices, and funding that contribute to the surveillance, militarization and criminalization of schools;· Eliminate policies or practices that allow Law Enforcement to place handcuffs and/or restraints on any student under the age of 10 (42 Pa. C.S. 6302 does not allow children under 10 to be prosecuted) and ensure compliance with state and federal disability laws for students with disabilities of all ages;· End all ALICE trainings and evaluate all current public safety and de-escalation trainings;· Moratorium on School Police issuing summary citations to students; these place an unnecessary financial burden on students and families for minor infractions;· Full transparency from PPS by publicly reporting all interactions between police and young people, including by type of incident, disaggregated by race, gender and disability.Invest:· Divest from policing and invest in culturally-responsive approaches to restorative and transformative justice, social-emotional learning, trauma-informed curricula, implicit bias training and disability awareness for all PPS staff, support for healing and mental health supports;· Utilize newly available funds to hire peacebuilders, intervention workers, counselors and other support staff to create safe, positive and supportive environments for learning;· Increase the number of counselors, psychologists, social workers, and paraprofessionals who serve children's needs to reach the recommended ratio of 1:100 in high needs schools and 1:250 in all other schools;· Creation of a community-led police review board to evaluate instances when police are called to schools, so as to ensure tracking and monitoring of criminalization and over-policing of our students;· Invest in a community led re-envisioning process of what school safety and support can look like moving forward without police, guided by these priorities. The envisioning process must be led by young people and parents, and cannot include police."It is time to take back our schools from the hands of the police, and to place our students in the loving palms of community driven and culturally informed processes," said Ms. Paulette Foster, a district guardian and co-founder of the Education Rights Network. For too long, harmful policies and practices have been the drivers of so-called public safety. Today we demand that the School Board remove police from our schools, and instead look to investment in a community-led re-envisioning process that puts students first.
Superintendent Anthony Hamlet is also considering a ban in grades kindergarten through second grade on student suspensions.
A review team appointed by Dr. Hamlet will consider expanding the current ban to higher grade.
While the number of suspensions has dropped over the past several years, a racial disparity remains with African American students more likely to receive suspensions.
The existing ban applies to non-violent acts.
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