Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 67

safety. They are putting in place Memoranda of
Understandings and policies to clearly define roles
and responsibilities, collecting and tracking data
regarding referrals and arrests, and holding all
parties accountable. Here are a few examples where
reform is beginning to take hold:

Los Angeles School Police Department
Issues New Policy and Protocols to
Significantly Reduce Student Citations and
Arrests
In 2009, Los Angeles’ School Police Department
issued more than 11,600 citations and arrested more
than 1,470 students. After hearing from students
and parents about the harsh impacts, Community
Rights Campaign (CRC), Public Counsel and other
community organizations led a push for citation and
arrest reforms. The effort led the Los Angeles Police
Department and the Los Angeles School Police
Department, the nation’s largest school police force,
to drastically change their policies in 2012 regarding
citation of students who were late or absent from
school.
Despite this major reform, data showed that in the
City of Los Angeles alone, the LASPD had still
arrested nearly 1,100 students in 2013; 94.5% of these
arrests were issued to students of color. 39% of school
fighting citations (disturbing the peace) had been
issued to black students.
With CRC’s strong advocacy and support from
Public Counsel, the LASPD collaborated to issue
policies in 2013 stopping citations for young
students, 13 and younger and for disturbing the
peace. And, in August 2014, after more than two
years of work with community, the LASPD issued
a comprehensive diversion policy related to arrests
and citations for minor incidents that breaks new
ground in the state and the nation. The new LASPD
policy requires most school fights between students
— approximately 20% of all student arrests — to
be addressed through interventions at an off-site
YouthSource or WorkSource Center.
It also requires the majority of student incidents that
previously led to a citation to appear in court or to
a direct Probation referral, like trespassing, tobacco
possession, or damage to school property, to be
referred to school officials or a YouthSource Center

to receive positive school discipline interventions,
which are part of District policy.
The overall policy changes have already led to
dramatic annual decreases in citations, from 11,698
(2009-10) and 10,719 (2010-11) to 7,740 (2011-12) and
3,499 (2012-13). At the same time, graduation and
attendance rates have gone up in the District!

San Francisco Schools Act to Reduce
Arrests after Community Exposes Racial
Gap
In San Francisco, data collected by community
revealed that African-American young people were
39% of all students arrested on campus from 20102013, even though they are just 8% of San Francisco
students. African-American students also accounted
for 43% of all juvenile arrests by SFPD in that same
period. Records showed dozens of students arrested
as young as ages 8-12. Working closely with SFUSD
school district leadership and police officials, Public
Counsel and Coleman Advocates for Children &
Youth led a successful effort to begin a change of
course on arrests and reduce the impact on AfricanAmerican students.
In February of 2014, school Board members approved
a Memorandum of Understanding between the San
Francisco Police Department and San Francisco
Unified School District that requires a strong data
collection and analysis system to be in place; puts
a limit on police involvement in student discipline
that can and should be handled at school; sets
up a system of graduated responses for police,
starting with a warning, for low-level offenses; and
ensures parents can be present when students are
interviewed by police on campus, among other major
reforms.

Oakland Groups Win Agreement with City
Police and Reforms to District Policies to
Curb School-to-Prison Pipeline
In September of 2014, the Black Organizing Project
in partnership with Public Counsel and the ACLU
of Northern California secured a Memorandum of
Understanding between city police and the Oakland
Unified School District to create clear roles and
responsibilities for police operating on Oakland
campuses under a federal COPs grant.

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