Thread by @jennylynegan

Thursday @BaltCitySchools is discussing whether to allow school cops to carry weapons inside of schools. October is Youth Justice Action Month - so here's what you can do to combat the school to prison pipeline in Baltimore.

baltimorecityschools.org/Page/31505

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Show up! Thursday, October 11, 2018 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at 200 E. North Avenue. The sign-up sheet for public comment will be available from 4:45 to 5:45 p.m. The FOP tends to send organizers early - so get there as soon as you can to get in line for the sign up sheet. /2

Bring signs! Some suggested messages are #CounselorsNotCops / #ArmUsWith real solutions that provide students with emotional & real physical safety. / #CantBuildPeaceWithAPiece / School Police BUILT the School To Prison Pipeline /3

Email the School Board & and tell them you do not want armed police in Baltimore Schools:

Christian Gant, board exec ofcr, [e-mail]
Tenesha Moore, exec asst, [e-mail]
Dawana Sterrette, director, leg and govt affairs, [e-mail]

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Dr. Santelisese - [e-mail]
Alison Perkins-Cohen, Chief of Staff - [e-mail]
Melissa Broome, director of policy and legislative affairs - [e-mail] [e-mail]

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Tell them you don't want $7 million dollars in precious and limited funds being spent on school police who have never been shown to improve school culture or educational outcomes. /6

Tell them you don't want to see your education dollars diverted to buy police guns, tasers & pepper spray. Tell them to spend our precious and limited $$$ on these instead:

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h/t the graphic is from @JesseOneT a teacher at Frederick Douglas HS

Tell them you agree with the @baltimoresun "The instances in which having officers carry guns inside school buildings is necessary are exceedingly rare, whereas the possible negative consequences — physical and psychological — can’t be ignored."

baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/e…

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Remind them that police presence is not a neutral good. The presence of armed police in majority Black schools sends a message to our children; budgets are priorities and spending money on cops instead of counselors tells kids what you think of them and their futures.

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Multiple @BaltCitySchools police officers were hired from other departments after being fired for excessive force and/or misconduct. One of those officers pled to 2nd degree assault for slapping a student just last year. /10

baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/…

Mr. Spence business partner - Clyde Boatwright - is the head of the School Police FOP and the main supporter of this bill. Mr. Boatwright was fired (with Mr. Spence) from the Baltimore Sheriff's office for chasing, tackling, and tasing an innocent man. /11
ocregister.com/2016/03/04/bal…

Because of LEBOR the school district will not say how many school police have been fired from other dept's for violence or misconduct. We don't want these people -or anyone -walking around our schools with guns. Its not helpful, it's not necessary, and it does harm to kids. /12

Last, but not least, call your city council people and state reps. Baltimore was given a school security force for the first time in the last 1960s - after students fought to desegregate public schools. That same year, Md. made it a crime to "disturb school. /13

These laws and the school security force were clearly meant to target students like those from Dunbar High School engaged in a sit-in at the Baltimore Department of Education in the spring of 1964. /14

In 94, at the height of mass incarceration hysteria, the Md. legislature mandated that @BaltCitySchools maintain a separate school police. No other jurisdiction in Md. has a separate police force fully funded with local education $$$$.

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This unfunded policing mandate is only in effect in Baltimore - a majority Black city.

It's time to end this legacy of over policing and criminalizing Black kids in Baltimore. We want our education $$$ to go to HVAC, counselors, teachers, and restorative justice.
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Police are not educated, trained, or qualified to deal with mental health issues, special education students, mental health crisis, or children. They will tout their training - it's been 1 year & its police training - it still doesn't qualify them to work with kids.

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Why are we spending $7-15 million a year (that was the OT for school police in '15) on police who have never been shown to improve outcomes? This is an education system - we would never accept practices in any other realm that were not evidence based & proven effective. /18

It's time to end the Baltimore School Police Force once and for all. Nearly 25 years ago - when school arrests spiked after the security force become commissioned officers for the first time - the CEO of schools spoke out against what was happening in schools. /19

"We arrest far too many kids for reasons that should not be reasons of arrest," Dr. Amprey said in an interview last year. "We have got to do a better job of identifying the kinds of overt behavior of youngsters and how to defuse it." articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-06-03/new…

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Here we are - a full generation later - and school arrests are down. Incidents of guns in school are actually much, much, much lower than they were in the early 90s. And yet we continue to arrest far too many kids for reasons that should not be reasons of arrest. /21

@SonjaSantelises and @BaltCitySchools have the opportunity to be bold.

To say the legacy of racist school police policy & spending education $$$ on cops must end.

Instead of arming school police, we should disband & end the Baltimore school to prison pipeline.

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And just as a post script - tell me if the rhetoric at the school board meeting from FOP about the post Uprising police relations does not completely mirror this offensive and disgusting report to a (still segregated) Gen. Assembly in 1968

archives.ubalt.edu/bsr/archival-r…

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Did the report call for an end to racist budgets & police violence against Black folks? Nope. Just more police for "the ghetto residents to eliminate their high sense of insecurity and the belief in many Negro citizens in the existence of a dual standard of law enforcement." /24

"Develop & use better programs to insure widespread support for law enforcement."

All the recs focus on convincing folks to like racist police practices, rather than focusing on fixing racist policing.

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"Recruit mroe of the ghetto youth into the Baltimore Cadet program. These junior officers could perform duties int he ghetto neighborhoods..."

And @BaltCitySchools is going to bring back the Officer Friendly program that emerged from these recommendations.

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