Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 68

Under the new policy, for Oakland Police Department officials operating under the COPS grant, schools will not request a police response to disciplinary issues such as trespassing, loitering, or defiance, data on police contacts and arrests must be collected, and parents must notify parents or guardians immediately after an arrest is made or when an officer wants to question a student. “The MOU was a great victory. Not just for the school board, not just for the community, not even just for BOP. This was a victory for the youth who have been victims of police misco nduct and who thanks to this policy, now have a voice,” said Sema’J Wyatt, BOP organizer. In addition, the school district in partnership with the same organizations developed district policies for its school police officers and administrators to ensure that school discipline is handled by school officials and to monitor and address police contacts and arrests that lead to the school-prison-pipeline. The policies were approved by the School Board at the end of the 2013-14 school year. Read From Report Card to Criminal Record, the report by the groups that led to the reforms, and more at BlackOrganizingProject.org 66 How we can fix school discipline Pasadena Unified Takes Action to Keep Students in School and Off the Jailhouse Track The Pasadena Unified School District and Pasadena Police Department, in partnership with the ACLU of Southern California, also put in place a strong Memorandum of Understanding and policies to address the school-to-prison pipeline and limit referrals to police to only those incidents for which mandatory police notification is required. These policies also identify that the school district has a role in protecting the rights of students who may be subject to police questioning during school hours. After passage of the MOU, School Board Vice President Tyrone Hamilton noted that: “It brings a dialogue between the police and students, because oftentimes there’s not that dialogue and students feel that police are out to get them. . . It holds our youth a little more accountable and lets Pasadena police know that these are kids.”77 77 See full story at: http://www.pasadenanow.com/main/pasadenaunfied-agrees-to-police-on-campus#.VFuLJ0fTk1I (August 2013).